Latest CoStar CCRSI Analysis: U.S. Commercial Real Estate Market ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This month's CoStar Commercial Repeat Sale Indices (CCRSI) provide the market's first look at December 2012 commercial real estate pricing. Based on 1,593 repeat sales in December 2012 and more than 100,000 repeat sales since 1996, the CCRSI offers the broadest measure of commercial real estate repeat sales activity.

December 2012 CCRSI National Results Highlights

• COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE SALES VOLUME SURGED IN 2012: While rising steadily over the last four years, sales volume reached nearly $64 billion in 2012, a 22% increase from 2011 and the highest annual total since 2004. Activity spiked significantly in December as investors rushed to close deals prior to year-end. In fact, at 1,593, the number of repeat sales in December reached an all-time high since CoStar started tracking the property sales used in the CCRSI. Both the investment grade and general commercial segments were heavily traded as improving market fundamentals and attractive yields relative to other asset classes drove strong investor interest in commercial real estate.
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• VALUE-WEIGHTED INDEX PRICING EXPECTED TO MODERATE:?Pricing gains in the value-weighted U.S. Composite Index began earlier in the recovery and have been consistently stronger than pricing gains in its equal-weighted counterpart throughout much of the recovery.?This reflects the more rapid recovery at the high end of the market for larger, more expensive properties.?It also mirrors the trend in the recent recovery of market fundamentals for commercial property, in which demand for Four-Star and Five-Star office buildings, luxury apartments and modern big-box warehouses has outpaced the broader market. ?However, pricing trends suggest this may be shifting.
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• RECOVERY BROADENS TO LOWER END OF THE PRICING MARKET: Despite the recent dominance of larger, more-expensive properties in pricing gains, momentum appears to be shifting to the broader market dominated by smaller, less-expensive properties. This shift is apparent in the value-weighted U.S. Composite Index, which posted a 4.3% year-over-year gain in December 2012, slowing from its double-digit growth rate throughout 2011. At the same time, year-over-year growth in the equal-weighted U.S. Composite Index accelerated in the second half of 2012 and registered 8.1% for the year. Taken together, the two trends signify that investors are moving beyond core properties and driving up pricing at the lower end of the market.
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• NEW MULTIFAMILY CONSTRUCTION RESPONDING TO PRICING GAINS:?The multifamily property type index advanced by 11.2% in 2012, well ahead of the other major property types.?Within the sector, pricing for the ten markets in the prime multifamily index has regained pre-recession peak levels, reflecting the strong investor interest in the segment of the market that has led the overall recovery in commercial real estate pricing.?However, construction is now picking up steam in response to the rapid surge in prices. ?Twice as many multifamily units delivered in 2012 as in 2011 and construction in 2013 is on pace to rise even further. Meanwhile, modest levels of construction in the other property types indicate that further pricing gains are needed before supply ramps up significantly for property types other than multifamily properties and core markets.
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• DISTRESS LEVELS DECLINING. Distressed sales made up only 11.5% of observed trades in December 2012, the lowest level witnessed since the end of 2008. This reduction in distressed deal volume has been driving higher, more consistent pricing.?

Monthly CCRSI Results, Data through December 2012

?	1 Month Earlier	1 Quarter Earlier	1 Year Earlier	Trough to Current
Value-Weighted U.S. Composite Index	0.0%	0.9%	4.3%	37.1%1
Equal-Weighted U.S. Composite Index	3.0%	4.6%	8.1%	12.8%2
?U.S. Investment Grade Index	0.8%	-3.6%	-3.6%	15.6%3
?U.S. General Commercial Index	3.4%	6.0%	10.7%	13.0%4
1 Trough Date: January, 2010?2 Trough Date: March, 2011?3 Trough Date: October, 2009???4 Trough Date: March, 2011

Quarterly CCRSI Property Type Results

• While the single-family housing market's burgeoning recovery has grabbed the headlines, the multifamily property sector has led the recovery in commercial property pricing in terms of timing and magnitude. The broader Multifamily Index posted double-digit gains over the past year, while pricing in the Prime Multifamily metros has now surpassed its pre-recession peak set in mid-2007. ?These gains reflect the strong fundamentals of the multifamily market, where vacancies have compressed by 220 basis points since 2009 and rents have also recovered to surpass their pre-recession peak. ?However, construction has surged in response to these favorable conditions, especially in primary markets that have been at the forefront of the recovery.?As the pricing recovery expands beyond multifamily, this sector's stellar pace of growth is beginning to moderate. The multifamily sector recorded only a 1.4% gain in the fourth quarter, the lowest percentage increase among all major property types, even though annual pricing gains for the multifamily sector topped all others.
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• Despite posting uneven gains over the past couple of years, the Office Index advanced at a healthy clip in 2012 as fundamentals in the sector continued to strengthen. Higher pricing in the multifamily sector also pushed capital to alternative property types in search of higher yields.?Pricing gains in the office sector have proven to be more robust in the core coastal metros and in tech-centric markets than in the overall market. As such, the Prime Office Index advanced by 14.4% for the year end in December 2012, while the broader property type index expanded at a more modest 4.6% pace over the same period.
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• The recovery of industrial property pricing has been dampened as the European recession has reduced U.S. exports. The Industrial Index was the only major property type index to continue to post mild pricing losses into early 2012. Since then, however, pricing in this sector has begun to pick up momentum. The broader property type index advanced 8% from a year ago. Meanwhile, the recovery to date has centered on big-box distribution facilities located in primary logistics hubs, as the Prime Industrial Metros Index was up 20.4% for the year.
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• Mirroring the slow but steady improvement seen across most market fundamentals, pricing in the retail sector has demonstrated consistency over the last six quarters.?While investors remain cautious, pricing has advanced by 6.8% during the year ended December 2012.?The retail prime markets index advanced by a stronger 15.7% over the last year indicating investors may still be hesitant to venture too far out on the risk spectrum at this point in the cycle.?
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• The CCRSI Land Index showed signs of recovery over the past two quarters due to strong demand for multifamily development sites and the stabilizing single-family market. The Land Index gained 3.6% in the last quarter of 2012 but is still 39.9% below its peak in December 2007.
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• The Hospitality Index also made promising gains last year, increasing by a cumulative 22.2% in December 2012 since December 2011. This sector was slow to recover after suffering the steepest cumulative price losses among all the property types during the recent recession. However, with average room rates on the rise in most markets, hotels are becoming a much more desirable asset class among investors.

