Saudi Womans Slugs Virtue Cop

(Newser) – A Saudi woman stopped by a virtue cop pulled off every feminist's dream: As her male companion mysteriously collapsed, she proceeded to give the cop a thrashing—to the point where he was taken to the hospital with bruising. The unnamed woman was strolling through an amusement park with her friend when they were stopped by a religious cop looking for unmarried couples, who cannot legally socialize.
If the 20-something is charged, she could face prison time and lashings. “To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” one women’s rights activist tells the Media Line. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

How can Iran oversee women's rights?

WASHINGTON — If you thought Iran's withdrawal of its bid for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council was a step in the right direction, think again.

There are no circumstances under which it makes sense for Iran to sit on any human rights committee. For it to sit on the UNHRC, would have been the ultimate manifestation of wolves guarding the sheep. Apparently, and thankfully, enough members of the U.N. General Assembly agreed, and Iran withdrew its candidacy.

But that wasn’t Iran’s most preposterous quest. Instead of the UNHRC, Iran will now sit on the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women. Seriously. Iran is being given an opportunity to oversee the rights of women around the world.

The U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women is a four-year assignment tasked with reviewing abuses to women’s rights and helping nations reach gender equity. This body, made up of 45 nations elected on a rotating basis, is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.”

So Iran, whose criminal code allows women accused of adultery to be buried up to their necks and stoned to death, will now help oversee women’s rights.

Iran, which deems spousal rape legal, will now monitor how other nations treat women.

Iran, which, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2009 country-by-country report, cracked down on women’s rights reformers protesting the disputed June 2009 elections, will help other nations achieve gender equality.

Iran, as the U.S. State department notes, according to a study published in 2008, is a country where “52.7 percent of women reported being physically abused during their married lives.” It will now have a say in the global treatment of women.

In Iran, even adult women need their father’s consent, or approval of the courts, to marry, and the testimony of two women equals the testimony of one man. An Iranian cleric recently announced that such natural disasters as earthquakes are caused by women who dress and act immodestly.

Iran is particularly unfit to fulfill the vital mission of an organization dedicated to women’s rights.

The UNHRC, to which Iran first sought admission, is already crammed with some of the most unsavory, questionable-on-human-rights nations. The council avoided complete and utter obsolescence by Iran’s withdrawal.

Would that it were so for the women’s council.

A global women’s guardian is now staffed by a nation that severely oppresses more than half its population.

Why Fish Don't Freeze in the Arctic Ocean

Why Fish Don't Freeze in the Arctic Ocean: Chemists Unmask Natural Antifreeze

Bochum researchers have discovered how natural antifreeze works to protect fish in the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean from freezing to death. They were able to observe that an antifreeze protein in the fish's blood affects the water molecules in its vicinity such that they cannot freeze, and everything remains fluid. Here, there is no chemical bond between protein and water -- the mere presence of the protein is sufficient.

Vacation Rentals

Women do best in women-led companies

A innovative study has found that women executives in the U.S. working in women-led firms earn between 15 and 20 per cent more in total reward than women working in other firms.

The study, by Haverford College Economics Professor Linda Bell, reveals that having a woman at the wheel of a company is instrumental to the success of other executive women in scientific and significant ways.

But overall, it emerged that top women executives in the U.S. are still paid between eight and 25 per cent less than male executives.

Women executives do better - in relative compensation and numbers - in firms with a female CEO or Chair, especially if the female CEO is a member of the Board.

Women executives also have relatively better compensation and representation among top management in firms with more female Board members.

"My research shows very strong observed confirmation that women leaders are associated with positive outcomes for women executives in substantive and important ways," said Professor Bell.

"It seems a logical conclusion to infer that women leaders help the women below them. If equity for high-skilled and performing women is a policy goal, then the one obvious instrument is affirmative action at the very top of the corporate hierarchy."

Firms in the ExecuComp data constitute more than 80 per cent of the total market capitalization of U.S. public companies.

Oceanway moves step closer

Plans for the new Palm Beach Oceanway will be finalised when full Council meets in mid March 2009.

Divisional Councillor Daphne McDonald said local residents had been consulted about the project extensively during the planning stage in 2006/07.

