Drunk Driving Is Now Could Be Legal In Parts Of Ireland Because ...

You guys know what's great? Driving! You know what else is great? Drinking! But they should never be done together. That's just dangerous, irresponsible, and also illegal.

Unless you live in County Kerry, Ireland, where the county's council this week voted to allow rural drivers to legally operate vehicles under the influence of alcohol, ABC News reports. We all know the Irish put everyone else in the world to shame with their partying skills, but this is a new high. Or low, depending on your perspective.

ABC News says that the council voted 5-3 with 12 absent and 7 abstaining (side note: Twelve council members didn't show up and seven others abstained from voting? What the fuck kind of local government is this?) to issue permits that allow people to consume two or three drinks and still drive home, if they live in rural areas and take country roads home. The country's Justice Minister will have to implement the changes.

The bill was introduced by a council member who also owns a pub and argued that intoxicated drivers in rural areas have never killed anyone. (What about themselves, though?) Another added benefit, he argues, is that people out in the country will be less lonely this way. Awwww. Here's what he told an Irish newspaper:

"A lot of these people are living in isolated rural areas where there's no public transport of any kind, and they end up at home looking at the four walls, night in and night out, because they don't want to take the risk of losing their license," Healy-Rae told TheJournal.ie.

Maybe this makes me a prudish, Puritanical American, but I think this has bad idea written all over it. I wouldn't want to be out on those roads if I knew intoxicated people were driving on them with no consequences. Also, the ABC story notes that tougher drunk driving laws in Ireland have actually cut down the number of traffic fatalities by 56 percent in recent years.

Oh well. As long as people aren't lonely, I guess drunk driving is okay.

UPDATE: As many commenters point out, the law still has to be approved/created by a justice minister who will of course not approve it.

Photo credit Shutterstock

Source: http://jalopnik.com/5978388/drunk-driving-is-now-legal-in-parts-of-ireland-because-irish-country-people-are-lonely

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The Mars mystique

After 50 years of missions to Mars, scientists are unlocking some of the mysteries surrounding a planet that has captivated mankind for millenniums. Will ?humans ever leave a boot print on Mars?

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / January 13, 2013

A self-portrait of NASA's Mars exploration rover, 'Spirit,' in 2006. This is the cover story in the Jan. 14 edition of The Christian Science MonitorWeekly.

Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Cal Tech/Cornell/Arizona State

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The mood among mission controllers was subdued. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in the foothills of southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, were worried about the landing of their spacecraft on Mars.

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With good reason.

Three months earlier, in September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter had arrived at the red planet, only to burn up in the atmosphere instead of taking up its intended orbit. Now, on Dec. 3, NASA officials were nervous about the fate of the Mars Polar Lander as it approached the planet, even though they had taken all the precautions they could to prevent a similar mishap.

"The tension was palpable," recalls Scott Hubbard, then a deputy director at NASA's Ames Research Center Laboratory, who was at the event. "Everyone was on edge."

Their anxiety turned out to be prophetic. When the $110 million lander finally touched down on the planet, it did so with all the subtlety of Wile E. Coyote's anvil falling off the cliff. Investigators later posited that the most likely cause was a bogus "I've landed" signal sent to the computerized flight-control system when, in fact, the lander was still 131 feet up. It had deployed its legs as planned. But that triggered an errant signal that caused the landing rockets to shut down prematurely, leaving the craft to crash into Mars at about 50 miles per hour. Controllers were never able to make contact with the lander or the two probes it ferried.

The debacle marked a low point in NASA's decades-old quest to explore Mars. The loss of the lander was the third failure in six years. In the 13 years since, however, the effort has undergone a remarkable turnaround. The agency has overseen the most comprehensive, systematic ? and successful ? effort to investigate another planet since the dawn of the Space Age. A string of six triumphant orbiters, landers, and rovers has helped unlock mysteries about a planet that has captivated humans since the Babylonians.

