While the Seahawks welcome an important new player, a veteran player for the Mariners is preparing for a huge homecoming in Japan.?

KPLU sports commentator Art Thiel covers both topics this week.

The real deal

Art says Seahawks general manager John Schneider can’t say enough good things about Matt Flynn. He says Flynn is the real deal – despite only having played in two games last season with Green Bay.

“They really do like Flynn’s command of himself and of the game.? He’s a very bright guy, a very able leader. His two starts were spectacular as the backup to Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. On Jan. 1 against Detroit he threw for six touchdowns and 480 yards – setting Packer passing records. And that caught everybody’s eye and made him the No. 2 free agent quarterback in the market behind Peyton Manning.”

Open competition?

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said this week that there will be an open competition for the starting job between Flynn and Tavaris Jackson. Art says that’s not the case.

“They have to say it, and we have to disbelieve it. It’s a delicate situation. You don’t want to foreclose on Jackson starting because what happens if Flynn falls down the stairs? Or fails to perform? They don’t want to ‘dis’ the guy who could be a 16-game starter for them. But we see the reality of the contract: three years for $26 million – $10 million guaranteed. And Tavaris Jackson has one year left on a $4 million deal. So, that’s the reality and it’s Flynn’s job to lose.”

Mariners in Japan

The Mariners left for Japan Thursday. They will open their season against the Oakland Athletics in Tokyo on March 28 and 29. Art will be in Japan all next week as well.

He says this isn’t the first time Major League Baseball has played games in Japan. But it’s the first time the Mariners have.

“The Mariners have the closest relationship with Japan than any other Major League Baseball team. It’s a big deal for them to connect with this fan base that’s followed Ichiro. This is his first homecoming in a Mariner uniform. There’s a lot of interest in him. He’s still a rock star at age 38. He’s still popular. And the Mariners really do want to connect with the Japanese fan base and celebrate Ichiro’s 10-year career.”

You can follow Art Thiel’s dispatches from Japan at Sportspress Northwest and next week on KPLU.

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Source: http://www.kplu.org/post/new-seahawks-qb-scores-bosses-fans-mariners-hope-score-big-japan?ft=1&f=

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The report was based on findings from the National Survey of Family Growth, a survey of more than 22,000 men and women conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2006 and 2010. It provides one of the best estimates for marriage and divorce in the United States, and drew considerable attention among researchers and news organizations when it was released publicly on Thursday.

But while many chose to highlight the most immediate finding, that 4 in 10 women between the ages of 15 and 44 are currently married, demographers who sifted through the numbers said the longer-term trend ? that most women eventually still do marry ? was more surprising, as it challenged the now commonly held perception that marriage is disappearing.

?The idea that marriage is on the decline and fading away, that picture is misleading,? said Andrew Cherlin, a demographer at Johns Hopkins University.

Lifetime marriage is far lower today than it was during the peak years in the 1950s, when more than nine-tenths of the adult population married at some point in their lives. But the new report suggests that the decline may have stopped in recent decades, Mr. Cherlin said, as lifetime marriage rates have changed little since the 1990s.

The figure of 4 in 10 women currently married may seem stark, demographers say, but it is simply a reflection of the fact that women are marrying later in the age spectrum. (The survey questioned men and women ages 15 to 44.) In 1982, the share of women currently married was 52 percent, and in 1995 it was 49 percent.

The story, Mr. Cherlin said, is more about postponement than abandonment. Marriage has declined precipitously among young women, both college graduates and women with less education. But most women do eventually marry. According to the report, 82 percent of women who ended their formal education after graduating from high school will marry by the age of 40. Among women with a college degree the figure is 89 percent.

Marriage has remained mostly intact, but childbearing in wedlock has not, a change that has opened a deep class divide. College-educated women tend to wait to marry before having their children. Less educated women do not, a choice that has driven a major change in American family structure. More than half of all births to women under 30 take place outside of marriage, according to Child Trends, a research group in Washington.

Just 8 percent of births to women over 18 with a college degree happen outside wedlock, compared to 57 percent of births to women with high school diplomas or less, according to Child Trends, which cited 2009 data.

Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/wedding-bells-still-chime/

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The New York-based organization says on its website that John Payton died late Thursday after a brief illness.

President Barack Obama says in a statement that he and his wife were saddened to learn that their “dear friend” had died.

The president calls Payton “a true champion of equality” who “helped protect civil rights in the classroom and at the ballot box.”

