East Coasters warned to stay home as blizzard nears

A. Pawlowski , NBC News ? ? ? 3 hrs.

As a powerful blizzard closes in on the East Coast, airlines have canceled thousands of flights and some city officials are delivering a blunt message: Don't travel if you don't have to.

?Stay off the roads, stay safe," said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

WATCH NOW: Live streaming video of the Northeast blizzard

The National Weather Service is advising Bostonians not to travel after noon on Friday, his office pointed out.

"This is a powerful storm," TODAY meteorologist Al Roker said Friday. "It will probably rank as one of Boston?s top 5 storms before it?s all over."

The city could get more than two feet of snow.

Nervous fliers in the region monitored the weather and scrambled to change plans as airlines pre-emptively canceled more than 2,500 flights in New York and Boston alone, according to FlightStats.com.

FlightAware.com reported early Friday that nearly 2,900 flights had been axed within, into or out of the U.S.

AAA urged travelers to be aware of the hazards of winter driving and to keep up with the changing weather conditions.

Get blizzard updates at Weather.com

"As the storm develops, if conditions are poor and you can avoid traveling on the roadways, do," said AAA spokeswoman Heather Hunter.

"We will be keeping an eye on the storm and helping any of our travelers out there."

On Thursday, the weather system affected Chicago?s O?Hare International, where snow and ice delayed arriving flights by more than two hours at one point on Thursday afternoon. More than 80 flights scheduled to depart from the airport were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.

Airlines and airports in the storm?s path were bracing for its impact.

?We?re monitoring the weather system closely and will adjust our operations accordingly,? said Allison Steinberg, a spokeswoman for JetBlue Airways.

Like most carriers, the airline is giving travelers the chance to reschedule their flights without paying any change and cancellation fees. (For a full list, scroll down to the bottom of the article.)

Related:Latest news on the blizzard

Delta Air Lines urged its passengers to take advantage of the waivers.

?Delta is closely monitoring conditions along the storm's forecast path and encourages customers to consider moving up, postponing or re-routing their travel to avoid possible inconvenience from expected flight delays,? the carrier said in a statement.

Southwest Airlines warned its passengers that flights could be ?delayed, diverted, or canceled.?

Meanwhile, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced it is deploying extra personnel and taking all possible measures to handle any wintry conditions that may develop at JFK International, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International.

The agency noted that its ?winter weather arsenal? includes more than 200 pieces of snow and ice equipment at the airports, including ?melters that can liquefy up to 500 tons of snow an hour? and plows that can clear snow at 40 mph.

Port Authority staff will work around-the-clock in 12-hour shifts during the most severe storms, officials said.

If you are scheduled to fly in the next couple of days, here is a list of airlines offering fee waivers due to the storm:

• American Airlines passengers traveling to, through or from Boston, New York, Montreal and more than 10 other airports can change their plans for free.
• Delta Air Lines? policy covers more than two dozen airports.
• JetBlue Airways will waive change and cancel fees and fare differences for travel to and from a dozen airports.
• Southwest Airlines passengers traveling to, through or from Boston, Newark, and several other cities are eligible to reschedule their flights for free.
• United Airlines' policy covers more than 30 airports.
• US Airways has also relaxed its change-fee policies.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/stay-roads-east-coast-residents-warned-stay-home-winter-storm-1B8290274

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Paper On Conspiratorial Thinking Invokes Conspiratorial Thinking

If you make a habit of reading polls on a a variety of political and social issues, you'll learn a lot about Americans and specifically you might come to the conclusion that about 25-35% of Americans are basically so disconnected from scientific and social reality they're functionally insane and their opinion should ALWAYS and AUTOMATICALLY be classified as "non-truth related".

For instance, and famously, about 46% of Americans don't believe in evolution

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

But also 10% think that prosecutors who send innocent people to jail should not be prosecuted:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-exoneree-testifies-20130204,0,3950542.story?page=2

25% think Obama is not an American citizen:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20056061-503544.html [cbsnews.com]

30%^ think God decides the outcome of sporting events: http://rt.com/usa/news/super-bowl-result-god-337/ [rt.com]

And on and on and on. Watching polls what you'll discover is about 10% of Americans are just outright fascists who wouldn't hesitate to do whatever any right wing authority told them to do, and think it should have been started yesterday. This is also the finding of Bob Altemeyer in his seminal work on authoritarianism :

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ [umanitoba.ca].

right.

About 25-30% believe that events on Earth are assiduously overseen by an all knowing God who "sees them when they're sleeping / and knows if they're awake / and knows if they've been bad of good..." and what happens in everything from their personal life to world events is really of no consequence except to the extent that it is a reflection of an eternal, ongoing battle between good and evil being fought on an unseen cosmic plane. This is something they have this is common with every Muslim extremist who ever strapped a suicide bomb onto himself.

