John Birch Society protests Belfast's ... - Bangor Daily News

BELFAST, Maine ? The lunchtime crowd walking downtown on Wednesday may have wondered what ICLEI is and why it needed to be kicked out of town, as banners held on all four corners of the intersection of Main and High streets urged be done.

Protesters from the John Birch Society, a conservative group formed in 1958 to push for limited government and personal freedoms, said that the city was a member of the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives. That group advocates for municipal policies that reduce energy consumption and mitigate climate change.

The John Birch Society protesters ? about a dozen in all ? also drew a connection between ICLEI and the United Nations? Agenda 21, a land-use planning initiative.

But it turns out the city is not a member of ICLEI.

A city committee, the Belfast Climate and Energy Committee, joined ICLEI and paid the $600 annual dues a few years ago to get information about how to reduce energy consumption in municipal buildings and promote similar strategies for residences and businesses, Belfast Assistant Planner James Francomano said Wednesday.

Roger Lee, a three-term city councilor seeking a fourth term, was a member of that committee and said Wednesday it is essentially defunct. The city stopped paying dues to ICLEI in 2010, but the organization?s website still lists Belfast as a member.

Hal Shurtleff of Boston, a regional field director of the John Birch Society who was among the protesters, said he concluded that Belfast was a member by reviewing ICLEI?s website. Wednesday?s protest was still valid, he said after the banners were taken down, because ICLEI is part of a larger effort to limit personal freedom.

?ICLEI is one tentacle? of other, larger efforts to impose limits on personal freedom, he said.

Two women holding the banners joined Shurtleff in denouncing ICLEI, saying the organization wanted to prevent people from purchasing certain kinds of vehicles and ending single residences because of their impact on climate change. Shurtleff said climate change was a myth.

Shurtleff is scheduled to present information about Agenda 21 at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, at the Belfast Free Library.

City officials contacted ICLEI Wednesday to ask that Belfast be removed from the list of members.

Lee expressed dismay that ICLEI was cast as a villain.

?They?re a perfectly fine organization. They?re assisting municipalities all over the world,? he said.

Membership allowed the committee to receive software to estimate how energy use might be cut in municipal buildings. Committee members also were able to attend regional meetings to learn what other towns and cities were doing on the energy-efficiency front, Lee said.

?It?s pretty small-scale stuff,? he said. ICLEI does have ?a particular regimen they want you to follow. Our committee never did that.?

The city has improved energy efficiency at City Hall, and plans to do the same at the police station, the Belfast Free Library and the Boat House, Lee said.

A handout given to pedestrians on Wednesday featuring Shurtleff?s photo and biography noted that ? Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced.?

During the protest, Shurtleff said planning and environmental initiatives conflicted with the personal liberty protections of the U.S. Constitution.

Lee remained perplexed.

?It?s hard to even understand [the protesters?] position,? Lee said. ?Apparently there?s something wrong with trying to live sustainably.?

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/10/24/news/midcoast/john-birch-society-protests-belfasts-environmental-affiliation/

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Syria government indicates accepts holiday truce: Russia

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has indicated to Russia that it will accept U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's proposal for a Muslim holiday ceasefire in Syria, Moscow's U.N. envoy said on Wednesday.

"We have had indications that they (Syria's government) are accepting the proposal of Mr. Brahimi," Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council during which Brahimi briefed council members via video link from Egypt.

Brahimi told council members that a final announcement Of a ceasefire with rebels was expected Thursday. Churkin seemed to confirm remarks Brahimi made earlier on Wednesday in Cairo, when he said the government had indicated its acceptance of the proposed truce.

The council issued a statement after the meeting supporting the ceasefire, which would begin on Friday and last for several days at least during the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha, and urging "all regional and international actors to use their influence" to ensure the truce is implemented.

"The members of the Council agreed that an Eid al-Adha ceasefire could be a first step towards a sustainable cessation of all violence," the council said.

After Brahimi spoke to the press in Egypt, the Syrian government appeared to contradict him, saying that its military command was still studying the truce proposal.

"The answer will be announced tomorrow officially speaking," Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters. "We have always been part of the solution, not part of the problem."

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said Brahimi also contacted the opposition to persuade rebels to accept a temporary truce in the 19-month-old conflict that the United Nations says has killed around 30,000 people.

