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Thursday, March 28, 2013

S.D. Sen. Johnson to retire, citing health and age

VERMILLION, S.D. (AP) ? Entering the auditorium on a motorized scooter and delivering remarks in halting speech, South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson announced Tuesday that he would retire next year at the end of his term and acknowledged he remains limited by a 2006 health crisis that nearly killed him.

Smiling and joking at times as he made the announcement at a press conference in his hometown of Vermillion, the 66-year-old said the effects of his life-threatening brain hemorrhage had made speech and mobility increasingly difficult.

"I feel great, but I must be honest ... I appreciate my right arm and right leg aren't what they used to be, and my speech is not entirely there," Johnson said, his delivery slurred at times.

Johnson, who until recently relied on a cane to get around, has become dependent on the motorized scooter he used to enter the auditorium at the University of South Dakota where he made his remarks. He also said he hoped to spend more time with his five grandchildren and that "I think mostly it's time to go."

Johnson's departure helps solidify GOP prospects of claiming the state's first open Senate seat since 1978. Republican former Gov. Mike Rounds had announced plans last year to challenge Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and has rallied much of the state and national party establishment behind him.

In a sign Republicans are not yet lock-step behind Rounds, a Washington-based political action committee released a statement Tuesday criticizing Rounds' spending during two terms as governor, and calling for a more conservative candidate to run for Johnson's seat. The same fractures between tea party-aligned and more moderate Republicans cost the GOP seats that were seen as winnable in 2010 and 2012.

On the Democratic side, long-rumored possible successors including Johnson's son, South Dakota's U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, and former U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

"I've talked to Brendan now and then, but I'm not leaning on him to run or not run," Johnson told The Associated Press after the event. "I gather he is undecided."

Brendan Johnson declined to comment on his political plans Tuesday. He has avoided public statements about the race, but has had conversations with party activists in the state, and advisers and potential donors outside South Dakota.

Herseth Sandlin, 42, is general counsel for Raven Industries, Corp., a position she began last year after returning to South Dakota from Washington, D.C. She had worked as a lawyer in Washington after losing re-election to a fourth U.S. House term in 2010.

"While I appreciate the encouragement I've received I haven't focused on the future political opportunities," she told The AP.

Although both prospects have political networks to tap, both also face potential liabilities.

The younger Johnson, 37, has never held political office and would face questions about his father's involvement in the confirmation process to his federal post. Herseth Sandlin has taken some positions at odds with some South Dakota Democratic activists, including opposing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which could hurt in a potential Democratic primary.

Republicans too could face ideological tension. U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem, elected in 2010, has been courted to challenge Rounds by South Dakota conservatives. While Noem has shown little movement toward investigating a 2014 Senate campaign, aides said Tuesday: "She hasn't ruled anything in or out."

Nationally, Republicans said by stepping aside, the politically resilient Johnson, who also retains a $1.2 million campaign war chest, gives the GOP its best chance to gain a seat in its quest for the majority.

"I believe South Dakota moves into the top slot as the most likely Republican pickup," said Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster and past consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Johnson, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, joins Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey as seasoned and influential Democrats departing the chamber, where Republicans need to gain six seats to take control. Two Republican senators have announced their retirements, both in Republican-performing states Georgia and Nebraska.

South Dakota was carried by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last year, adding urgency for Democrats hoping to keep their majority. Republicans must gain six seats to retake the chamber in 2014.

With his wife Barbara at his side, Sen. Johnson remained standing, leaning on his stronger left hand at the podium, taking questions from reporters then posing for pictures and shaking hands with supporters ? reaching out with his left ? for an hour.

"I look forward to serving the remaining two years as the country is facing difficult times on many fronts and I will work every day to find a bipartisan solution to these challenges," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sd-sen-johnson-retire-cites-health-age-001827846--politics.html

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Supreme Court tackles federal Defense of Marriage Act

By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent

An 83-year-old former IBM programmer is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a law that cost her more than a quarter of a million dollars and deprived her, and thousands of other gay couples, of federal marriage benefits.