Americans have a deficit of rationality, a deep and persistent belief that something other than outcome based, welfare of humans is the proper measure of human morality, are scientifically illiterate and constitutionally incapable of perceiving in their thinking just the kinds of bugs that the referenced article details.

There's not enough time to reform the American character before we have to take radical and decisive action on global warming. The fact is, democracy stops where science begins. This isn't going to lead to anything good.

The least divisive, least disrupting course of action is for the government to internally and secretly set up an Executive Action team within one the intelligence agencies whose purpose is to discredit, attack and dismantle and neutralize the leaders of the denier terrorist movement. We all know who they are. These *thought leaders* need to be attacked the same way we'd attack any group of terrorists building a bomb named which would have the same long term destructive power as global warming. Denialism is a bomb with the capacity to permanently destroy civilization and the people assembling that bomb are not working in secret. They need to be neutralized and their sources of funding and societal legitimacy attacked through and and all means necessary. They have forfeited their civil rights and constitutional protections. We simply need to deal with them like the world destroying terrorists they are.

You can come to this conclusion now when there's still time to do something about global warming or you can come to this conclusion later, when there's no possibility of doing anything about it and the starvation, the concomitant societal breakdown and mass, uncontrolled immigration, the tidal wave of anti-Western (Big Oil / Big Coal ) terrorism and collapsing centralized governments take not just the denier's civil liberties and Con

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/5qs8wnvFdIs/story01.htm

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In Vegas, Abrams gives few hints about 'Star Wars'

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? A newly announced "Star Wars" sequel was on everyone's mind when J.J. Abrams took the stage Wednesday at a Las Vegas video game conference, but he made only a sideways mention of the film he has been hired to direct.

The reference was a throw-away joke from his last franchise reboot.

The director played a scene from his 2009 "Star Trek" film to illustrate the importance of embroidering films with subtle details, and freeze-framed on a shot of a familiar "Star Wars" robot peeking from space junk.

"So they're looking at all the debris that's out there, and curiously, it's R2D2," he said, drawing a roar of laughter.

Gabe Newell, president of video game developer Valve, shared a stage with Abrams at the Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

"So now I have to go back through your movies looking at all the debris to figure out what movie you're going to direct next?" Newell asked.

Abrams has given die-hard fans few clues about his vision for the seventh live-action "Star Wars" film. He was announced as its director in January.

The Sin City appearance left fans of The Force hungering for more insight.

"I'd love to know who they'll focus on, what character, how far in the future it will be set, things like that," said Sadierose Schwartzmiller, 19, a comic-book creator who won her ticket to the event in an art contest.

Abrams has made a name for himself as a trusted steward of beloved fantasy universes, directing well-received additions to the "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas opened the door to the latest round of spin-offs when he sold his Lucasfilm empire to The Walt Disney Co. for $4.05 billion last fall. The company is planning three sequels and two peripheral movies focusing on characters.

"Episode VII" is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2015.

Last month, Abrams told a group of reporters that he wanted to make sure the sequel was "something that touches people."

On Wednesday, he did give his audience of nerds and gamers one revelation when he announced his intention to collaborate with Newell ? the man behind the hit games "Portal," "Half-Life" and "Counter-Strike."

"There's an idea that we had for a game that we'd like to develop," he said.

Fans wanted more information on that, too.

"If they would reveal even the genre," said Kellen Smalley, 32, a gamer. "If they would bring what J.J. does with stories to the 'Star Wars' games, it would be very fun."

Abrams' development company, Bad Robot Interactive, has released apps related to his movies. Newell said his company would like to work with Abrams on a movie adaptation of "Portal" or "Half-Life."

___

Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vegas-abrams-gives-few-hints-star-wars-192929546.html

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Ministry of Justice slammed for "shambolic" commissioning

LONDON (Reuters) - British government plans to contract out billions of pounds worth of public services to private companies have been called into question in a parliamentary committee report published on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Justice plans, which have been criticised by the Labour party, include allowing firms to run criminal probation services, and are part of a wider drive across government to cut spending by outsourcing.

The chair of the justice select committee said that the MOJ's handling of a 90 million-pound contract to run court translation services was "shambolic" after translators failed to turn up at court and others mistranslated hearings to defendants.

The report also said that weaknesses in the MOJ's due diligence and risk mitigation procedures were a "cause for concern" ahead of its ambitious plans to contract out more public services, and repeated a call made in a previous report for an independent review into the department's ability to commission services.

It added that the MOJ did not have a sufficient understanding of the complexities of the work it was contracting out when it started the procurement process.

The committee said that services firm Capita, which inherited a five-year translation services contract when it bought Applied Language Solutions for 7.5 million pounds in late 2011, had improved the service markedly but it had taken a long time, even with Capita's "considerable" resources. The service is also still largely boycotted by qualified interpreters who previously worked in the public sector.

