Eideard

Dalia Dippolito never planned to have her husband killed, her attorney told a jury on Tuesday. Rather, she thought she was acting in a reality show orchestrated by her husband to achieve fame and publicity.

In his opening statement in her murder-for-hire trial, defense attorney Michael Salnick said Michael Dippolito was a controlling husband who duped his wife into taking part in his hoax.

“Michael Dippolito’s hoax to orchestrate his own murder to achieve fame and fortune was a bad prank,” Salnick said. “It was never anyone’s intention to harm anyone…”

Video from an undercover sting by Boynton Beach police showed Dalia Dippolito in August 2009 trying to hire an undercover officer to kill her husband. Video of her wailing at news of his murder went viral and will be featured on the television show “COPS.”

Salnick told jurors that Dalia Dippolito knew the entire time that she was being recorded, because her husband persuaded her to take part in his reality-show idea. Michael Dippolito won’t admit it, Salnick said…

Dippolito faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. Her alleged plan to have a hit man kill her husband backfired when the man she hired to do the job was the undercover Boynton Beach police officer.

Boynton Beach police were fooled by Michael Dippolito’s staged murder-for-hire scenario, Salnick said, and were more focused on pleasing COPS producers…

On Aug. 5, 2009, police staged the elaborate crime scene, and recorded video of her shrieks and tears when they told her that her husband had been killed.

Later they confronted her, brought her face-to-face with her husband and arrested her. Her reaction and arrest also were caught on video, which will be evidence in the trial.

Michael Dippolito was the victim in the case, Parker said, and was blinded by his love for his wife of six months.

Do you think this is going to work better than the twinkie defense used in San Francisco to justify the murder of Harvey Milk? You have to admit it’s creative and including in a reasonably sleazy reality TV show like COPS is brilliant.

Sony lost $450 million last year – paid Stringer $4.5 million + stock options
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Sony PlayStation gamers expressed shock and disappointment on Wednesday at a massive data hack in which their names, addresses and credit-card details might have been stolen from the PlayStation Network.

Shoppers at London video-games stores said they might leave the network, PSN, which allows them to play games with 77 million other members and buy games online, while some gamers writing in online forums called for a boycott of Sony products…

Sony warned earlier that unidentified hackers had stolen the personal details of its 77 million user accounts, in one of the biggest-ever Internet security break-ins.

The Japanese electronics giant advised users, almost 90 percent of whom are based in Europe and the United States, to change any common passwords they also used for other services.

It said children with accounts established by their parents might have had their data exposed.

“If you think the gamers are pissed over at playstation blog, wait until the Mums get wind of this,” wrote senior member barrybarryk on the PS3news.com online forum…

Sony pulled the plug on the network eight days ago but did not tell the public about the stolen data until Tuesday.

Phew! I don’t know of any industry guaranteed safe from attack. I have some experience with procedures that appear to work – when enforced with diligence and consistency. I’m not certain about any IT departments other than those I personally could vouch for, though.

Oh yeah – just discussing this with another geek in the family – remember all the crap that’s happened at Sony from the closing of research centers to failed security to snooping on users has happened on Stringer’s watch.

The pilot plant for the planned new project

The Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan, which depends heavily on burning coal for power, will build one of the world’s first commercial-scale power plants that will capture carbon dioxide emissions, the provincial government said on Tuesday.

Saskatchewan said the power utility it owns, SaskPower, will proceed with a long-planned C$1.24 billion conversion of a generating unit at its Boundary Dam Power Station at the city of Estevan as the province moves to comply with new Canadian requirements for cleaner coal power.

The project will have capacity to produce 110 megawatts of electricity per year, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 1 million tonnes — the equivalent of taking 250,000 vehicles off the road each year, the provincial government said…

The province, which is rich in oil, potash and uranium, had been holding off on final approval of the project as it awaited details of new federal regulations for coal plants.

SaskPower’s three coal-fired power plants account for half of the utility’s electricity production…

The new standards will force electricity producers to phase out older, high-emitting coal-fired plants and require newer facilities to match the lower greenhouse-gas emissions of more efficient natural-gas-fired plants. Unless operators make substantial investments to cut emissions from aging coal-burning facilities, they’ll be required to shut down.

TransAlta Corp, the country’s largest operators of coal-fired plants, is developing a near-commercial-scale demonstration project near Edmonton, Alberta, that will also capture carbon.

SaskPower, meanwhile, is working on deals to sell its captured carbon to oil drillers, which can use it to extract oil from the ground, a spokesman for the utility said. Cenovus Energy Inc currently imports carbon from the United States to extract oil at its Weyburn, Saskatchewan, oilfield.