At issue is the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress in 1996 and signed by President Bill Clinton.?It bars federal agencies from recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages in the states where they are legal.

The arguments are being heard just one day after a challenge to California?s Proposition 8, which put an end to same-sex marriage in that state, was brought to the high court. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hinted that it might be hesitant to issue any kind of sweeping ruling declaring that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The justices seemed wary of issuing a broad decision that would apply to any state outside of California.

Supreme Court hears arguments for and against California's same-sex marriage ban. NBC News' Danielle Leigh reports.

As a result of DOMA, same-sex couples in states where same-sex marriages are legal are accorded state and local marriage benefits, but not more than 1,100 federal ones. These range from spousal health coverage to Social Security and veterans' benefits.

For more than 40 years, Edie Windsor lived with another woman, Thea Spyer, and the two were eventually married in Canada in 2007.?But when Spyer died two years later, leaving Windsor the estate, the IRS sent a tax bill for $363,053, because DOMA barred the federal agency from recognizing their marriage.?The surviving spouse of a traditional marriage is not required to pay federal estate taxes.

"I couldn't believe that they were making a stranger of this person I lived with and loved for 43-something years," she said.

So she sued the U.S. government, and two lower federal courts found that DOMA amounted to unconstitutional discrimination.?As the case wound its way through the legal process, the Justice Department, originally her adversary, became her ally.

Two years ago, Attorney General Eric Holder notified Congress of President Barack Obama's conclusion that "classifications based on sexual orientation" were inconsistent with the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under law. The Justice Department stopped defending DOMA in court.

House Republicans then hired a former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, Paul Clement, to take up DOMA's defense. In his written briefs filed with the Supreme Court, he argues that Congress must be able to decide on a definition of marriage for itself.

"The federal government has the same latitude as the states to adopt its own definition of marriage for federal law purposes and has a unique interest in treating citizens across the nation the same," Clement says.

The House Republicans say Congress sought to tie federal benefits to the traditional understanding of marriage and its origins as a way to address "the tendency of opposite-sex relationships to produce unintended and unplanned offspring."?In passing DOMA, they say, Congress sought to "foster relationships in which children are raised by both their biological parents."

The Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act will have immediate meaning for real-life LGBT couples and families across the nation. Jon Summers and Kyle Murdoch, who were married in D.C. last year, join Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss.

But the Justice Department and lawyers for Edie Windsor each urge the court to find that DOMA amounts to unconstitutional discrimination because it lacks a legally sufficient government purpose.

"Denying federal protections to married gay couples will not affect whether straight couples marry or have children who are biologically related to both parents," argues Roberta Kaplan, a New York lawyer representing Edie Windsor.

"No straight couple would call off their wedding if Ms. Windsor receives a tax refund," she says.

The Obama administration urges the court to find that two of the other justifications cited by Congress in passing DOMA -- defending traditional notions of morality and of marriage -- cannot carry the law over the constitutional hurdle.

"Moral opposition to homosexuality, though it may reflect deeply-held personal views, is not a legitimate policy objective that can justify unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people," the Justice Department says.

As for tradition, the government says DOMA does nothing to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, because the states decide for themselves whether to permit it. And no matter how long established, "tradition cannot by itself justify a discriminatory law under equal protection principles."

A decision striking down DOMA would not require states to allow same-sex marriages: they would remain free to decide for themselves. But the federal government would be required to recognize marriages in the states where they are legal.

Nine states now permit same-sex couples to get married -- Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington. So does Washington, D.C.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically since the law was enacted 17 years ago.? Former President Clinton said earlier this month that he no longer supports the law he signed in 1996 and urged the Supreme Court to strike it down.

"Many supporters of the bill known as DOMA believed that its passage 'would defuse a movement to enact a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which would have ended the debate for a generation or more.' It was under these circumstances that DOMA came to my desk," he wrote in a column published in the Washington Post.

"Even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law itself is discriminatory," he said.