Obama says Payton will be remembered for “his courage and fierce opposition to discrimination in all its forms.”

Payton also held the title of director-counsel at the organization.

___

Online: http://bit.ly/GQE2sq

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.newson6.com/story/17238790/president-of-naacp-legal-defense-fund-dies-at-65

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[ [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], ’28687424′, ’0′ ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], ’28667224′, ’0′ ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], ’28660934′, ’0′ ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], ’28647343′, ’0′ ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], ’28630306′, ’0′ ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], ’28493546′, ’0′ ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], ’28413590′, ’0′ ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], ’28413590′, ’1′, ‘Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ‘, ‘on Yahoo! Music’, ‘http://music.yahoo.com’ ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], ‘videoID’, ’1′, ‘overwrite-pre-description’, ‘overwrite-link-string’, ‘overwrite-link-url’ ] ]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-suspends-mali-development-aid-231523301.html

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Welcome to Trademark Law Radio.? My name is Trademark Attorney Enrico Schaefer and today we are going to be talking about name and brand protection.

If you are going to start a new company, launch a new product, a new service, a new slogan or new logo, you are going to need to protect that.? And what I mean by protect the logo, the name or the mark, is that you want to be the only one in the world that can use that brand that you have picked for your company or product or service.? You want to be the only one in the world that gets to use that for your goods and services.? So, if you are a faucet company and you are manufacturing kitchen sinks and similar things, you want to be the only one who gets to be Delta Faucets.? If you are an airline, you want to be the only one that gets to be Delta Airline.? Now, Delta Faucets and Delta Airline could co-exist in the trademark world because no one is likely to be confused about who is who.

In terms of name and brand protection, there are two levels of protection.? One, there is common law protection.? Two, there is trademark registration which gets you some super protection.

There are two different types of marks you can protect.? There is a trademark. And a trademark is for goods, products, tangible things that you can sell.? This is what we normally think of when we talk about brand protection, but you should know that if you happen to sell services, then you actually would be getting a service mark as opposed to a trademark.? So, if you are a consultant, an accountant, a lawyer, or a doctor or you sell your own intellectual property, your own ideas, your own assistance and help in the service market, then you are going to be service mark.

Now, what you want to do is make sure that you tell the world that you are claiming exclusive use over this particular mark, whether it is a trademark or service mark.? So, if it is good (a product), you are going to use the TM for trademark and you are going to add that to the right and top of your word, symbol or logo.? So, in the case of Microsoft, you would add TM to the right of Microsoft?.? That would tell the world that that you are? Microsoft and you are claiming trademark rights in this word, in this design, in these colors, in this logo, etc.? So, TM designates trademark and it designates essentially a common law trademark, meaning you have not achieved the circle R (?)yet. You are not registered, but you still are claiming trademark rights.? The goal is to get registered and get that circle R, but you got to get through the trademark registration process with the USPTO or a foreign trademark service in order to get there.? So, always add the TM to your trademark while you are going through the registration process.? And even if you are not going to get registered, you should add a TM for your trademark in order to tell the world you are claiming exclusive rights to this word.

If you happen to be a service company like Quicken that offers consulting services for loans or loan service, then they would use an SM for service mark and telling the world that they claim exclusive rights over this mark and we provide services.? So, Quicken would use the SM.? Now, obviously, all of these companies, Microsoft, Intel, and Quicken have a registered trademark, so they would go directly to the circle ? to tell people that they have a registered trademark, and they would put that ? in place of the TM or SM (Microsoft?, Intel?, and Quicken?).? So, that is what you need to be thinking about in terms of telling the world, and providing notice to the world, that you are claiming trademark rights.

Understand that if you get registered, you get a number of tremendous benefits that provide you the leverage you are going to need in order to protect your trademark.? That really is the Holy Grail of name and brand protection, to get the circle ?.? The registration process usually takes around 12 months.? A good trademark attorney can get your trademark through the trademark registration process in about 12 months and you can then start using the circle ?, after registration, next to your trademark telling the world I claim exclusive rights and, in fact, I am registered.

So, let?s talk about some of the benefits you get if you are registered.? You get a presumption of validity that people can?t necessary attack your trademark.? You get a presumption that you are first.? You get super rights for anyone who engages in intentional infringement.? You definitely get a lot of benefits.? If you are going to send someone a trademark infringement threat letter, you want to be registered.

