Mott looks to repeat Breeders' Cup double

ARCADIA, Calif. (AP) ? Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott is halfway to repeating his Breeders' Cup daily double.

Mott pulled off a rare parlay last year, winning the $2 million Ladies' Classic with Royal Delta and the $5 million Classic with Drosselmeyer.

Mott snared the first leg on Friday, the opening day of the 15-race season ending championships at Santa Anita, as Royal Delta defended her title with a convincing victory in the Ladies' Classic.

And Mott has three shots Saturday in the Classic: Flat Out, 5-1, Ron the Greek, 6-1 and To Honor and Serve, 8-1.

"We have more work to do and we've got three good chances in there," Mott said. "We're certainly not counting out chickens before they hatch. They're doing very well and I think any one of the three has a chance."

The horse to beat in the Classic is Game on Dude, the 9-5 favorite, the runner-up in the Classic last year. Game on Dude, trained by Bob Baffert, is a perfect 5 for 5 at Santa Anita.

Don't discount momentum, and Mott certainly has it on his side.

"I know it's a deep race and there are good horses in there, horses that have proven themselves over this racetrack," Mott said. "We can't stop now. You've got to push forward and look to tomorrow."

Among the nine races Saturday, Shanghai Bobby puts a perfect 4 for 4 mark on the line in the $2 million Juvenile and Point of Entry looks to extend his winning streak to six against some of world's top grass horses in the $3 million Turf.

Royal Delta led all the way in winning the Ladies' Classic by 1? lengths, making the defending champion the only favorite to win on an upset-filled opening day of the Breeders' Cup.

Jockey Mike Smith earned his 16th victory in the event's 29-year history, breaking a tie for most wins with fellow Hall of Famer Jerry Bailey.

"I hope to be around a few more years to add to it," the 47-year-old rider said.

Royal Delta was the 8-5 favorite in the field of eight fillies and mares, considered one of the deepest fields among the 15 races during the world championships. She ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:48.80 and paid $5.40 to win.

After Royal Delta's win last year at Churchill Downs, she was sold for $8.5 million to Benjamin Leon. Mott didn't think he would be training the filly anymore and felt sad the day he had to walk her out of his barn.

"It was like walking to my best friend's funeral," he said earlier this week.

Mott attended the Keeneland sale and congratulated Leon after his purchase, not realizing that a couple weeks later Royal Delta would be back in his care.

"It's such a matter of pride to have a horse of that quality," Mott said. "I thought she could do it again if things went well and they did."

With two Ladies' Classic titles to her credit, Mott and Leon were already looking ahead to next year with Royal Delta. They plan to run her in the $10 million Dubai World Cup, where she finished ninth in March, and then have her close out her career at the Breeders' Cup.

Six different jockeys, trainers and owners won each of the Breeders' Cup races in front of 34,619 fans on a sunny day.

The biggest upset was Calidoscopio's 4?-length victory in the $500,000 Marathon, jockey Aaron Gryder's first Breeders' Cup win. The 17-1 shot from Argentina paid $36.40 to win and at 9 became the oldest Breeders' Cup champion.

Age also played a part in the second-biggest upset. Sent off at 15-1 odds, Hightail kicked off the two-day world championships with a nose victory in the $500,000 Juvenile Sprint, giving Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas his leading 19th Breeders' Cup victory at 77.

"At my age it's significant," Lukas said. "I still have the passion for it and I train every day and ride every day. I'm not going to retire. I'm going to ride out there one morning, fall off the pony. They will harrow me under and if the harrow goes over me a couple of times that will be the end of it."

In the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf, 11-1 shot Flotilla rallied to win by 1? lengths and paid $24.80. Trainer Mikel Delzangles and jockey Christophe Lemaire, both from France, won their first Breeders' Cup race.

Zagora won the $2 million Filly & Mare Turf by three-quarters of a length at 9-1 odds. She paid $20.40 to win under Javier Castellano for owner Martin Schwartz, who made his fortune trading on Wall Street.

Beholder led all the way to win the $2 million Juvenile Fillies, holding off 3-2 favorite Executiveprivilege by one length.

It was the 13th Breeders' Cup victory for jockey Garrett Gomez and the seventh for Mandella, who last won at the world championships in 2003 when he had four victories.

Beholder paid $9.80 to win, while trainer Bob Baffert's Executiveprivilege had her five-race winning streak ended after she drifted out in the stretch.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mott-looks-repeat-breeders-cup-double-081709700--spt.html

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Refinishing Antique Furniture ? George Slavov's Home Improvement ...