Quarterly CCRSI Regional Results

• Among CCRSI's four major U.S. regions, the West Composite Index was the only region with negative quarterly pricing movement. However, despite a 1.1% decline in the fourth quarter of 2012, this region had the strongest recovery on an annual basis, rising 9.0% in 2012. As with the U.S. as a whole, the exceptional pricing gains in the West region were driven by the multi-family sector, which was sustained by strong population growth and favorable demographics.
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• The Northeast region has led the pricing recovery in commercial real estate for the past two years, thanks to its above-average concentration of prime markets. However, as the recovery has expanded from core coastal markets to second-tier metros offering investors higher initial yields, the Northeast region's pace of price improvement has slowed. Over the last year, the Northeast region posted the slowest annual gain of 5.5%.
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• CCRSI's South Composite Index continued its moderate pace of recovery. ?Strong pricing performance of industrial and multifamily sectors are the primary reason for the recovery of this region, which advanced by 6.7% annually in 2012.
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• After a lackluster first and second quarter 2012 performance, the Midwest Composite Index expanded in the last half of the year, primarily resulting from exceptional increases in the office and multifamily pricing in this region. Overall, pricing in the Midwest advanced by a cumulative 6.5% in 2012.

Several charts accompanying this release?are available at http://media.globenewswire.com/cache/9473/file/18107.pdf

About the CoStar Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices

The CoStar Commercial Repeat-Sale Indices (CCRSI) are the most comprehensive and accurate measures of commercial real estate prices in the United States. In addition to the national Composite Index (presented in both equal-weighted and value-weighted versions), national Investment Grade Index and national General Commercial Index, which we report monthly, we report quarterly on 30 sub-indices in the CoStar index family. The sub-indices include breakdowns by property sector (office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality and land), by region of the country (Northeast, South, Midwest, West), by transaction size and quality (general commercial, investment grade), and by market size (composite index of the prime market areas in the country).

The CoStar indices are constructed using a repeat sales methodology, widely considered the most accurate measure of price changes for real estate. This methodology measures the movement in the prices of commercial properties by collecting data on actual transaction prices. When a property is sold more than one time, a sales pair is created. The prices from the first and second sales are then used to calculate price movement for the property. The aggregated price changes from all of the sales pairs are used to create a price index.

More charts accompanying this release are available at http://media.globenewswire.com/cache/9473/file/18108.pdf

CONTACT:

For more information about CCRSI Indices, including our legal notices and disclaimer, please visit http://www.costar.com/ccrsi.

ABOUT COSTAR GROUP, INC.

CoStar Group (Nasdaq:CSGP) is commercial real estate's leading provider of information, analytics and marketing services. Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive database of commercial real estate information. Our suite of online services enables clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched insight on commercial property values, market conditions and current availabilities. Through LoopNet, the Company operates the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with more than 6.5 million registered members and 3.5 million unique monthly visitors. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices throughout the U.S. and in Europe, including the industry's largest professional research organization. For more information, visit http://www.costar.com.

This news release includes "forward-looking statements" including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. These statements are based upon current beliefs and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that the trends represented or implied by the indices will not continue or produce the results suggested by such trends; the risk that investor demand and commercial real estate pricing levels will not continue at the levels or with the trends indicated in this release; the possibility that pricing trends may not reflect an actual shift in demand for particular property types; the possibility that momentum is not shifting to the broader market dominated by smaller, less-expensive properties or that investors are moving beyond core properties or prime markets and driving up pricing at the lower end of the market; the possibility that pricing gains will not result in increased supply of properties; the risk that a continued reduction in distressed deal volume will not continue to result in higher, more consistent pricing; and the risk that hotels will not become or remain a more desirable asset class among investors . More information about potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CoStar's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, and CoStar's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2012, under the heading "Risk Factors" in each of these filings. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

ALL INQUIRIES: Richard Simonelli Director of Investor Relations (202) 346-6394

Source: http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2013/02/13/523346/10021712/en/Latest-CoStar-CCRSI-Analysis-U-S-Commercial-Real-Estate-Market-Posts-Record-Gain-in-Sales-Volume-and-Broadening-Pricing-Recovery-to-Close-2012.html

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Googlers Wary About The Internship Google Movie

So you know there is this movie debuting June 7th named The Internship, we covered it earlier but now the trailer is out and we have some reaction from Googlers about this movie.

All in all, Googlers are excited to see how the movie portrays Google culture but from the trailer, they seem to think the facts are way off. Here is the trailer:

Brad Fitzpatrick, a Googler, said on Google+:

As a Google employee I'm not sure whether this is going to be awesome and/or awesomely inaccurate.

A Google like response, don't you think?

Let me quote some Googler responses from that post:

Yeah, I'll probably see it, and yeah, it'll probably make me cringe in parts. But, yeah, the whole no-drinking-with-the-boss thing sets the wrong tone on accuracy ;-).?

As a former Google intern, I found just the trailer itself to be totally amusing. I can't imagine how much fun the whole movie will be! But seriously has anyone at Google ever had a boss who they didn't drink with??

I had hoped the movie would at least ok, but the trailer looks truly awful. Oh well.

This looks horrible in every way possible, but I expect no less from these two. I was just glad when they stopped filming this crap on campus.?

Well, other than the beer thing (and the green/red paddles, I think, but I don't know what orientation looks like for interns), I have to say it seems fairly accurate...?

Some serious comments from Googlers, I wonder what Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson think about that?

For more details on the movie, check out the official web site and their Google+ page.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Source: http://feeds.seroundtable.com/~r/SearchEngineRoundtable1/~3/v1pwcdy52BQ/google-the-internship-16362.html

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Boehner: Obama lacks 'guts' to act on nation's deficit

A feisty House Speaker John Boehner said this morning that he doesn't believe President Obama "has the guts" to make the tough choices to address the government's mounting deficit problem.

"He doesn't have the courage to take on the liberal side of his own party," Boehner said at a breakfast briefing with television correspondents and anchors. "He just doesn't have the courage to lead when it comes to our long-term spending problem."

The top House Republican said that when it comes to making tough decisions on the nation's deficit, "I don't think he has the guts to do it."

Although Boehner expressed some optimism on achieving an agreement on immigration, he was pessimistic about accomplishing almost anything else this year, saying the president is more interested in defeating Republicans in next mid-term elections. Defeating Republicans, he said, is the only way Obama can accomplish the "liberal agenda" he outlined in his inaugural address.

"I think he'd love to have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Harry Reid as the leader of the Senate for the last two years of his presidency" Boehner said. "He knows that none of [the president's agenda outlined in the Inaugural] is going to happen as long as we have the majority in the House."

But Boehner sounded a different tone on immigration.