Now, as the most sophisticated rover humans have ever sent into the cosmos inches its way along the planet's ruddy surface, mankind may be reaching a hinge moment in the study of Mars. Curiosity's slow journey across Gale Crater marks a shift from tracing the history of water on Mars to focusing on efforts that could help answer a question humans have been asking since Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens drew up the first practical sketches of the planet in the mid-1600s: Did Mars ever host life?

Curiosity's landing alone was euphoric for NASA: Its soft touchdown in August, at the end of a "sky crane" tether, heralded a new era of precision landings that was watched by millions around the world, creating a triumphant moment for an often-beleaguered space agency.

Centimeter by centimeter, Curiosity is hunting for evidence that Gale, a desiccated ding in the planet's surface with a central peak towering 18,000 feet above the crater floor, may have harbored conditions that permitted primitive life to exist early in Mars' history. But that's just one spot on the planet ? akin to trying to figure out the biological history of Earth by landing solely in rural Chile (which scientists often use as a stand-in for Mars).

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/LQaDnR0_MY4/The-Mars-mystique

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Mazda VX-1 - Paul Tan's Automotive Blog

To get meaningful volume in Indonesia, one must have an affordable seven-seat MPV to sell, a car like the Toyota Avanza. If you don?t have it, rebadge it, and that?s what Mazda has done with this upcoming Mazda VX-1, which is based on the Suzuki Ertiga MPV.

Taken from Indonesian website detikOto, there?s not much info accompanying these pics, other than the fact that this ?MPV kelas bawah? (their words, not ours) is new ground for Mazda (other MPVs in the stable include the Biante and Mazda 8) and that it will be offered with manual transmission. It remains to be seen if the VX-1 will use Suzuki?s 1.4 litre K-series engine or Mazda?s own powerplant.

First launched in India early last year, the Ertiga sits on a Suzuki SX4 platform stretched to have a long 2,740 mm wheelbase. It?s available with the abovementioned 1.4 petrol or a 1.3 litre Fiat turbodiesel with 88 hp/200 Nm. Click here for a full gallery of the Suzuki Ertiga.

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Source: http://paultan.org/2013/01/23/mazda-vx-1-indonesian-rebadge-of-the-suzuki-ertiga/

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Explore wonderful results of article syndication in web promotion

Whole the world knows significance of internet efforts in promotion of business. All of us have seen rapid rise of lots of corporate house which lead their counterparts in the industry with the power of online marketing. Still there are some entrepreneurs who accuse online marketing to be unproductive without even evaluating their efforts properly. Just making a website for the business is not sufficient. It doesn?t matter how attractive your site looks unless you promote it through proper efforts. Article marketing can be of great help here. It?s one of the least expensive yet most effective ways of website promotion.

You should start your website promotion campaign just from the beginning. Internet marketing should be started along with launch of the site to get quicker results. It?s quite necessary to keep on making efforts to make your site popular among so many on the internet. Article syndication can take your online marketing efforts to next level. Though article marketing and syndication supposes to be a time consuming task but its results are really worthwhile.

Articles should be around 500 words long. They should relate to product and services offered by your business, trends of your industry or some other topics that may interest your customers i.e. features of your company, description of products and services offered or benefits of dealing with your organization etc. Stand in the shoes of customers before penning an article and know for yourself what kind of things they would be looking for in articles related to your industry. But remember, your articles must be informative and attractive at the same time.

Make sure that each of your articles contains your name, contact details and company information. You must insert links in the articles which lead readers to your website. Links in the articles will attract a lot of traffic towards your website which supposes to be the biggest benefit of article syndication. More visitors of your website will obviously, make search engines to enhance your ranking. This enhanced ranking will make your online marketing efforts even more efficient and faster.

When people read articles, the biggest thing they want is information. Try to write as much informative articles as you can. It needs to be educative in order to attract more and more visitors. Don?t try to decorate and elongate your articles with lots of fillers. Visitors actually avoid articles inundated with fillers. An article with adequate information is what readers of articles run after.

