Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade Review - Nintendo Life

Obstacle to fun, maybe

If you were to poll gamers at large and ask them what they felt were the worst things about the Wii, chances are you'd hear "waggle" and "bad minigame collections" pretty frequently. In fact they often went hand in hand, and Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is trying its hardest to make sure both of things carry over into the Wii U generation. We can only hope that they don't.

Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade ? it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? ? is, as you might guess, a collection of short games that you can play with up to three friends. You might also guess that the games would revolve around an "obstacle" theme, but you'd be wrong; many of them are standard rounds of target practice, hide and seek, or, erm, picking the balloon with the number two on it after the game tells you to pick the balloon with the number two on it. That last one's not much of a game really, but there you go.

The collection is given a sort of theme park approach, with the games broken up into smaller, unlockable areas. Again, you'd expect the space area to contain space-themed games and the Western area to host games with a cowboy flair but by and large everything is just thrown at the wall with no regard for where it lands, and there's no telling what you'll encounter where. Fortunately, we guess, whatever you encounter will be reliably awful, so there's that to look forward to.

The games are hosted by a dead-eyed teddy bear with a stare so cold and creepy that we were constantly on edge for that inevitable moment when he'd pull out a knife. Half of his face is frozen in a bizarre semblance of what we can only assume is the developer's attempt at "'tude", while the other half just passively smiles. This, combined with the fact that his lips don't move when he talks, makes it seem like we've walked in on the bear in the middle of a massive coronary that's doomed to go untreated.

The entire package feels like a holdover from the previous generation; none of the graphics come anywhere near the capabilities of Nintendo's newest console, and the Wii U GamePad barely factors in at all, with each of the games requiring instead a Wii Remote and, often, Nunchuk. This means Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade plays identically to every other poorly-responsive, uninteresting, lazily slapped together mini-game collection you've been doing your best to avoid since 2006.

Every game supports four players; if there are fewer human players than that, the CPU will fill the void. Human players can enter any name for themselves that they like, but oddly the game also requires you to choose a separate name for the bear to call you by. This is because the developers only gave the bear a limited bank of audio files from which to draw, so you may tell the game that your name is William, but then you'll have to choose whether it calls you Chano or Shamus or Julio instead. It's bizarre to say the least.

In each game you'll compete against the other three for points. This nearly always involves waggling as quickly as possible, but sometimes it can rely on maneuvering crosshairs around the screen instead. No game is any more complicated than that, and it often feels as though the developer went out of its way to assign the most frustrating control schemes possible. Some games, for instance, are races that see you hopping from platform to platform. Despite the fact that each player has a perfectly good D-Pad and A button to use, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade requires you to thrust the Wii Remote in the direction you wish to jump. Not that it cares where you actually thrust; it's a crapshoot whether or not the game will ever recognise your input. It's a needless and mandatory use of the least reliable control scheme possible, which is pretty much par for the course here.

The Wii U GamePad only comes into play during the bonus rounds. The rest of the time it features the glass-eyed bear glowing creepily at you and loudly narrating minor gameplay developments without moving his mouth. During the bonus rounds the winner of the previous game spins a roulette wheel, which determines what the bonus game will be. Here the GamePad is used differently than the Wii Remotes, but it's certainly no more fun, and it really does feel like a tacked on addition to what's essentially a low budget Wii cash-in.

The sound effects are beyond terrible, as the four players on-screen avatars laugh and hoot and holler over each other throughout every event, turning everything into a clamorous, cluttered aural monstrosity. The bear barks meaningless platitudes about every minor thing that happens ? from a player grabbing a coin to a player not grabbing a coin ? and while you're not likely to come away from this game feeling fulfilled you're more or less guaranteed a headache.

We'd like to close on a positive note of some kind, but we genuinely can't. This is an absolutely terrible game, and you don't want it. Trust us.

As clunky and poorly considered as its title, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is awful. Relying entirely on the shallow and repetitive waggle that should have died along with Wii, there's absolutely no reason to recommend this obnoxious, screaming, clattering monstrosity at all. It's mindless entertainment at its worst, but, on the bright side, it might be the perfect way to cure your childrens' burgeoning video game addiction.

Source: http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/wiiu/family_party_30_great_games_obstacle_arcade

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Barge with 80,000 gallons oil hits bridge, leaks

A barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil hit a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Miss., on Sunday, spilling light crude into the Mississippi River and closing the waterway for eight miles in each direction, the Coast Guard said. A second barge was damaged.

Investigators did not know how much had spilled, but an oily sheen was reported as far as three miles downriver of Vicksburg after the 1:12 a.m. incident, said Lt. Ryan Gomez of the Coast Guard's office in Memphis, Tenn.

Authorities were still trying to determine the source of the leak, but it appeared to be coming from one or two tanks located at the stern of the first barge, Gomez said. He said there was no indication that any oil was leaking from the second vessel, and said it was still unclear whether the second barge also hit the bridge or was damaged through a collision with the first.

"Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened," he said.

United States Environmental Services, a response-and-remediation company, was working to contain the oil with booms before collecting it and transferring it to one of the barge's undamaged tanks, then ultimately to a separate barge, Gomez said. He could not say how long the river would remain closed in the area. Five northbound and two southbound vessels were waiting to pass, he said.

"It's still considered an active leak," Gomez said. "We don't have an estimate or accurate amount of what was released."

Railroad traffic was allowed to continue after the bridge was found safe for trains, Petty Officer Carlos Vega said.

The barges are owned by Third Coast Towing LLC, Gomez said. According to a website listed under that name, the company is located in Corpus Christi, Texas. No one answered the telephone at the company Sunday night.

Both vessels were being pushed by the tugboat Nature's Way Endeavor. The website for Nature's Way Marine LLC of Theodore, Ala., identifies the vessel as a 3,000-horsepower, 90-foot-long boat, making it the largest and highest-powered of the company's five tugs. It was built in 1974 and underwent a complete rebuild in 2011, according to the company.

