DOUENTZA, Mali/PARIS | Wed Jan 30, 2013 3:20pm EST
DOUENTZA, Mali/PARIS (Reuters) - French troops seized the airport in Mali's northern town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist insurgents, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.
France has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground and air offensive to break the Islamist rebels' 10-month grip on major northern towns. The mission is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.
The French military plans to gradually hand over to a larger African force, tasked with rooting out insurgents in their mountain redoubts near Algeria's border.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces using planes and helicopters defied a sandstorm late on Tuesday to capture the airport but had been prevented by the bad weather from entering the town itself.
"The terrorist forces are pulling back to the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains which are difficult to access," Le Drian told a news conference. "There is support from Chadian and Nigerian troops coming from the south."
The deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels, whose rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals. Le Drian said France had established good relations with local Tuareg chieftains before sending in troops.
MNLA leaders say they are ready to fight al Qaeda but many Malians, including the powerful military top brass in the capital Bamako, blame them for the division of the country. They view Paris' liaisons with the Tuaregs with suspicion.
French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.
There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.
The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.
The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.
"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.
A spokesman for the Malian army said its soldiers were securing Gao and Timbuktu and were not heading to Kidal.
The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.
After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al Qaeda North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.
RISK OF ATTACKS, KIDNAPPINGS
As the French wind up the first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al Qaeda-allied insurgents. Known as AFISMA, the force is now expected to exceed 8,000 troops.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned as a lightning mission lasting a few weeks.
"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."
One French soldier has been killed in the mission, and Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.
"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."
An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.
NEED FOR RECONCILIATION
The French operation has destroyed the Islamists' training camps and logistics bases but analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.
Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31. Paris is pushing strongly for Traore's government to hold talks with the MNLA, which has dropped its claims for independence.
"The Malian authorities must begin without delay talks with the legitimate representatives of the northern population and non-terrorist armed groups that recognize Mali's integrity," French Foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.
After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.
"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.
There have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.
(Additional reporting John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Rosalind Russell)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Leonel Cruz pulls down the flab on the Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Bradley Hasemeyer, the host of AOL's Trasnlogic show, uses his smartphone to photograph the Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, outside a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside the blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
TUSTIN, Calif. (AP) ? The massive blimp-like aircraft flies but just barely, hovering only a dozen feet off a military hangar floor during flight testing south of Los Angeles.
Still, the fact that the hulking 230-foot-long Aeroscraft could fly for just a few minutes represents a step forward in aviation, according to the engineers who developed it. The Department of Defense and NASA have invested $35 million in the prototype because of its potential to one day carry more cargo than any other aircraft to disaster zones and forward military bases.
"I realized that I put a little dot in the line of aviation history. A little dot for something that has never been demonstrated before, now it's feasible," said flight control engineer Munir Jojo-Verge.
The airship is undergoing testing this month at Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, and must go through several more rounds of flight testing before it could be used in a disaster zone or anywhere else. The first major flight test took place Jan. 3.
The biggest challenge for engineers is making sure the airship will be able to withstand high winds and other extreme weather conditions, Jojo-Verge said.
Worldwide Aeros, the company that developed the aircraft, said it also must secure more funding for the next round of flight testing, but is hopeful the Defense Department and others will step in again as investors.
The company says the cargo airship's potential to carry more cargo more efficiently than ever before would provide the U.S. military with an advantage on the battlefield and greater capacity to save more lives during natural disasters.
The lighter-than-air vehicle is not a blimp or a zeppelin because it has a rigid structure made out of ultra-light carbon fiber and aluminum underneath its high-tech Mylar skin. Inside, balloons hold the helium that gives the vehicle lift. Unlike hydrogen, the gas used in the Hindenburg airship that crashed in 1937, helium is not flammable.
The airship functions like a submarine, releasing air to rise and taking in air to descend, said Aeros mechanical engineer Tim Kenny. It can take off vertically, like a helicopter, then change its buoyancy to become heavier than air for landing and unloading.
"It allows the vehicle to set down on the ground. And then when we want to become lighter than air, we release that air and then the vehicle floats and we can allow it to take off," Kenny said.
The project has set abuzz the old hangars at the Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin. The structures were built to hold blimps during World War II. Now workers zip around in cherry-pickers, and the airship's silvery surface shines against the warm tones of the aging wood of the walls.
"You could take this vehicle and go to destinations that have been destroyed, where there's no ports, no runways, stuff like that. This vehicle could go in there, offload the cargo even if there's no infrastructure, no landing site for it to land on, this vehicle can unload its whole payload," said Kenny.
The prototype isn't intended to carry cargo, though a similar-sized craft could haul about 30 tons. Aeros wants to build a full-size 450-foot-long vehicle that can carry 66 tons of payload.
Pretty much every microwave frozen meal I have says, "Slit the top film with a knife to vent." I look at it and then peel up the corner. I'm not going to get a knife out for that.
Is there a difference between peeling up the corner and slitting with a knife? Am I losing 20 or 30 International Flavor Units (IFUs - I just made that up) by not slitting it with a knife? It's so much easier to just peel the corner that I don't know why they don't just tell me to peel the corner. Do they perhaps have a partnership with the Big Knife companies?
