Reuters
Iran announced on Friday new military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, but the West has readied plans to use strategic oil stocks to replace almost all Gulf oil lost if Iran blocks the waterway, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.
They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA) discussed on Thursday an existing plan to release up to 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the United States, Europe, Japan and other importers.
This rate of release could be kept up for a month, offsetting most of the 16 million barrels a day of crude passing through the world?s most important shipping lane that could be halted by an Iranian blockade.
Iranian officials have threatened in recent weeks to block the strait if new sanctions imposed by the United States and planned by the European Union, with the aim of discouraging Iran?s nuclear program, harm Tehran?s oil exports.
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Okay, I was never good at math, but 60 pounds equals 60 pounds. Right? If you have 60 pounds in one bag, and then take 15 pounds out and put it in another bag and both of those bags are going on a plane you are still taking 60 pounds of your precious belongings onto a plane... right?
Please don't tune me out because I sound like some SAT question you may have skipped on the test. Okay, I skipped on the test. I'm just checking my facts here because I'm just a traveling layman, not a aerospace scientist, or a conglomerate corporation whose primary focus it is to calculate numbers such as these: 60=60. Which is maybe why this corporation has filed for bankruptcy.
Welcome to American Airlines.
As I scrambled at the American counter to remove a sweater, two books, three magazines, a package of Starbucks coffee, my toiletries (but not the hair pomade) and my make up bag, my jewelry, and a pair of shoes and fit them in my purse and carry on, the questioned dawned on me... all the items are all going on the plane. What freaking difference does it make?
Yes, my bag is heavy. I've been away for over a month plus I've accumulated several books, and there's Christmas... but it's all going on the plane. 60 pounds is 60 pounds.
Well, not according to American Airlines. 60 pounds checked is an extra 100 dollars bag fee. So actually 60 equals 100! Me carrying odd packages slung over my shoulder like a Sherpa, a stack of books like a college grad at finals, clothing tied around my waist like a hipster bag lady -- through the terminal, in and out of the bins at security and on and off the plane? Only 25 dollars. So 45 equals 25. And sore shoulders. Are you still with me?
When I boarded everyone was told no coats in the overhead bin. No shopping bags in the overhead bin. Only wheelies in the overhead bin. So, basically, only heavy suitcases in the overhead bin? 60 pounds is 60 pounds. I stuffed everything around me and below me like an economy class scarecrow, unable to move, unable to tweet about it because American didn't even have Wi-Fi on the flight. I'm lucky I got a light over my seat. I wasn't so lucky when I asked for some sugar for my tea.
The surly, bitchy, caustic flightie rolled her eyes at me and tossed a pack of sugar my way. Just like something I would have done to her, except I don't get paid to be pleasant and helpful because I know better than to work in a job where I would be nasty to people strapped into confined spaces who need me (you're welcome, humans). She was so testy, I was tempted to turn on my phone and play a rousing game of Words With Friends. Alec, are you free?
I have to admit I am spoiled. I'd just traveled overseas via Virgin, with the choice of over 40 movies at my fingertips, seats that recline like a lounger and free bags checked. Yes I said free. That Branson is a goddamned Communist or something!
Plus the food. Oh my good the food. All served with a smile. A pre-drink snack. Free wine. Then a post-drink snack. Then dinner (mine consisted of Christmas dinner with all the trimmings). Then another round of wine, mulled wine, spiked cider or tea. Then they came around with ice cream. Then they brought around tea and chocolate mousse. And then came teatime with cakes, scones and clotted cream, chocolates and mince pies. And then we had tea. That's 60 extra pounds right there.
Plus they give you little goodie bags with toothbrushes and socks and a sleep mask and a pen. They give it to you. No questions asked about shoplifting. They don't bill you for it later. Wow. Virgin really knows how to treat a gal on a date. Their name is deceiving because by the end of the trip I was willing to go as far as they wanted.
And it was all included with your economy ticketed flight. None of this swipe your credit card to pay seven dollars for a stack of Pringles bullshit. Plus they didn't ask us to pay eight dollars for our very own pillow and blanket that we can "take with us" either. Please. Who are you trying to kid? Unless we are deplaning and marching directly to our closest Occupy campsite, your thin blankets and flimsy pillows with dental cape covers are not needed for purchase, thanks.