A company manager referred calls to the Coast Guard command center at Vicksburg.

The last time an oil spill closed a portion of the lower Mississippi River, it was for less than a day last February after an oil barge and a construction barge collided, spilling less than 10,000 gallons of oil. In 2008, a fuel barge collided with a tanker and broke in half, dumping 283,000 gallons of heavy crude into the waterway, and closing the river for six days.

The oil sheen from Sunday's incident was unlikely to pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico, located 344 river miles south of Vicksburg.

Residents and businesses in Gulf Coast states are still recovering from the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

___

McConnaughey reported from New Orleans. Associated Press Writer Lisa J. Adams in Atlanta contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.natureswaymarine.com/default.asp

Information about Endeavor: http://bit.ly/VefsWz

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barge-80-000-gallons-oil-hits-bridge-leaks-214747183.html

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Wait Six Months Between New Quotes to Save Money on Car Insurance

Saving money on car insurance is never as easy as the commercials claim it is, and the savings are never as large as they promise, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to save anything. If you wait six months between farming quotes, insurance companies will consider you a "new" or "not returning" customer, and offer you better promotional rates.

This tip comes from Daniel at Sweating the Big Stuff, who explains that he's worked at a large insurance company in the past, and while the savings from using this technique aren't huge (he saved about $43 every six months - little more than $7/mo), they're something:

Knowing from my previous job at a large insurance company that users who request quotes more than 6 months apart will be offered better rates, I waiting more than 6 months from my last request and went online to see how much I could save. It turns out that for comparable insurance (actually, slightly more coverage), I am able to save $43 over the 6 month term.

He also goes on to explain that if an insurance company claims to be able to save you hundreds of dollars on insurance, they're probably just going to under-insure you by offering less coverage than you're used to having, or by jacking up your deductible. Very few people actually save hundreds just by switching insurance companies. Still, you can save a few bucks here or there, you just have to time your shopping right.

How Much Do You Need To Save To Switch Insurance Companies? | Sweating the Big Stuff

Photo by andrew steinmetz.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/V3HZboI1S2s/wait-six-months-between-new-quotes-to-save-money-on-car-insurance

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French, Malians secure Timbuktu in rebel-held north

BAMAKO/SEVARE, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops were restoring government control over the fabled Saharan trading town of Timbuktu on Sunday, the latest gain in a fast-moving French-led offensive against al Qaeda-allied fighters occupying northern Mali.

The Islamist militant rebels have pulled back northwards to avoid relentless French air strikes that have destroyed their bases, vehicles and weapons, allowing French and Malian troops to advance rapidly with air support and armored vehicles.

A Malian military source said the French and Malian forces reached "the gates of Timbuktu" late on Saturday without meeting resistance from the Islamist insurgents who had held the town since last year.

The French and Malians controlled the airport and were working on securing the town, a UNESCO World Heritage site and labyrinth of ancient mosques and monuments and mud-brick homes, ready to flush out any Islamist fighters still hiding.

"Timbuktu is delicate, you can't just go in like that," the source, who asked not to be named, said.

On Saturday, the French-Malian offensive recaptured Gao, which along with Timbuktu was one of three major northern towns occupied last year by Tuareg and Islamist rebels who included fighters from al Qaeda's North Africa wing AQIM.

The Malian military source, and at least one resident of Gao who travelled south out of the city, said there were still rebel "pockets of resistance" there, and that government troops were carrying out house-to-house searches.

The third town, Kidal, in Mali's rugged and remote northeast, remains in rebel hands.

The United States and Europe are backing the U.N.-mandated Mali operation as a counterstrike against the threat of radical Islamist jihadists using the West African state's inhospitable Sahara desert as a launch pad for international attacks.

One Timbuktu resident now outside the town said a friend inside had sent him SMS messages saying he had seen government troops on the streets, but gave no more details.

Fighters from the Islamist alliance in north Mali, which groups AQIM with Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA, had destroyed ancient shrines sacred to moderate Sufi Moslems in Timbuktu, provoking international outrage.

They had also imposed severe sharia, Islamic law, including amputations for thieves and stoning of adulterers.

As the French and Malian troops push into northern Mali, African troops from a continental intervention force expected to number 7,700 are being flown into the country, despite delays due to logistical problems and the lack of airlift capacity.

FEARS OF GUERRILLA WAR

France sent warplanes and 2,500 troops to Mali after its government appealed to Paris for help when Islamist rebels early in January launched an offensive south towards the capital Bamako. They seized several towns, since retaken by the French.

In the face of the two-week-old French-Malian counter offensive, the rebels seemed to be pulling back north into the trackless desert wastes and mountain fastnesses of the Sahara.

Military experts fear they could carry on a grueling hit-and-run guerrilla war against the government from there.

A leader of Mali's main Tuareg insurgent movement, MNLA, whose initial separatist rebellion in the north was hijacked by al Qaeda and its local Malian allies, offered help from his group's desert fighters to the French-led offensive.

Speaking from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh said the MNLA was preparing to attack the withdrawing al Qaeda-allied Islamist forces and its leaders, whom he said were hiding in the Tidmane and Tigharghar mountains in the Kidal region that borders with Algeria.

"The MNLA is on maximum alert," Assaleh said.

At Konna, a town 500 km (312 miles) southeast of Gao recaptured from the rebels earlier this month, some people said they were still afraid.

"No-one believes the rebels will give up without resisting. They may be regrouping for an attack, there is fear of a guerrilla war," said Salou Toure, a middle-aged resident of Timbuktu who had fled that town three months ago.

Malian Captain Faran Keita, an army officer in the central Mopti region, said: "We're at war against terrorists, even here someone with an explosive vest could attack."