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142Comments
Never mind swanning off to Algeria! get our country sorted out first you silly bastard!stay there you pretentious, self-centred, obnoxious, selfish, two faced BASTARD.
hope they use you for target practice.
Please get amnesia and think you are native to the country and refuse to come back to the UK !
i hope he gets taken hostage! and we don`t negotiate with hostages mwah ha ha ha lol. mind you if they shoot him in the head they`ll miss his brain by a good 6ft lol
lol@him and his "scary" face
what a knob head, pretending to fix everyone else's problems instead of ours.
the whole of europe is laughing at us and all he wants to do is run off-anywhere apart from this country, where his loyalties SHOULD lie.
Do the country a favour and go there alone, with any luck a terrorist cell will grab you and do Britain a favour and dispose of the Crap
He cannot run this Country so he's going over there to try and run theirs! Lets hope they keep him.
Hope he bloody stays there.
think youve caused enough trouble over there already david
mmmmmmmm... Algeria eh?....mmmmm... country where militant islamists are kidnapping and murdering westeners..mmmmmmm..?..
With only a one way ticket perhaps. I bloody hope so.
Is it me, or has anyone noticed that, the heads of government from Norway, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, Rumania, etc, etc, never seem to get themselves involved in this sort of issue! So why is this dangerous dictator Ca'Moron
Algeria, another former French colony with continued close ties to France..... where is the French president, nowhere to be seen.... he has more sense, and will happily let the stupid British stick their heads down the toilet!
David Cameron is travelling to Algeria as he steps up efforts to tackle the growing terrorist threat in northern Africa.
I feel sorry for north africa, if David goes over there to help them like he's helped Brittain they are ******ed.
Sort the country out? this moron couldn't sort the alphabet into its proper order.
I heard that this idiot has come up with a celebration for next year. He wants us to celebrate the start of the first world war and the start of the slaughter of millions. Yes he is that thick and stupid. First time I have ever heard of or found this act anything other than an absolute bloody disgrace. Then the pratt will no doubt think it is then ok to turn up on remembrance day. Only a nasty **** could come up with this one. I suggest that the useless dimwit stays away from all acts of remembrance and not make a mockery of the event.
I hope he is going to ask for some of their much larger army, than ours ever will be again, to help sort out AFRICA's problems. He cant sort out our problems?so **** chance does he have there!!
hope the ragheads get him no good here hes killing the poor and the weak
I put 3 comments on here last night they have mysteriously disappeared why I thought that?we were entitled to freedom of speech, or is it a case of only if you approve it first.msn.??
This man has a face I would never tire of slapping!
You mean we were stupid enough to pay for a return fare? What dumkoff passed this expense.
PASCO, Wash. -- Starting in January of next year, Registered Nurses must demonstrate proof of having 531 practice hours in order to renew their license. The nurses who are retired, home with children or working few hours are needing to have a place to volunteer that will allow them to record up to 177 clinical hours per year. Without the clinical hours and continuing education (45 hours), the nurse will have their license rendered inactive.
Volunteering as a nurse is one method of meeting the practice hour requirement.
In the fall of 2012, Susan Campbell, an instructor at WSU Tri-Cities school of nursing began working with another a retired nurse volunteer, Jan Jacobson to organize a local chapter of the Faith Community Nurses.
This is a nationally recognized specialty within nursing. Faith Community Nurses volunteer in churches to provide health education, screening and coordination of services. In the early discussions of this group, they connected with the Union Gospel Mission and decided to incorporate the mission as a place for Faith Community Nurses to volunteer. Wednesday, January 23rd the network began volunteering at the Union Gospel Mission
"Volunteering at the Union Gospel Mission, that way the registered nurses can keep their practice hours, keep their license active and the nursing students get additional clinical practice hours in the community," said Campbell.
One homeless man was glad to see the nurses available, "Its not like I can just run down to the hospital, I don't have a regular doctor," he said after getting his blood pressure reading and help signed for a program to up to quit smoking.
Jan Jacobson is a volunteer nurse who retired four years ago after working in the field for 50 years. She said this is the perfect opportunity to earn clinical hours.
"You're serving a community that really needs and wants help. they're trying to get themselves straightened out," said Jacobson.
Campbell said their first day was a success. "Hydration for a sick baby, help with head lice for a child, sending a man to his physician who needed to be seen," she said.
This Wednesday the nurses teamed up with the Benton Franklin Health District to provide free flu shots, whooping cough vaccines and TB shots. Typically they assist the women and children from 9-11:30am and the men's shelter from 1-3 PM. They do everything from taking blood pressure to diabetes consulting to giving health information and advice to those who haven't seen a doctor in years.
"That someone would take their time to come down to east Pasco, hearing all the bad stuff and still be willing to look at our clients, it is impacting them positively," said Chariss Warner, a case manager for women's and children at the Mission.
Faith Community Nurses will be hosting a presentation by Dr. Deborah Patterson on Friday, Feb 8th. Dr. Patterson coordinates the Faith Community Nurses (aka Parish Nursing) in Oregon. She will be assisting us with developing a local chapter. We would like to let nurses know this option is available with benefits for their community, their church and keeping their license active.