Looking after old furniture isn?t the easiest of tasks, but is one that can be very rewarding and can help preserve the item, increasing its lifespan further than you might of ever imagined.

Old wood is pretty difficult to maintain, although with the correct tools and methods, it is possible to help keep it looking fresh and be restored to its former glory, something especially important for the likes of solid oak or similar. There are several stages to make this possible and must be adhered to in an accurate manner.

The first stage is to clean the piece of furniture ? be it chair, table or bed ? to ensure that there is no grease or dirt on the surface whatsoever; it helps if you can use TSP cleaner to do this part as it is very thorough. After all the dirt and grime is removed, the sanding is next up and must be done to every part of the furniture item, otherwise your hard work later down the line will be wasted and you?ll have squandered a lot of time. Also, make sure to sand evenly across the wood and do your best to ensure that the surface is left as flat as possible and then clean up any clumps of dust with a damp cloth.

Applying the stripping agent is up next which requires the stripping solution and a paint brush. Don?t be afraid to apply the agent as thick as you can on the surface of the furniture and make sure to apply it in a single direction, ideally in the direction of the wood and leave it on for the time recommended.

Using a putty knife or similar, try tearing off a test strip of the stripper and hopefully it will come off first time. If the paint or varnish doesn?t come off the furniture first time or easily enough, feel free to apply a second coat of stripper and try again. Using the putty knife once more, remove as much of the residue left by the stripper as possible and use a paint brush to remove it in the parts that are hard to get to.

After cleaning down the piece of furniture once more, you will be able to begin to apply the stain and it should match the look of the furniture before you began to work on it. If you wish to layer the stain, start with a darker stain and then add a lighter example, before reapplying the darker colour.

The final stage sees the wooden furniture sanded down again to remove any frayed areas from the stripping process and remember to sand in the direction of the grain. After this, stain once more with a final coat via a lint free cloth and leave to dry.

About the author: Sam writes for thefurnituremarket.co.uk, a place for oak furniture in various styles and you can click here for more information.

Source: http://georgeslavov.com/diy/refinishing-antique-furniture/

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Five year olds are generous only when they're watched

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2012) ? Children as young as five are generous when others are aware of their actions, but antisocial when sharing with a recipient who can't see them, according to research published Oct. 31 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Kristin Lyn Leimgruber and colleagues from Yale University.

Adults are more likely to behave in ways that enhance their reputation when they are being watched or their actions are likely to be made public than when they are anonymous, but this study examines the origins of such behavior in young children for the first time. For their study, the researchers presented five year olds with stickers and gave them the option of sharing one or four stickers with another five year old. The authors found that children were more generous when they could see the recipient than when the recipient was hidden from view, and were also more generous when they had to give stickers in a transparent container rather than an opaque one (meaning the recipient could see what they were receiving). They also found that these behaviors were independent of how many stickers the children were given to keep for themselves.

According to the authors, these results show that children as young as five can make strategic choices about whether to be generous, depending on whether or not a recipient is aware of their actions. Leimgruber explains, "Although the frequency with which children acted antisocially is striking, the conditions under which they chose to act generously are even more interesting and suggest that children likely use much more sophisticated prosocial strategies than we previously assumed. Much like the patterns of charity we see in adults, donation tendencies in children appear to be driven by the amount of information available to others about their actions -- for both adults and children, the more others know about their actions, the more likely they are to act generously."

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Journal Reference:

1. Kristin L. Leimgruber, Alex Shaw, Laurie R. Santos, Kristina R. Olson. Young Children Are More Generous when Others Are Aware of Their Actions. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (10): e48292 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048292

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/MivKGFcZp20/121031214138.htm

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Today on New Scientist: 2 November 2012

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/492992/s/252b98f2/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C110Ctoday0Eon0Enew0Escientist0E20Enovem0E30Bhtml/story01.htm

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When tweets repeat a lie

?BREAKING: Confirmed flooding on NYSE. The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water.?

That tweet, made during the height of superstorm Sandy earlier this week, quickly swept through the Twitterverse. CNN mentioned it. So did The Washington Post.

But it wasn?t true.

IN PICTURES: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm

Social media such as Twitter serve as a great resource for keeping in touch with friends and family in real time during emergencies. Even when power is out and TVs go dark, a smart phone maintains a link to the outside world.