AFRICA CHIDED FOR SLOW RESPONSE

Malian government control was restored in Gao on Saturday, after French special forces backed by warplanes and helicopters seized the town's airport and a key bridge. Around a dozen "terrorists" were killed in the assault, while French forces suffered no losses or injuries, France's defense ministry said.

Officials said the mayor of Gao, Sadou Diallo, who had taken refuge in Bamako during the Islamist occupation, had been reinstalled at the head of the local administration.

The robust military action by France over the past two weeks in its former Sahel colony has left African leaders embarrassed about the continent's inability to quickly field its own force.

At an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, outgoing AU chairman Thomas Boni Yayi, president of Benin, criticized Africa's slow response to the Islamist insurgency in Mali.

"How could it be that when faced with a danger that threatens its very foundations, Africa, although it had the means to defend itself, continued to wait," Yayi said.

Around 1,900 African troops, including Chadian, have been deployed to Mali so far as part of the planned U.N.-backed African intervention force, known as AFISMA. Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Niger and Chad are providing troops. Burundi and other nations have pledged to contribute.

OFFERS OF FUNDS, HELP

The United States and Europe, while providing airlift and intelligence support to the anti-militant offensive in Mali, are not planning to send in any combat troops. Washington agreed to fly tankers to refuel French warplanes.

The AU is expected to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in logistical support and funding for the African Mali force at a conference of donors to be held in Addis Ababa on January 29.

European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs told Reuters in Addis Ababa he believed enough funds would be offered to sustain the African troop intervention for a year.

Piebalgs added the latest estimated cost of the operation he had seen was 430 million euros ($579.42 million). The EU had already committed to provide 50 million euros ($67.37 million) to pay the salaries of the non-Malian African troops.

Japan would pledge over $100 million at the donor conference for humanitarian and social development in Mali and the wider Sahel, a Japanese official in Addis Ababa told Reuters.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi also offered in Addis Ababa to work with the African Union to help resolve the crisis in Mali. Salehi said Iran was ready to offer assistance to Mali's tens of thousands of refugees and displaced people. ($1 = 0.7421 euros)

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako, Richard Valdmanis in Sevare, Mali, Nathalie Prevost in Ouagadougou, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Richard Lough and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/french-malian-forces-capture-gao-rebel-stronghold-004512113.html

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Ajith speaks about Society, Politics and Democracy

The constitution of India declares India as a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic republic assuring its citizens of justice, equality and liberty. Trend of the day is all the words have been cliched, misunderstood and misconstrued.

Secularism ? a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship. Is India a Secular nation or being played on the basis of vote bank politics.

Democracy and Secularism are being misunderstood as cliched words that are just adjectives for our nation. Time we lend our ears to the actual values that the country lives for.

Ajith has come out with a scathing statement questioning the state of democracy in the country. He believes that words like sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic are grossly misunderstood and misconstrued in the current scenario.

He wondered if India is really a secular country what with the vote bank style of politics, which is in vogue today. This statement comes in the wake of recent events where Kamal Hassan?s Vishwaroopam is being prevented from releasing in Tamil Nadu by certain Muslim political outfits.

Ajith feels it?s high time that we subscribed to the country?s actual values of justice, equality and liberty to all. The star has minced no words and made his disappointment clear.

Source: http://www.southdreamz.com/2013/01/ajith-speaks-about-society-politics-and-democracy.html

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PFT: Revis realizes trade talks all about money

Getty Images

Our pal Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times has written an article that looks at the various challenges the NFL is facing.? One of the biggest arises from persuading fans to choose to attend games over watching them at home.

Late in the item comes an intriguing prediction about the configuration of future NFL stadiums, courtesy of NFL executive V.P. of business operations Eric Grubman.

?What if a new stadium we built wasn?t 70,000, but it was 40,000 seats with 20,000 standing room?? Grubman said.? ?But the standing room was in a bar-type environment with three sides of screens, and one side where you see the field.? Completely connected.? And in those three sides of screens, you not only got every piece of NFL content, including replays, Red Zone [Channel], and analysis, but you got every other piece of news and sports content that you would like to have if you were at home.

?Now you have the game, the bar and social setting, and you have the content.? What?s that ticket worth? What?s that environment feel like to a young person?? Where do you want to be?? Do you want to be in that seat, or do you want to be in that pavilion??

Plenty of people would choose to be in the pavilion, if the price is right.? (And if the beer isn?t priced quite so high.)

Grubman?s example, with a 70,000-seat stadium becoming a 60,000-person hybrid, reflects another inevitable reality for the NFL.? To maintain the buzz of a full stadium, stadiums may need to get smaller.

?A restaurant isn?t as good if there?s only four people in there,? 49ers CEO Jed York said. ?When a restaurant is hustling and bustling, it just feels better, the food tastes better because you see everybody else enjoying it. That?s the same thing for any live event.? Great bands, if you don?t have a great crowd, then the band isn?t quite as good.?

He?s right ? and it?s wise for the league to continuously be thinking about ways to adapt the business model to ensure that business continues to thrive, not only on TV but inside each and every stadium.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/01/26/revis-realizes-trade-talk-traces-to-money/related

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Chameleon star baffles astronomers

Friday, January 25, 2013

Pulsars?tiny spinning stars, heavier than the sun and smaller than a city?have puzzled scientists since they were discovered in 1967.

Now, new observations by an international team, including University of Vermont astrophysicist Joanna Rankin, make these bizarre stars even more puzzling.

The scientists identified a pulsar that is able to dramatically change the way in which it shines. In just a few seconds, the star can quiet its radio waves while at the same time it makes its X-ray emissions much brighter.

The research "challenges all proposed pulsar emission theories," the team writes in the January 25, 2013 edition of the journal Science and reopens a decades-old debate about how these stars work.

Like the universe's most powerful lighthouses, pulsars shine beams of radio waves and other radiation for trillions of miles. As these highly magnetized neutron stars rapidly rotate, a pair of beams sweeps by, appearing as flashes or pulses in telescopes on Earth.