While writing articles for syndication, try to enrich it with keywords. It will increase efficiency of your SEO efforts. Keywords should be dispersed wisely throughout the title, main body and description of your article. They shouldn?t seem to be inserted unnecessarily. Make good use of keywords and create excellent articles capable enough to attract a huge crowd of visitors.

Article marketing has always been there to promote various products but traditionally it was being done through magazines and books but nowadays there is internet for the purpose which is way simpler and cheaper than other ways. Moreover, it?s more rewarding also. So if you still haven?t resorted to article syndication for website promotion, just go for it.

Author's Bio:?

Henry Hunter is as an experienced writer who writes mostly on about SEO if you need more information please visit here website.

Source: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/explore-wonderful-results-of-article-syndication-in-web-promotion

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Political stakes high as Clinton testifies on Benghazi

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

The political stakes will be high Wednesday morning when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about her role in the events leading up to the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The stakes will also be high for a Republican member of the committee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom some pundits see as a possible presidential candidate in 2016. It will be a rare instance when one potential White House hopeful gets an opportunity to interrogate a potential rival from the opposing party. Clinton herself is thought to be a strong contender for the Democratic nomination, should she chose to throw her hat into the ring.

Gary Cameron / Reuters

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the State Department in Washington January 18, 2013.

Rubio said Tuesday that he hoped Clinton?s testimony would shed light on ?the decision-making process in terms of the amount of security that was at the consulate. She has a unique insight that no one else in the State Department can offer, so we look forward to hearing about that.??

Last month, a report issued by the Accountability Review Board (appointed by Clinton to investigate the attack) blamed State Department officials for ?systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies? that led to protection for the Benghazi facility that was ?grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.?

Rubio said Tuesday that one aspect of the report that bothered him was ?how much blame was put on lower-level officials in the State Department when in fact this (Benghazi) is a high-profile assignment, a high-profile installation, where we should have been aware of some of the security risks that existed.?

In an interview last October, Clinton said, ?I take responsibility. I?m in charge of the State Department, 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president certainly wouldn?t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals.?

'Political charade'
The furor over the Benghazi attack has already helped derail one possible nominee to replace Clinton at the State Department, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, whom Republicans assailed for using administration talking points that portrayed the incident as a spontaneous response to an inflammatory anti-Islamic video.

Asked whether there was any way that Wednesday?s hearing could not become a political event or spectacle, Rubio responded, ?Everyone here takes their job seriously. We understand that everyone involved cared for and highly valued the people whose lives were lost. But mistakes were made and it?s important to understand why they were made and how they were made so that they?re never made again.?

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., talks about Wednesday's Benghazi hearings and previews Sen. John Kerry's upcoming confirmation hearing.

A newly elected Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said Tuesday, ?My perspective is looking forward. I want to understand how we can better secure (U.S. diplomatic) complexes across the globe and how we can make the case here in Washington that we need the money to do it. There were resource pressures on the State Department to make decisions on security and we need to be able to have the ammunition to make the case here to increase their budget.?

Murphy said he did not see the question of whether Clinton was personally responsible for lapses in security at the Benghazi facility as the central issue in the hearing. ?The decisions that were made (regarding security in Benghazi) clearly didn?t reach Secretary Clinton?s desk and I want her thoughts on how we make sure this doesn?t happen again,? the Connecticut Democrat said.

Murphy, who served three terms in the House before winning a Senate seat, criticized Republicans on the House Oversight Committee for politicizing the Benghazi attack and for running a Benghazi hearing last year that he called ?a debacle, a political charade. I?m hopeful that tomorrow?s hearing won?t be the same.?

Stockpiled weapons?
One senator not on the Foreign Affairs Committee but who has led the call for the Obama administration to be more forthcoming about the attack, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said she hoped to find out from Clinton?s testimony what Clinton was told about security threats to the U.S. facility and what she was told about prior attacks on the facility. She asked, ?Does she believe in the characterization that the security was substantial and significant? That was the characterization that Ambassador Rice gave to the nation. And what conversations did she have with the president about securing the consulate??