Oh! And two dollars for head phones? To see Real Steel?
Screw you, American. You should be paying us as a focus group to sit through that.
?
Follow Ali MacLean on Twitter: www.twitter.com/aliontheair
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-maclean/america-airlines-baggage_b_1190764.html
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South Carolina fought off a second-half rally from Florida to collect a 49-44 win in SEC women's basketball action Sunday afternoon at Stephen O'Connell Center. The Gamecocks (14-2, 3-0 SEC) got huge offensive rebounds from Sancheon White and Charenee Stephens late in the game to hold off the Gators' final surge. Markeshia Grant and La'Keisha Sutton led the offense with 11 points each, with Sutton's final two coming on a pair of free throws with five seconds left to seal the victory.Read More Here...
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Thierry Legault's video of the Phobos-Grunt probe
The failed Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt has been pictured moving across the sky by the Paris-based amateur astronomer Thierry Legault.
The spacecraft is seen moving left to right in the video. The bulbous shape of its fuel tanks and its outstretched solar panels are easily discernable.
Mr Legault uses a sophisticated telescopic tracking system and captured similar imagery of Nasa's defunct UARS satellite last year.
Phobos-Grunt is falling to Earth.
It is expected to re-enter the atmosphere in the next 8-9 days and burn up.
The Russian space agency (Roscosmos) said on Friday that perhaps 20-30 pieces weighing no more than 200kg in total might survive the destructive dive and impact the surface somewhere.
Asked how easy it was to grab the shots with his telescopic system, Thierry told BBC News the, "difficulty was very comparable to UARS; they had comparable speed, brightness and size. Except that I had to drive more than 800km to find clear skies in the French Riviera!"
The engineer has posted the video and how he went about acquiring it on his Astrophotography website.
On Friday, Phobos-Grunt was moving around the Earth at an altitude that varied between 177km (perigee) and 224km (apogee). But this orbit will rapidly decay over the coming week as the spacecraft drags through the top of the atmosphere.
As it encounters more and more air, so its descent will accelerate.
The spacecraft's mass at launch was just over 13 tonnes, but some 10 tonnes of this was the fuel it expected to use in the course of its mission to the Red Planet's largest moon.
The propellants, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide (DTO), are highly toxic but they will almost certainly be consumed in the fireball that engulfs Phobos-Grunt when it makes its death dive to Earth.
Part of the confidence on this matter stems from the construction of the fuel tanks.
"The Russian space agency reports they are largely made of aluminium, which has a very low melting temperature, compared to the titanium tanks that can survive re-entry and can sometimes be found on the ground," explained Dr Holger Krag from the European Space Agency's Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany.
"We can expect the tanks to break up and release their contents. There will be a self-ignition of the UDMH and if it does not all burn up, it will be so dispersed there will not be a critical concentration."
Dr Krag and colleagues at Esoc, like a number of teams around the world, are now busy modelling the decay in Phobo-Grunt's orbit.
Esa is a member of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), a forum for the worldwide coordination of activities related to the issues of man-made and natural debris in space.
The other teams working through the IADC will all be using slightly different assumptions in their models and, as a consequence, will all arrive at slightly different timings for the period of impact. A host of amateur groups will be engaged in a similar endeavour.
The hope is that by comparing the different pre-fall projections with the observed re-entry data after the event, future modelling efforts can be finessed.
At the moment, the projections are very uncertain. They are clustering around Saturday 15 January (GMT) and Sunday 16 January.
Much of the uncertainty is related to the state of the atmosphere. During phases of higher solar activity, the atmosphere becomes excited and more extensive, pulling spacecraft and other pieces of debris in towards the Earth much faster than during phases of low solar activity.
Right now, the Sun is moving towards what is expected to be solar maximum - its most active state - over the next year or so, meaning that we are entering "harvest time" for space junk.
But precisely where Phobos-Grunt will re-enter in the coming days is really anyone's guess at the moment.