Using a satellite X-ray telescope, coordinated with two radio telescopes on the ground, the team observed a pulsar that was previously known to flip on and off every few hours between strong (or "bright") radio emissions and weak (or "quiet") radio emissions.

Monitoring simultaneously in X-rays and radio waves, the team revealed that this pulsar exhibits the same behaviour, but in reverse, when observed at X-ray wavelengths.

This is the first time that a switching X-ray emission has been detected from a pulsar.

Flipping between these two extreme states?one dominated by X-ray pulses, the other by a highly organized pattern of radio pulses?" "was very surprising," says Rankin.

"As well as brightening in the X-rays we discovered that the X-ray emission also shows pulses, something not seen when the radio emission is bright," said Rankin, who spearheaded the radio observations. "This was completely unexpected."

No current model of pulsars is able to explain this switching behavior. All theories to date suggest that X-ray emissions would follow radio emissions. Instead, the new observations show the opposite. "The basic physics of a pulsar have never been solved," Rankin says.

The research was conceived by a small team then working at the University of Amsterdam, including UVM's Rankin, who has studied this pulsar, known as PSR B0943+10, for more than a decade; Wim Hermsen from SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research in Utrecht, and the lead author on the new paper; Ben Stappers from the University of Manchester, UK; and Geoff Wright from Sussex University, UK.

These researchers were joined by colleagues from institutions around the world to conduct simultaneous observations with the European Space Agency's X-ray satellite, XMM-Newton, and two radio telescopes, the Giant Meter Wave Telescope (GMRT) in India and the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) in the Netherlands, to reveal this pulsar's so-far unique behavior.

"There is a general agreement about the origin of the radio emission from pulsars: it is caused by highly energetic electrons, positrons and ions moving along the field lines of the pulsar's magnetic field," explains Wim Hermsen.

"How exactly the particles are stripped off the neutron star's surface and accelerated to such high energy, however, is still largely unclear," he adds.

By studying the emission from the pulsar at different wavelengths, the team's study had been designed to discover which of various possible physical processes take place in the vicinity of the magnetic poles of pulsars.

Instead of narrowing down the possible mechanisms suggested by theory, however, the results of the team's observing campaign challenge all existing models for pulsar emission. Few astronomical objects are as baffling as pulsars and despite nearly fifty years of study they continue to defy theorists' best efforts.

Of the more than 2000 pulsars discovered to date, a number of them have erratic behavior, with emissions that can become weak or disappear in a matter of seconds but then suddenly return minutes or hours later.

B0943+10 is one of these erratic stars. Discovered at Pushchino Radio Astronomical Observatory near Moscow, "this star has two very different personalities," that were uncovered by Svetlana Suleymanova in the 1980's, says Rankin.

"But we're still in the dark about what causes this, and other pulsars, to switch modes," Rankin says. "We just don't know."

"But the fact that the pulsar keeps memory of its previous state and goes back to it," says Hermsen, "suggests that it must be something fundamental."

Recent studies indicate that the switch between "radio-bright" and "radio-quiet" states is correlated to the pulsar's dynamics. As pulsars rotate, their spinning period slows down gradually, and in some cases the slow-down process has been observed to accelerate and slow down again, in conjunction with the pulsar switching between bright and quiet states.

This correlation between a pulsar's rotation and its emission has led astronomers to wonder about a connection between the star's surface and the much-larger surrounding magnetosphere, which may extend up for 30,000 miles.

These new observations "strongly suggests that a temporary 'hotspot' appears close to the pulsar's magnetic pole which switches on and off with the change of state," said Geoff Wright one of the team's astronomers from the University of Sussex.

But the new results also suggest that something in the whole magnetosphere is changing suddenly and not just at the poles or other hotspots. "Something is happening globally," Rankin says, across the whole star.

In order for the radio emission to vary so radically on the short timescales observed, the pulsar's global environment must undergo a very rapid ? and reversible ? transformation.

"If that is true, it means the entire magnetosphere is alive and connected in very important ways," Rankin says, allowing a change in the pulsar's basic mode of shining in about one second, less time than it takes it to spin once on its axis.

"Since the switch between a pulsar's bright and quiet states links phenomena that occur on local and global scales, a thorough understanding of this process could clarify several aspects of pulsar physics," says Hermsen. "Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to explain it."

The team planned to search for the same pattern in X-rays that has been observed in radio waves ? to investigate what causes this switching behavior. They chose as their subject PSR B0943+10, a pulsar that is well known for its switching behavior at radio wavelengths and for its X-ray emission, which is brighter than might be expected for its age.

"Young pulsars shine brightly in X-rays because the surface of the neutron star is still very hot. But PSR B0943+10 is five million years old, which is relatively old for a pulsar: the neutron star's surface has cooled down by then," explains Hermsen.

Astronomers know of only a handful of old pulsars that shine in X-rays and believe that this emission comes from the magnetic poles ? the sites on the neutron star's surface where the acceleration of charged particles is triggered. "We think that, from the polar caps, accelerated particles either move outwards to the magnetosphere, where they produce radio emission, or inwards, bombarding the polar caps and creating X-ray emitting hot-spots," Hermsen adds.

There are two main models that describe these processes, depending on whether the electric and magnetic fields at play allow charged particles to escape freely from the neutron star's surface. In both cases, it has been argued that the emission of X-rays follows that of radio waves.

Monitoring the pulsar in X-rays and radio waves at the same time, the astronomers hoped to be able to discern between the two models.

"The X-ray emission of pulsar PSR B0943+10 beautifully mirrors the switches that are seen at radio wavelengths but, to our surprise, the correlation between these two emissions appears to be inverse: when the source is at its brightest in radio waves, it reaches its faintest in X-rays, and vice versa," says Hermsen.

