Delhi:? A cold wave, gripping north India, relented marginally with mercury inching upwards on the first day of 2012 even as rains drenched several parts of the region ushering in a wet New Year.
Jammu and Kashmir, however, reeled under the bone-chilling cold as summer capital Srinagar and scenic Gulmarg froze in sub-zero temperatures, the Meteorological Department said.
Tourists and locals witnessed a white New Year in parts of Himachal Pradesh as Kufri, Fagu, Wild Flower Hall and Narkanda received snowflakes in the early hours.
Snowfall, however, eluded the state capital Shimla to the utter disappointment of thousands of tourists who thronged the city.
Delhiites woke up to clear skies as the minimum temperature rose to 8.4 degrees Celsius, up by a notch while the maximum settled at 19.5 degrees Celsius, the MeT office said.
The city received light rains in some areas in the evening, it said.
Minimum temperatures rose by a few notches in several parts of the north, including Punjab and Haryana, providing slight relief to the people from the bitter cold which has so far claimed 135 lives across the country this winter.
Severe chill persisted in Amritsar, with the city registering a low of 2.8 degrees Celsius, which was within the normal range.
Temperatures rose in other parts of Punjab where Ludhiana and Patiala recorded respective lows of 5 and 6 degrees Celsius, both the readings a degree above normal.
In Haryana, Ambala recorded a low of 6.8 degrees Celsius, up by a notch. Hisar had a low of 6.1 degrees Celsius, also up by a degree.
Karnal's low rose by two notches to settle at 7.3 degrees Celsius, the weather office said.
Thundershowers drenched large parts of Uttar Pradesh with Fatehgarh and Hamirpur each receiving three cm of rains, the MeT Dept said.
Aligarh and Agra each recorded two cm of rains as hailstorms were reported from some parts of the state. Etawah was the coldest zone in the state recording a low of 4.1 degrees Celsius.
Leh town in Ladakh region recorded the season's lowest temperature at minus 18.8 degree Celsius. In adjoining Kargil town, the minimum temperature settled at minus 16 degrees Celsius, a one degree drop from yesterday.
Srinagar was freezing at minus 4.9 degrees Celsius, which for the second time is the season's lowest temperature there.
The skiing resort of Gulmarg recorded a minimum of minus 8 degrees Celsius, an increase of one degree compared to the previous night, the weather office said.
Shimla settled at a low of 3.1 degrees Celsius while Bhuntar, Manali, Solan and Sundernagar recorded respective minimums of minus 1.7, two, 2.8 and 3.1 degrees Celsius.
In the desert state Rajasthan, night temperatures marginally rose in some parts with Churu being the coldest place at a low of 3.9 degrees Celsius.
Sikar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Pilani and Barmer recorded respective minimums of 4.2, 4.7, 5.5, 6.9 and 8.2 degrees Celsius, all the readings being one to two degrees above the normal, the MeT office said.
State capital Jaipur recorded a low of 12.7 degrees Celsius, up by a few notches.
Meanwhile, several places in Hadauti region and nearby areas received light rains. Sawaimadhopur, Kota and Rawatbhata recorded 9.1, 3.2 and 3.1 mm of rainfall respectively, it said.
For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Super Bowl spots are still the hottest ticket in advertising.
NBC has sold all the commercial airtime for the Feb. 5 game in Indianapolis and even has a waiting list of advertisers. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was $3.5 million, with some time slots costing as much as $4 million.
Seth Winter, senior vice president of NBC Sports group sales & marketing, said in a recent interview that the last time slot was sold just after Thanksgiving. A year ago, Fox Sports said it sold the last of its advertising spots before the end of October.
Slots are still available during NBC's pregame show, and those on the waiting list for the Super Bowl will have an opportunity to advertise if other companies give up their slot.
"There are the usual companies that have supported it in the past," Winter said. "Automotive will be very healthy. Beverages will be very healthy. The movie and snack category continue to be healthy. There will be a few new players and some who have been there, who won't be there."
Winter declined to identify which companies bought ads or dropped out, fearing it could tip off competitors. Anheuser-Busch InBev, Coca-Cola and Godaddy.com are among the recent regulars.
The biggest change this year, Winter said, is advertisers are booking longer spots to showcase their creativity.
"Some of the things I've seen are astonishing," Winter said. "I think you'll see a lot of ads that are humorous and action-filled, with a range of different types of executions. We haven't seen everything yet; we don't see everything until almost the week of (the game)."
The ads must comply with network and NFL standards.