WHEN: FRIDAY, February 8, 2013
TIME: 12 NOON - 2:30 p.m.
WHERE: WEST SIDE CHURCH LIBRARY
615 WRIGHT ST.
RICHLAND, WA
Lunch will be provided - RSVP very important!!!
If planning to attend, please RSVP to Jan Jacobson
e-mail: janyj@ix.netcom.com or call at: 628-3724.
Questions? Contact Jan or Susan Campbell at 509- 845-1980.
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Leonel Cruz pulls down the flab on the Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Bradley Hasemeyer, the host of AOL's Trasnlogic show, uses his smartphone to photograph the Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, outside a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside the blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Aeroscraft airship, a high-tech prototype airship, is seen in a World War II-era hangar in Tustin, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Work is almost done on a 230-foot rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange Co. The huge cargo-carrying airship is has shiny aluminum skin and a rigid, 230-foot aluminum and carbon fiber skeleton. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
TUSTIN, Calif. (AP) ? The massive blimp-like aircraft flies but just barely, hovering only a dozen feet off a military hangar floor during flight testing south of Los Angeles.
Still, the fact that the hulking Aeroscraft could fly for just a few minutes represents a step forward in aviation, according to the engineers who developed it. The Department of Defense and NASA have invested $35 million in the prototype because of its potential to one day carry more cargo than any other aircraft to disaster zones and forward military bases.
"I realized that I put a little dot in the line of aviation history. A little dot for something that has never been demonstrated before, now it's feasible," said flight control engineer Munir Jojo-Verge.
The airship is undergoing testing this month at Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, and must go through several more rounds of flight testing before it could be used in a disaster zone or anywhere else. The first major flight test took place Jan. 3.
The biggest challenge for engineers is making sure the airship will be able to withstand high winds and other extreme weather conditions, Jojo-Verge said.
Worldwide Aeros, the company that developed the aircraft, said it also must secure more funding for the next round of flight testing, but is hopeful the Defense Department and others will step in again as investors.
The company says the cargo airship's potential to carry more cargo more efficiently than ever before would provide the U.S. military with an advantage on the battlefield and greater capacity to save more lives during natural disasters.
The lighter-than-air vehicle is not a blimp or a zeppelin because it has a rigid structure made out of ultra-light carbon fiber and aluminum underneath its high-tech Mylar skin. Inside, balloons hold the helium that gives the vehicle lift. Unlike hydrogen, the gas used in the Hindenburg airship that crashed in 1937, helium is not flammable.
The airship functions like a submarine, releasing air to rise and taking in air to descend, said Aeros mechanical engineer Tim Kenny. It can take off vertically, like a helicopter, then change its buoyancy to become heavier than air for landing and unloading.
"It allows the vehicle to set down on the ground. And then when we want to become lighter than air, we release that air and then the vehicle floats and we can allow it to take off," Kenny said.
The project has set abuzz the old hangars at the Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin. The structures were built to hold blimps during World War II. Now workers zip around in cherry-pickers, and the airship's silvery surface shines against the warm tones of the aging wood of the walls.
"You could take this vehicle and go to destinations that have been destroyed, where there's no ports, no runways, stuff like that. This vehicle could go in there, offload the cargo even if there's no infrastructure, no landing site for it to land on, this vehicle can unload its whole payload," said Kenny.
Next, Aeros wants to build a full-size 450-foot-long vehicle that can carry 66 tons of payload.
Some people who own homes are afraid of home improvement. It is true that the process can be time-consuming and expensive. Learning a little about the process beforehand can help minimize these fears. A few good tips can make any difficult home improvement job look easy. This article has all the tips you might require.
Talk to home improvement stores and supply companies about how you can obtain discounted supplies. You can save a lot of money by shopping around, and this can give you the opportunity to complete more projects around your home. You should also keep sales in mind when taking on your project so as to lower expenses.
Always turn off the main water supply before working near pipes in your home. Before you start working, locate the shutoff when you working around your house's water supply or pipes. Doing this can help prevent water damage.
Insulate your home for your next project. Use weather stripping around windows and doors. When you minimize the air flow in and out of your home, you can run your environmental and temperature controls with far better efficiency. This means that you will save money on your energy bills.
Update your windows. Revamp those windows! Install double glazed windows. Double glazed windows are not exactly cheap, but they have the benefit of reducing heat loss. Improving your windows can also increase your overall security. If you are unable to purchase new windows, spruce up the ones you have with paint on the frames and a new window treatment.
Selling your house? Home improvement is a very efficient way to make your home more valuable. You can appeal to first-time home buyers by replacing dated kitchen appliances.
Look around for home improvement ideas and inspiration well in advance of beginning a project. If you continuously hunt for home improvement ideas, you will have a wealth of interesting projects in mind once you are ready to start working. This notebook should be compiled a long time before you actually begin your renovations to help reduce your stress.
If you're running out of space when it comes to your kitchen, try using an over-the-range microwave. Over-the-range microwave ovens offer many features, including convection cooking. A lot of units use a filter and not a vent; these are meant for those who do not need a lot of ventilation.