The new data also show that the source pulsates in X-rays only during the X-ray-bright phase ? which corresponds to the quiet state at radio wavelengths. During this phase, the X-ray emission appears to be the sum of two components: a pulsating component consisting of thermal X-rays, which is seen to switch off during the X-ray-quiet phase, and a persistent one consisting of non-thermal X-rays.

Neither of the leading models for pulsar emission predicts such behavior.

In the second half of 2013 the team plans to repeat the same study for another pulsar, PSR B1822+09, which exhibits similar radio emission properties but with a different geometry.

In the meantime, these observations will keep theoretical astrophysicists busy investigating possible physical mechanisms that could cause the sudden and drastic changes to the pulsar's entire magnetosphere and result in such a curious flip in how they shine.

###

University of Vermont: http://www.uvm.edu

Thanks to University of Vermont for this article.

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

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126470/Chameleon_star_baffles_astronomers

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A Dictionary of Education (Oxford Paperback Reference)

26 Jan 2013

cyberaty / Education & Reference / Dictionary, Education, Oxford, Paperback, Reference /

List price: $ 24.99

The field of education is vitally important but it involves a specialized vocabulary and terminology which may be unfamiliar to those new to the discipline. The new Dictionary of Education provides clear and concise definitions for 1,250 terms that anyone studying education or involved in teaching is likely to encounter. Coverage includes all sectors of education: pre-school, primary, secondary, further and higher education, special needs, adult and continuing education, and work-based learning. It also includes major legislation, key figures and organizations, and national curriculum and assessment terminology. The dictionary features entry-level web links, accessible and kept up to date via the Dictionary of Education companion website. Detailed appendices include a timeline summary of landmark educational legislation since 1945 and a glossary of acronyms. In addition, there is a useful, fully cross-referenced section of comparative terms used in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, an

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Source: http://atixi.com/a-dictionary-of-education-oxford-paperback-reference/

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Pentagon lifting ban on women in combat, opening new opportunities

Chiefs of the individual service branches are being told to submit a plan to implement the new policy to the secretary of Defense by May.

By Anna Mulrine,?Staff writer / January 23, 2013

Spc. Erica Taliaferro, a soldier from 549th MP Company, Task Force Bronco, patrols in Pachir wa Agam district in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan last year. The Pentagon has decided to allow women to serve in combat.

Erik De Castro/Reuters/File

Enlarge

At the direction of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the Pentagon is announcing tomorrow that it will allow women to serve on the front lines of battle, according to top Pentagon officials.

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This ruling would overturn a 1994 ban on women in combat.

The chiefs of the individual service branches are being told to submit a plan to implement the new policy to the secretary of Defense by May, according to a senior Pentagon official.

However, the Joint Special Operations Command, which is responsible for Navy SEALs and Delta Force commando units, will have longer, until 2016, ?to take a look and see how that would impact? the Special Operations Forces, according to a senior Pentagon official.

The new policy will upend previous prohibitions on women in combat, opening thousands of new jobs to women.

Whereas before forces had to request special exceptions for women to be attached to combat units, now they will have to explain why women should not be allowed to be part of units on the front lines of battle.?

?Now they will have to request permission to have exclusion,? the senior Pentagon official says. ?It?s a reversal of paradigms.?

There was some disagreement between "uniforms and suits" over how quickly the combat exclusion policies should be lifted, with some uniformed officers arguing for the policy not to be put in place before 2016.?

Major combat operations in Afghanistan are expected to end by 2014.

"This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of Defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," according to a senior defense official.

The policy will be put in place as ?a progression of sorts,? says the Pentagon official, and will be expected to be fully in place by 2016.

Retired Col. Peter Mansoor, who commanded a brigade in Iraq and served as the executive officer for Gen. David Petraeus, says he believes the combat exclusion policies should be lifted.

"Certainly, in the types of wars that we've been fighting recently, women have already been serving in combat roles and they have been much needed," says Mr. Mansoor, a professor of military history at Ohio State University.?"I think opening up all positions to women is inevitable."

That said, he adds, "There are huge physical differences between men and women, and I think what we'll find is a very small sliver of women will meet the demands as they currently exist."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/wjcVFgtz6E0/Pentagon-lifting-ban-on-women-in-combat-opening-new-opportunities

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Republican chair re-elected, promises GOP for 'everyone'

CHARLOTTE, N.C.?The Republican National Committee re-elected Reince Priebus to a second term as the party organization's chairman Friday. He will serve for two more years.

In his acceptance speech, Priebus focused on widespread criticism after the November presidential election that Republicans were perceived as a party for the privileged few. While he didn't specifically mention Mitt Romney's candid remark during the campaign that "47 percent" of the voting population would never support his candidacy, Priebus took pains to repudiate the notion that the Republican party is a place for only some voters, and vowed to create a "permanent" Republican presence in historically Democratic areas.

"We want to be Republicans for everybody. We have to take our message of opportunity where it's not being heard. We have to build better relationships in minority communities, urban centers and college towns. We need a permanent, growing presence," Priebus said. "It doesn't matter where you live, who you are, what you look like, or what your last name is. Because we will be a party for everyone, everywhere."

Committee members attending the conference concede that bringing in voters who supported Democrats in 2012?particularly minorities?will be an uphill challenge. While Priebus' address to the 168 RNC committee members carried themes of repentance for Republicans sins and admissions of failure in the past, it included promises to promote candidates who would work for the vote of all Americans.

"We must compete in every state and every region, building relationships with communities we haven't before," he said. "We must be a party concerned about every American in every neighborhood."

For those who may have been turned off by the party in 2012, Priebus asked for another chance.

"We want to earn your trust again," he said. "To those who have yet to join us, we welcome you with open doors and open arms. This is your home, too. There's more that unites us than you know."

The RNC in December commissioned a task force to analyze the 2012 presidential contest and gather input about the party's strategy for elections ahead. They plan to reveal their findings in March.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/reince-priebus-elected-republican-national-committee-chair-184700993--election.html

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Increase your company productivity: Tell staff to ... - Business Matters

If your employees don't work from home you're missing out on huge benefits, including increased productivity, reduction on your overhead cost, as well as a happy workforce. Why I think every small business should have a work-from-home program work.