The maximum latitudes seen by its orbit are 51.4 degrees North and South. This encompasses London (UK) in the Northern Hemisphere and Punta Arenas (Chile) in the Southern Hemisphere.
"But remember, the prediction uncertainties currently are on the order of one or two or even three days and Phobos-Grunt is making one full revolution of the Earth every 90 minutes - about 16 orbits a day. So, it's just not possible to identify a particular region at the moment," Dr Krag told BBC News.
What would help would be a wider ground network of radar sensors to scan the sky.
The more frequently a spacecraft's orbit is sampled, the better the projections would get, particularly towards those final hours before impact.
Esa is building up its Space Situational Awareness programme, and the other agencies involved in the IADC are doing likewise.
"If we ever got the system we dream of, with a really good, globally distributed system of sensors, then we might be able to do a last prediction one or two hours before the actual re-entry," Dr Krag speculated.
"You might be able to nail it down to regions, oceans or continents - perhaps selected countries, but not any further in my view."
If Phobos-Grunt comes back in over a part of the world that is in darkness, it should produce a plasma trail that is visble to anyone watching from land or on a ship.
Europe saw a spectacular example of this on the night of 24 December when a Soyuz rocket stage fell to Earth.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-16444063
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Happy First-Debate-of-the-New Year!
Here?s an overview of the itty bitties from Saturday night?s GOP debate in New Hampshire:
1. Bye Rick Perry. If you heard Perry say that he?d ?send troops back into Iraq? ? even before there?s an immediate need to ? and you didn?t shudder, I?m shocked. President Barack Obama effectively ended the war in Iraq in late December. Was it too soon? That?s your call. But for Perry to say he?s going to send men and women back to the defunct region to protect it from Iranians was suicide. RIP. And this guy has never lost an election before? Hard to believe. Texans are smart.
2. ABC?s Diane Sawyer talks like Martha Stewart. Swayer moderated the debate along with George Stephanopoulos and local affiliate Josh McElveen. Am I the only one who imagined that if the camera showed her hands, you?d see one of them holding a paint brush? She seriously sounded like? Martha Stewart. Pre-convict Martha Stewart, that is.
3. Ron Paul?s tie was really outdated. Several BLAZE readers pointed this out during our live chat. As one of our readers put it, ?How far back did Ron Paul have to reach into his closet for that tie??
4. Speaking of Ron Paul, his golden moment ? perhaps of his entire campaign ? was when Mitt Romney deferred to him on whether states had the right to ban contraception. Who knew?
5. ABC?s set was nice. except for the Hi-Fi stereo-looking graphics.

6. I knew what Newt Gingrich was talking about thanks to this story from Yahoo News.
7. There were too many mic problems during this debate. ABC should talk with the producers. Paul?s was going haywire. And Perry sounded like he was joining the debate via ham radio.
8. This was the first time Rick Santorum was moved from the wings of the stage to the center. That probably felt good. But he still has a lot to answer for in terms of how he views an American?s the right to privacy.
Source: http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/01/07/gop-debate-on-the-surface-n-h-primary/
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The news is not looking good for heavy wireless data users: Sprint, formerly the only major US carrier to offer truly unlimited monthly smartphone data plans, is now throttling data "for about 1% of users" according to Greg Bensinger of Dow Jones Newswires. (Greg Kumparak of Techcrunch clarified that it only applies while roaming, however, and that the fine print of a Sprint contract allows them to do this for "off-network" data usage.)
"Throttling" data means drastically lowering your connection speed while using wireless data. As David Ruddock of the Android Police blog put it, " It's like having unlimited milkshakes - but after the first two, you have to drink them with chopsticks until next month rolls around."
Sprint-owned Virgin Mobile has already announced plans to throttle its unlimited data plans. So far, Sprint's current $79 a month plan is still the closest an iPhone owner can come to truly unlimited data, so long as you stay on Sprint's network. But if you're willing to switch to Android there are a few contract-free options ... sort of.