Capita acknowledged there had been issues regarding the delivery of the contract but said it had invested in improving its performance.

"Processes have been put in place to get the service running efficiently and effectively which means that the vast majority of booking requests are fulfilled and the volume of complaints has fallen," Capita said in a statement.

The MOJ held a joint seminar with G4S in January, reassuring its investors that the security firm was not blacklisted from government work after its failure to provide enough security guards for the London Olympics.

Analysts at Jefferies said in a note afterwards that they estimated business opportunities for firms with the MOJ amounted to 300-400 million pounds worth of prison facilities management, 100-150 million in electronic tagging and 60-100 million of criminal fines compliance work.

Other government departments have also been blamed when deals involving the private sector have gone awry, including the mishandling of the award of the West Coast Main Line train operating franchise late last year.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ministry-justice-slammed-shambolic-commissioning-040326164--sector.html

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RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Flight and Some Excellent Documentaries

News ? Columns ? RT On DVD ? RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Flight and Some Excellent Documentaries

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Plus, the latest Kevin James joint and Tyler Perry's failed attempt to pick up where Morgan Freeman left off.

This week on home video, we've got Denzel Washington in an Oscar-nominated performance, Kevin James in the octagon, Tyler Perry squaring off against a serial killer, and a likable indie rom-com. Then we've got a quiet drama with some star pedigree and three documentaries with Tomatometer scores of 94% and up. See below for the full list!

Also available this week:

• The Czech, Japanese, and Slovak CGI/stop-motion collaboration Na Pude (Toys in the Attic) (73%), featuring voice work from Forest Whitaker, Cary Elwes, and Joan Cusack.
• French import Little White Lies (42%), starring Marion Cotillard and Jean Dujardin in a Big Chill-esque drama.
• Deadfall (33%), a chilly neo-noir thriller starring Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Kris Kristofferson, and Sissy Spacek.
• So Undercover (7%), a Miley Cyrus-led teen comedy about a girl hired by the FBI to go undercover at a sorority.
• Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 drama The Ballad of Narayama (100%), is available in a new Criterion Collection edition.
• Disney's adaptation of Peter Pan (84%), is being released from the vault.

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50708131/

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Sunshine may reduce arthritis risk - ModernGhana.com

Living in a sunnier climate may reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, according to US researchers.

Their study of more than 200,000 women, published in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, suggested a link between sunlight and the risk of developing the disease.

They speculated that vitamin D, which is produced in sunlight, may protect the body.

Experts warned that people should not spend all day in the sun.

Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by the body's own immune system attacking the joints and it can be intensely painful.

It is more common in women, but the reason why a patient's own defences turn against them is unknown.

Sunny side
Researchers at Harvard Medical School followed two groups of more than 100,000 women. The first were monitored from 1976 onwards, the second from 1989.

Their health was then compared with estimates of the levels of UV-B radiation they were exposed to, based on where they lived.

In the 1976 group, those in the sunniest parts of the US getting the highest levels of sunshine were 21% less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those getting the least UV radiation.

However, UV levels had no affect upon the risk of rheumatoid arthritis is the 1989 group.

The report's authors said: "Our study adds to the growing evidence that exposure to UV-B light is associated with decreased risk of rheumatoid arthritis."

They suggested that "differences in sun protective behaviours, eg greater use of sun block" could explain why the younger group of women showed no benefit from living in sunnier climes.

One theory is that difference in levels of vitamin D, which is produced when UV radiation hits the skin, could affect the odds of developing the disease. Low levels of vitamin D have already been implicated other immune system disorders such as multiple sclerosis.

Dr Chris Deighton, the president of the British Society for Rheumatology, said it was an "interesting study" which "gives us more clues" about how the environment can affect the chances of getting rheumatoid arthritis.

He added: "We cannot advocate everybody sitting in the sunshine all day to protect from rheumatoid arthritis, because UV-B burns people and increases the risk of skin cancer.

"The treatment options in rheumatology have transformed the lives of patients with this crippling disease in recent years and anything that adds to our knowledge is welcomed."

Sunshine vitamin
Prof Alan Silman, medical director of Arthritis Research UK, said: "Studies that have been undertaken have not shown, thus far, that vitamin D is a useful treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.

"We know that many people with arthritis have low levels of vitamin D and this can have a powerful effect on the types of immune cells which may cause this condition.

"We're currently doing research to find out how this happens and are performing lab studies to find out whether vitamin D can alter the aggressive immune response found in rheumatoid arthritis and turn it into a less harmful or even a protective one.

"In the meantime, until we know more, the best thing that people can do is to go out in the sunshine for up to 15 minutes in the summer months and expose their face and arms to the sun to top up their vitamin D levels."

Source: http://www.modernghana.com/lifestyle/4296/16/sunshine-may-reduce-arthritis-risk.html

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