I spend a lot of time with small business owners, either Business Matters readers, Trends Research panelists, or through the mentoring I do directly or through my involvement with The Prince?s Trust or Startup Britain and I amazed that many of them don?t, or won?t, allow employees to remote-work.

I have been doing this myself and allowing my employees to do the same for a few years now and I believe business owners? objections are out of date and misguided. You don?t need to see all of your staff everyday, you just need to know that they are working everyday!

The Capital Business Media office is in London?s Canary Wharf and prior to last years Olympic and Paralympic Games I received numerous warning from about 18months out about how bad the traffic flow through the area was going to be and how staff should avoid the area. A problem when you have a staff of twenty five in a deadline based business!

We all know that todays technology allows employees to be productive from almost anywhere. One of the members of the editorial team says that some of his best writing is done at the local Starbucks or while sitting at home of an evening un-pestered by the phone, colleagues, or the ping of incoming emails. I myself far prefer to look at detailed spreadsheets of an evening for similar reasons.

We are not alone. Companies large and small have implemented flexible work schedules, including full home-working and offering this option can definitely lead to a happier and more productive workforce.

The direct costs to an employer in offering this facility is also far less than you would expect, and when factoring in physical office costs + a possible boost in productivity it will probably add and not detract from your bottom line.

But that?s not to say a work-from-home policy is something to enter into lightly. It must be implemented correctly to get the greatest benefit. Here are five steps you should take when considering allowing staff to work from home.

It is also not just established companies who should be re-thinking their processes as why if you are just starting out do you need to have an office cost on your overhead?

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are a bunch of rule breakers, part of the whole benefit to being a small company is that you can react to things at a James Bond Sunseeker?esq pace compared to the Oil Tanker manoeuvre pace of larger rivals. ?Most SME owners are therefore opposed to having too many rules and policies, preferring to keep the company structure loose and flexible, I know I am.

But for issues like home-working, I have learned it?s important to set the ground rules for your employees. Many workers actually perform better with a clear structure.

The guidelines need to include direction on when and how you will allow home/flexible working. A prime example is the recent disruption following the snow fall. If a staff member is going to battle their way in arriving at 10.15 and wanting to leave at 4.15, why make them do that?

Also is this something that employees have to earn? Do they need to reach a certain job title or have been with the company a specific length of time?

Is there a limit or a framework?a certain number of days per month or per week? How do work from home days link to school holiday periods or holidays? Employees always want to ?work from home? the days before or after a holiday: Are you ok with that?

Can a home working policy be universal or are there specific roles in your organisation which are not possible or suitable?

Use home working to your advantage.
Provide a clear distinction between what is a work from home day and what is a ?holiday/annual leave? day. For example, I encourage employees to work from home if they have a doctor?s or dentist appointment. In my experience, coming in and out of the office around the appointment is disruptive and unproductive. Keeping the day flexible allows the employee to get their tasks accomplished on their own schedule.

On the other hand, if an employee needs to stay home with a sick child, that may not qualify as a home working day, since their focus is not likely to be on their job.

You might also think about using home-working as part of a salary review process. I am quite happy for London Underground to give my staff a ?1,500.00 bonus as they no longer have to buy an annual season ticket to get to work, it means we don?t have to!

Trust & control measures are key
In all of my conversation on this subject, their biggest objection to home working was reduced productivity. But in the same breath most admitted they spend a lot of time on work outside the office, often accomplishing a great deal. In most case their barrier was pretty basic: a lack of trust in their employees.

A year out from the Olympic Games we closed the entire office for a whole week as a dry run to what we would plan to do during the games themselves and productivity went up by just over 20 per cent. There was also more creativity and new ideas coming in, and whilst staff didn?t know it at the time we were able to see what time what time their turned their office phone on and logged into the server and, on average, it was the time that they would leave the house to begin their commute, so there was an average of two hours extra per day being worked.

Yes, we repeated the exercise during the games themselves and whilst there was a general reduction of business activity across many parts and sectors of the UK during the games and we definitely benefited from this decision.

We have invested very heavily in cloud based applications to enable this to work seamlessly, so a cloud based phone system means that regardless of where the staff member is sitting ? Canary Wharf, deepest Essex or in my case recently Washington ? as long as it is plugged into a Broadband line it will ring and react identically. Other staff members can see when it is on, when it is engaged, can transfer calls as though they were sitting feet away, and the office-wide voicemail system tuns identically and is backed up in the cloud.

All stall now have laptops and we have moved to Google Business Apps for email and traditional data storage, which each member of staff having 100GB of space.

Our contact database runs on the SalesForce?platform as does some bespoke applications that we have had developed for Trends Research surveys and email newsletter management for our magazines and marketing solutions.

We would have lost a great team member recently if we had not taken this route, as the financial controller for Trends Research, who after giving birth to her first child, felt unable to return to work which involved a one and a half hour commute both ways.

That wasn?t a problem as that company runs it?s accounts on KashFlow?and when linked to our booking system and by either emailing or using viapost for to mail invoices and statements it doesn?t matter where she is! Plus as a cloud based system, if I want to pull up a report I don?t have to go to her desk and ask her to do it and hang around the printer for it to pop out, I log in and do it myself in seconds. The only thing she can?t do is bank cheques, but we have a process for that.

If you?re concerned about productivity or accountability, have clear ground rules that apply to employees working from home. For example, presence in meetings is still expected. If you have or want to introduce conference or video calling this is easily done and very cost effectively.

Phone calls, voicemails and emails need the same level of responsiveness as one would expect from those working in the office.?Across the Capital Business Media group of companies, we use instant messenger linked to both our phone system and SalesForce Chatter to communicate, and it is a requirement that a work from home employee be signed into the system so they are accessible.