"We have to come to agreement on immigration," he said. "There is a lot that can be done."

Asked directly if the Republican-controlled House could support an agreement that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants now living in the United States, Boehner said it was way too early to answer the question.

"Slow down. Slow down. How about a little foreplay?" Boehner joked. "There's a bipartisan conversation going on in the Senate. There's a bipartisan conversation going in the House. Let these things work their way along. It is too early to talk about legislation going on in one house or the other."

He added: "The only thing I worry about on immigration is the president getting in the way."

Boehner is so pessimistic about achieving a budget agreement, he said House Republicans may not even attempt to go forward with tax reform - a top GOP priority - in this Congress.

"There's a debate going on about whether we can get to the kind of tax reform we want given the outcome of the election," Boehner said. "We'd love to do tax reform. Lower rates for all, clean up the code, make it simpler. But why go through all that effort if it isn't going anywhere or why go through that effort if the outcome would be unacceptable?"

On the coming budget showdown over automatic spending cuts to go into effect on March 1, the president has insisted on a "balanced" approach that includes more increases in tax revenue as well as spending cuts. Boehner suggested he would agree to no more tax increases.

"The president got his revenue," Boehner said, referring to the deal Obama struck with Congress over the New Year to allow tax rates to go up for those earning more than $400,000 a year.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-lacks-guts-tough-choices-boehner-170922231--abc-news-politics.html

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Analysis: As U.S. gasoline prices soar, hedge fund oil bets near record

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. motorists searching for someone to blame for the highest gasoline prices ever at this time of year have an easy target: hedge funds who have been quietly amassing winning bets on hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.

At a filling station in Midtown New York last week, several people were prepared to blame traders on Wall Street as they paid more than $4 per gallon to fill up their cars.

"It really is not supply and demand. It's definitely speculation," said John Keegan, an exterminator with pest control company Terminate Control, who was filling up his van. A cab driver said he was convinced the price would be just $1 a gallon if the government "stopped Wall Street trading oil."

It is all very reminiscent of the anger in 2008 when gasoline prices were sent surging by a massive oil spike - also a time when there was a lot of speculative interest from investors.

And yet five years on, there is still no consensus among traders, analysts, and regulators over how big of an impact speculators have on the market - and what, if anything, should be done to limit their participation in oil trading.

Stories about booming U.S. oil production help create expectations among consumers for lower prices. But it remains a global market and the United States is still reliant on around 8 million barrels of crude imports every day.

Hedge funds say they are just an easy target and blaming them ignores global reasons for higher oil prices and the benefits they have brought to the U.S. economy.

"Consumers shouldn't complain," said a London-based manager of a commodity hedge fund who declined to be named. "Sustained higher prices led to a massive increase in U.S. production and decreased U.S. demand, which is helping the economy in a big way."

Hedge funds have almost doubled their bets on higher oil prices since December 11, regulatory and exchange data in New York and London show, taking their total position close to the highest level ever reported.

As of last week, speculative traders held paper contracts equivalent to almost 420 million barrels of oil. That's more crude than the United States consumes in three weeks.

At the same time, lower oil production from Saudi Arabia and stronger Chinese demand are just two factors that have boosted the price of the world's most important commodity. U.S. sanctions targeting Iran's disputed nuclear program have further cut supplies.

The way things are going, Americans could spend more on gasoline this year than ever before. The average U.S. household is already spending nearly $3,000 a year on gasoline expenditures, according to a recent government estimate.

That could become a political hot potato for President Barack Obama's administration ahead of the summer driving season, which officially starts on the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May.

Plans by U.S. regulators to curb the number of oil contracts hedge funds can hold are currently on appeal. A judge ruled last year they had failed to demonstrate position limits are necessary because there was not enough evidence linking speculation to big price swings.

On Tuesday, U.S. crude oil traded above $97 a barrel, up from $85 a barrel in mid-December. Brent crude was near a 5-month high above $118, having risen from near $108 a barrel two months ago.

U.S. gasoline prices have closely followed, surging 28 cents to $3.60 cents per gallon on average since December 11, according to data provided by the American Automobile Association (AAA). Gasoline prices can vary widely by region due to local taxes.

"Motorists are paying more for gasoline at this time of year than they've ever paid," said AAA spokesman Michael Green. The average price could rise as high as $3.73 a gallon in May of this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.

UNCERTAIN FUNDAMENTALS

The extent of speculators' impact on oil - and, by extension, gasoline prices - is complicated by the way the commodity is traded.

Unlike stocks or bonds, which are issued by a specific business and only available in limited quantities, companies all over the world can produce oil and sell it against U.S. and European benchmarks.

So even though U.S. production is expected to grow at the fastest pace on record this year, according to the Energy Information Administration, the market is also taking its price cues from elsewhere, analysts say.

"The market is looking at the potential for supply disruptions around the world, not just the U.S.," said Andrew Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates, a Texas-based crude oil consulting firm.

Alongside lower output from Saudi Arabia and growing demand from China, both potential and real supply disruptions in Venezuela, Nigeria, North Africa and the Middle East have also put markets on edge, said James Williams, energy economist at WTRG in London, Arkansas.

"I think in the last three months we've seen certainty about uncertainty," Williams said.

That uncertainty is attractive to speculators, who want to be ready should a big supply disruption hit. Some analysts say that can lead to even more buying as funds don't want to be left behind by their peers.

"The market's going up because (speculators) are buying it and they're encouraged to buy it because the price is going up," said Tim Evans, energy futures specialist at Citi Futures Perspective in New York.

Ultimately, the big bets can backfire.

The rush of funds into the oil market at the start of the year mirrors moves seen in early 2011 and 2012, when speculators' paper bets topped out at 444 million and 422 million barrels' worth of crude oil, respectively.

In both 2011 and 2012, prices rose into the second quarter before collapsing. After topping $110 a barrel in March of last year, U.S. crude oil plummeted below $80 a barrel by late June. Brent fell from above $125 to below $90 over the same period. Gasoline prices followed the market lower.

Many funds booked huge losses when they were caught by the rapid sell-off - especially in 2011 when oil prices dropped $10 during just one day in May.

"It's a wonderful party," said Citi's Evans. "Just don't be the last one to leave."

(Additional reporting by Barani Krishnan in New York and Douewe Miedema in Washington; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-u-gasoline-prices-soar-hedge-fund-oil-225019837--sector.html

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Ted Nugent Is Not Amused

?Musician and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent listens as U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

As reporters found their seats in the House press gallery, they shared a question: Where was Ted Nugent? The 64-year old rock star, who last cracked the charts with 1980?s ?Wango Tango,? had been invited to the State of the Union as a guest of Texas Rep. Steve Stockman. Thirty-odd Democrats had invited the families of gun violence victims to sit for the speech, but they were never famous. Not even in 1980.