Republic Wireless
This North Carolina-based startup now offers contract-free unlimited everything for $19 per month. The catch? It's a public beta test, sort of an experiment to see if offloading your voice minutes onto Wi-Fi via "Hybrid Calling" will work. And right now, they're not taking any new subscribers.
When I tested out Hybrid Calling on my Republic Wireless smartphone, I noticed a lag of a few seconds while talking over Wi-Fi. Others' mileage may vary, especially as Republic works the bugs out of the software, and there's no guarantee that the experiment will work out.
Boost Mobile
Boost Mobile's CDMA Android phones use Sprint's network, but unlike Sprint the company offers unlimited everything for $55 a month. What's more, for every six months of payments you make on time your bill shrinks by $5 a month, to a minimum of $40.
So what's the catch? As with all contract-free carriers, including the other three listed here, you have to buy your phone up-front. That means no free Android smartphones, and prices of up to $229 just for a Samsung Transform Ultra -- a far cry from the $199 iPhone 4S.
MetroPCS offers similar rates, minus the "shrinkage" option and with a drastically reduced coverage map.
Virgin Mobile
Another prepaid carrier that uses Sprint's network, Virgin Mobile's "Beyond Talk" plans start at $35 per month for unlimited data and texting (and only 300 voice minutes per month), and go up to $55 per month for unlimited talk as well.
The catch is that while Virgin Mobile doesn't yet throttle its customers, it's planning to start sometime in 2012.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2011 file photo, attendees watch a 3-D HDTV presentation by Panasonic at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. The International Consumer Electronics Show is getting a track record as the launch pad for products that fall flat. The annual conclave kicks off Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2011 file photo, attendees watch a 3-D HDTV presentation by Panasonic at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. The International Consumer Electronics Show is getting a track record as the launch pad for products that fall flat. The annual conclave kicks off Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The largest trade show in the Americas must be a great place to show off new products, right? Wrong. The International Consumer Electronics Show is quickly becoming a launch pad for products that fall flat.
When the annual conclave kicks off next week, organizers expect more than 140,000 people ? roughly the population of Syracuse, N.Y. ? to descend on Las Vegas. They will mill around 1.8 million square feet of booths and exhibits, equivalent to 31 football fields.
The 2,800 or so exhibitors are hoping to set the tone for the year by showing off tons of tablet computers, throngs of 3-D TVs and untold numbers of slim, light laptops called ultrabooks.
But a look back at the products heavily promoted at CES in recent years reveals few successes.
? In 2009, "netbooks" ? tiny, cheap laptops ? were a hot category at the show. They did have a good year, but interest was already waning when Apple Inc. obliterated the category with the launch of the iPad in 2010.
Another big, eagerly awaited launch at the 2009 CES was Palm Inc.'s webOS software, running on a new generation of smartphones. Those devices debuted later that year to good reviews and dismal sales. A year later, Palm was sold to Hewlett-Packard Co., which killed the product line in 2011.
? In 2010, TV makers made a big push with 3-D sets, hoping to ride the popularity of 3-D movies such as "Avatar." Sales turned out to be disappointing as buyers balked at wearing glasses and found little to watch in 3-D. The technology isn't going away, but 3-D looks to be just another feature among many of today's high-end TVs.
Other manufacturers at that show hoped to ride the success of Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle with their own e-readers. They failed, though Barnes & Noble Inc. made some inroads later in the year with its Nook. That rivalry played out away from CES.
? In 2011, there were more than 100 brands of tablet computers on display, all trying to ride the coattails of the iPad. Many of them didn't even make it to the market; those that did couldn't make a dent in Apple's market share.
Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet did start to crack Apple's hegemony late in the year, but it wasn't shown at CES.
Verizon Wireless got attention at the 2011 show with the first consumer devices to use its ultra-fast "4G LTE" data network. Although those did well over the year, the company upstaged itself by announcing, a week after the show, that it would start selling the iPhone.
A big part of the "curse" of the show is that the company that has been driving trends in the industry, Apple, doesn't show products there. It doesn't have a booth, and its executives don't give speeches. It hasn't had an official presence at all since the 90s, though some of its employees go.