Looking forward to seeing what can be done on a commercial scale. I’ve noted pilot plants here in North America and in Europe; but, I’m curious to see what can be accomplished in the real world.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The U.S. State Department has broadened its travel warning on Mexico to include parts of five additional states, including a highway where suspected drug gangs shot two U.S. customs officials in February.

The warning advises U.S. government personnel and American citizens to defer nonessential travel in certain parts of Jalisco, Nayarit, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Zacatecas.

It outright bans U.S. employees from travelling to Colotlan and Yahualica, two cities in the central-west state of Jalisco near the Zacatecas border due to increasing drug gang violence.

“Concerns include roadblocks placed by individuals posing as police or military personnel and recent gun battles between rival transnational criminal organizations involving automatic weapons,” the State Department warning said.

The restrictions were added to a previous warning against travel throughout the states of Tamaulipas and Michoacan and to parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Sinaloa.

Gunmen shot dead an unarmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and wounded another on February 15 on a highway in San Luis Potosi in a daylight attack that outraged U.S. officials and put a strain on join U.S.-Mexican efforts to battle drug cartels…

The latest warning also provides more specific information on travel in northern Mexico where drug gang wars have been most violent, naming cities and towns that require particular caution. For example, it says U.S. government officials are required to travel only in armoured vehicles and in daylight hours in Sinaloa parts of the city of Nogales…

More than 36,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led crackdown on drug gangs in 2006. Mexico last month revealed that it is allowing unmanned U.S. drone aircraft into its airspace to hunt for drug traffickers.

Finally convinced the snowbird section of our extended family to stop traveling much into Mexico during their winter stay along the border. There are a couple of places they will slip over the border for daytrips, essential errands. But, the range of safe travel continues to diminish month-by-month even for old hands.

Did you ever see an interesting class at the gym that you were too intimidated to try? Or maybe you need to freshen up your current workout routine..?

For my first Gym Class I tried AntiGravity Yoga, a fitness class that adapts the poses of traditional yoga for a large silk hammock raised off the ground. Sometimes called suspension or aerial yoga, AntiGravity Yoga was developed by Christopher Harrison, a former aerial acrobat and gymnast who found traditional yoga too hard on his injured wrists. The weightless poses can be used to strengthen the core as well as relieve aching joints and stretch tight muscles…

To see what happens during an aerial yoga class, watch the video, taken at the Om Factory Yoga Center in midtown Manhattan, and check out the Gym Class ratings below.

 
Gym Class Rating (from 1 to 5):

Difficulty: 2
Intimidation factor: 4
Workout intensity: 1
Fun quotient: 5

I might add Looking silly: 5

Having an even sillier name: 10

The plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt, made by General Motors, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf save on fuel , but the size and weight of their battery packs add significant crash protection as well.

“The Leaf and Volt’s extra mass gives them a safety advantage over other small cars,” Joe Nolan, chief administrative officer of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said on Tuesday.

The closely watched group, underwritten by insurance companies, crash tested the two first generation 2011 plug-ins that were introduced late last year as the ultimate for consumers in fuel economy.

Both earned top safety ratings, an early validation for experts who say automakers do not have to sacrifice safety for better fuel economy, that advanced technologies can achieve both…

“What powers the wheels is different, but the level of safety for the Volt and Leaf is as high as any of our other top crash test performers,” Nolan said…

The Volt and the Leaf are classified as small cars but their battery packs raise their weight closer to mid-size and larger ones…

The findings also contrasted with a lackluster Volt endorsement earlier this year from Consumer Reports on efficiency. I don’t know any experienced, savvy auto geeks who consider Consumer Reports to be anything other than incompetent, opportunist.

GM said the review was hasty. I’d say sleazy – with CR’s mind made up in advance.

This article doesn’t take the time to note special consideration made for first-responders in the very different designs of these two cars. Fire and police departments around the world have taken the time to add a bit of extra training to be certain they are prepared to deal with the much larger batteries in these critters. The manufacturers have added incident power cutoffs to aid in safety.

Another popular Ryanair promotion

Ryanair has launched an enquiry after three passengers on the same flight each won a car worth €10,000 after playing its in-flight scratchcard game.

The three passengers, who were flying from Milan to Madrid last Monday, won the prize after buying one of the airline’s €2 scratchcards, despite an average of one car being won each month.

The airline blamed a printing error by Brandforce, the company which runs the game, but has promised that all three winners will receive their vehicles.

Ryanair began selling scratchcards in 2008 in an attempt to further increase its additional or “ancillary” revenues. Around a quarter of the airline’s annual earnings are generated by ancillary revenues. Its extra charges, including check-in fees, booking fees and luggage charges, have increased by up to 700 per cent since 2006.