Before you file for trademark registration, you need to understand that you already have common law rights.? Now, common law trademark rights allow you to claim first use, allow you to send a trademark infringement threat letter.? If you put the TM in there, you are providing notice; all that is good.? But, understand that before you file, you still? have trademark rights.? And in the United States, under the USPTO law, it?s still the first person to use the mark in commerce that is the one that is going to have the first common law trademark rights.

Now, let?s talk about picking a name. Picking a name is always an extremely challenging thing because you?ve got to pick a name for your brand or pick a name for your company.? So, go to your partners and start brainstorming.? Try to think of things that are non-obvious.? An arbitrary or suggestive trademark is much better than a descriptive one.? Everyone always wants to name their company after what they do, for example, Jones Consulting Service or Car Parts, those are terrible trademarks.? You want something that is arbitrary that could only mean you.? Find at least three names that you can all agree on that sound like they would? be a good brand.? Is it pronounceable? Is it something that people will remember?? Is it easy to spell?? Then, after you pick your three names, you are going to have to go back to your trademark attorney and you?re going to have to have them do a trademark clearance for those three names to see which, if any of them, is available in the market in your goods and services.? It could very well be that someone else is already out there using something similar, so let?s talk about that.

Trademarks are not literal. That is to say, that just because you pick a trademark and no one else is using that exact trademark, does not mean that there is not a trademark infringement problem.? If you were to pick Apple Fences for your trademark, chances are you could do that even though there is an Apple Computer, because no one is going to think that Apple Computers? is selling fences, so there?s no likelihood of confusion.? So, if you were to pick Apple,? and you were to say, ?Well, I looked at Apple Fence and I didn?t see any other companies that are named Apple selling fences.?? But the trademark office ? the examining attorney ? is going to look at all kinds of variations of the word Apple.? He?s going to do Aple, Apel, Appal, and all kinds of variations because anything that is phonetically similar or sounds like it might be the same, might potentially infringe.

So, a good trademark registration attorney will know how to conduct a trademark clearance search in order to tell you what the risk is if you should pick that trademark for a brand.? You do not want to pick a word, a symbol or design only to find out three years later that someone else has prior use rights, prior trademark rights in that word, and now you have to rebrand.? You lose your entire investment in your brand and the cost of repackaging and rebranding is incredible.? So, the USPTO.gov is the website where you can learn a lot about trademark law, it?s certainly going to have a lot of guidelines and there are online forms.? One of the questions we always get is ?do I need a trademark registration attorney in order to file my name?? and the answer is no, technically, you don?t.? But it sure is a good idea because there are a lot of fields that have to be filled out and a lot of things that have to happen. For instance, your trademark clearance, none of that happens at the USPTO level.? If you don?t do a trademark clearance before registering, you could have a problem

My name is Trademark Attorney Enrico Schaefer and that?s all for today on Trademark Law Radio.

You have been listening to Trademark Law Radio.? Whether you are facing a trademark infringement, licensing, monitoring or trademark registration issue, we have a trademark attorney ready to answer your questions.

Source: http://www.traverselegal.com/trademark-attorney/trademark-law/181/

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Widespread use of bottled water by kids may contribute to tooth decay, dentists and government health officials warn. Amy Wilson, 42, a New York mom, heard about the possible link after her middle son had to have six cavities filled at age 4.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46814533#46814533

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Compass by Lawrence Malstaf

I am wearing cyborg trousers. And they are angry, totalitarian trousers. When they sense that I?m walking in forbidden zones, or I dare to approach another human being, a motor-driven weight swings violently around my waist, stopping suddenly to force me off balance, to cajole me into walking in another direction. I can fight it – but the weight shift produces a powerful and uncomfortable wrenching force. It?s much easier not to resist.

Titled Compass, this wearable robotic ?orientation device? is one of the interactive exhibits at Robots and Avatars, an exhibition at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, Merseyside. Along with London design company Body>Data>Space and Slovenian art collective Kibla, FACT has put together a show revealing some of the ways robots and on-screen avatars could change our lives, as the borders between our physical and virtual lives begin to blur.

The work of Belgium-based artist Lawrence Malstaf, Compass looks peculiar, like an inside-out car wheel; the alloy wheel rim is on the outside and a tyre?s inner tube lines its interior. I stepped inside it and hoisted it up to waist height, whereupon Malstaf?s colleague Tom Kok switched on a pump, inflating the inner tube so that it fitted me tightly. With a couple of supporting braces fastened over my shoulders I was ready to go.