Buzzfeed?s D.C. editor John Stanton asked a peer to help him find a ?tall, crazy-looking? white guy. When President Obama entered the chamber, Nugent stood up, and reporters finally saw him. He spent the entire speech, 13 typed pages, in various stages of physical agony. At the emotional apex of the night, when the president counted off victims who ?deserve a vote,? Nugent sat with his arms crossed.

?My favorite part was when I couldn?t hear clearly,? said Nugent to reporters after the speech. ?Then I didn?t get angry.?

A cynic might have looked at Nugent then, attracting swarms of reporters below statues of Bob LaFollette and Huey Long, and asked why the media went so astray. It?s a good question. But Obama?s speech?especially the rousing section on guns?was an appeal for skeptical members of Congress to abandon their positions and come around to his. If Nugent joined the Republican caucus, he wouldn?t even be its most conservative member. Someone more conservative could?nay, will?throw up hurdles against a gun bill, or an immigration bill, or a voting reform bill.

The president?s message: I dare you. ?Overwhelming majorities of Americans?Americans who believe in the Seconnd Amendment?have come together around common-sense reform,? said the president, ?like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun.? A new climate bill would be ?like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago.? Immigration would happen because ?as we speak, bipartisan groups in both chambers are working diligently to draft a bill.?

This worked well on the specific people Obama cited. McCain, who spent the hours before the speech threatening to filibuster Obama nominees until he got more facts about the 2012 Benghazi killings, leapt to his feet and smiled at the immigration line. He nodded over at Sen. Lindsey Graham, his foxhole buddy from the 2005-2007 immigration wars. Sen. Chuck Schumer, their most powerful Senate ally from the other team, stood even taller between them. (It helps that he?s actually taller than they are.)

The problem is that McCain and Graham won?t back Obama on his other priorities, and most Republicans won?t even back him on that one. As the president discussed hiking the minimum wage to $9 an hour and indexing it to inflation, Rep. Greg Walden made exaggerated expressions of disbelief. Walden runs the National Republican Congressional Committee, tasked with keeping the House red. He?s talked openly about how tight gerrymandering has shored up at least 191 of the 218 seats Republicans need to keep control. He wasn?t hearing anything that threatened the party; thus, he wasn?t hearing anything that could get their votes.

The gun control issue was the most obvious proof. ?There are more people killed with baseball bats and hammers than are killed with guns,? said Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia conservative who?s leaving an ultra-safe seat to run for the Senate. ?Universal background checks is actually a policy that?s been put in place, historically, to lead to confiscation of guns. It?s the most dangerous attack on freedom I?ve seen since I?ve been in Congress.?

Broun is generally pretty useful to Democrats because he talks like?well, like that. Democrats, whose post-election optimism hasn?t worn off, sell ready-made legislation that?s endorsed by real, credible humans. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, invited a woman named Cleora O?Connor to the speech, because her son had been killed by a gun and she wants Congress to act. ?They all stood up when the president said that line: We need to honor them with a vote,? said Cicilline. ?Now, maybe they were standing up out of respect for the victims, not for the idea that we need to vote. But I thought it was powerful.?

But Rep. Dennis Ross, a central Florida Republican who eschews Broun-style flamboyance, was more careful but still opposed to a gun bill. Maybe, maybe Democrats could build momentum for hearings on a gun bill. Republicans were learning, or re-learning, how to sound less harsh about this stuff. But what about the particulars? ?How do you enforce the law of a background check between everyday buyers and sellers?? asked Ross. ?The practical application might lead to more problems than anything we have now.? And anyway, ?the evidence that foretells how far that can go, in this Congress, is that there were fewer Democratic senators standing for that than for [anything else].?

That fills Republicans with confidence. As Nugent talked to reporters, his sponsor, Rep. Steve Stockman, was standing more or less alone, discussing the lack of depth behind any gun bill push. ?I was listening to NPR this morning,? said Stockman. ?Yes, I listen to NPR! The senator from West Virginia was on, and he said, ?Yeah, I?m for more gun control.? They said, ?Give us specifics.? And by the end of the interview he didn?t really have any.?

Nugent just kept moving from camera to camera, from the set-up satellite feeds in Statuary Hall to the hand-helds of independent reporters. Like the median House Republican, he had his constituency, and he knew it was bigger than the liberals?. ?If you walk the halls with me,? he told a National Review writer, ?every military guy, every cop, has an Uncle Ted story. See the smile on my face? These are my buddies here. I?m surrounded by working hard, playing hard Americans.?

Nugent was shepherded over to a standing MSNBC camera. Two police officers looked on, confused by the mobile media herd.

?Who?s that?? asked one cop.

?It?s Ted Nugent,? said the other cop. ?He?s a rock star, he talks about guns.?

??Really? Never heard of him.?

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=572c6971c807a124022a7a252126509b

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An asteroid as large as half a football field will be zipping near the earth 8x...

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Booq?s iPad Mini Agenda Case Is Work Ready

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Knit Just About Anything Without Needles

Need a quick gift for someone's birthday, or just misplaced your knitting needles? Weblog SimplyMaggie shows off a clever little method for knitting something outrageously fast, no needles required.

Literally all you need to do this is some chunky yarn. It doesn't matter if you're a competent knitter already or you've never even thought about it before?this is about as simple as it gets. But the simplicity of getting results in no way detracts from the stuff you can create.

Once you've grasped the technique, you'll be able to knock out a scarf in about the same amount of time it takes to watch the video on YouTube. Check it out above, or hit the link below to read more.

Arm Knitting How To UPDATED! | SimplyMaggie

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/BGCQAVGXmvE/knit-just-about-anything-without-needles

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Dead Space 3 videogame review | SciFiNow

Format:

PS3/360/PC

Publisher:

EA

Developer:

Visceral Games

Players:

1-2

Released:

8 February 2013

Certificate:

15

Price:

?37.91 (Xbox 360)

Buy on Amazon If you like this, try... Resident Evil 4

From dodging trolls to harpooning sea monsters, this is the most varied and brilliant horror game ever created.

?BRAHM!? goes the Inception horn in Dead Space 3?s menu screen, almost as an opening warning shot that this latest space horror sequel is going to be total, market-researched nonsense.

