Oil prices fall as concerns about Iran retreat

(AP) ? Oil prices declined for a third trading day as concerns faded over Iran's ability to restrict world oil supplies.

Benchmark crude on Monday fell by 25 cents to end at $101.31 per barrel in New York. Benchmark crude prices also dropped on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Brent crude, used to price foreign oil varieties that are imported by U.S. refineries, fell by 61 cents to finish at $112.45 per barrel in London.

Prices started 2012 on a tear as Iran conducted military exercises in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, threatening to block shipping channels in response to international sanctions. One-sixth of the world's seaborne oil passes through the narrow strait in the Persian Gulf.

Oil traders and analysts now say that concerns are easing about a potential confrontation with Iran. Military experts say it's unlikely that Iran would be able to keep tankers from exiting the Gulf, and energy analysts noted that the world remains well supplied with oil, whether or not Iran tries to block the waterway.

Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out over the weekend that producers can bypass the strait by transporting oil through pipelines in Saudi Arabia and another in the United Arab Emirates. The Saudis are expected to sell more oil to make up for any losses from Iran, and Libya has ramped up oil fields that were idled during last year's uprising.

Also, Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina said, world oil demand has declined in a number of industrialized countries including the U.S., Japan and Korea.

"If tension in the Mideast recedes, the premium that has been built into crude prices is likely to fade, sending crude prices lower," Allidina said in a research note.

Europe's flagging economy remains a major source of concern for oil traders. Less government spending is expected to constrict economic growth and possibly send the eurozone into recession this year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Monday to work on ways to boost the continent's flagging economy.

In other energy trading, heating oil and gasoline both rose by less than a penny to finish at $3.07 and $2.76 per gallon, respectively. Natural gas fell by 5 cents to end the day at $3.01 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-09-Oil%20Prices/id-3c7295e6165e40948c23704b1687545f

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Santorum challenges Romney despite minimal budget, staff

Rick Santorum nearly tied with Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucus, Tuesday, but can?Santorum compete with Romney without a massive budget? The latest figures showed?Santorum had less than $200,000 in his campaign account while Romney had $14.7 million.

Rick Santorum looked Wednesday to establish himself as the top conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, one day after jolting the Republican presidential race by coming within eight votes of winning the Iowa caucuses.

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Romney barely defeated Santorum in Iowa, where the party held its first contest in the race to find a challenger to President Barack Obama. Until recently, Santorum had been polling in the low single-digits and was seen as having little hope of being a top contender.

Romney's win helped solidify his standing as front-runner going into Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, where he is heavily favored. But Romney has not been able to raise his support beyond the 25 percent level in national opinion polls. He won just under 25 percent of the vote in Iowa.

Some Republicans see Romney, a former governor of the liberal state of Massachusetts, as insufficiently conservative on abortion, health care and other issues. As other conservative candidates drop out, that could create an opening for Santorum, an outspoken opponent of abortion and gay marriage.

The Republican field narrowed some Wednesday with congresswoman?Michele?Bachmann?dropping out of the race after last-place showing among active candidates in Iowa.

But Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, has significant hurdles to climb if he hopes to prove that he is not the latest in a series of challengers who briefly topped polls only to fade quickly ? like?Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. After hinting that he might drop out, Perry announced Wednesday he would stay in the race. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman skipped the Iowa caucuses in hopes of making his mark in next Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary.

It will be difficult for Santorum to recreate his success in Iowa, where he had campaigned almost nonstop for months. Santorum has only a skeleton staff in other states and has very little money.

Romney is much better placed in terms of campaign staff and financing. He has campaigned as the candidate best-positioned to defeat Obama. On Wednesday, he picked up the endorsement of the party's 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain.

"The time has arrived for Republicans to choose a presidential nominee, a new standard bearer who has the ability and determination to defeat President Obama," McCain said.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/KorHOGldNw4/Santorum-challenges-Romney-despite-minimal-budget-staff

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Miami Heat's LeBron James enjoying best offensive start to his NBA career

By Ethan J. Skolnick

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 11:13?p.m.?Saturday,?Dec.?31,?2011

Posted: 5:33?p.m.?Saturday,?Dec.?31,?2011

Everything is working for LeBron James at the moment, so you might as well assume his memory is functioning at a high level, too.