In order to decide the issues at the heart of the case, however, the justices will have to consider whether procedural complications allow them to get there, due to the unusual way in which the case arrived on their doorstep.

The Justice Department, which asked the court to take the case, is in an odd posture, because it now sides with Edie Windsor, who won in the lower federal courts.? A party that prevails cannot normally appeal the decision.?

And while the defense of DOMA had been carried on by the House Republicans, there's a further question about whether they meet the legal rule requiring that a party to a case claim some specific injury.? It may not be enough for them to assert that they want to see DOMA enforced.

To help the court navigate these potential roadblocks, it appointed a Harvard Law School professor, Vicki Jackson, to argue the jurisdictional issues during Wednesday's courtroom session.

A ruling in the case will come sometime before the end of the court's term in late June.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a0a8368/l/0Lnbcpolitics0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C260C174758460Esupreme0Ecourt0Etackles0Efederal0Edefense0Eof0Emarriage0Eact0Dlite/story01.htm

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Nanowire solar cells raise efficiency limit

Monday, March 25, 2013

Scientists from the Nano-Science Center at the Niels Bohr Institut, Denmark and the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland, have shown that a single nanowire can concentrate the sunlight up to 15 times of the normal sun light intensity. The results are surprising and the potential for developing a new type of highly efficient solar cells is great.

Due to some unique physical light absorption properties of nanowires, the limit of how much energy we can utilize from the sun's rays is higher than previous believed. These results demonstrate the great potential of development of nanowire-based solar cells, says PhD Peter Krogstrup on the surprising discovery that is described in the journal Nature Photonics.

The research groups have during recent years studied how to develop and improve the quality of the nanowire crystals, which is a cylindrical structure with a diameter of about 10,000 part of a human hair. The nanowires are predicted to have great potential in the development not only of solar cells, but also of future quantum computers and other electronic products.

It turns out that the nanowires naturally concentrate the sun's rays into a very small area in the crystal by up to a factor 15. Because the diameter of a nanowire crystal is smaller than the wavelength of the light coming from the sun it can cause resonances in the intensity of light in and around nanowires. Thus, the resonances can give a concentrated sunlight, where the energy is converted, which can be used to give a higher conversion effeciency of the sun's energy, says Peter Krogstrup, who with this discovery contributes to that the research in solar cell technology based on nanowires get a real boost.

New efficiency limit

The typical efficiency limit - the so-called "Shockley-Queisser Limit" - is a limit, which for many years has been a landmark for solar cells efficiency among researchers, but now it seems that it may be increased.

It's exciting as a researcher to move the theoretical limits, as we know. Although it does not sound like much, that the limit is moved by only a few percent, it will have a major impact on the development of solar cells, exploitation of nanowire solar rays and perhaps the extraction of energy at international level. However, it will take some years years before production of solar cells consisting of nanowires becomes a reality, says Peter Krogstrup who just completed his PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

The research is conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory des Mat?riaux Semiconducteurs, Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, the Foundation and the company SunFlake A / S. Their scientific findings work support results published in the journal Science in January. Here, a group of researchers from Lund, showed that the sun's rays was sucked into the nanowires due to the high amount of power that their solar cell produced.

###

University of Copenhagen - Niels Bohr Institute: http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/press_and_media/

Thanks to University of Copenhagen - Niels Bohr Institute for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127427/Nanowire_solar_cells_raise_efficiency_limit

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Hugh Hefner slept with 'over a thousand' women

Gabriel Bouys / AFP - Getty Images file

Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris, his new wife.

By Allison Takeda, Us Weekly

Everyone comes with baggage from past relationships, but Hugh Hefner's romantic history is a little -- OK, a lot -- more crowded than others'. In a new interview with Esquire magazine, the 86-year-old Playboy founder confesses to sleeping with many, many women over the years. Too many to count, in fact.

PHOTOS: Hugh Hefner's girlfriends

"How could I possibly know? Over a thousand, I'm sure," the mogul says of the number of ladies he's taken to bed. "There were chunks of my life when I was married, and when I was married I never cheated. But I made up for it when I wasn't married. You have to keep your hand in."