That dreaded horn, the sound of commercial-minded people launching derp at their audience at what they assume is their level, represents the kind of safe concessions that this third Dead Space makes with its design ? while still a successful and mostly fun facsimile of the series? 2008 beginnings, the main change to the design comes in focusing more on set piece-heavy combat scenarios, something it proves to be an awkward fit for.

The series has always been a shooter at heart, really, but Dead Space 3 plays the design so safe that it?s an experience almost entirely bereft of surprise, the opposite of why we?d previously seen the franchise as such a draw. The problem is a lack of ideas and a comparatively boring structure to the first two games ? mostly set in entirely generic space-type corridors and later, the equally dull snowy tundra of Tau Volantis, it?s an ammo-pumping slog to the finish rather than the unsettling, environmental-driven horror picture book that we?d previously seen in Dead Space.

Two main additions explain the sea change in design, here: a strong focus on weapons crafting, which requires harvesting resources in an almost Farmville-like tedious rinse-and-repeat way which threatens to destroy Dead Space 3?s sense of drama, and co-op, which is new to the series and proves to be a good fit for the multiplayer-minded of you out there. But the changes made to the formula almost aren?t worth it for either feature ? it?s basically the same thing again and again, at the expense of Dead Space?s identity as a series.

There?s the same combination of cheap scares and gangs of monsters running at you drawn out over many hours, still holding together just because the foundations of its gameplay are so steady.

But there are no visual flourishes that cleverly tell stories about the surrounding setting, no real sense of danger given the generous supplies and no emotional twists for Isaac Clarke that speak to you as a player ? these are the genre-subverting strokes we used to associate with Dead Space, and it seems that they?ve been jettisoned in favour of two more marketable ideas. The story barely makes an effort, too, with protagonist Isaac Clarke now a tedious errand boy, and a main villain who ? honestly ? looks like Elton John in a ski jacket.

While the weapons customisation is definitely entertaining to tinker with, it?s blatantly too demanding, requiring that you send out droids to mine resources every 20 minutes or so, and even then it only gets you a fraction of the way towards purchasing that ludicrous elemental cannon you like the look of. Combining weapons to create new ones offers sometimes thrilling results, as long as you engage with the off-putting deluge of boring menu screens.

You?ll have to play through the story several times to get the very best armoury ? or, quite cynically, get your hand in your real-life pocket to multiply what you earn with microtransactions. Acceptable practice on a free app, maybe, but absolutely out of the question for a ?40 game.

Still, circumnavigate that nonsense and you?ll still find a robust space adventure to be had in Dead Space 3. Those Event Horizon-style shots of distant stars behind floating starship debris speak of a richly realised industrial sci-fi visual style, one that is often able to trump many of the sources it borrows from. Dead Space 3 plays to the crowd, despite being occasionally as thematically fascinating as the previous two games, and coming packaged with a co-op mode that is rarely less than good fun.

The main, series-killing fear is that Dead Space no longer has anything new to say.

Source: http://www.scifinow.co.uk/reviews/35907/dead-space-3-videogame-review/

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Paterno analysis leaves Sen. Jake Corman angry about NCAA sanctions

"Honest, it makes me angry." Sen. Jake Corman

Louis Freeh can stand behind his report on Penn State?s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex crimes all he wants. But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman is convinced that ?report is flawed.?

He said the Paterno family-commissioned critique of the Freeh report confirmed what he thought all along and should cause the NCAA to take a look at the sanctions it has imposed in its consent decree against Penn State that were based on that report's findings. Those sanctions include a four-year ban on postseason play, reduction of scholarships and vacating of wins between 1998 and 2011.

Penn State President Rodney Erickson and the board should take a good hard look at it too and rethink decisions they made based on that report, he said.

?The consent decree and punishment have a negative impact on my community,? Corman said. ?The thought now that it is based on a flawed report as determined by somebody with the impeccable reputation of a Dick Thornburgh makes me angry. Honest, it makes me angry.?

Corman currently has a lawsuit pending against the NCAA in trying to keep the $60 million fine it imposed against Penn State from going to out-of-state organizations that prevent child abuse. His lawsuit followed one filed by Gov. Tom Corbett to block the sanctions.

Corman said he had read Thornburgh?s analysis and part of the one done by former FBI profiler Jim Clemente. He was impressed how each laid out in precise ways why the Freeh report failed to back up its conclusions.

?It?s hard to argue with it,? Corman said. ?It?s not a matter of opinion. They go through it, fact by fact, and point out where the Freeh report is incorrect in its conclusions.?

Whether the Legislature needs to hold hearings to review some of the critique?s findings, he?s not sure but wouldn?t rule it out.

Two Democratic lawmakers said earlier today called for a thorough investigation, one suggested by the attorney general and the other said the legislature will consider the findings as part of an upcoming discussion about reforms to the university's governance structure.

Corman also expressed distaste in Penn State's response to the Paterno analysis. The university?s statement concluded, ?people will draw their own conclusions and opinions from the facts uncovered in the Freeh report.?

?That?s not good enough,? Corman said. ?You own this report. You either stand behind it or you refute it. ? Now that you have two completely different viewpoints, I think it?s the responsibility of the president and board to review it and come out and tell us what they believe. Hopefully, that will come.?

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/paterno_analysis_leaves_sen_ja.html

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First lady among hundreds mourning slain Chicago girl

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The national debate over gun violence took a highly personal turn for first lady Michelle Obama when a Chicago girl was slain near Obama's family home just days after she performed at the presidential inauguration in Washington.

The first lady and top federal, state and city officials joined hundreds of mourners on Saturday at the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton, 15, who was killed at a park near her Chicago high school, casting the bitter national debate over gun violence in personal terms for the Obamas.

The first lady met privately with members of Pendleton's family and with about 30 of her friends and classmates before the funeral. She sat in the church next to senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who once led the Chicago public schools, sat next to Jarrett.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and U.S. Representatives Danny Davis and Bobby Rush were also among the mourners.

"Hadiya's life has touched individuals, mothers, fathers, families and governments across this planet," her aunt, Linda Wilks, said. "If this does not demonstrate the power of light and love, we are a people deeply cloaked in darkness."

Pendleton's body rested in a silver casket, surrounded by flowers for the funeral service at Greater Harvest Baptist Church in Chicago.

Pendleton's mother, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, thanked mourners for an outpouring of support since her daughter's death and at times laughed when talking about her.

"You don't know how hard this is. For those of you who do know how hard this is, I'm sorry," Cowley-Pendleton said. "No mother, no father should ever have to experience this."

Pendleton was fatally shot in what police say was a case of mistaken identity in a gang turf war as she and her friends took shelter from a rainstorm in a park near her school.