Simply put: This is is a day away from the office, not a day to ignore the office. Employees are expected to participate even if not present.

So how do you quantify if home or flexible working is for your business? With many roles this is easy to quantify. It might be the number of calls a customer service representative handles in the office vs. when working from home. Our Trends Research staff do a lot of report writing for our customers and for some of our employees, there is a marked improvement in the report progress completed at home versus in office. In fact so much so, that our analysts roles are now home based and they only come into the office for meetings. The same is in fact true of some of the digital team working on Business Matters including this very website.

For other jobs, it may be a judgement call to determine if productivity remains at least consistent or improves. I did find that a productive and effective sales team need to thrive off each other and the sales target looming large on the whiteboard above their heads, and our creative studio, with their 30? monitors, scanners and photo libraries also need to remain office based.

Allowing employees the flexibility to work from home at least one day a week, and more with others, also helps solve the problem you have when growing a company as bums on seats, the desks, all of the hidden never calculated costs that goes into taking on additional staff is either reduced or removed.

Home working also reduces your company?s carbon footprint, which is an essential requirement when you are tendering for local or central government projects or work from large organisations.

Home and flexible working also increases employees? quality of life, and since we have been operating this system our staff retention rate has increased to over 90 per cent.

Know when it?s not working.
Managers need to be flexible and adjust their management style. A micro-manager may not embrace the idea of not seeing people at their desks and may need some coaching on how to loosen the reins and trust their employees to get the job done.

I used to be a terrible micro-manager and obsessive about detail, but by choosing systems and procedures carefully you can actually get more detailed data and at an instant. Just moving from an Act database and external mailing system to an integrated SalesForce application saw our capital expenditure cost repaid in three months. That was 18 months ago?

If some of the roles are non-client facing, but deadline driven the results are in deadlines still being maintained and the work produced at the same consistent standard. Working with the founder of a fashion company I have invested in, we changed the company ethos and he now spends at least two days out of the office working either from home or at one of two members clubs the company joined and sales have risen as he is seeing, and being seen by more clients whilst also being able to gain energy and inspiration from his surroundings and not the same four walls of his office and the staff on the payroll.

What I try to impress on entrepreneurs and fellow business owners is that home and flexible, when handled effectively, can, and will, give your company a competitive advantage. In addition to boosting productivity, it can also be an important recruiting and retention tool to differentiate your company from your competition.?

Following the sale of a regional media company and online recruitment company, Richard founded a private equity company which has gone on to own The Capital Business Media Group of companies (owners of Business Matters) and is regarded as one of the leading experts of the UK SME sector and speaks across Europe and the US about business management. A keen angel investor and advisor to new start companies also a StartUp Britain local Champion.

Source: http://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/advice/14481/increase-your-company-productivity-tell-staff-to-stay-at-home/

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New rental tower planned for Chelsea site - Real Estate Weekly

11:13 am, January 9, 2013

American Development Group, LLC, along with Langsam Property Services Corp., have closed on the land acquisition of 219 West 28th Street.

The property, a vacant lot and an existing structure valued at $42 million, according to a spokeswoman, was acquired for $38 million. The total valuation of the project will be $150 million, added the spokeswoman.

219 West 28th Street will be a new construction development project featuring a 116,000 s/f residential tower with 150 rental units, ground floor retail space and an underground automated garage from AutoMotion Parking Systems, LLC.

Developed as a part of the City?s new inclusionary housing program, the project will include 80% market rate and 20% middle income rental units. The project is slated to commence construction in June 2013.

?Due to the favorable zoning and inclusionary component of the site, this acquisition represents another outlet for ADG Langsam to create a successful high end project in a fantastic location,? said Perry Finkelman, CEO of American Development Group, LLC.

?The unique zoning of the property allowed us to extract the highest value, as well as allow a creative approach to affordability of both middle income and market rate units.?

EDMOND LEVY

The seller, a long term owner/operator, was represented by Buchbinder and Warren Realty LLC. The buyer was represented by Edmond Levy of Cornerstone Properties, Richard Sussman from the law offices of Rosenberg and Estis, and David Cohen from the law offices of Moritt, Hock and Hameroff.

Other posts by REW Staff

Source: http://www.rew-online.com/2013/01/09/new-rental-tower-planned-for-chelsea-site/

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Technology Trends that Will Impact Your Business in 2013 | NIRIX ...

As we welcome the New Year it is a perfect time to look ahead at the trends in technology and offer our predictions. Like most years, there are many exciting things happening in the tech world. Knowing which will fizzle out, which will develop slowly and which will become the new standard will give any business valuable insight in its development. The following are a couple technology trends we predict will impact your business and the businesses you work with in one way or another.

Cloud Computing Gives the Competitive Edge

This revolutionary technology has been tinkered with and has become a standard for many consumer tasks from photo and document archiving to accessing music to online banking. In 2013 we expect many businesses to adopt this cost saving technology as it has near limitless expandability for a wide range of uses. The fact that it can be used for just about any type of computing, makes it a safe bet for growth in 2013.

Until now cloud computing has been faced with a stereotype of being less secure than more costly local solutions. This combined with the feeling of losing control over their IT systems has helped IT professionals cling to more traditional solutions. Businesses have wisely moved slowly towards this technology and allowed all the bugs and security risks to be ironed out. In 2013 we will see more businesses take the plunge into cloud computing in order to edge out the competition or in some cases remain in the game.

Is 8 the New 7?

While the reception of Windows 8 has been anything but overwhelming, we predict that many companies will begin to experiment with Microsoft?s new operating system. This is because more than anything else, most businesses like consistency and ease of use. Having the ability to use one operating system across three major types of hardware (mobile phones, tablets/laptops and PCs) system will be very tempting to many businesses.