Hefner's hand is out of the game now, thanks to the magazine publisher's relationship with wife Crystal Harris. Speaking about his 26-year-old bride, whom he wed in December, the multi-millionaire gushes that he's a happy, committed, one-woman man.

PHOTOS: Playboy's sexiest celeb models

"All our friends think it's made in heaven," he tells Esquire of his third marriage. (Hef was wed twice before, to Mildred Williams from 1949 to 1959, and to Kimberley Conrad from 1989 to 2010.) "It's only people who don't know us, who simply see us as stereotypes in terms of age and beauty."

PHOTOS: Stunning star weddings

"I just feel very, very fortunate to have found her at this stage in my life. I saved the best till last," he says of the model.

Later, musing about his plans for the future, he adds: "I want the rest of my life to be very much like it is now. I want it to be like this."

More in TODAY Entertainment:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/03/26/17472004-hugh-hefner-claims-hes-slept-with-over-a-thousand-women?lite

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Don't chase the money - Chase the passion. - ShoeMoney Internet ...

I get messages from people all the time who want to make money online. ?They read the blog/newsletter, ?see my phat AdSense Check and think I have the magic bullett.

Guess what I DO! ?Prepare yourself for it!

You have passion and expertise about something. ?Share that with people.

Let me give you some examples. ?I will start with myself.

In 2003, while working a full time job and also reselling computers online, ?I discovered a way to format ringtones and wallpapers for my Nextel phone. ?I loved doing it. ?It was a fun hobby. ?Long story short ? I ?took that knowledge and created a website that others could upload ringtones to. ?By 2005 the site was getting a ton of traffic. ?I got a call from Google that suggested I put AdSense code on the site. ?Overnight that site turned into a multimillion dollar website that I sold in 2010.
In 2007, ?after having success with contextual advertising and affiliate marketing I thought it would be fun to create AdSense looking ads that got high clickthroughs but instead of going through Google I would bypass them and use my affiliate link. ?Then I thought it would be fun to allow others to use this. ?Then one day at a conference a person from eBay said eBay affiliates were doing really well with my ShoeMoney Ads ad network and suggested I build it just around eBay. ?I created AuctionAds that did exactly that. ?I created this with a part time developer and within 4 months it was generating over 2 million a month and I sold the company literally 4 months to the day that it launched. ?Again this was a fun project that was almost like a hobby.
In 2003 I started a blog for fun sharing my life. ?Not a ?how to make money? blog but just shit I was doing. ?It evolved into what you are reading now. ?And its made millions of dollars.
In 2010 I shared my knowledge and experience on how I learned to make money online via a product called the ShoeMoney System. ?It?s sold over 2 million dollars worth to date and still continues to sell.
In 2011 for fun I created a website called freeseoreport.com. ?It was a free site where people could run a report on their site and a keyword they were trying to rank for then showed them what they were doing vs the top 10 people in every country and ever search engine. ?This was something I found of value myself in trying to figure out backlinks and onpage stuff that I was missing out on. ?I made money on the ?backend? by sending people value added emails educating them on a variety of subjects related to seo with affiliate links. ?There was also a viral component where for each person you?referred?to the website you got another free report. ?The site was getting about 600 new people a day running about 3,000 reports per day. ? The site was purchased 7 months later by an SEO firm.
Many years ago, ?really before I was well known, ?3 other marketers and myself started a high dollar conference called the elite retreat. ?Its 8k per person and limited to 30 people. ? We will be having our 10th event this fall.
In 2012 I created an automated email marketing system called the PAR Program. ?This is my total focus now. ?I stumbled into this because I took what I loved about email marketing and all the money we had made from it, ?did it for a large company and after seeing the results started offering it as a service. ?I have done ZERO marketing (I am bogged down with sales) and the company is growing like a rocket.

Ive done other stuff but those are the key ones. ?I have also had failures. ?Not because they were bad ideas but I just did not have the resources time wise to devote to making them work. ?All of them were fun projects but more importantly great experiences.