I felt like I was wearing a wrap-around version of a cinema ice cream vendor?s tray. Resting my forearms in two half drainpipes handily provided to protect the wearer’s limbs from the weights whizzing around the wheel rim, I pressed the start button and began to wander around a dark, square room. Malstaf has placed magnetic-field-generating coils beneath some of the carpet tiles, which produce ?forbidden zones? that Compass senses, and interprets as off limits to me. In addition, infrared sensors tell the device when I try to associate with humans – something else that?s off limits. When I transgress its rules, it tries to throw me of course with haptic compulsion. After a while I get the message and by tentatively exploring the space I?m in, I learn from the robot?s responses how to use it without hassle.

Crude though it is, it was intriguing to have a robotic technology attempt to control me in this way. With location-aware technology proliferating, could something like this, in an offender-monitoring tag or anklet, one day make life difficult for criminals? And why “kettle” demonstrators if you could slap these on the ringleaders and steer them where you want? Compass embodies a concept we might, or at least ought to, be familiar with – a technology that it is easier not to resist. The realisation that giving in to the machine is a lot less hassle than resisting it echoes the way millions of us have already grudgingly accepted a host of invasive technologies for the sake of an easier life. Many of us resign ourselves to Facebook?s baffling privacy settings and risk ID theft, sign up to Google?s free services which, post-hoc, have now all been linked to profile us, or simply own a smartphone stuffed with free apps that mine contacts data, because it is just too hard to do things another way. Will we cave just as easily to robotic invasions? Probably.

Putting control firmly back in human hands, a static robot model perched on a plinth presents an entertaining idea. Called RoboVox, it?s a downscaled version of this?eight-metre-high monster robot that?s been touring Europe. It receives text messages and a computer inside the robot converts your SMS to speech, voiced in a slightly-bored-voice-of-doom patois with red LEDs across its “mouth” illuminating every syllable. Creator Martin Bricelj hopes people will get it to voice ?your statement, protest or declaration of love?. RoboVox is aiming to give a voice back to people whose voices usually get ?lost in the sound of the mass?, using more technology to combat the depersonalising effect of information overload.

ADA by Karine Smigla-Bobinski

But this focus on empowering the individual is notably lacking from some of the other exhibits. ADA, by Karina Smigla-Bobinski, is described as an ?analogue drawing prosthetic?, which aims to create a crowdsourced set of images from the collective movements of FACT visitors. The transparent plastic helium balloon – four metres in diameter – is covered in 10-centimetre-long spikes made of coal. The idea is that visitors bounce ADA off the walls (this is great fun by the way, and involves much ducking as the ball whizzes past with its spiky coal pencils spinning), so the coal impacts make random marks on the papered walls. It?s a very low-tech way of coding for an image, says Smigla-Bobinski, so she named it after Ada Lovelace, co-worker and programmer of Charles Babbage?s 19th-century mechanical, cogwheel-based proto-computer, The Difference Engine. As you enter the room, ADA is floating in the space before you. It?s a cool idea, and one I?d describe as “off the wall” – if it wasn?t also off the floor.

A locally-developed exhibit called MeYouAndUs requires less active interaction. The best way to describe it is a time-delayed video mirror. A camera shoots the crowd in one of the gallery?s rooms and these images are shown on an oversized LCD TV after a time delay. With other effects, such as speeding up the delayed action intermittently, you get an engrossing and slightly unpredictable result that it?s hard to stop watching. On a second screen, people arriving in the room see video of their head, chest, midriff, legs and feet chopped and swapped with those of many other visitors.

This modern live video take on bendy fairground mirrors is insanely popular. ?People really, really love it – there?s something weirdly compelling about it. People are fascinated by their own image and their identities being combined,? says FACT director Mike Stubbs, who?s also a film maker. And they?re planning to go global – FACT plan to link MeYouAndUs to a gallery in Ghana, allowing identities from multiple countries to be merged to get ?very diverse communities interacting,? says Stubbs.

If people can adore an installation that hijacks their live image – mocks it even, by mashing it up with those of others – something odd is happening. Has the latter-day prevalence of CCTV got us caving into image-related invasions of privacy without a thought? It seems the time for resistance passed before we even noticed we had a choice.