Like past versions of Windows it is always wise to let the current version mature before betting your business?s operations on the platform. With the new lower price, it will make it easy for many companies to make the jump from Windows XP or 7 to the latest Microsoft OS. Even though it is easy to make the change we don?t see that happening until 2014 or at the earliest late 2013.

Adaptable & Effective Workspaces

Businesses have long been using Smart Phones for years, starting with Canada?s own BlackBerry. In 2013 the trend of smaller, more portable devices will continue in the form of tablet computers. You?ll see more and more employees of all types of companies moving away from a static workstation with a PC and towards becoming more mobile and bringing their tablet with them. This adoption of technology is impacting the physical workspaces we are familiar with. Many office buildings are removing the assigned seating structure and allowing their employees to choose any available desk each day to work at.

With the new and more powerful tablet computers combined with the much faster 4G internet connections employees can get their work done almost anywhere. This increased efficiency and added benefits to the employees will be a welcome change for many in 2013.

Source: http://www.nirix.com/technology-trends-that-will-impact-your-business-in-2013/

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Lil Twist: Bringing Down Justin Bieber?

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Source: http://www.newformant.com/index.php/talk/viewthread/1387/

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Obama digs in for a fight on Hagel, Brennan picks

President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, to announce that he is nominating Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan, right, as the new CIA director; and former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, left, as the new defense secretary. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, to announce that he is nominating Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan, right, as the new CIA director; and former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, left, as the new defense secretary. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Digging in for a fight, President Barack Obama riled Senate Republicans and some Democrats, too, on Monday by nominating former senator and combat veteran Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon and anti-terrorism chief John Brennan as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hagel and Brennan, in separate Senate confirmation hearings, will face sharp questions on a range of contentious issues, including U.S. policy about Israel and Iran, targeted drone attacks and harsh interrogation tactics. Of the two men, Hagel is expected to face a tougher path, though both are likely to be confirmed.

Hagel would be the first enlisted soldier and first Vietnam veteran to head the Pentagon.

"These two leaders have dedicated their lives to protecting our country," Obama said, standing alongside them and the men they would succeed during a ceremony in the White House East Room. "I urge the Senate to confirm them as soon as possible so we can keep our nation secure and the American people safe."

For Obama, a pair of combative confirmation hearings could turn into a distraction as he opens his second term. But the president signaled he was ready to take that risk.

Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, has been criticized as hostile toward Israel and soft on Iran. Opponents also have highlighted his 1998 comments about an ambassador nominee whom he called "openly, aggressively gay" ? a comment for which he recently apologized.

Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, was under consideration to run the agency after Obama won the 2008 election but withdrew his name amid criticism from liberal activists who questioned his connection to the harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA during the George W. Bush administration.

One of Hagel's toughest critics, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called his former colleague's foreign policy views "outside the mainstream" and said he would be "the most antagonistic secretary of defense toward the state of Israel in our nation's history."

Perhaps even more concerning for Hagel's prospects has been the tepid response from some Democrats. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said Hagel had earned the right to a full and fair confirmation hearing, but he reserved judgment on whether he would back him. And Maryland's Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin said he and other lawmakers "have questions that have to be answered" specifically on Hagel's views on Iran and Israel.

Obama called Hagel "the leader our troops deserve" and someone who could make "tough fiscal choices" in a time of increasing austerity. The Pentagon is facing the potential of deep budget cuts in the coming months.

The 66-year-old former senator has defended his record on Israel and Iran. In an interview Monday with the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star newspaper, Hagel accused his opponents of having "completely distorted" his views.

Hagel has criticized discussion of a military strike by either the U.S. or Israel against Iran. During his tenure in the Senate, he voted against unilateral economic sanctions on Tehran, though he supports the joint international penalties Obama also prefers. Hagel also irritated some Israel backers with his reference to the "Jewish lobby" in the United States.

The White House focused instead Monday on the military record of Hagel, who was awarded two Purple Hearts.

"Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction," Obama said. "He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that's something we only do when it's absolutely necessary."

The president, who prefers to keep a tight inner circle, has close ties to both Hagel and Brennan. Obama and Hagel served together in the Senate and made several trips overseas. Brennan has become one of the president's most trusted advisers, working with him during the planning of the raid that led to the death of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and holding broad authority over the administration's counterterrorism operations.

If confirmed, Hagel and Brennan will join Secretary of State nominee John Kerry as Obama's key national security advisers in his second term. Kerry, a longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts, is expected to be easily confirmed by his Capitol colleagues.

At the top of Obama's national security agenda will be winding down the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Key decisions on troop withdrawals are looming, and Hagel is expected to favor a more rapid drawdown than some generals have suggested. Brennan, having served as Obama's top counterterrorism aide for the past four years, would bring to the CIA a deep understanding of al-Qaida in the region.

For Brennan, Monday's nomination represents a second chance at the spy agency's top job after his withdrawal from consideration in 2008.

In a letter to Obama at that time, Brennan said he was "a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration, such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding."

White House officials say they don't expect Brennan to face similar trouble this time around given his four years of service in the Obama administration.

"The issue has been removed from the debate because the president and John Brennan, as his top counterterrorism adviser, brought those techniques to an end," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.

But some lawmakers and outside groups aren't as easily convinced. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., issued a statement about Brennan saying he had "many questions and concerns about his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration, as well as his public defense of those programs."

Brennan's nomination will also put a spotlight on the administration's controversial drone program. He was the first Obama administration official to publicly acknowledge the highly secretive targeted killing operations, defending the legality of the overseas program and crediting it with protecting American lives and preventing potential terror attacks.

The American Civil Liberties Union voiced its concerns over Brennan's nomination Monday, saying the Senate should not move forward until it is clear the nominee "will end its targeted killing program."

Brennan would replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director who has been acting director since David Petraeus resigned in November after admitting to an affair with his biographer. Hagel would replace retiring Pentagon chief Leon Panetta.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Tom Raum contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-07-Obama-National%20Security/id-9397ed098eb8462bb15dc42d73d5163d

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