"I can't remember when I have had a stretch like this," James said Friday, following his latest exhibition in offensive efficiency and overall versatility, a performance that carried Miami to a two-point victory at Minnesota.

He certainly hasn't had a similar one to start any of his previous eight seasons, not his seven in Cleveland or first in Miami. While it isn't fair to say he's ever been icy out of the gate, he's hardly been scorching, either. In five of those seasons, he shot less than 45 percent through the first four games, and he'd never been better than the 50 percent he posted through four contests of the 2005-06 campaign.

So far in 2011-12, he's at 59.8 percent, good for seventh in the NBA through Friday's play, and he leads the NBA in scoring average at 33.0. What's most remarkable is not the rate or clip at which he's been connecting, especially considering the small sample size. Rather, it's the degree of difficulty of many of his attempts.

Simply, James has never scored in quite this way before.

He never scored quite like this even when he felt good about himself, as he says he does again - and is showing through the smile he is flashing more frequently than during his mentally and emotionally exhausting 2010-11 season. So while he attributes his early excellence in part to his "mental mind state," it's at least as much about something else:

"Just the work I put into it in the off-season," James said.

He put much into his back-to-the-basket arsenal, even toiling with low-post legend Hakeem Olajuwon for a week in Houston. Yet while James has set up shop in the block a bit more, he's been more prone to fade away into difficult 17-footers than to drive toward easier opportunities near the hoop. For the most part, he's relied upon old standbys: his skills facing the basket, whether shooting at it from outside or driving toward it in the half court or soaring toward it in transition.

In particular, James feels "really comfortable" with what he called "my mid-range game." Yet not every observer will feel comfortable calling most of his shots "mid-range," since mid-range is typically defined as halfway between the basket and the three-point arc.

That's roughly 12 feet.

That's hardly the spot from which James is firing most. On Friday, for instance, only one of his 23 shot attempts came from between 10 and 15 feet, and, according to HoopData.com, he's made only 3 of 8 attempts from that distance on the season. That's roughly the same number of attempts per game as last season.

Instead, he's become enamored with a shooting distance that many coaches dread, because it counts for two points rather than three, yet is nearly equally challenging:

That's 16 to 23 feet.

That's where James set a career high last season by knocking down 45 percent, which is the same as he's started this season. Yet his attempts, which have been 5.7, 5.7, 5.5, 5.4, 5.4 the past five seasons, have jumped to nine per night. That would seem a dangerous trend. Still, coach Erik Spoelstra, who often advocates such an advanced statistical approach to risk and reward, said Friday he isn't concerned.

"I think that's probably where people Moneyball it a little too much," Spoelstra said, referring to the book and movie about baseball's stats-based revolution. "And if you're wide open and in rhythm and it's a critical turning point in the game, I don't think people want to give him that look, either."

Spoelstra added it is necessary to take and make enough to keep defenses honest, and "I think we're doing a good job of taking what's given to us right now. We can't have everything at the rim, but as long as we're getting a lot of opportunities at the free-throw line, at the rim, putting pressure on."

James understands the risk of overreliance on the long two-point jumper, but he believes it's fine as "long as I'm on balance. As long as I'm not taking too many fadeaway shots - which we will, which I will, because it's a part of my arsenal - but being able to stay in my mid-range game and make shots count, is just a testament to what I was able to do in the off-season."

What he still does best is attack, and the stats show he's doing more short-range damage than ever. Aided by fleet rookie point guard Norris Cole, who fed him for two fast-break flushes Friday, James is 24-for-30 (80 percent) at the rim, several percentage points higher than his stable career standard.

Add all this up, and the sum has been special, even for him.

"I'm more comfortable with the guys and the system," he said.