If you are considering major remodeling, engage a professional to design the work or draw up the plans. Unless you or a family member has professional design training, any plans you create are likely to be all form and no function. A professional designer will have the ability to create a plan that also meets all required building codes.
A well-informed homeowner does not need to fear home improvement. Educated ideas like these ones will ensure that the projects are completed on time, within the budget and problem-free. Even a sliver of home improvement knowledge can take the edge off your home improvement fears and enable you to undertake useful projects.
If you are a client, you?ve said it. If you?re a marketer, you?ve heard it and (most likely) cringed. We want your content to go viral as badly as you do, but the public can be fickle and there are no guarantees.
Or are there?
The Viral Video Manifesto by Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe (you may know them as EepyBird) offers a simple formula for making videos that will go viral. These guys know something about viral video?in only 48 hours, their Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment video went from filming in backwoods Maine to being featured on David Letterman?and these guys want to help you get your content shared.
Four rules to make your content viral
Other people are talking generally about what makes videos go viral. But The Viral Video Manifesto lays out four simple rules for creating awesome and viral-worthy content that anyone can follow.
Be true
Don?t waste our time
Be unforgettable
Ultimately, it?s all about humanity
The content of the book is broken down into easy-to-digest chunks complete with QR codes that link to some of the most popular viral videos of the last decade. It?s easy to follow along as Voltz and Grobe critique how well each video adheres to the four rules and provide suggestions for how each could be improved for maximum shareability.
What does this have to do with Internet marketing?
According to Ian Lurie, marketing is communicating true value and significance to your audience. The first step is making contact with potential customers.
Awesome and significant content, video or otherwise, is more likely to get shared. The more viral your content, the more potential customers you can make contact with.
?If the content is odd enough and strong enough, your chances of being picked up and pushed along by key influencers is pretty good.? ? Stephen Voltz
Voltz and Grobe write, ?Let your brand be human.? We know our clients spent a lot of time and money crafting a brand. This is important. But when it comes to getting your Internet content shared, allowing potential customers to relate to you on a human level will get you a lot more shares than strict adherence to brand messaging.
Is it really that easy?
Yes and no. Every person you involve in decision making about content needs to have the same vision for the project.
Voltz and Grobe use their own video as a cautionary tale about what happens when vision gets muddled. Because The Extreme Sticky Notes Experiments was slated to air on TV and the Internet, the powers that be insisted on including a narrative. The trouble is that the video takes more than a minute to get to the cool, shareable tricks. The vision that worked for a passive TV audience is exactly what caused Internet viewers to click away before they realized how awesome the tricks were going to be.
How can you make viral content?
Take it from Voltz and Grobe and ?Be the content.? Voltz said in an interview, ?We mostly work to develop ideas of our own to the point where we have something that can become contagious? [we] also try to keep an eye on what?s happening online because? there are great ideas out there that can give us inspiration.?
?We believe that anyone can create compelling content if they approach it right. The key is to find some unexplored idea or phenomenon and explore it so deeply that you find something that no one has ever seen before.? ? Stephen Voltz
Step outside your own idea of what needs to happen in your video or blog post. Look at it with a fresh pair of eyes from the point of view of your audience:
Does it feel authentic?
Is it awesome from the very first second all the way to the end?
Is it unforgettable?
Does it relate on a human level?
If you answered no to any of these questions, go back and fix your content. It is that easy when you know what you are looking for.
This is a great for anyone who wants to understand what makes content (video and otherwise) shareable. We still won?t guarantee that your content will go viral, but following the intuitive and thoughtful suggestions in The Viral Video Manifesto will make it a lot more likely.
What about video search engine optimization?
The only criticism of this excellent book is that it could use an SEO addendum for the next edition. Voltz and Grobe don?t optimize their videos for search engines, but all great content deserves to show prominently in search results. Here are a few SEO thoughts for your next YouTube video:
Write a concise meta tag (only the first 150 characters show in search engines)
Use tags for discoverability, not SEO
Create transcripts if you have significant dialogue
Feeling inspired? We?d love to hear about your great video ideas in the comments.
LONDON (AP) ? Royalty means rarely having to mind the gap.
Britain's Prince Charles took a ride on the London subway Wednesday ? for the first time in a quarter century.
Charles and his wife, Camilla, joined transit officials and commuters to mark the 150th anniversary of the Underground, the world's first subway system.
The subway system, which sees 3.5 million journeys a day, is well known for announcements warning passengers to "mind the gap between the train and the platform."
The royal couple traveled one stop, from Farringdon to King's Cross on the Metropolitan Line ? the oldest section of the subway system, opened in 1863.
Charles last traveled by subway in 1986, when he and the late Princess Diana took the Tube to Heathrow Airport to open a new terminal.
Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved
Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected
Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs
Nerve bundles that respond to stroking have been identified and chemically activated in mice
How Obama will deliver his climate promise
The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks
Minimum booze price will rein in alcohol abuse
Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money
First real time-travel movies are loopers
Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like
Surfer rides highest wave ever caught
Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazar?, Portugal
Longpad is a touchpad that extends the full width of your laptop and uses infrared sensors to ignore any unwanted touches
Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat
With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm?
The right to fight: women at war
The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men?
Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds
Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist
The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple
Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand
Zack Greenlee has shunned Mississippi State and will stick with his commit to attend Fresno State.
Four-star quarterback Zack Greenlee has made it official (as official it can get before signing a letter of intent) by telling 247Sports that he will be sticking with Fresno State, and not signing with Mississippi State:
This tweet came after Mississipi State earned a verbal commit from dual-threat quarterback Damian Williams. The writing was on the wall for Greenlee to stay away from Mississippi State, because Williams was their second quarterback commit for the 2013 class.
Greenlee also would have been in a crowded group of quarterbacks trying to secure playing time, and also consider that he is not a mobile quarterback and would not fit in too well with the system that Dan Mullen runs.
This is a big win for Fresno State, and Greenlee will be battling for the backup spot as a true freshman with hopes of taking over for Derek Carr who will be graduating after the 2013 season.
When you?re making New Year?s resolutions, a good one to consider is debt reduction. Not all debt piles up from extravagant overspending ? a great number of financially responsible people find themselves inundated with medical bills. Catastrophic accidents, life-threatening illnesses and chronic medical conditions can bankrupt even the insured. Medical debt relief is out there, however, and the typical consumer is often unaware of the ways they can qualify for?financial help with medical debt.
Differences Between Medical Debt and Other Debt
Going out and signing a loan for a brand new BMW or wearing out that credit card on a 96? screen TV is a different kind of debt than taking a life-saving ride in an ambulance, having an operation and a long hospital convalescence. If you don?t pay the notes for the car or the TV, your creditors can and will come and repossess it. They have a security interest in the merchandise. But medical debt is unsecured debt, which is why it is easily discharged in a typical Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy? Really? There Has to Be Another Option
No one wants the black mark of bankruptcy on their financial history, and this is why it?s the last resort for those facing financial ruin. With medical debt, you?ll find creditors are usually more willing to work with you by setting up reasonable payment plans you can make on a monthly basis without breaking your budget. With so many uninsured and under-insured people out there, hospitals and physicians realize there has to be some flexibility in individual cases. This is where your negotiating skills come into play. Begin by asking to speak to, or addressing your letter to, someone with the actual authority to erase some of that debt. Remain pleasant and civil, and honestly state the facts of your case and what you are realistically able to do to clear it up. Providers realize that taking debtors to court is a costly endeavor for them ? there are attorney?s fees, court costs, service fees, etc. Faced with a costly legal fight to obtain a likely uncollectible judgment, creditors will often wipe out thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt from debtors who are sincerely making an effort to pay.
LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands (AP) ? Prosecutors urged judges Tuesday to reject former Liberian President Charles Taylor's appeal against his war crimes conviction and 50-year prison sentence, saying the court should hold "lords of war" as responsible for atrocities as the machine gun-wielding killers they support.
Taylor was found guilty in April 2012 of aiding and abetting Sierra Leone rebels, becoming the first former head of state since World War II to be convicted by an international war crimes court. He was convicted of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture and the use of child soldiers.
But as Taylor watched silently from his seat in the courtroom Tuesday, one of his lawyers, Christopher Gosnell, said judges at his trial had a "deep and fundamental" misunderstanding of the notion of "aiding and abetting." He compared Taylor's actions with those of other governments that provide support to rebel groups.
Taylor's defense lawyers have put forward 45 reasons to appeal his conviction and sentence, while prosecutors argue the Special Court for Sierra Leone should have found Taylor guilty of ordering and instigating crimes.
Prosecution lawyer Nicholas Koumjian said Taylor's lawyers want to water down years of international jurisprudence with their argument that he should not be convicted of aiding and abetting atrocities because a greed for diamonds and not blood lust led him to support rebels responsible for murdering and mutilating their enemies in Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war that ended in 2002 with some 50,000 dead.
Prosecutors want Taylor's 50-year sentence ? already effectively a life sentence for the 64-year-old former president ? raised to 80 years to send a message to leaders who facilitate atrocities.
"Those are the promoters of war, the lords of war that sell arms to groups engaged in these conflicts," he said.
Koumjian's comments aimed to counter Taylor's arguments that he should not have been convicted because his support for rebels was not deliberately designed to have them kill and maim.
Gosnell said for judges to convict Taylor of aiding and abetting crimes, his help must be "connected to a specific crime and there must be a substantial contribution to that crime."
Instead, he said trial judges applied a standard "so broad that it would in fact encompass actions that are today carried out by a great many states in relation to their assistance to rebel groups or to governments that are well known to be engaging in crimes," Gosnell said.
In their written appeal, Taylor's lawyers said "the Trial Chamber's approach extends criminal liability far beyond its proper bounds as recognized in international law."
Taylor's lawyers also argued that his conviction was based in part on uncorroborated hearsay evidence that should not have been admitted. They have asked judges to overturn all of Taylor's convictions.
The appeals chamber is expected to take months to reach its judgment.
Men more likely than women to commit scientific fraudPublic release date: 22-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Misconduct occurs across the career spectrum, from trainees to senior scientists
January 22, 2013 (Bronx, NY) Male scientists are far more likely to commit fraud than females and the fraud occurs across the career spectrum, from trainees to senior faculty. The analysis of professional misconduct was co-led by a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and was published today in the online journal mBio.