It's not that Apple dislikes CES in particular. It just doesn't do trade shows. When it has something new to sell, it puts on its own press conference. That way, it can control everything.
Microsoft Corp. seems to be adopting the same strategy. It revealed last month that the 2012 show will be the last one that its CEO will kick off with a keynote speech. That ends a run of 15 straight years. It's also the last time Microsoft has a booth at the show.
The problem with the show's timing will be acute for Microsoft this year. A new version of Windows won't be ready until the fall. In his keynote speech Monday evening, CEO Steve Ballmer can, at best, show very raw prototypes of the products that will run Windows 8.
What's left in the show booths are companies that don't quite have the clout or money to draw people to its own events, plus ones that put out new products at a reliable annual pace, such as TV and car makers.
The president of the Consumer Electronics Association, Gary Shapiro, says he isn't worried.
After all, attendance is up. The show is set for its third year of growth from the recession-stripped nadir of 2009 and could touch the record numbers hit in 2006.
That matters because the attendees are all industry people. Consumers aren't allowed in. Having everyone who matters in Vegas for a couple of days in the year makes it easy to set up face-to-face meetings that would take weeks to organize otherwise. In that context, it matters less that the show hasn't been a great staging ground for new products.
"I'm pretty comfortable that we're the most important event for technology in the world," Shapiro said. "It's difficult to come out with someone really important who's not there."
Apple CEO Tim Cook's absence may make him the exception. His predecessor, Steve Jobs, was certainly never caught loitering on the show floor. But the company contingent will probably be strong. Last year, the Apple's retail store division alone sent 159 people, according to the CEA.
So what potential flops will be hyped at the show this year?
? Windows 8 will be an important new product in 2012, but the late-year launch means PC and tablet makers hoping for a CES boost have to wait.
The new operating system is built for touch screens, the kind made popular by iPhones and iPads. Windows 8 will also run on cellphone-style processing chips, the type used in most tablets. That should improve battery life considerably over the PC-type chips that Windows runs on today. However, many analysts believe Microsoft has already lost this market to Apple.
? As a stopgap, PC makers will show off ultrabooks. They're essentially Windows versions of the MacBook Air laptop, which uses chips instead of a spinning hard drive for storage. That makes the machines lighter and thinner but also more expensive. Expectations for ultrabooks are modest ? Gary Balter at Credit Suisse believes they could make up 10 percent of laptops sales this year.
? Having failed to catch the iPad wave last year with $500 tablets, some tablet makers will try to catch the Kindle Fire wave with smaller, cheaper tablets. But the profit margins are tiny at that price, so bigger Asian manufacturers are setting their sights on the tablet version of Windows 8, hoping it will provide them better opportunities, said Rhoda Alexander, an analyst at IHS iSuppli.
? TV makers will be talking about "smart," Internet-connected sets, but they're not exactly new.
However, we'll see the first full-size TVs that use organic light-emitting diodes in place of LCDs. LG Electronics has confirmed that it will be showing off a 55-inch set, to be sold late in the year. The price hasn't been disclosed, but is likely to be high. OLED sets can be painfully thin ? in LG's case, less than a third of an inch ? and should boast improved image quality as well.
We'll also see TVs that are "smart" in the sense that they respond to gestures or spoken commands. However, until cable set-top boxes get smart, too, we won't be able to abandon remotes.
Paul Gagnon, an analyst at DisplaySearch, said TV manufacturers are trying to get ahead of Apple. He and other analysts believe the company is working on a TV set that could be introduced this year. Some speculate that "Siri," the voice-control application in the latest iPhone, is a dry run for a voice-controlled TV.
Apple hasn't commented on the speculation. It has agreements with Hollywood studios for sales and rentals of movies through iTunes, but to create a TV that's unmistakably "Apple," it would likely require broader agreements with content providers, such as rights to stream live TV. Even Apple might not be able to challenge the content industry's way of business.
"They've been able to break down those digital barriers with music and other applications, but TV is going to be one of the tougher areas," Gagnon said.
In other words, an Apple TV could be an expensive flop. Staying away from CES is no guarantee for success.
___
Peter Svensson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/petersvensson
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