That comfort showed in his smile - one he hopes to keep in the short-range, mid-range and long-range future.

Source: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/sports/heat/miami-heats-lebron-james-enjoying-best-offensive-start-2071631.html?cxtype=rss_heat_17245

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It?s My Meme Karaoke Party And I?ll Cry If I Want To

memeIt's the end of the year and that means Zaraguza Digital has cooked something special for all tech bloggers struggling to find something to post on a very slow news day, and for their bored audiences. Last year, it was Drunk TechCrunch, and this year they're throwing a Meme Karaoke Party ... and every procrastinator's invited! Enjoy, and if I don't see you anymore, Happy New Year boys and girls.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/34kBLuf5noY/

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Study: Indoor Tanning Linked With Early Onset of Skin Cancer (Time.com)

Given that indoor tanning beds were officially classified as a human carcinogen in 2009 -- up there with cigarettes and asbestos -- it should be fairly obvious that frequent tanning-booth exposure would increase your risk of skin cancer.

Indeed, the evidence linking indoor tanning with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and squamous cell carcinoma, one of the more common forms of the disease, is "convincing," according to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. But the research concerning tanning beds and basal cell carcinoma, the third and most frequent major type of skin cancer -- which accounts for some 80% of all skin cancer cases in the U.S. -- has thus far been inconsistent. (See pictures of a photographer's intimate account of her mother's cancer ordeal.)

Basal cell carcinoma, a slow-growing cancer, has traditionally been a disease of middle age. But it's been appearing with increasing frequency in people under 40, especially in women -- a demographic that also happens to like indoor tanning -- suggesting a link. So researchers at the Yale School of Public Health sought to study the association.

The study included 376 people under 40, who had been diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma between 2006 and 2010. They were matched with a control group of 390 dermatology patients who were diagnosed with minor skin conditions like cysts and warts. All participants had skin biopsies, and all were drawn from a Yale University database.

The researchers interviewed each participant about their UV exposure -- both in tanning beds and outdoors. They also asked about their history of sunburns, sunscreen use, family history of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers, and their self-reported eye, skin and hair color.

The conclusion: people who had ever used a tanning booth were 69% more likely to develop early-onset basal cell carcinoma than never tanners. Those who used tanning booths more regularly -- for at least six years -- were more than twice a likely to develop basal cell carcinoma, compared with never tanners.

The study found that women were far more devoted than men to indoor tanning, which might help explain why 70% of all early onset basal cell carcinomas occur in females. The authors concluded that about 27% of cases of early onset disease -- including 43% of cases in women -- could be prevented if people simply stopped using tanning booths.

That's a tall order, considering that some 30 million Americans use indoor tanning beds each year. Policy changes, such as the recent California ban on teen tanning, may help, the authors suggest. So would behavioral interventions aimed at women -- at least one study in 2010 found that the best way to get young women to tan less was to warn them about the skin-wrinkling effects of tanning-bed exposure, not the risk of skin cancer.

"Importantly, indoor tanning is a behavior that individuals can change. In conjunction with the findings on melanoma, our results for [basal cell carcinoma] indicate that reducing indoor tanning could translate to a meaningful reduction in the incidence of these two types of skin cancer," said Leah M. Ferrucci, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Public Health, in a statement.

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America becoming a nation of renters

Brian Keith is busier than ever as the architecture firm he works for rushes to wrap up work on a 300-unit apartment complex in Dallas.

The project is one of dozens the firm, JHP Architecture, has on its hands -- a surge of business driven by a rise in demand in the United States for rental properties.

The increased demand has forced JHP to expand, and it expects to keep hiring at least through the first quarter.

"We're seeing overall work come back and there's a backlog of contracts to go through," said Keith, director of urban design and planning at JHP. "There's strong interest in multi-family units and plenty of pent-up demand."

With U.S. unemployment at a lofty 8.6 percent, home foreclosures rising and property prices under pressure, more and more Americans have given up the dream of owning, opting instead to rent, a shift that is remaking the face of the U.S. housing industry.