GUN VIOLENCE CLOSE TO HOME

A sophomore at Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep, Pendleton had performed with her school band eight days earlier at President Barack Obama's inauguration.

A "We the People" petition on the White House website signed by more than 1,000 people called on the president and his family to attend Pendleton's funeral. The first family's home is about a mile from the park where Pendleton was killed.

The back of the funeral program included a copy of a handwritten note from President Barack Obama to Hadiya's parents, Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Anthony Pendleton:

"Dear Cleopatra and Nathaniel, Michelle and I just wanted you to know how heartbroken we are to have heard about Hadiya's passing. We know that no words from us can soothe the pain, but rest assured that we are praying for you and that we will continue to work as hard as we can to end this senseless violence. God Bless."

Across the street from the church, Lance Robinson, 16, a high school friend of Pendleton's, stood with two other friends. All three wore sweatshirts with "rest in peace Hadiya" on them.

"She always did want to change the world," Robinson said. "It's just a shame she had to die to do it."

Jacqueline Johnson, 49, of Chicago, said she believed the first lady's attendance was a positive thing.

"I think she's sending out a message (about Chicago violence) and hopefully it'll work," Johnson said.

Pendleton's death follows a massacre of 20 first graders and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school in December that inspired an intense U.S. debate about the easy availability of guns. In response, Obama has called for new restrictions on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Pendleton's killing spurred calls from civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who also attended Saturday's service, and the families of murder victims for Obama to address the gun violence in Chicago, the third largest city in the United States.

There were 506 homicides last year in Chicago, a 17 percent increase from the prior year, and 42 more victims in January, including Pendleton.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/michelle-obama-attend-slain-chicago-girls-funeral-120411813.html

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I'm Taking The Plunge Again ? The 2013 Polar Bear Plunge : Mom ...

Once again this year I?ll be freezin with a reason! In a couple of weeks I?ll be participating in the Polar Bear Plunge. The Polar Bear Plunge is an annual event dedicated to raising funds and awareness for the Special Olympics of New Jersey. My son has benefited from Special Olympics programs. Last year was my first time taking the plunge. It was an amazing experience, so much so that I?m doing it again. I have to raise a minimum of $100 to register. Please help me support the Special Olympics of NJ. Visit my Polar Bear Plunge page on the event website and donate today. Or if you?re in Jersey come join me! Your support would be greatly appreciated.

Tags: Polar Bear Plunge, Special Olympics

Category: Me And Mine

Source: http://www.valmg.com/index.php/2013/im-taking-the-plunge-again-the-2013-polar-bear-plunge/

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Belaid's widow asks Tunisia government to protect her family

TUNIS (Reuters) - The widow of assassinated politician ???????????Chokri Belaid said on Saturday she was asking the Tunisian government to provide her family with official protection.

"After the killing of Chokri I am asking the Ministry of the Interior to provide official protection to me I and my daughters ... If any attack happens to the family, I will accuse the Ministry of Interior officially," Basma Belaid said On television.

Belaid's killing by an unidentified gunman on Wednesday -- Tunisia's first such political assassination in decades -- has shaken a nation still seeking stability after the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

Belaid's family has accused the ruling Islamist party Ennahda of responsibility for his killing. The party denies any hand in it.

''We intend to begin judicial action to sue all those who accuse Mr Rached al-Ghannouchi, head of the Ennahda party, be they politicians or journalists who are exploiting the blood of the deceased for narrow political ends at the expense of the truth'', Rached Gannouchi, the head of Ennahda, said in a statement on Saturday.

Tunisia's political transition had been more peaceful than those in other Arab nations such as Egypt and Libya, but tensions are running high between Islamists elected to power and liberals who fear the loss of hard-won freedoms.

Nejib Chebbi, leader of the Republican secular party, said that the Tunisian president provided him with official protection after he received death threats a few weeks ago. Secularists fear that the assassination of Belaid could prompt other copycat killings in Tunisia.

Belaid's funeral on Friday drew the biggest crowds seen on Tunisia's streets since the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

(Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/belaids-widow-asks-tunisia-government-protect-her-family-011717427.html

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When Did God Get Into the Wedding Business?

Gay rights campaigners gathering outside the Houses of Parliament on Feb. 5, 2013, in London, where Parliament held a vote on whether to allow same-sex couples to marry

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The British House of Commons voted to approve same-sex marriage on Tuesday. The issue deeply divides the ruling Conservative Party, as well as the Church of England. The church accepts same-sex civil unions as a legal institution but opposes gay marriage, which church leaders say undermines the sacred place of marriage in society. Was marriage originally a legal or a religious institution?

A legal institution, mostly. Marriage developed independently in hundreds of human civilizations, so it?s difficult to pinpoint history?s first marriage or even the society that first conceived of marriage as an institution. Early Sumerian marriage agreements, which date to the third millennium B.C., are among the oldest records relating to marriage. The couples swore an oath to a series of deities in a small number of agreements, but most of the records contain no mention of gods or religion, suggesting that the Sumerians viewed weddings as legal events. The terms of marriage were decidedly contractual, including specific worldly punishments for cheating. (The penalty for male infidelity was 10 shekels in alimony to the jilted wife. If the wife strayed, she would be strangled and dumped into a river.) There is no indication that someone who violated the marriage agreement suffered the eternal wrath of Shamash and Marduk, or that those deities took a personal interest in strong marriages.

The ancient Hebraic take on marriage is difficult to ascertain. Scholars have argued for years over whether to translate the Old Testament word describing a marriage agreement as ?contract,? which is a simple agreement between two parties, or ?covenant,? which includes an additional vow to God. One of the difficulties is that the Old Testament uses the same word to describe both God?s relationship with the Israelites and a husband?s promise to his wife. Some ancient Hebrew writers explicitly analogized those two commitments, and, of course, the Ten Commandments mention God?s aversion to adultery. However, like the Sumerian marriage agreements, documents describing ancient Jewish marriages are mostly lists of legal obligations and consequences and rarely contain spiritual language. It?s likely that the idea of marriage as a sacred union involving God developed over time among ancient Jews, but the evidence is open to interpretation.

What about the pre-Christian Greeks, the founders of modern Western society? Some of Plato?s writings cast marriage in a semi-spiritual light. He wrote that, ?Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.? That romantic sentiment echoes the New Testament notion that ?two will become one flesh.? But Plato?s general philosophy was practical: Marriage was good for Greek society. He even advised young men to choose a partner based on the interests of the polis, not love or other personal desires. Aristotle had a utilitarian and legal view of marriage as well, writing that marriage ?combines the useful with the pleasant.? It appears that marriage was a contractual matter in ancient Greece.