Social media sites have shown they can trump traditional news sources in getting to the latest twist in an ongoing story. The ?citizen journalists? who tweet about what they are seeing help the rest of us understand what?s happening in an emergency or in a war zone where few journalists are allowed, such as Syria. (See ?Syria?s YouTube ?war? could win the war.?)

But what if someone decides to tweet a lie?

That?s what happened in New York this week when a Twitter account called ?Comfortablysmug? sent out a lie about the New York Stock Exchange being underwater that was picked up and retweeted more than 600 times, as well as mentioned in the traditional news media.

As the report?s credibility began to erode, it didn?t take long for the blog BuzzFeed to manage to track down the person behind the bogus tweet, Shashank Tripathi, campaign manager for New York congressional candidate Christopher Wright (though the tweet didn?t seem to have any political motive behind it). Mr. Tripathi later offered a ?sincere, humble, and unconditional? apology and has resigned from his post.

Tripathi wasn?t the only prankster. Fake photos on Facebook, Twitter, and other photo-sharing sites showed pictures of divers purportedly in a flooded New York subway tunnel and a sinking Statue of Liberty (the actual source of the latter picture was the disaster movie ?The Day After Tomorrow?). A photo that was briefly on the Washington Post website showed soldiers bravely guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in a pelting rainstorm (the photo turned out to have been taken in September).

?Trolls are part of the culture of the Internet. Some people get a kick out of spreading this stuff,? the Post?s social media producer said.

What, if anything, can be done about people who pollute a valuable new stream of information? In extreme cases legal action might be brought against an individual. Peter Vallone Jr., a New York City councilman, says he?s asked the Manhattan district attorney to look into filing charges against Tripathi. But that seems more like a warning meant to scold a prankster than a serious legal action.

Even lies are protected as free speech, at least those short of meeting the ?yelling ?fire? in a crowded theater? test.

IN PICTURES: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm

The challenge for news-gathering organizations continues to be how to balance the tremendous resource of text and photo postings by ordinary citizens with the news gatherers? duty to authenticate these ?reports.? In some cases a quick phone call can do the job.

To some extent, people reading tweets and Facebook or other posts about a fast-moving news event must become their own editors: Do I have this information from more than one independent source? Is this a known or trusted source? Should I wait to retweet it until I?m sure it?s accurate ? or at least accompany my retweet with a skeptical ?I don?t know if this is true? disclaimer?

The good news is that social media such as Twitter and Facebook remain an immensely helpful new way to communicate during emergencies. And more good news: The same citizen media that first spread Tripathi?s lie have shown that they have a powerful, self-correcting ability as the truth becomes known.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tweets-repeat-lie-193729639--politics.html

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In Kerala, Political Humor is Embraced - NYTimes.com

India may have dented its image as a champion of press freedom after the anticorruption activist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in September for lampooning the Parliament in a cartoon, but, in fact, political satire has a long history in many parts of the country, especially in Kerala.

No-holds-barred portraits of political leaders are daily fare on every local channel, and the targets of such shows even see it as an honor of sorts.

Such tolerance for ridicule lies in the fact that mimicry has long been the staple of entertainment in Kerala. Most of the top movie stars in Malayalam-language cinema, also known as Mollywood, started their careers as mimicry artists at temple festivals and other public functions. In the old days, they imitated sounds around them, like the birds, the animals and the machines. Then they moved on to imitating popular movie stars and eventually to political leaders.

With the explosion of the 24/7 television channels, many of them news channels, the mimicry artists found their way to the small screen. To meet the competition from entertainment channels, the news channels started showing movie clips in the guise of entertainment news and introduced several programs with sharp political satire.

The longest-running of these series is ?Munshi? on Asianet, a daily show poking fun at the prevalent political and social practices. A fixed cast of half a dozen men, who represent not only different political views but also different castes and communities, discuss the day?s major event with sharp wit and comical action. They take sides, attack politicians by name and generally reflect the frustrations of the common man. Finally, the wisest of them all, Munshi, or the Pundit, a wise old man who does not participate in the conversation, sums up the whole situation in a proverb or a pithy quote.

The actors live and work together day in and day out to produce their program, which reminds viewers of the cartoonist R.K. Laxman?s Common Man, who appeared every day on the front page of a national daily to offer his commentary on the faults and foibles of politicians.

Asianet has another serial called ?Cinemala,? in which actors appear as politicians. Mimicry is used very effectively to bring out the most comical aspects of the political leaders, and the actors bear striking similarities to politicians like the defense minister A.K. Antony, the Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy and the Communist leader V.S. Achuthanandan.