The percentage of Americans who own their home dropped from a peak of 69.2 percent in late 2004 to a 13-year low of 65.9 percent in the second quarter. It edged up to 66.3 percent in the third quarter of this year.

On the flip side, the percentage of rental properties that are empty fell to 9.8 percent in the third quarter from 10.3 percent a year earlier.

In a recent report, Oliver Chang, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, dubbed 2012 "The Year of the Landlord."

"Rents are rising, vacancies are falling, household formations are growing and rental supply is limited," the Morgan Stanley report stated. "We believe the demand for rental properties will continue to grow."

Groundbreaking for new housing jumped 9.3 percent in November to the highest level in 19 months, fueling optimism that the battered housing market was regaining its footing.

The gains, however, were almost solely in multifamily housing. Groundbreaking for structures with five or more units shot up more than 30 percent from October to now stand at nearly double the year-ago level.

Prices reflect the shift in demand. Rental costs are up 2.4 percent over the last year, compared with an increase of just 0.6 percent in 2010.

Steve Blitz, senior economist at ITG Investment Research, says the lure of higher returns is spurring the development of apartment buildings. He argued the next "boom" in residential construction has already started.

"The reason rents were rising is that through the past 15 years there has been an under-building of rental properties because typical renters were increasingly able to garner cheap financing to buy a house," he wrote in a research note.

While the rise in demand is great news for builders and developers, it remains unclear what the pick-up in homebuilding will mean for the economy as a whole.

"Residential construction will be a plus to GDP in 2012, but house price declines will be a negative. So net, net housing will be neutral or a small drag on the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

At its peak at the end of 2005, homebuilding accounted for about 6.2 percent of overall economic activity. Now, it is only about 2.4 percent.

U.S. housing starts in April 2009 hit their lowest level on records dating to January 1959. While multifamily starts have given them a lift, 2011 may be the weakest year ever for construction of single-family homes.

"Business is slightly down from last year," said Bill Zach, a third-generation homebuilder. His family business, the Zach Building Co. in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area, is mainly focused on single-family units.

To Zach, that his firm is still in business when so many of his competitors have gone bust represents some success.

"It used to be my competition was every guy that owned a pick-up truck and called himself a builder. Hundreds of them," Zach said. "That's no longer the case, those guys are dropping by the wayside."

But there are signs of a turn and signals that the housing market may be close to finding a bottom.

The Architecture Billings Index, a gauge of future construction, picked up last month, breaking above the 50 level to signal growth in billings.

And the stock of homebuilders, as measured by a Dow Jones index, has shot up more than 30 percent since early October.

"Residential construction is finally beginning to rise from its post-recession lows," said Joseph Lavorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank. "The true test for starts and (building) permits, as well as most of the sales metrics, will come during the spring buying season."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45795076/ns/business-real_estate/

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A cost-effective way to fight cancer in Africa and South America Build on Bush?s anti-AIDS efforts

One of the world?s largest foreign aid organizations just announced it will be forced to make substantial program cuts next year. For hundreds of thousands of people, the consequences could be lethal.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced in late November that it had failed to raise the minimum $13 billion needed to support current operations. This is terrible news ? fully 70% of anti-retroviral HIV/AIDS drugs available in poor countries are provided by the fund.

It?s up to the rest of the international community to pick up the slack. Given the uncertain economic climate, it?s all the more important that we are focusing our energies and dollars on programs that will work, sharing resources and maximizing the synergies across disease-specific infrastructures. Fortunately, a large-scale model of an effective program already exists ? and it was started right here in the United States.

The President?s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was created by the George W. Bush administration and extended by President Obama. PEPFAR has proven highly successful in addressing the global AIDS epidemic by expanding the use and availability of topflight anti-retroviral drugs.