Ayotte?made the connection Tuesday between the turmoil in Libya ? in which jihadists seized weapons stockpiles that had been amassed by the regime of toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi ? and the danger of a similar outcome in Syria, where the security of the Assad regime?s chemical weapons stockpiles is doubt.

Ayotte, a member of a bipartisan Senate delegation that just returned from the Middle East, said, ?We have seen the lesson learned, for example, in Libya.?

She said on the Senate delegation?s trip, ?We heard in Egypt about weapons from Libya being shipped to the Sinai from Libya. There are reports that there may be connections between weapons from Libya and the (hostage taking) incident in Algeria (in which 37 were killed). We heard from leaders in the Middle East that these weapons are going throughout the Middle East from Libya. We?ve heard concerns about weapons (from Libya) getting the wrong hands?. When you don?t secure weapons and they get in the wrong hands, you put tools in the hands of terrorists.?

A theme from Rubio and other Republicans has been the Obama administration got engaged ?too late? and ?not decisively enough? in Libya, allowing chaos to prevail in some of the country. ?The reason why there are all these multiple militias in Libya is because this was a protracted conflict that created the opportunity and the space for these militias to form ? similar to what we?re seeing now in Syria,? Rubio said after a Dec. 20 Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Related:

Republicans press for answers from Clinton on Benghazi

Clinton: 'We did everything we could to keep our people safe'

Rice: 'I relied solely and squarely' on intel given to me for Benghazi comments

Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/22/16647765-with-her-political-future-in-question-clinton-heads-for-benghazi-testimony?lite

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Investing In Foreclosures ? Real Estate | Raw Business Law

When homeowners fall behind on mortgage payments, foreclosures may occur. A foreclosure is a process in which a financial institution repossesses or sells a piece of property because of a loan default. Mortgage lenders usually consider a mortgage to be in default when payments haven?t been made in three months. When mortgage loans are in default, the mortgage lenders can start the foreclosure proceedings of the properties, and so opportunities arise for investing in foreclosures.

There are three ways you can get a great deal in investing in foreclosures: at the pre-foreclosure stage, that is, before the homeowner falls so behind in his mortgage payments that the property is foreclosed; at an auction of foreclosed properties; or from a Bank owning foreclosed properties. Information is everything! You need to have up to date accurate information, an absolute essential for investing in foreclosures. You will need a source for knowing what properties are going to sale, for how much and when.

Success in buying homes in pre-foreclosure is all about timing and it is essential that you reach the homeowners early on to help them. When a homeowner is unable to pay one or two mortgage payments, you can be pretty sure that a probable foreclosure is ahead. Many of these homeowners don?t know who to turn to. They are mostly scared and/or worried. Wouldn?t anyone be fretful in the same situation? As an investor you have to think about the reality these people are facing and present them options in a hopeful manner, to help them move forward in their lives.

The second way you can find great deals in investing in foreclosures is at auctions. When borrowers default on their mortgage payments, the original lender takes back the property and sells it at auction, often at a seriously discounted price. Your main advantage of investing in foreclosures at an auction is that the moment a property reaches the actual sale date, all trust deeds (loans, depts.) made after the foreclosing loan are wiped off the property. In this way you can get instant equity. If you?re the winning bidder at an auction you will pay off the loan with your winning bid amount and you?ll then take title.

Lastly you can also find great opportunities for investing in foreclosures with properties owned by banks or other lenders. 10-20% of all properties progressing to the trustee?s sales (auctions) have no bidders show up. The instant that no bids are made at the sale, the foreclosing beneficiary (bank or lender) becomes the owner. Banks and lenders are now getting these properties back regularly. It is very expensive for them to be stuck with these properties! The costs to the lender would be enormous in the event that they chose to list the property with a broker and many months elapse during the clean up, the marketing, and the escrow period. The whole key for you to be able to invest in foreclosures at this stage is to act quickly by approaching the beneficiary (lender), the same day of the sale, before he turns the property over to a real estate agent for resale. Your quick action at this point can save you tens of thousands of dollars.