"He had been in touch with various parts of the opposition," Lyall Grant told reporters. "Certainly the Free Syrian Army and other parts of the opposition had indicated that they were prepared to respond if the government took the first step in initiating the ceasefire over the Eid period."

On the way into the council meeting, Churkin said Moscow hoped Brahimi's plan would be successful.

"We support it very strongly," Churkin said. "We worked very hard in support of Mr. Brahimi in making sure there is a chance that might happen."

Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong echoed Churkin's views.

"Hopefully we will see the truce, and also we want to see a sustainable ... cessation of all violence," Li told reporters after the council session.

The United States and European council members blame Russia, a staunch ally and key arms supplier for Assad's government, and China for the council's deadlock on the 19-month-long conflict. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed three resolutions condemning Assad and reject the idea of sanctioning his government.

U.S. BOOSTS 'NON-LETHAL' AID TO REBELS

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington also would like to see an end to the violence.

"And we'd like to see a political transition take hold and begin," she told reporters in Washington in an appearance with the visiting Brazilian foreign minister. "We've been calling for that for more than a year."

She said the United States was increasing its non-lethal support for the Syrian opposition, including working with local councils inside Syria. She said Washington also was working with its friends and allies to promote more cohesion among the disparate Syrian opposition groups with the aim of producing a new leadership council following meetings scheduled for Doha in the next several weeks.

One envoy said Brahimi also told the Security Council that he needs its "strong and unanimous support."

"Another failure would lead to extreme escalation and spillover to other countries," the diplomat, who was inside the meeting, paraphrased Brahimi as saying.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay also emphasized the need for the council to overcome its impasse on Syria in an address to the 193-nation General Assembly.

"While taking into account important political concerns, it is urgent to find ways to avert the massive loss of civilians and human rights violations," Pillay said.

"International law obliges states to protect their people, and where a state manifestly fails to carry out this obligation, then the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," she said.

Russia and China have repeatedly said they refuse to condone outside military intervention in Syria such as the NATO operation to protect civilians in Libya last year that led to the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his death at the hands of rebels who fought to oust him.

Brahimi told the council there was no longer a single safe place for Syrian civilians in the country and that the army continued to shell indiscriminately, diplomats said. He also spoke of a disregard for humanitarian law and human rights on both sides.

"Executions, kidnapping and arbitrary detentions (by the government) continue," a diplomat cited Brahimi as saying.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Editing by Vicki Allen and Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-government-indicates-accepts-holiday-truce-russia-063637750.html

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Women use emoticons more than men in text messaging :-)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2012) ? Women are twice as likely as men to use emoticons in text messages, according to a new study from Rice University.

Emoticons are graphic symbols that use punctuation marks and letters to represent facial expressions to convey a person's mood, help provide context to a person's textual communication and clarify a message that could otherwise possibly be misconstrued.

The study, "A Longitudinal Study of Emoticon Use in Text Messaging from Smartphones," used smartphone data from men and women over six months and aggregated 124,000 text messages. The participants were given free iPhones to use for the test period but didn't know what researchers were investigating.

"We believe that our study represents the first naturalistic and longitudinal study that collects real emoticon use from text messages 'in the wild,'" said Philip Kortum, assistant professor of psychology at Rice and one of the study's authors.

Texting has become one of the most popular forms of communication in society worldwide. This year alone, it is estimated that 8 trillion text messages will be tapped out.

In the Rice study, 100 percent of the participants used emoticons, but they did not use them very often, with only 4 percent of all their sent text messages containing one or more emoticons. Other researchers have found differing rates, but those studies relied on users to self-report their emoticon usage. One benefit of the current field study is the realistic look at the ground truth of what actually occurred and what users really do.

"Texting does not appear to require as much socio-emotional context as other means of nonverbal communications," Kortum said. "It could be due to texting's simplicity and briefer communication, which removes some of the pressures that are inherent in other types of non-face-to-face communication, like email or blogs."

The study also confirms previous research that women are more emotionally expressive in nonverbal communication; however, in this research, the authors found that while women may use emoticons more than men, the men used a larger variety of emoticons to express themselves.

Participants in the Rice study texted a wide variety of emoticons. Seventy-four different emoticons were used, but the top three emoticons -- happy, sad and very happy -- made up 70 percent of the total emoticons sent by the study participants.

Kortum and his co-authors pointed out that their study is a glimpse into the complex nature of real mediated communications. They said that additional inquiry in real-world settings are needed to understand the complexities of human communications through technology.