After the global HIV/AIDS rate of new infections exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, experts were predicting the disease would kill off entire generations of people in poorer countries. PEPFAR was a cornerstone in the international effort to check the spread of the epidemic. Program officials, making a concerted effort not to trample local medical operations, worked in conjunction with state and municipal authorities to build up medical infrastructure and address the health care challenges specific to local communities. PEPFAR also worked closely with the Global Fund to jointly fund targeted anti-retroviral distribution campaigns in areas worst hit by this disease.

In large part because of PEPFAR, the total number of people living with AIDS has essentially held steady over the past decade, rather than escalating out of control as credible estimates predicted. Today, 33 million people have the disease. Meanwhile, the rate of new HIV infections has dropped by nearly 20% and an estimated 7 million people with HIV infections are currently alive because they now have access to anti-retroviral drugs.

Source: http://feeds.nydailynews.com/~r/nydnrss/tech_guide/~3/MnjfVajzZE0/a-cost-effective-fight-cancer-africa-south-america-article-1.997556

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Military Hazing and Race and Religion

?


Check out Jeff Yang?s excellent Wall Street Journal piece on military hazing, especially in light of the recent incidents with Pvt. Danny Chen and Lance Corporal Henry Lew: Afghanistan Hazing Echoes ?A Few Good Men.?

Jeff interviews Lieutenant Dan Choi, who says:

?You now have a much less diverse army, one whose culture is very southern, very Christian and very white,? says military activist and former Army Lieutenant Dan Choi. ?And anyone who?s a minority in that culture has to accept that they?re an outsider if they want to survive, and try their best to fit in. If you?re different in any regard, you stick out. And the Asian saying applies: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.?

I can definitely see this. The military requires conformity, and if you don?t conform because of race or religion, I can see how some soldiers may want to beat it out of you. It?s hard because military culture prioritizes conformity, while the population of the U.S. is diverse. I like the way Jeff also ends with the story about Civil War Lieutenant General John Schofield, who wrote Schofield?s Definition of Discipline, which all cadets who graduate from West Point and the Air Force Academy must memorize and recite by heart. Here it is in its entirety:

The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling, but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself. While he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect towards others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.

Related posts:

  1. Gays in the Military
  2. Army Psychiatrist Murders 13
  3. The Death of Private Danny Chen
  4. Literature and Religion: Podcast with Kobukson
  5. CNN Heroes
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PhilGonzalez: So You Got an iPad 2? Try These 10 Hip #Accessories http://t.co/ZclxR6bd via @mashable

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Study on the Status of the Communications Card Market ...

?Abstract? With the rapid development of China?s telecommunications industry , communications card as a mature communication products, because of its flexibility and convenience is adored by consumers. But because of the same quality of the product in the market, intense competition, and the low profits, the card faces with gradually recession and the situation of abandonment by the operator. In this paper, breaking the past set thinking, to capture the business opportunities in market segments, to focus on consumers? differentiation, personalized communications needs of consumers and to study on the personality of consumer behavior, and on the basis of these targeted, from the consumers immediate desire new business opportunities are captured.Focus is on grasp of the real and stimulated potential demand of consumer communications business.Based on the research of operational status communications card market, I analyse the current communication features of the card products, marketing problems and propose ?three new strategy?: The characteristics of the crowd and issued with cards; development of e-cards, expanding channels, creating new Business model; development of derivative features, and promoting product innovation of this development ideas. I put forward a joint enterprise to develop cards for the orientation, development of Internet marketing solutions for e-cards, and the overall market capacity, market competition situation, consumer demand, technology and profitability in a more objective and rational judgement ?of three new Strategy, ? of the feasibility and market receipts,to help the communication card business development of the communications operators.This paper is divided into six parts. The first part of introduction is about the background to the study significance and research methods; second part is about the communications card market survey and research, as the full basis of the paper; the third part of communication Cards marketing problems facing the market, raises the issue of marketing on their own aggregate; fourth part finds the solution for the problem; the fifth part focuses and details communication card products innovation and the development of innovative channels; the sixth part, summed up the conclusions of the article and the inadequacy of the study.

Title: Study on the Status of the Communications Card Market
Category: Management economics
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