Robots and Avatars is exhibited at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology,? Liverpool, UK and runs?until 27 May 2012

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1d9e9f3b/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A120C0A30Ctrousers0Ewith0Eattitude0Eshow0Eresistance0Eis0Euseless0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Talking about personal training Vancouver, a number of good reasons is there to hire a professional and experienced private trainer. The trainers are the allies who help the people to understand various fitness activities and machines along with the correct form while working out in the gym.

Design exercise plan

Sticking to a particular fitness activity is one of the biggest challenges for any person, at the beginning but once the person has started working out, he like the feeling he get from a workout.

On this part, regular appointment and support of personal trainers help one commit to the workout in a more easy and simple manner.

In personal training, health of the enthusiasts is the priority and thus the experts design exercise plans comprised of different workout styles, movements, stretches, and other strength training techniques suiting the flexibility and overall health conditions of the clients.

Set & achieve goals

Whether one is practicing any fitness activity for years or has just started to follow an exercise plan, the duty of the trainers is to analyze the fitness level, prepare a customized program and help the person set and reach their specific fitness goals. They make sure to have such workout techniques which are a good match for the lifestyle and schedule of the enthusiasts.

Adding to it, they also keep into account that the person may not get bored or burned out of current routine activities.

Person having specific goals in mind like weight loss or participating in marathon run can also receive ideal benefits from the training. Utilizing the time by using different equipment efficiently is one of the major goals of trainers for their clients.

Lifelong health and wellness

Whatever be one?s reason for hiring private trainers, the personal training Vancouver is known to offer various benefits for lifelong health and wellness. Healthy weight loss, muscle toning, endurance, flexibility can make one feel great.

Other health benefits from the training include increased cardiovascular fitness, increased energy, decreased anxiety and stress.? Hence, it can be said that fitness level can be increased by acquiring assistance of well qualified and experienced private trainers.

Source: http://health.ezinemark.com/personal-training-vancouver-for-lifelong-health-wellness-7d34eb65d7c2.html

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With an increasing consciousness about global warming and climate change, homeowners are now looking for ways to lower energy bills and stay green.

If installed properly, energy-efficient windows provide a long list of benefits. Some of these include:

• Comfort ? Energy-efficient windows are treated to resist as much heat during the summer, and keep low temperature outside during colder months, so you stay comfortable throughout the year.

• Improved Indoor Natural Lighting ? Other windows rely on heavy tints to prevent too much heat from coming into a home. While this is somewhat effective, tints greatly reduce the amount of natural light that enter your home.

• Lower Indoor Humidity ? High levels of indoor humidity can damage wooden furniture, drywall, and paint. Unlike ordinary windows, energy-efficient windows are designed to resist condensation that becomes humidity overtime.
• Protection from UV Light ? This is where energy-efficient windows stand out. Not only is UV light harmful to your family, exposure to UV light can damage fabric and furniture, causing them to fade overtime. Energy-efficient windows are designed to reflect a huge percentage of UV light that comes into your home.

• Energy Savings ? By keeping your home insulated, the ambient temperature in your home becomes more stable. This means that your air conditioner or your heating system no longer has to work as hard, ultimately leading to lower energy bills.

The list goes on and on. A lot of homeowners are already discovering the benefits and comfort of energy-efficient windows. Allow us to help you get started with an energy-efficient home that?s bursting with class and curbside appeal.

We, at All-Tex Home Improvement Services, are dedicated to providing you quality home improvement projects that suit your taste, style, and budget. Call us today at: (888) 669-1806 to schedule your free on-site assessment. You can also visit us at www.alltexexteriors.com to learn more.

Source: http://alltexexteriors.com/blog/energy-efficient-replacement-windows-austin-texas-projects-explained/

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The Mets owners will not pay anything for three years.

Jury selection had been set to begin in a civil trial to determine how much the team owners will owe other investors who trusted their money to Madoff.

Trustee Irving Picard had argued that the Mets owners knew that Madoff’s corrupt investment scheme was a fraud but continued their investments anyway because they were making a lot of money.

Lawyers for the owners insist their clients had no idea the former NASDAQ chairman was cheating thousands of investors of their roughly $20 billion investment for at least two decades.

Both Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, principal Mets owners, were in court Monday at the defense table.

Judge Jed Rakoff said Picard had reviewed the evidence and will no longer pursue a claim of “willful blindness” against the defendants.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-03-19-Madoff-Mets/id-d4348692aa3b4274b29e7c16161d1dbe

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