“Consultation on this project has gone above and beyond the normal timeframes to encourage community input and the adopted concept plans incorporate a significant number of changes raised by local residents,” said Cr McDonald.

“Although the response to the Oceanway project has been generally positive, I have received a small number of objections from residents concerning some design elements included in the adopted plans.

“These design elements were included to ensure the safety of users due to the path being used by vehicles as well as pedestrians and bike riders.

“However, I believe residents deserve to have their views heard on this and I have been pushing for the matter to go back to committee for further discussion.

“I have also been working with Council officers to ensure the Oceanway is the minimum width required by Australian standards to ensure it does not take up too much space.”

The matter will go before Engineering Services Committee on 11 March 2009, with construction on the Oceanway due to commence in May 2009.

Calculator

A calculator is a machine for performing calculations. Although modern calculators often incorporate a general purpose computer, the device is calculated for performing specific operations, rather than for flexibility. Modern calculators are more convenient than most computers, though some Pads are comparable in amount to handheld calculators.

In the past, some calculators were as huge as today's computers. The first automatic calculators were mechanical desktop devices which were replaced by electromechanical desktop calculators, and then by electronic devices using first sung valves, then transistors, then hard-wired integrated circuit logic. New calculators are electrically powered and come in innumerable shapes and sizes varying from cheap, give-away, credit-card sized models to more sturdy adding machine-like models with built-in printers.

Business

In economics, a business is a legally-recognized organizational entity existing within an economically free country designed to sell goods and/or services to consumers, usually in an effort to generate profit.

In predominantly capitalist economies, where most businesses are privately owned, businesses are typically formed to earn profit and grow the personal wealth of their owners. The owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for their work - that is, the expense of time and energy - and for their acceptance of risk-investing work and money without certainty of success. Notable exceptions to this rule include cooperative businesses and government institutions. This model of business functioning is opposed by socialists, who advocate either government, public, or worker ownership of most sizable businesses; and to a lesser extent by individuals advocating for a mixed economy of private and state-owned enterprises.

The etymology of business refers to the state of being busy in the context of the individual as well as the community or society. In other words, to be busy is to be doing commercially viable and profitable work. The term business has at least three usages, depending on the scope - the general usage, the singular usage to refer to a particular company or corporation, and the generalized usage to refer to a particular market sector, such as the record business, the computer business, or the business community-the community of suppliers of goods and services.

Cloud

A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets, frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another earthly body, such as a moon. The branch of meteorology in which exhaust are studied is nephology.

On Earth the condensing matter is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become observable as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance throughout the visible range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light professionally, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the cloud, hence the gray or even sometimes dark exterior of the clouds at their base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background, and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as through sunrise or sunset, may be colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds would appear darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets muscularly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.

Essentials of Healthy life

Health is wealth so preserve it. Life is short so use it in the right way. Cleanliness merely fits with the apt meaning of being free from dirt, dust, germs and bad smells. A recent shift has now taken place to recognise that ‘germs’ may play a major role in our immune systems. So experts say washing hands frequently, specially when in an environment of many people with infections and diseases. Washing is one of the best way to achieve cleanliness.Have a brief overlook on the following issue to be aware of how to keep one self clean.

A step way process regarding cleanliness of hands is given below:
• Use warm water
• But avoid scorching your hands.
• Use anti-bacterial soap or hand wash.
• Wash between fingers and use paper towels to wipe off.
Washing of hands has to be followed:
• Before eating
• After eating
• After using the toilet
• After playing outdoor games
• After attending to a sick person
• After blowing nose, coughing, or sneezing; and after handling pets.

Gear

A gear is a wheel with teeth around its circumference, the purpose of the teeth being to mesh with similar teeth on another mechanical device possibly another gear wheel so that force can be transmitted between the two strategies in a direction tangential to their surfaces. A non-toothed wheel can transmit some tangential force but will slip if the force is large; teeth put off slippage and permit the transmission of large forces.

A gear can mesh with any device having teeth friendly with the gear's teeth. Such devices include racks and other non-rotating policy; however, the most common condition is for a gear to be in mesh with another gear. In this case revolution of one of the gears necessarily causes the other gear to rotate. In this way, rotational motion can be transferred from one position to another. While gears are sometimes used simply for this reason to transmit rotation to another shaft perhaps their most significant feature is that, if the gears are of asymmetrical sizes, a mechanical advantage is also achieved, so that the rotational speed, and torque, of the second gear are dissimilar from that of the first. In this way, gears provide a means of increasing or decreasing a turning speed, or a torque.