"The fact that misconduct occurs across all stages of career development suggests that attention to ethical aspects of scientific conduct should not be limited to those in training, as is the current practice," said senior author Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiology & immunology and professor of medicine at Einstein, as well as editor-in-chief of mBio.
He added, "Our other finding that males are overrepresented among those committing misconduct implies a gender difference we need to better understand in any effort to promote the integrity of research."
In a previous study, Dr. Casadevall found that misconduct is responsible for two-thirds of all retractions of scientific papers. The finding was unexpected, since earlier research had suggested that errors account for the majority of retracted scientific papers.
Researchers embarked on the current study to better understand those who are guilty of scientific fraud. They reviewed 228 individual cases of misconduct reported by the United States Office of Research Integrity (ORI) from 1994 through 2012. ORI promotes the responsible conduct of research and investigates charges of misconduct involving research supported by the Department of Health and Human Services.
An analysis determined that fraud was involved in 215 (94 percent) of the 228 cases reported by the ORI. Of these, 40 percent involved trainees, 32 percent involved faculty members, and 28 percent involved other research personnel (research scientists, technicians, study coordinators, and interviewers).
Overall, 65 percent of the fraud cases were committed by males, but the percentage varied among the academic ranks: 88 percent of faculty members who committed misconduct were male, compared with 69 percent of postdoctoral fellows, 58 percent of students, and 43 percent of other research personnel. In each career category, the proportion of males committing misconduct was greater than would have been predicted from the gender distribution of scientists. The gender difference was surprisingly large among faculty, said Dr. Casadevall, who also holds the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Chair in/of Microbiology & Immunology. Of the 72 faculty who committed fraud, just 9 were female one-third of the expected 27 if females had committed fraud at the same rate as males.
The study did not examine why men are more likely to commit fraud. One possibility is that misconduct is biologically driven. "As research has shown, males tend to be risk takers, more so than females, and to commit fraud entails taking a risk," said Dr. Casadevall. "It may also be that males are more competitive, or that women are more sensitive to the threat of sanctions. I think the best answer is that we don't know. Now that we have documented the problem, we can begin a serious discussion about what is going on and what can be done about it."
The researchers had hypothesized that the majority of cases of misconduct would involve trainees, who face intense pressure to publish a critical step toward obtaining research funds. But they found that misconduct was spread rather evenly across the career spectrum. "You might think that as scientists go up the career ladder, they would feel more secure. But the bigger the lab you run, the more grants you need, which increases the pressures to publish and the temptation to cheat," said Dr. Casadevall.
While calling for more research to understand the motives for scientific misconduct, Dr. Casadevall recommends periodic ethics training for scientists at all levels of academia. "Right now we target trainees for ethics training," he added. "We don't do anything after they are hired. It might help if universities required refresher courses in ethics, as they do with courses to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. It won't stop all misconduct, but it's one place to start."
###
The paper is titled "Males Are Overrepresented among Life Science Researchers Committing Scientific Misconduct." Additional authors are Ferric Fang, M.D., at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, and Joan W. Bennett at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The authors report no conflict of interest.
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, Einstein is home to 742 M.D. students, 245 Ph.D. students, 116 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 360 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has 2,476 full time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2012, Einstein received over $160 million in awards from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center Einstein's founding hospital, and five other hospital systems in the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Brooklyn, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu and follow us on Twitter @EinsteinMed.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Men more likely than women to commit scientific fraudPublic release date: 22-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kim Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Misconduct occurs across the career spectrum, from trainees to senior scientists
January 22, 2013 (Bronx, NY) Male scientists are far more likely to commit fraud than females and the fraud occurs across the career spectrum, from trainees to senior faculty. The analysis of professional misconduct was co-led by a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and was published today in the online journal mBio.
"The fact that misconduct occurs across all stages of career development suggests that attention to ethical aspects of scientific conduct should not be limited to those in training, as is the current practice," said senior author Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of microbiology & immunology and professor of medicine at Einstein, as well as editor-in-chief of mBio.
He added, "Our other finding that males are overrepresented among those committing misconduct implies a gender difference we need to better understand in any effort to promote the integrity of research."
In a previous study, Dr. Casadevall found that misconduct is responsible for two-thirds of all retractions of scientific papers. The finding was unexpected, since earlier research had suggested that errors account for the majority of retracted scientific papers.
Researchers embarked on the current study to better understand those who are guilty of scientific fraud. They reviewed 228 individual cases of misconduct reported by the United States Office of Research Integrity (ORI) from 1994 through 2012. ORI promotes the responsible conduct of research and investigates charges of misconduct involving research supported by the Department of Health and Human Services.
An analysis determined that fraud was involved in 215 (94 percent) of the 228 cases reported by the ORI. Of these, 40 percent involved trainees, 32 percent involved faculty members, and 28 percent involved other research personnel (research scientists, technicians, study coordinators, and interviewers).