The study's co-authors were Chad Tossell, Clayton Shepard, Ahmad Rahmati and Lin Zhong, all of Rice University, and Laura Barg-Walkow at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and appeared in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

The data collected from the smartphones included all text messages sent and received with the timestamp, number of words and amount and type of emoticon(s) used. Privacy was maintained by making the users anonymous and by permanently masking the textual content.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University. The original article was written by David Ruth.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/JopJ3K1wsuA/121011102301.htm

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Forget Krypton! Find Superman in Cleveland

11 hrs.

A. Pawlowski , NBC News contributor

With his X-ray vision, experience with flying and penchant for catching the bad guys, the Transportation?Security?Administration could sure use Superman among its ranks.?But you?ll only find the Man of Steel at one airport, greeting travelers and promoting the destination where he came to life.

No, this isn't Krypton, but Cleveland, Ohio, where a permanent Superman exhibit opens on Thursday in the baggage claim area of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, complete with a life-size statue of the?superhero dressed in his iconic blue costume and red cape.

"We expect that it will become the place where people who are trying to meet each other at the airport will say, 'Meet me at Superman,'" said Ricky Smith, the airport director. "We think it?ll be a pretty popular site."

Officials are already having some fun on the airport?s website.

?We?re adding kryptonite to our list of prohibited carry-ons,? a Superman-branded message teases passengers.

So why Cleveland? It was here that science fiction fans Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster became high school friends in the 1930s and together created Superman, one of the most popular and recognizable comic book characters of all time.

Yet many visitors aren't aware of the Cleveland-Superman connection, something local residents and fans wanted to change.

"We?re very proud of Superman, but especially his creators," said Mike Olszewski, president of the Siegel & Shuster Society, a nonprofit organization that has made it its mission to celebrate Cleveland as the "Birthplace of Superman."

The group, founded in 2007, first focused on restoring Jerry Siegel?s house in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland. The effort included putting up a commemorative fence with the familiar ?S? logo and renaming a nearby street ?Lois Lane.?

Then, the society set its sights on creating a Superman presence at the airport.

?After we got done with the house, we thought, a lot of people come through Cleveland airport and may not even know that the house is there, or about Superman?s past in Cleveland,? Olszewski said.

?We thought, Superman is bigger than life, his creators created an international icon and a billion dollar industry as well, let?s make this something special.?

Besides the Superman statue?meant to create a perfect photo op for travelers?the interactive exhibit features a comic book-like background with the Cleveland skyline and ?bubbles? letting visitors know about ?Super-sights,? or places around the city that were important in the history of Siegel and Shuster, Olszewski said.

There are also depictions of phone booths, where Clark Kent changed into his alter ego, and a monitor playing scenes from vintage Superman movies.

Eighty percent of the people coming through the airport will see the display, Olszewski said. The Siegel & Shuster Society raised $45,000 to make it happen and the city embraced the idea.

Cleveland Hopkins International had already experienced Superman?s allure. Each year, the airport puts up variously-themed Christmas trees, and the Superman version?complete with Superman ornaments and other trinkets?is always the most popular, Smith said.

Many people complained that they couldn't get a chance to see the tree because it was on the secure side of the airport, so the exhibit?s location was chosen to make it accessible to everyone, he added.

?We hope that this will kind of break up the anxiety that comes with being in an airport environment, and that for kids it will be a source of entertainment,? Smith said. ?It will set the tone for the experience they will have when they visit the city of Cleveland.?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/itineraries/forget-krypton-find-superman-cleveland-1C6342211

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CSX Corporation Declares Quarterly Dividend - Business Review USA

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --?Earlier today, the board of directors of CSX Corporation (NYSE: CSX) approved a $0.14 per share quarterly dividend on the company's common stock. The dividend is payable on December 14, 2012, to shareholders of record at the close of business on November 30, 2012.

CSX Corporation, based in Jacksonville, Fla., is one of the nation's leading transportation companies, providing rail, intermodal and rail-to-truck transload services. The company's transportation network spans approximately 21,000 miles, with service to 23 eastern states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces. CSX's network connects more than 240 short line railroads and more than 70 ocean, river, and lake ports. More information about CSX Corporation and its subsidiaries is available at www.csx.com. Like us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/OfficialCSX) and follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/CSX).

SOURCE CSX Corporation

Source: http://www.businessreviewusa.com/press_releases/csx-corporation-declares-quarterly-dividend

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