Historical perspective

Based on the available evidence, scientists have reconstructed detailed information about the planet's past. Earth is estimated to have formed approximately 4.55 billion years ago out of the solar nebula, along with the Sun and other planets. The moon formed relatively soon afterwards.

Initially molten, the outer layer of the planet cooled, resulting in the solid crust. Outgas sing and volcanic activity produced the primordial atmosphere. Condensing water vapor, augmented by ice delivered by comets, produced the oceans. The highly energetic chemistry is believed to have produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago.

Continents formed, then broke up and re-formed as the surface of Earth reshaped itself over the course of hundreds of millions of years, occasionally combining to make a super continent. Roughly 750 million years ago, the earliest known super continent Rodinia, began to break apart. The continents later recombined to form Pannotia which broke apart about 540 million years ago, then finally Pangaea, which broke apart about 180 million years ago.

Birds

Many species of bird undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social and communicate using visual signals and through calls and song, and participate in social behaviors including cooperative hunting, cooperative breeding, flocking and mobbing of predators. Birds are primarily socially monogamous, with engagement in extra-pair copulations being common in some species-other species have polygamous or polyandrous breeding systems. Eggs are regularly laid in a nest and incubated and most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching.

Birds are economically important to humans: many are important sources of food, acquired either through hunting or farming, and they provide other products. Some species, particularly songbirds and parrots, are popular as pets. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture from religion to poetry and popular music. About 120-130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since 1600, and hundreds more before this. Currently around 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities and efforts are underway to protect them.

Coconut

The coconut palm is grown throughout the tropical world, for decoration as well as for its many cooking and non-culinary uses, virtually every part of the coconut palm has some human use.The flowers of the coconut palm are polygamomonoecious, with both male and female flowers in the similar inflorescence. Flowering occurs continuously, with female plants producing seeds. Coconut palms are believed to be largely cross-pollinated, although some dwarf varieties are self-pollinating. Coconut water can be used as an intravenous fluid.

Nearly all parts of the coconut palm are useful, and the palms have a comparatively high yield, it therefore has important economic value. The name for the coconut palm in Sanskrit is kalpa vriksha, which translates as the tree which provides all the requirements of life. In Malay, the coconut is known as pokok seribu guna, the tree of a thousand uses. In the Philippines, the coconut is generally given the title Tree of Life. The white, fleshy part of the seed is safe to eat and used fresh or dried in cooking.

Fax Machine

A "fax machine" generally consists of an image scanner, a modem, a printer, and usually a phone combined into a single parcel. The scanner converts the comfortable printed on a physical document into a digital image, the modem sends the image data over a phone line to another machine, and the printer at the far end produces a copy of the transmitted document.

Some fax machines can be connected to a computer, and the creature components -- the scanner, printer, and occasionally the modem -- can be used autonomously. Such devices are usually called multifunction printers or MFPs. Fax capabilities are also offered as options for many high-volume workgroup printers and photocopiers.

Although devices for transmitting printed documents electrically have existed, in various forms, since the mid to late 19th century (see "History" below), modern fax machines became sufficient only in the mid-1970s as the erudition increased and cost of the three underlying technologies dropped. Digital fax machines first became popular in Japan, where they had a clear advantage over competing technologies like the teleprinter, since at the time (before the development of easy-to-use input method editors) it was faster to handwrite kanji than to type the characters. Over time, faxing gradually became reasonable, and by the mid-1980s, fax machines were very popular around the world.

Although many businesses still maintain some kind of fax potential, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based systems. However, fax machines still retain some advantages, particularly in the communication of perceptive material which, due to mandates like Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, cannot be sent over the Internet unencrypted. In some countries, because digital signatures on contracts are not recognized by law while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing recognition in business.

In many corporate environments, individual fax machines have been replaced by "fax servers" and other computerized systems competent of receiving and storing incoming faxes automatically, and then routing them to users on paper or via secure email. Such systems have the advantage of reducing costs by eliminating redundant printouts and reducing the number of inbound analog phone lines needed by an office.