All the channels seem to have found their own versions of Antony, Chandy and Achuthanandan, with varying degrees of similarity with the originals. Just as the real Charlie Chaplin once lost a Chaplin look-alike contest, the real politicians will have a hard time competing with their impersonators, as the latter appear to be more authentic than the former.

Slapstick comedy is not the only medium for political satire. Following the lead of a show called ?Natakame Ulakam? (?All the World is a Stage?) on Amrita TV, several others have emerged as one-man talk shows, in which political events are described with various degrees of ridicule. Some, like ?Varanthyam? (?Weekend?) on Indiavision and ?Sakshi? (?Witness?) on the leftist Kairali channel, show actual clips of news events to prove the point that facts are often stranger than fiction.

Torn out of context in some instances, the words and deeds of politicians appear ridiculous. One favorite item features political leaders falling asleep on the dais, often when the speaker talks about the need to awake, arise and stop not until the goal is reached. Some shows literally put words in the mouths of politicians by playing the soundtrack of a film.

Asianet?s serious news program, ?Cover Story,? is the hardest hitting of all the political programs. The anchor, Sindhu Suryakumar, minces no words in her critical analyses of men and matters and reinforces her arguments with hard facts. She also uses songs and scenes from Mollywood to great effect, but the mood is serous and purposeful. Much to the credit of the authorities, nobody has either tried to intimidate her or to influence her, and she carries on merrily, exposing all politicians.

?In my channel, I am happy to juxtapose a serious program on international matters with a slapstick on Indian politicians,? said T.N. Gopakumar, editor in chief of Asianet News. ?I professionally believe that this goes to strengthen the aspirations of the people, who exercise their right to vote to elect a better government. Of course, we ensure that satire does not cross the borders, turn into vendetta or malice.?

A major dilemma of the politicians is whether to laugh or cry when they become caricatures in popular comedy shows. The appearance of their doubles indicates that they have arrived on the scene, and they may rejoice on that account. Only those who matter politically are imitated and ridiculed. On the other hand, upcoming politicians are not likely to be pleased to see their weaknesses exposed on television.

?As a devotee of free speech, I tell myself that it is flattering to be found worthy of being satirized, so one just grins and bears it and hopes the damage is not lasting,? said Shashi Tharoor, a member of Parliament and recently-named minister of state for human resources development. He was recently portrayed in one show?s sketch as doing a cinematic dance with his wife, lampooning his image as a romantic Bollywood-style hero.

For more seasoned politicians, it is just an occupational hazard they have learned to live with. Mr. Chandy, the state?s chief minister, was philosophical about his many appearances on these shows. ?Satire is part of the vibrant visual media in Kerala, which enjoys freedom of expression,? he said.

Mr. Sreenivasan, a former Indian diplomat, is the executive vice chairman of the Kerala State Higher Education Council. His views are personal and do not reflect the policy of his state.

Source: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/in-kerala-political-humor-is-embraced/

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USC Halloween Shooting Wounds Several People, Two People Detained (UPDATE)

Two people have been detained by police in connection to shots that rang out at a Halloween party on the USC campus Wednesday night. The campus remained on lockdown at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday as police continued to investigate but it was lifted shortly afterward.

At least four people were wounded in the shooting, one of them critically, the Los Angeles Times reports.

A tweet sent out from USC indicates that neither the suspect nor the victims are students, staff or faculty at the school.

Assistant Chief John Thomas of the USC Department of Public Safety told KNBC that the violence stemmed from a dispute between two non-students, reports the Associated Press.

The shooting took place at the Tutor Campus Center, where a concert venue was hosting a "Ghosts 'N Stuff" Halloween party, reports university paper Neon Tommy.

Neon Tommy contributor Matt Hamilton was near the center, along with up to 200 partygoers, when shots rang out at around 11:30 p.m. or 11:45 p.m. Wednesday. He noted that police response was swift:

Police came very quickly. There were already USC campus police at the event because they were patrolling the event. I think that?s partly why there was such a quick response. There were already many officers on the scene already. While crouching, I saw more police come to the scene. Within minutes, LAPD. I saw fire trucks. Helicopter overhead. Ambulance.

Immediately after the shooting, the campus was put on lockdown as police searched for the gunman. Below is a tweeted picture of the school 30 minutes after the attack:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/usc-halloween-shooting-wo_n_2055120.html

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