As a general rule, when a property has a lot of equity you should approach the owner during the pre-foreclosure or default stage with an offer. It?s in his interest to accept an offer of a few thousand dollars to get out before losing everything at the foreclosure sale. When a property has little or no equity, you simply step back, be patient and wait for the trustee?s sale at auction. The trustee?s sale will wipe off all previous liens, creating equity. Ten to 20% of the time no outside bidder will show, and the property will revert to the foreclosing beneficiary. Now is your perfect time to low ball the bank or lender with an offer substantially below the minimum bid at the trustee?s sale before he incurs any costs, such as commissions, clean up, repairs and holding costs.

There are three key elements to investing in foreclosures with the lowest possible amount of capital. First you must know which properties are in trouble and know exactly at what stage of the foreclosure process the property is in. Second, it is critical that you know how much time the owner has left. Third, you should always find out all the trust deeds (loans) that are against the property so that you can establish the lowest possible price to offer. You should have some way of getting these three elements researched as completely as possible on every property giving, so that you get all the most important information that any buyer can have. To do this you need a first-class reputable and reliable foreclosure information service, to enable you to successfully profit through investing in foreclosures.You can find a first-class reliable service providing updated details of more than 600,000 foreclosures and pre-foreclosures at: Investing In Foreclosures.

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Source: http://rawbusinesslaw.com/2013/01/22/investing-in-foreclosures-real-estate-4/

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AMD hires chip veterans, diversifies beyond PCs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc has hired two senior engineers with experience at Qualcomm Inc and Apple Inc, its latest high-level recruitments as it diversifies beyond a slowing personal computer industry, sources close to the chipmaker said.

Charles Matar, with expertise in low-power and embedded chip design, joined as AMD's vice president of System-on-Chip Development, two sources said. Matar most recently worked at Qualcomm.

Wayne Meretsky, who has worked at Apple on processors used in the iPad and iPhone, was named vice president, software IP development, they said. Meretsky will lead software developments for AMD's chips.

AMD spokesman Drew Prairie also confirmed that AMD hired the two engineers to help the chipmaker expand into new markets, but he did not provide details.

AMD depends on the PC industry for about 80 percent of its revenue. With sales in that business falling due to a growing preference for smartphones and tablets, the company is rushing to expand into new markets for its chip processors and graphics technology.

One of Silicon Valley's oldest chipmakers, AMD has experienced major changes in its lineup of executives and senior engineers since Chief Executive Rory Read moved over from PC maker Lenovo in 2011 promising to make the struggling chipmaker more efficient.

In October, AMD announced it was laying off 15 percent of its workforce, its second round of job cuts in less than a year.

Matar and Meretsky both worked at AMD earlier in their careers. Their return follows chip guru Jim Keller, who joined AMD as chief architect in August last year.

Keller was previously a director at Apple in charge of designing mobile processors used in the iPad and iPhone.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD hopes to increase sales in markets such as communications, microservers, digital signs and stripped down "thin client" computers. It wants those non-PC markets to account for as much as 50 percent of its revenue within three or four years.

Matar will focus on designing SoCs, or "system on a chips", which integrate several features found on a computer into a single piece of silicon. The technology is widely used in smartphones, tablets and embedded devices.

The chipmaker plans to ship a new low power processor, codenamed Temash, for tablets and hybrid laptops running Microsoft's Windows 8 platform in the first half of this year.

Its Kabini laptop processor, also planned for early 2013, will have 50 percent better performance than its predecessor, according to AMD.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich and Richard Chang)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amd-hires-chip-veterans-diversifies-beyond-pcs-110154094--finance.html

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