Overall, 65 percent of the fraud cases were committed by males, but the percentage varied among the academic ranks: 88 percent of faculty members who committed misconduct were male, compared with 69 percent of postdoctoral fellows, 58 percent of students, and 43 percent of other research personnel. In each career category, the proportion of males committing misconduct was greater than would have been predicted from the gender distribution of scientists. The gender difference was surprisingly large among faculty, said Dr. Casadevall, who also holds the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Chair in/of Microbiology & Immunology. Of the 72 faculty who committed fraud, just 9 were female one-third of the expected 27 if females had committed fraud at the same rate as males.
The study did not examine why men are more likely to commit fraud. One possibility is that misconduct is biologically driven. "As research has shown, males tend to be risk takers, more so than females, and to commit fraud entails taking a risk," said Dr. Casadevall. "It may also be that males are more competitive, or that women are more sensitive to the threat of sanctions. I think the best answer is that we don't know. Now that we have documented the problem, we can begin a serious discussion about what is going on and what can be done about it."
The researchers had hypothesized that the majority of cases of misconduct would involve trainees, who face intense pressure to publish a critical step toward obtaining research funds. But they found that misconduct was spread rather evenly across the career spectrum. "You might think that as scientists go up the career ladder, they would feel more secure. But the bigger the lab you run, the more grants you need, which increases the pressures to publish and the temptation to cheat," said Dr. Casadevall.
While calling for more research to understand the motives for scientific misconduct, Dr. Casadevall recommends periodic ethics training for scientists at all levels of academia. "Right now we target trainees for ethics training," he added. "We don't do anything after they are hired. It might help if universities required refresher courses in ethics, as they do with courses to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. It won't stop all misconduct, but it's one place to start."
###
The paper is titled "Males Are Overrepresented among Life Science Researchers Committing Scientific Misconduct." Additional authors are Ferric Fang, M.D., at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, and Joan W. Bennett at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The authors report no conflict of interest.
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, Einstein is home to 742 M.D. students, 245 Ph.D. students, 116 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 360 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has 2,476 full time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2012, Einstein received over $160 million in awards from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center Einstein's founding hospital, and five other hospital systems in the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Brooklyn, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu and follow us on Twitter @EinsteinMed.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
By Associated PressPublished: Jan 16, 2013 at 6:44 PM PSTLast Updated: Jan 16, 2013 at 6:44 PM PSTSam Adams, Portland's former mayor.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Former Portland Mayor Sam Adams has been named executive director of the City Club of Portland, a 100-year-old nonprofit organization that holds Friday forums on public affairs and does research on issues. ??? Adams' election in 2008 made Portland the largest city in the country with an openly gay mayor. But his term was burdened from its early days by his admission he had lied during the campaign about a sexual relationship with a teenager. He didn't run for re-election. Charlie Hales succeeded him this month. ??? In a statement Wednesday, Adams said the job means he can "continue to encourage exceptional urban public policy in a region I love" and said the City Club's "tradition of unbiased, citizen-led policy research remains unique and imperative in today's hyper-partisan environment."
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Source: www.nytimes.com --- Wednesday, January 16, 2013 Setbacks on detention issues that have created tension between the countries, and to years of international efforts to promote humane treatment of prisoners. ...
The Hubble Space Telescope's iconic "Deep Field" photo wowed the world in 1996 by revealing a huge collection of galaxies hiding inside a patch of the sky that looked like nothing more than blank space. Now NASA plans to image six more "empty" bits of sky for a whole new set of deep fields that could revolutionize astronomy once again.
Hubble captured the Deep Field by staring at the same point over many hours, letting particles of light from extremely distant objects slowly pile up to reveal celestial bodies that would otherwise be too faint to see.
Since the original photo's release, Hubble looked even longer at the same spot to create the "Ultra Deep Field" in 2004 and then the "eXtreme Deep Field" in 2012.
But the new effort, called Hubble Frontier Fields, will be the first to try a similar technique on some new areas of the heavens. These photos won't go quite as deep as the Ultra Deep Field, but will represent some of the deepest images of the universe ever taken.
"As iconic as the Ultra Deep Field is, now we'll have six that are almost as nice," said Hubble scientist Dan Coe of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., which manages the telescope. [Hubble's Ultra Deep Field Revealed (Video)]
The Hubble Frontier Fields will collect light for about 45 hours each, spread over a period of three years, imaging objects that existed in the first 500 million years after the Big Bang.
Plus, in a new twist, astronomers will image each of the six blank patches of sky in combination with nearby galaxy clusters, whose gravity can act as a cosmic magnifying lens to zoom in on small, distant objects behind them.
Researchers will "observe six galaxy clusters and blank fields in parallel," Coe told Space.com. "While they're observing a cluster, the other camera is just far enough away where it's not really looking at the cluster anymore. It'll be essentially blank. To really go deep in both of these at the same time, that's never been done before."
The added magnification boost of the clusters' gravity should make these pictures the deepest glimpses of the universe yet. The shots could capture galaxies that are older and farther away than anything ever seen before.
Space news from NBCNews.com
Mars team explains 'flower' ? and gets set to drill
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: The scientists behind NASA's Curiosity rover mission on Mars explain the nature of a tiny "flower" embedded in Red Planet rock ? and reveal where they'll be using the robot's drill for the first time.