Perish the thought that some cynical journalists are suggesting Ryanair arranged for three winning cards on a single flight to increase their sales of scratchcards. Could you imagine a reputable firm pulling a stunt like that.

Oh!

Armenia’s GM Levon Aronian, sporting an academic look

Every child aged six or over in Armenia is now destined to learn chess. The authorities there believe compulsory lessons will “foster schoolchildren’s intellectual development” and improve critical thinking skills.

The country has plenty of reasons to believe in chess. It treats grandmasters like sports stars, championships are displayed on giant boards in cities and victories celebrated with the kind of frenzy most countries reserve for football…

A two-year study conducted in the US by Dr Stuart Marguilies found that learning chess improved reading test scores and reading performance in elementary schools.

Another study by Professor Peter Dauvergne, who is also a chess master, concluded playing chess could raise IQ scores, strengthen problem solving skills, enhance memory and foster creative thinking.

Malcolm Pein, chief executive of Chess in Schools and Communities, a programme that puts chess into UK schools, says there are lots of reasons why chess has a positive impact on primary school children.

“Not only does it give children good thinking skills and improve concentration, memory and calculation, but it teaches children to take responsibility for their actions.”

Of course, the most important consideration isn’t even discussed at all. Is chess something worthy of study in its own right? The answer is yes, whether you view chess as art, science, or sport, or whether you want to study the history of chess, which in itself will teach you a lot about how theories are created, applied, revised, built upon, discarded. Read the rest of this entry »

Eleni Giannousis teaching her English Class

A math teacher, José Rios, used to take a day or two on probabilities, drawing bell-shaped curves on the blackboard to illustrate the pattern known as normal distribution. This year, he stretched the lesson by a day and had students work in groups to try to draw the same type of graphic using the heights of the 15 boys in the class.

“Eventually, they figured out they couldn’t because the sample was too small,” Mr. Rios said. “They learned that the size of the sample matters, and I didn’t have to tell them.”

In three years, instruction in most of the country could look a lot like what is going on at Hillcrest, one of 100 schools in New York City experimenting with new curriculum standards known as the common core…an ambitious set of goals that go beyond reading lists and math formulas to try to raise the bar not only on what students in every grade are expected to learn, but also on how teachers are expected to teach…

The new standards give specific goals that, by the end of the 12th grade, should prepare students for college work. Book reports will ask students to analyze, not summarize. Presentations will be graded partly on how persuasively students express their ideas. History papers will require reading from multiple sources; the goal is to get students to see how beliefs and biases can influence the way different people describe the same events…

With 3,200 students, Hillcrest is the second largest school in the city’s pilot. Its size and diversity — whites are a minority (4 percent), Muslims are the religious plurality (about 30 percent) and one-tenth of students are learning English — made it an ideal laboratory to test how the standards might work in the city, officials said…

Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city’s chief academic officer, said the city plans to create an instructional package with exercises that teachers at Hillcrest and other schools have used; student work they have assigned; and guidelines for evaluating the work…He cautioned against overly optimistic expectations.

“This isn’t one of those things where you flip the switch and tomorrow, everything is going to be different,” he said.

RTFA for details, a record of these bare beginnings. Similar to what is being tried in Brockton, Massachusetts in many ways. I hope NYC finds the same level of success.

Hitler’s “defense” force marching into Austria, 12 March 1938

The Austrian capital Vienna has announced plans to erect a memorial in honour of soldiers who deserted from Adolf Hitler’s army, the Wehrmacht.

The city council has yet to decide the exact location, but campaigners want it to be put in Heldenplatz (Heroes Square) alongside war memorials. The square is also where Hitler, born in Austria, addressed crowds in 1938 when Austria was annexed to Germany…

Two years ago Austria’s parliament agreed to rehabilitate soldiers criminalised by the Nazis for deserting from the Wehrmacht.

The decision to erect a memorial was endorsed by the socialist and green parties which form Vienna’s municipal government coalition. Vienna Green Party leader David Ellensohn said the monument could be modelled on other memorials to Wehrmacht deserters in some German cities…

“In large parts of the Austrian population deserters are still considered cowards, traitors, even comrade-killers. A monument – and especially the public debate around the erection of the monument – could somehow change that.”

Mr Geldmacher said an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Austrians deserted from the Wehrmacht, especially in the final days of World War II.

And someday – someday – the United States may even honor those who deserted from our war on VietNam.

Not yet. The chickenhawks who run for public office still reinforce the patriotic agitprop that sends young men and women off to invade lands judged threatening to the United States – regardless of history and truth.