Lets look at others:

A friend of mine who is also passionate and educated about mixed martial arts started a site called ufcjunkie.wordpress.com (now mmajunkie.com due to trademark). ?He started the site as a hobby just putting his thoughts about the world of mixed martial arts online. ?He started the site on a wordpress free hosted platform. ?Within 5 years the site sold to USA TODAY for 8 figures.
2 kids from hawaii, who were passionate about cats, thought it would be funny to post a picture of a cat captioning it with what they think the cat would say in ?cat language?. ?They uploaded a picture regularly and people found them funny. ?Again this was on a free wordpress hosted blog. ?The site was called icanhazcheeseburger.wordpress.com. ?The fun site got massive traction so they allowed others to upload their funny cat photos. ?Then one day they stumbled on to a blog called ShoeMoney.com, ?saw some guy holding a 134k AdSense check and put the code on their site. ?It made a ton and they sold the site for millions.
A long time ago a kid who grew up with his parents owning a wine selling business decided to start blogging about wine. ? People started stumbling on to the site who were also interested in wine. ?Then he started recording himself and the video?s started to become very viral. ?So much so that he got invites to appear on Conan Obrien and Ellen. ?He is now a multimillionaire with a #1 best selling book bringing in residual income. ?His site is?winelibrary.com and his name is?Gary Vaynerchuk.
A?Chinese?immigrant with very broken english started a blog because he was interested in making money online. ?Then he decided to show how much he was making online monthly. ?Started with very little. ?Then the blog started getting traction. ?He did this all while having a computer business. ?But he kept on sharing how he was making money online from his blog and exactly how much he was making. ?People loved it and he started getting a following. ?The site literally is called ?I make money by telling people I make money online?. ?Thats it! ? And now his site literally is nothing but promoting affiliate products or doing paid reviews of people?s ?how to make money? products. ?It worked out for him? ?He now makes a high six figure income basically doing nothing?. ?He has someone doing his posts for him as he travels around the world making more money month after month. ?He recently released a product keeping the same theme of being transparent and walking you through how to make money with a blog. ?He crushed it. ?- ?John Chow of johnchow.com
A former collegate pitcher decided to make a website offering a product to teach people how to gain more MPH on their fast ball offered a dvd set doing just that. ?He now has a thriving business at topvelocity.net
A guy started a blog making fun of celebrities for fun. ?Years later it evolved into perezhilton.com

See a trend here?

Lets get back to the original question? ? ?I want to make money online. ?Where do I start? ?

I don?t know ANY successful internet millionaire who did not stumble onto their internet success. ?None of them had visions of being a internet millionaire. ?They had passions, interest, and education about a subject and?pursued?it. ?That is the key. ? None of them had to quit their day jobs. ?They all started because it was a hobby. ?It was fun?

The one thing I have learned is when someone starts something that they consider ?work? they will give up quickly.

I have handed over websites to people that were generating hundreds of dollars a month for them to take and run with. ?Guess what? ?They didn?t do anything they just sucked up the revenue and let it die.
I have given PPC keywords to people that I was making a lot of money with promoting affiliate offers. ?Guess what? ?They ran it until they died then came to me for more keywords. ?The didn?t research or even care how it was making money.

?But honestly thats just the top of the ice berg. ?

For everyone who is making money on line there is millions of people who ?want to?. ?Out of those very few will take action. ?There is no doubt anyone can do it and the best part about it is you can do it from anywhere in the world no matter what level of education or experience.

This?opportunity?will not be around forever. ?Mostly because big brands are just now starting to see the value of some of the marketing techniques and dumping in tons of money where guys like us just can?t compete. ?Fortunately they move at a snails pace and for now guys sitting at home can do much more cutting edge techniques that big businesses can?t keep up.

I got a little off topic but my point is that if you really want to make money online it costs you no money at all to take action right now. ?And I mean RIGHT NOW.

Chase the passion not the money.