Election

An election is a resolution making process where a people chooses an individual to hold official offices. This is the usual method by which modern egalitarianism fills offices in the parliament, sometimes in the executive and magistrates, and for regional and local government. This is also typically the case in a wide range of other private and business organizations, from clubs to charitable associations and corporations. However, as Montesquieu points out in Book II, Chapter 2 of "The Spirit of Laws," in the case of elections in either a republic or a democracy, voters alternate between being the rulers of the country as well as being the subjects of the government, with the act of voting being the independent (or ruling) capacity, in which the people act as "masters" selecting their government "servants." Rather, the unique character of democracies and republics is the appreciation that the only legitimate source of power for government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" is the consent of the governed—the people themselves.

The general acceptance of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern democracies is in distinction with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens, where elections were considered an oligarchic institution and where most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, where officeholders are chosen by lot.

Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or efficiency of existing systems. Psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections.

Television

Television (often abbreviated to TV) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and getting moving pictures and crash over a distance. The term may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television communication.The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin vision, sight

Since it first became commercially available from the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, mostly in the First World, as a cause of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.

A television system may be made up of multiple mechanism, so a screen which lacks an internal tuner to receive the broadcast signals is called a monitor rather than a television. A television may be built to receive different broadcast or video formats, such as high-definition television, commonly referred to as HDTV. HDTV costs more than normal TV but is becoming more available.

Doomguy

The doomguy, also known as Doom Dude, Doom or The Marine, is the character of the Doom series of computer and video games formed by id Software. In all the games, he is a space marine working for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), who never speaks and is by no means referred to by name.

In the Doom novels, the main quality is referred to as Flynn Fly Taggart, which is universally suggested to be the Doomguy from the games. However, Tom Hall's original design draft, also known as Doom Bible, recommended his name was Buddy Dacote. In the Doom film revision, the main character, John Reaper Grimm is also suggested to be the Doomguy. This is a twist because the audience likely expects Sarge to acquire that role.
All of the computer-game renditions of the Doomguy dress in green armour. Reaper from the film story wears combat gear reminiscent of a S.W.A.T. operative.

Pets

A pet is an animal kept for companionship and enjoyment, as opposed to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful characteristics, for their attractive appearance, or for their song. Pets also generally seem to provide their owners with non-trivial health benefits; keeping pets has been shown to help relieve stress. There is now a medically-approved class of therapy animals, mostly dogs, who are brought to visit confined humans. Walking a dog can provide both the owner and the dog with exercise, fresh air, and social interaction.

Koko the gorilla is one of few examples of a non-human animal which has had an explicit pet. Using sign language, she requested a cat; her first pet was a kitten named All Ball, to which she was reported to be quite attached and mourned for several days after the cat escaped and was killed by a car.

The GloFish is a genetically modified fluorescent zebrafish with bright red, green, and orange fluorescent color. It is the first genetically modified animal to become available as a pet.

Hockey

Hockey is any of a family of sports in which two teams struggle by trying to maneuver a ball, or a hard, surrounding disc called a puck, into the opponent's net or goal, using a hockey stick. Field hockey is played on nettle, natural grass, sand-based or water-based artificial turfs, with a small, hard ball. The game is popular among both males and females in many countries of the world, mostly in Europe, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South Asia. In most countries, the game is played between single-sex sides, even though it can be played by mixed-sex sides. In the United States and Canada it is played mostly by women.

Ball hockey is played in a gym using sticks and a ball, often a tennis ball with the hair removed.
There are early representations and reports of hockey-type games being played on ice in the Netherlands, and reports from Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century, but the modern game was initially planned by students at McGill University, Montreal in 1875 who, by two years later, codified the first set of ice hockey rules and organized the first teams.

Computers

Computers take numerous physical forms. The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century, although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed prior. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers. Modern computers are based on comparatively tiny integrated circuits and are millions to billions of times more capable while occupying a fraction of the space. Today, simple computers may be made small enough to fit into a wrist watch and be powered from a watch battery. Personal computers in various forms are icons of the information age and are what most people think of as "a computer". However, the most common form of computer in use today is by far the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are often used to control other devices-for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and even children's toys.

The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church-Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: Any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks given enough time and storage capacity