The New Testament injected God into marriages like never before, most obviously by physically placing Jesus at the wedding at Cana, where he blessed the union by turning water into wine. Jesus also said of the sanctity of marriage, ?What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.? A small number of Christians moved in the fifth century to describe marriage as a religious rite on a par with baptism, but it wasn?t until the 1200s that marriage had completed its transition from contractual agreement to Christian sacrament.

Got a question about today?s news? Ask the Explainer.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=b34df03b5a6671a5cf60ad0f56fa1bd5

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Navy pulling carrier from Persian Gulf over budget worries

Kristina Young / Handout / EPA

The USS Harry S. Truman at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean in December 2012.

By Jim Miklaszewski and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News

Published 6:30 p.m. ET: Budget constraints?are prompting?the U.S. Navy to cut back the number of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf region from two to one, the latest example of how contentious fiscal battles in Washington are impacting the U.S. military.

According to Defense Department officials, the USS Harry S. Truman, which was set to leave for the Persian Gulf region on Friday, will now remain stateside, based in Norfolk, Virginia.?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the change to the department?s ?two-carrier policy? in the Persian Gulf region early Wednesday.

The U.S. has steadily kept two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf for much of the last two years. In 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued a directive to keep two in the area given the volatility of the region.

The cutback is largely a result of automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, passed by Congress during the summer of 2011. Congress has failed to pass a budget for the fiscal year, and has instead opted on passing legislation that will keep spending at the same level as last year. But that means the Pentagon has been operating with less money and is unsure of what the future holds for its bottom line.

Under sequestration, the Navy would lose $4 billion over the next six months, the last half of fiscal year 2013. The Navy was already $4.6 billion in the hole for this year because the continuing resolution for 2013 was budgeted at 2012 rates.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tells NBC's Chuck Todd if a sequester is allowed to happen it will "badly damage" the readiness of the U.S. military.

Navy officials say the Defense Department ordered members of their branch and all services to ?prepare for sequestration,? even though it?s not yet clear the automatic budgets cuts will kick in next month.?

?We cut back to one carrier in the Gulf region to save money now, or wait until sequestration and be forced to cut back to zero carriers,? a senior defense official told NBC News.

It?s not certain whether the Defense Department or the White House would permit a zero carrier presence in the Persian Gulf, no matter what the budget constraints, given rising tensions over Iran. The Truman would still conduct exercises off the US East Coast and would be ?surge ready? in the event of an emergency or disaster.

A statement from Pentagon Press Secretary George Little assured that the United States will ?maintain a robust presence? in the area, but cited the pending sequestration cuts as the reason the Navy sent Panetta the request.

?This prudent decision enables the U.S. Navy to maintain these ships to deploy on short notice in the event they are needed to respond to national security contingencies,? read the statement.

Revelation of the cutbacks comes the same day as news that Panetta is recommending military pay increases be limited to one percent in 2014. Uniformed military will still get a raise, but it will be much smaller ?to reflect the difficult budget decisions? facing the department, a defense official told NBC News.

At a speech Wednesday, the outgoing secretary of defense warned that the budget battles in Washington are putting America at risk. ?

?The Department of Defense and other agencies across government have been living under a serious shadow -- the shadow of sequestration ... Today, with another trigger for sequestration approaching on March 1st, the Department of Defense is facing the most serious readiness crisis in over a decade,? he said to a crowd at Georgetown University.

?Make no mistake, if these cuts happen there will be a serious disruption in defense programs and a sharp decline in military readiness,? Panetta said in his speech Wednesday.

?We have begun an all-out effort to plan for how to operate under such a scenario, but it is already clear that no good options exist.?

On Tuesday, President Obama called on Congress to pass ?a small package of spending cuts and tax reforms? to avoid the automated cuts set to kick in at the beginning of next month.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Kelly Ayotte ? who have toured the country warning that sequestration cuts could put U.S. national defense at risk ? responded on Wednesday by introducing a bill that would avoid cuts by slashing the federal workforce by 10 percent.?

Additional reporting from Courtney Kube

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16873226-navy-to-pull-aircraft-carrier-from-persian-gulf-over-budget-worries?lite

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Disney's stock shines even as earnings decline

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Disney won over more fans on Wall Street with its latest quarterly performance, despite a slight drop in its earnings.

The downturn announced Tuesday was less pronounced than the modest dip analysts anticipated as Walt Disney Co. digested higher programming costs at its ESPN television network and dealt with a less appealing line-up of home video releases in its movie studio. Higher expenses for distributing box-office hits such as "Lincoln" and "''Wreck-It-Ralph" also created a drag during the holiday-season quarter.

The Burbank, Calif. company offset some of those problems with an advertising upturn at its ABC network, higher spending at its theme parks and a reversal of an operating loss in its video games division.

It was good enough to set the stage for Disney's stock to hit a new high in Wednesday's trading. The shares gained $1.48, or 2.7 percent, to $55.77 in Tuesday's extended trading after the release of the financial results. If the stock reaches that level Wednesday, it will top its previous peak of $54.87, which the shares touched just last week.

When Disney does well, it tends to lift spirits throughout the stock market. That's because Disney is one of the 30 companies that comprise the influential Dow Jones industrial average and also is part of the Standard & Poor's 500 index that serves as a basis for many investment funds. Both the Dow Jones and S&P indexes are nearing their all-time highs reached in 2007.

Although he didn't make a concrete forecast, Disney CEO Robert Iger painted a bright picture for analysts during Tuesday conference call.

"We're confident about the year ahead, as well as our ability to create continued long-term growth," Iger said.

Most analysts have been optimistic about Disney's prospects for several reasons.

Cable and TV satellite providers are expected to pay Disney higher fees to carry its channels on their systems. Disney also is opening new theme parks and adding more attractions such as "Cars Land," which helped bring in more crowds and boost spending at its southern California resort during the latest quarter.

On the movie studio side, Disney plans to release several potential crowd pleasers later this year, including a prequel to "The Wizard of Oz," a sequel to the 2001 animation hit "Monsters Inc." and a new take on "The Lone Ranger" starring Johnny Depp. Meanwhile, sequels are already in the planning stages for three of the most successful film franchises in Hollywood history: "Pirates of the Caribbean," ''The Avengers" and "Star Wars." Disney just picked up the rights to the latter franchise in late December when the company completed its $4.06 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The next installment in the "Star Wars" saga, due out in the summer of 2015, will be directed by acclaimed science-fiction film maker J.J. Abrams. In Tuesday's conference call, Iger also confirmed Lucasfilm will make at least two other films outside the "Star Wars" saga. The first two peripheral projects are being overseen by Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," and Simon Kinberg, whose credits include writing "X-Men: The Last Stand."