Sports fans also might see the ads more regularly, thanks to NBC's merger with Comcast. NBC officials have used the Super Bowl to sell advertisers on its expanding family of networks, including NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) and The Golf Channel.
Twitter sur votre mobile ? Cliquez ici m.twitter.com!
Passer cette ?tape
Connexion
Connexion
Rejoignez Twitter !
Junior dos Santos excited about "stand-up battle" with Alistair Overeem - fiveouncesofpain.com/2012/01/01/jun?Il y a environ 10 heuresvia webRetweeted by 1 person
(Reuters) ? President Barack Obama, striking a hopeful note in a year-end weekly address, hailed foreign policy milestones while keeping pressure on Congress to further extend payroll tax cuts through the end of 2012.
The president, on a week-long vacation in Hawaii, praised Congress for temporarily extending a payroll tax cut for two months, a move he said would save average Americans $40 per paycheck. But he said more tough fights were to come in 2012.
"There's no doubt that 2012 will bring even more change. And as we head into the New Year, I'm hopeful that we have what it takes to face that change and come out even stronger - to grow our economy, create more jobs and strengthen the middle class," he said in the weekly Saturday address.
The president is entering an election year in which his prospects for winning are expected to hinge on the state of the economy and the jobless rate in particular, which at 8.6 percent is several percentage points higher than before the financial crisis that struck just before he took office.
But in his address, Obama went beyond domestic concerns to discuss his administration's foreign policy achievements of 2011, as he highlighted successes against al Qaeda and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
"The last year has been a time of great challenge and great progress for our country. We ended one war and began to wind down another," he said.
"We dealt a crippling blow to al Qaeda and made America more secure," Obama said, in an apparent reference to the killing of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda figures.
"We stood by our friends and allies around the world through natural disasters and revolutions. And we began to see signs of economic recovery here at home, even as too many Americans are still struggling to get ahead," he added.
Obama said it was the voices of ordinary Americans that led Congress to act on the payroll tax cut and on extending unemployment benefits.
"And I expect Congress to finish the job by extending these provisions through the end of 2012," he said.
"It was good to see members of Congress do the right thing for millions of working Americans. But it was only possible because you added your voices to the debate. Through e-mail and Twitter and over the phone, you let your representatives know what was at stake," he added.
Efforts to broker a full-year deal for the payroll tax cuts, which the White House has said the middle class needs until the U.S. economy heals, are expected to hang over Washington in early 2012 and may be a theme of a speech Obama is due to make next week in the battleground state of Ohio.
"As president, I promise to do everything I can to make America a place where hard work and responsibility are rewarded - one where everyone has a fair shot and everyone does their fair share. That's the America I believe in," Obama said.
(Writing by Cynthia Johnston: Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis)
WASHINGTON -- "This is politics," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Dec. 21, dismissing calls for him to condemn ads attacking former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that were run by an independent group supporting Romney's candidacy.
The ads were part of an unprecedented $3.3 million negative campaign of television spots and direct mail by Restore Our Future, an independent expenditure-only committee or super PAC, which blunted Gingrich's rise and may very well be the main ingredient in an Iowa victory for Romney next Tuesday.
Never before have the Iowa caucuses seen such a campaign by any group other than a candidate committee. And with days to go before Iowans cast their votes, the new political landscape is coming into sharper focus.
Fully aware of the bazooka he had in his back pocket, Romney on Friday jetted off to New Hampshire to campaign for the primary election there, casually planning a return to the Hawkeye State on Saturday afternoon. Calm and assured that his campaign would keep on going past Iowa, he put an op-ed in the State newspaper in South Carolina and spent the morning taking shots at President Barack Obama in a variety of interviews. Opponents were left grappling for third place in Tuesday night's vote.
Gingrich, the target of the pro-Romney super PAC's ammo, was left in a more fetal state. "I can't do modern politics," the former speaker said at one campaign stop. At another, he broke down in tears, as he described memories of his mother.
The 2012 Iowa caucus is, increasingly, not about the individuals running. Campaign finance observers have warned repeatedly that independent groups, enabled by the Supreme Court's January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to raise and spend unlimited sums, would alter the balance of campaigns, once run primarily by candidate committees and party organizations. So far, those warnings are looking prescient.
As evidenced in Iowa, campaigns now operate as political parties of one. Candidates with enough financing can lay their own groundwork for voter mobilization efforts and remain positive, while a supportive super PAC runs negative ads beating off opponents. Voter mobilization and opponent attacks were roles traditionally reserved for the party organizations in the general election, but thanks to Citizens United and the birth of super PACs, each individual candidate can now operate in this fashion.