NASA's chief revisits make-believe shuttle
Iran to try launching monkey into space
Russia again plans to shoot for the moon
"Some of them will be among the most distant galaxies yet found," said Coe, who led the study of one of the current contenders for farthest galaxy ever seen, MACS0647-JD, which lies about 13.3 billion light-years away.
The original Deep Field photo revealed about 3,000 previously unknown galaxies in a patch of sky only 2.5 arc-minutes across, or about one 24-millionth of the whole sky.
The new fields will determine whether that huge haul was a fluke, or if almost any patch of blank sky contains a similar wealth of treasures. "You don't know, it might be a special part of the sky you're looking at," Coe said.
Hubble will begin observing the first of the new fields later this year.
The nearly 23-year-old telescope is still going strong after five upgrades from visiting space shuttle crews. NASA hopes to keep the observatory running until at least 2018, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is due to launch.
Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz? or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on? Facebook? and??Google+.
? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.
Ahead of the Blu-ray and DVD release of "End of Watch" next week, MTV News has an exclusive featurette from the disc called "Fate With a Badge." This look behind the scenes of the latest film from "Training Day" writer David Ayer explores what the filmmaker and his lead actors, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, [...]
Mayor Rob Ford marked the passing of his budget flanked by supporters, but noticeably absent was Mike Del Grande, a loyal lieutenant in the mayor?s cost-cutting battle. Just moments earlier as Mr. Ford left the council chamber, Mr. Del Grande handed him his resignation letter, stepping down as budget chair.
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?I just thought that it was time,? explained the Scarborough councillor, who said he had his letter with him in the council chamber. ?Just in case.?
The final straw, he said, was not the new spending approved by council but another motion that took aim at the way the budget was prepared. Mr. Del Grande said the motion that passed 25-20 was a vote of no confidence against him.
In a process he had worked long hours to shepherd, ?I thought, you know what, that?s that. I saw it as a definite message. I don?t think it?s fair to be vilified.? Mr. Del Grande said he stands by his accomplishments as the head of the budget committee for the past two years. ?I don?t think we would have got here if I had not done the things I did.?
Last month, Mr. Del Grande threatened to resign if councillors tried to add millions in additional spending to the budget. "If at the end of the day council wants to blow 5, 10, 20, 50-million dollars that?s them,? he told reporters at the time. ?I tell you guaranteed ? guaranteed ? they won?t have me as budget chair. I have no interest under that scenario."
In a statement late Wednesday night Mr. Ford said: "On behalf of every Toronto taxpayer, I'd like to thank Councillor Mike Del Grande for two years' service, and three city budgets, as budget chief. He has been a key leader on my team, helping Toronto turn the corner and achieve the sustainable budget we passed Wednesday. I look forward to the contribution he will make as a member of the Toronto Police Services Board." Mr. Del Grande was appointed by council to the board late last year.
Earlier Wednesday, Councillor Doug Ford boasted that a Little Italy lunch event after the budget passed, which included councillors of all stripes, was proof of his brother?s ability to get along with everyone.
The city?s $9.4-billion fiscal plan received council approval Wednesday after $12-million in new spending was added, including an extra $3.1-million for the city?s fire service ? a compromise that received the mayor?s endorsement after some heated discussions.
The mayor?s summation of the final budget: ?It could have been a lot worse,? he told reporters.
Also missing from the lunch, along with Mr. Del Grande, was Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who criticized the mayor for breaking ranks Tuesday to support a faint-hope effort to freeze property taxes. Some of the mayor?s usual supporters also voted against the compromise on fire services, including deputy mayor Doug Holyday and Mr. Del Grande.
As Mr. Ford waits for the verdict in his appeal hearing that will determine whether he remains in office, the 2013 budget debate has shown divisions within his own team, even as his supporters use it as an example of how the mayor has learned to compromise.
?We fended them off. They are like piranha,? said Mr. Ford, recounting councillors? efforts to push through about $50-million in new funding during the two days of debate. ?You know what, we got away unscathed.?
Not quite. Mr. Del Grande ended up being a casualty.
Mr. Del Grande, still smarting from the mayor?s decision to back a tax-freeze motion in contradiction of his own budget, said, ?I just didn?t have my heart in it,? when asked why he skipped the mayor?s media event.
?It?s kind of hard and I don?t think the mayor gets it when he votes for zero per cent,? he said. ?I thought it was a mistake. I don?t think he understands that. I don?t think he has the capacity to understand that. I don?t think he understands when you say you support the budget and tell everybody to support the budget, you don?t do something like that.?
Far from a show of unity, Councillor Joe Mihevc ? who was also at the lunch ? said the budget has revealed the divisions in the mayor?s camp. ?They?ve shown themselves to lack solidarity, lack vision, lack leadership,? said Mr. Mihevc, who spearheaded the addition of $1.16-million in new funding for student nutrition programs. ?I think they are ready to throw him under the bus.?
The mayor said this year?s budget is a document on which he would ?most definitely? campaign if he is kicked out of office and council opts to call a by-election. ?I am going to put my name forward regardless of what happens and I welcome all oncomers,? he said. ?I will look forward to the debates and I will look forward to going to the voters and asking them for their vote in the next election and I feel very, very confident that I will be successful.?
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Public release date: 22-Jan-2013
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