Looking even further ahead, Disney has lined itself for a big payday from Netflix Inc. by licensing its latest theatrical releases to the Internet video subscription service beginning in 2016. That deal was reached in early December.

Disney earned $1.38 billion, or 77 cents per share, during its fiscal first quarter, a three-month stretch that ended Dec. 29. That compared with net income of $1.46 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the same period in 2011.

Excluding certain charges and one-time gains, Disney said it would have earned 79 cents per share. On that basis, the results exceeded the average estimate of 76 cents per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue climbed 5 percent from the previous year to $11.3 billion ? about $130 million above analyst predictions.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-05-Earns-Disney/id-0593af646c7245eebca21c8ab5e2b24e

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Next Week's Asteroid Flyby Shows Earth is in 'Cosmic Shooting Gallery'

The people of Earth are not doing enough to protect their home planet from the threat of an asteroid impact, scientists said today (Feb. 5) as they track a space rock slated to make a close shave next week.

The asteroid due to pass exceptionally close to Earth on Feb. 15 ? called 2012 DA14 ? was discovered only last year by amateur astronomers with the help of a grant from a non-profit agency. While asteroid 2012 DA14 poses no risk of hitting Earth, there are likely hundreds of thousands more rocks like it out there, its discoverers said.

"We live in a cosmic shooting gallery and it's a reminder that we need to keep doing our work to find these things and to prevent the only preventable natural disaster, which is asteroid impact," said Bruce Betts, a planetary scientist at the Planetary Society, the non-profit space research and exploration organization that helped sponsor the discovery of asteroid 2012 DA14.

"We are not doing enough" to find potentially dangerous asteroids, Bruce told reporters today during a teleconference. "We're doing more than we were 15 years ago, and these surveys are helping out. We're discovering them faster. To be safe, we need a lot higher rate of discovery."

One person who's pitching in to help is Jaime Nomen, a dental surgeon by day, and an asteroid hunter by night. Nomen is part of the team at Spain?s La Sagra Observatory that discovered 2012 DA14 about a year ago. [Asteroid 2012 DA14's Flyby: Fact vs. Fiction (Video)]

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is about half the width of a football field (150 feet, or 45 meters), and will fly within 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) of our planet on Friday, Feb. 15, zooming closer to the planet than the ring of satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Not long before the asteroid's February 2012 discovery, Nomen and his team won a Planetary Society-sponsored Shoemaker Near-Earth Object Grant that allowed them to upgrade the CCD camera on one of their telescopes, which boosted the number of images the team can snap of quick-moving objects.

Projects like the La Sagra search can sometimes find asteroids that slipped through the cracks of the larger NASA-run surveys that are responsible for the majority of the near-Earth asteroid discoveries every year, Nomen said. Still, there are so many mid-range space rocks, such as 2012 DA14, and they move so quickly, that a major survey might look at a spot in the sky one day and not see anything, but the next day, an asteroid might be spotted there, he said.

"Those small objects could appear at any moment," Nomen said. "For sure there are many that remain undiscovered."

While Earth is safe from 2012 DA14, an asteroid that size would do a lot of damage if it did impact our planet. A similar-sized rock slammed into Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, and flattened some 500,000 acres of forest over an area about the size of Tokyo.

And there's plenty more where that one came from.

"The objects are out there and eventually they will hit," Betts said. "It's not a question of whether we'll have catastrophic impacts, it's a question of when."

With some advance warning of an asteroid impact, on the scale of about 10 years, scientists have a number of strategies that could potentially be used to alter the path of a space rock on a collision course. But if such a threat was discovered just months or days ahead of time, the best we could do would likely be to evacuate the area, Nomen said.

NASA will hold another press teleconference on the approaching asteroid 2012 DA14 on Thursday (Feb. 7) at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT). Visit SPACE.com Thursday for complete coverage of that news event.?

You can follow SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz.?Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/next-weeks-asteroid-flyby-shows-earth-cosmic-shooting-231844210.html

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Analysis: Economy, military shape US Iran strategy (The Arizona Republic)

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Taking insulin for type 2 diabetes could expose patients to greater risk of health complications, study suggests

Feb. 4, 2013 ? Patients with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin could be exposed to a greater risk of health complications including heart attack, stroke, cancer and eye complications a new University study has found.

Examining the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) ? data that characterises about 10% of the UK population ? a team of researchers from the University's School of Medicine looked at the risk of death for patients taking insulin compared with other treatments designed to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

The team's epidemiological study found people have greater risk of individual complications associated with diabetes such as heart attack, stroke, eye complications and renal disease when compared with patients treated with alternative glucose-lowering treatments.

"Insulin treatment remains the most longstanding blood-glucose-lowering therapies for people with type 2 diabetes, with its use growing markedly in recent years," according to Professor Craig Currie from the School of Medicine, who led the research.

"However, with new diabetes therapies and treatments emerging there has been a new spotlight on treatments to ensure what the best and safest form of diabetes treatment is.

"By reviewing data from CPRD between 1999 and 2011 we've confirmed there are increased health risks for patients with type 2 diabetes who take insulin to manage their condition," he added.

The study adds to previous findings which identified potential health risks of insulin in this specific group of people.

Initial concerns were first raised regarding the use of insulin in type 2 diabetes from a population-based study in Canada, which reported a three-fold increase in mortality.

A similar study of people in UK primary care with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin also reported a 50% risk of increased mortality compared with another common treatment regimen.

Professor Currie adds: "Patients currently being treated with insulin should not, under any circumstances, stop taking their medications, and it is important to emphasise that this report related to only type 2 diabetes which typically starts in older people who are overweight.

"Each patient's individual circumstances are different and treatment decisions are managed by their clinician with all of their medical history fully considered.

"The vast majority of people who take insulin will experience no adverse effects and it remains a reliable and common form of treatment worldwide but this study shows that we need to investigate this matter urgently and the drug regulatory authorities should take interest in this issue.

"Anyone who is concerned should speak to their GP first before taking any action on managing their condition."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cardiff University.

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Journal Reference:

1. C. J. Currie, C. D. Poole, M. Evans, J. R. Peters, C. L. Morgan. Mortality and Other Important Diabetes-Related Outcomes With Insulin vs Other Antihyperglycemic Therapies in Type 2 Diabetes. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2013; DOI: 10.1210/jc.2012-3042

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