The Iowa caucuses have always attracted independent groups looking to back their favored candidates. Most of the action in the past has occurred on the Democratic side with labor unions battling for their preferred nominee. In the 2008 election cycle, as reported to the FEC, independent groups, the most important of which were unions, combined to spend $3.4 million on independent expenditures across all primary states in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. In the 2004 cycle, those groups reported only $1.5 million in spending to the FEC prior to the caucuses.
This time around, independent groups have come to dominate not just the Iowa contest but the entire Republican primary season. According to a Huffington Post analysis of independent expenditures so far this electoral season, super PACs have combined to spend $11 million in the Republican primaries, at least $5.8 million of that in Iowa alone.
Super PACs are a type of political committee that can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and individuals and spend unlimited sums on independent expenses. They were authorized by the FEC after the Citizens United decision allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations and unions in elections.
"With the super PACs now you have a different creature," said Colby College professor and campaign finance expert Anthony Corrado. "These are entities who are organized for a particular candidate. They have every incentive to spend all of their money now. These PACs are organized to help candidates get through Iowa, New Hampshire and all of the early states."
Leading the way among the candidate-specific super PACs is the pro-Romney Restore Our Future. Formed in January 2011 by three veterans of Romney's 2008 run for the presidency, the group raised $12.2 million through June 30 (the same amount raised by Rep. Ron Paul through Sept. 30) and remained dormant until the second week of December.
Beginning on Dec. 9, Restore Our Future let loose a negative advertising and direct mail campaign unlike anything in Iowa caucus history. In the weeks preceding the super PAC's barrage, Gingrich had vaulted into the top position in polls in Iowa and many other key primary states. By the time Restore Our Future had aired close to $3 million in attack ads, Gingrich had fallen into a four-way race for third place.
The negative ad coverage was total. According to data provided to The Huffington Post by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, 45 percent of the ads aired in Iowa in the month of December were negative ads targeting Newt Gingrich. A Dec. 29 NBC-Marist poll showed that 35 percent of Republicans in Iowa found Gingrich to be unelectable, a 19 point increase from the previous month.
Restore Our Future's efforts helped to solidify Romney's position atop the field while providing him an arm's length distance from the negativity. It also increased the disparity in spending among the candidates.
"The super PACs have had a great effect in reinforcing Romney's financial advantage," Corrado said. "Not only has he been outraising his opponents, but the super PAC has been raising more than the other super PACs."
That reinforcement can be seen in the ad buy numbers for the areas around Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Quad City. According to data compiled by IowaPolitics.com and posted by the West Des Moines Patch, Romney spent $411,739 on ads in those three metropolitan areas while Restore Our Future spent $1.1 million.
The Romney campaign has easily outpaced most rivals in the fundraising department by pulling in $32 million through Sept. 30. His campaign is expected to announce an additional $20 million coming in the final three months of 2011.
This has come amidst a more general dearth in campaign financing for the 2012 primary contestants. The candidates combined to raise only $88 million through Sept. 30, the end of the third quarter. That is half of the $176 million the GOP field had raised at the same point in the 2008 election cycle. Ron Paul, alone among the field, is outperforming his 2008 run by raising $4 million more than he had at the same point last time.
The drop in donations has accompanied a remarkable reduction in spending by the candidate campaigns in Iowa up through December, which has left the super PACs to dominate the conversation. As of Sept. 30, the campaigns had barely made any investment in winning Iowa.
"They didn't spend anywhere near the money that they spent in the last time," said David Swenson, an Iowa State University economics professor who has studied the economic impact of the Iowa caucuses. "My conclusion is it's got to be less than half of what we had last time."
Swenson explained that the limited money spent by the candidates in Iowa has predominantly gone to television ads and, save for the campaigns of Romney and Paul, stayed away from the traditional retail politics and grassroots organizing for which the Iowa caucuses are famous. "What they're doing is trading off door knocking at this stage, or up to this stage, for the massive advertising we've been inundated with," he said.
Television advertising is one of the few areas where the Republicans are spending on par with the 2008 race. In 2008, the Republican presidential hopefuls dropped approximately $9.5 million on TV ads. (The 2008 Democratic race in Iowa featured far more spending on television, in excess of $30 million.) The GOP's 2012 race is on pace to break that mark with super PACs and the campaigns of Gov. Rick Perry and Ron Paul leading the way.
While Perry and Paul are spending the most among the candidates on TV, others have gone without much air support. Rep. Michele Bachmann, once considered a potential winner of the caucuses, has not bought television spots from August to Jan. 1, 2012.
Rick Santorum has visited every county in Iowa, but couldn't afford ads until the tail end of the campaign. Santorum, who is riding a late surge in Iowa, has been aided by a pair of super PACs spending more than $600,000 on television and radio ads and phone banks to contact voters. One of those PACs appears to be working in concert with Iowa evangelicals; it features Bob Vander Plaats, the state's most prominent evangelical who recently endorsed Santorum, in both its TV and radio spots.
That connection could also lift the former Pennsylvania senator in an area he has been unable to properly finance -- his get-out-the-vote efforts. Evangelicals in Iowa have excellent voter mobilization operations that could help Santorum compete with the two well-financed mobilization operations ready to boost Romney and Paul on Jan. 3.
WATCH Restore Our Future's first anti-Gingrich ad:
The Milky Way seems to have too few galactic hangers-on, except when it comes to the big ones. What gives?
By John Matson
?|
December 30, 2011?|
STANDOUTS: The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, as seen from the southern hemisphere.Image: Ken Schwarz/Flickr
Our Milky Way is just one of many billions of galaxies that dot the cosmos?an ordinary spiral in a universe filled with them. The unspecialness of our corner of space, an idea known as the Copernican principle, is a cornerstone of modern cosmology. But it doesn't mean that the Milky Way has to be totally average in every respect.
Among the more than 20 satellite galaxies that hover around the Milky Way in a kind of galactic entourage are two large satellites known as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Stargazers and navigators have known about them since before the age the telescope. Yet today's astrophysicists have had a hard time explaining how they got there. Computer simulations of galaxy formation and evolution tend not to produce bright satellite galaxies akin to the two Magellanic Clouds. So researchers had to ask: Are the simulations flawed?perhaps in the way that they account for the all-important role of the mysterious dark matter?or is the Milky Way just a bit of an oddball?
With help from new supercomputer simulations and from a universe-mapping telescope project called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the matter now seems to have been settled.
Sloan survey says? Oddball.
In a state-of-the-art affirmation of the earlier models, the latest round of supercomputer simulations again showed that a Milky Way?size galaxy should rarely gather satellites the size of the Magellanic Clouds. And telescopic observations of thousands of real-life galaxies and their satellites have confirmed that theoretical prediction.
"It's really that the Milky Way is sort of unique," says Michael Busha, an astrophysicist currently based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Busha is lead author of a study in the December 20 Astrophysical Journal that compared the results of a new computer simulation, named Bolshoi, to actual galaxy observations from Sloan. In both simulation and observation, the majority of Milky Way?like galaxies have no companions as hefty as the Magellanic Clouds. A handful of galaxies have one such satellite, and very few?roughly 5 to 10 percent?match the Milky Way's count of two large satellite galaxies.
"It's a little odd, but it's not really odd," Busha says of our home galaxy, likening the Magellanic Clouds to an oversize feature on a human face. "One of my colleagues calls them 'the big ears of the Milky Way,'" he says. "You look like a normal person, you don't look strange, you just happen to have large ears."
The discrepancy between how the Milky Way looks and how theory said it ought to look "has been nagging some of us for a number of years," says cosmologist James Bullock of the University of California, Irvine. "I wouldn't go so far as to say I was losing sleep, but maybe tossing and turning some." Bullock and his co-authors recently used a different simulation, called Millennium-II, and a different set of Sloan galaxies to come to a similar conclusion. "Our galaxy is apparently a little unusual?about as unusual as theory predicted," he says. "This is good news. There are some remaining puzzles, but at least this one seems under control."
What may not be under control is a very different disparity between theory and observation of the Milky Way's companion galaxies at the smaller end of the size spectrum. In what is known as the "missing satellite problem," galaxy simulations tend to produce more small, faint satellite galaxies than astronomers actually see near the outskirts of the Milky Way. Many possible explanations have been suggested?perhaps astronomers simply have not yet found all of the Milky Way's satellites, or perhaps small galaxies do not develop as readily as assumed.
Twitter / Derek Hunter: Pawlenty has to be kicking ...Pawlenty has to be kicking himself tonight. He's Santorum on social issues without the Google results & more fiscally conservative. Il y a environ 3 heuresvia TweetDeck
5ozsofpain 
