'Vulcan' and 'Cerberus' are favorite names for Pluto's moons

The online poll for naming Pluto's moons ? P4 and P5 ? is now over and the winning names are 'Vulcan' and 'Cerberus.' This result, however, doesn't guarantee that P4 and P5 will actually get these names.

By Miriam Kramer,?SPACE.com / February 26, 2013

A pair of small moons orbiting Pluto named Nix and Hydra were discovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. The two moons are roughly 5,000 times fainter than Pluto and are about two to three times farther from Pluto than its large moon.

NASA

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The votes are in, and it looks like 'Vulcan' could be the new name for one of Pluto's smallest moons.

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After weeks of online ballot casting by people around the world, the poll asking the public to name two of Pluto's moons ? currently called P4 and P5 ? ended Monday.

As of 12 p.m. (1700 GMT)?Feb. 25, the polls closed with a total of 450,324 total votes cast since Feb. 11 with 'Vulcan,' a?Pluto moon name proposed by Star Trek's William Shatner,?is the clear winner.

"174,062 votes and Vulcan came out on top of the voting for the naming of Pluto's moons. Thank you to all who voted! MBB," wrote Shatner via Twitter.

Cerberus came in a clear second with nearly 100,000 votes.

Vulcan was a late addition to the Pluto moon name contenders, and pulled into the lead after Shatner, building on his Capt. James T. Kirk persona, plugged the name on Twitter. Vulcan, the home planet of Kirk's alien-human hybrid first officer Spock, is not just a fictional world in the Star Trek universe. It is also the name of the god of fire in Roman mythology, and officials at SETI added the sci-fi favorite to the ballot for that reason.

"Vulcan is the Roman god of lava and smoke, and the nephew of Pluto. (Any connection to the Star Trek TV series is purely coincidental, although we can be sure that Gene Roddenberry read the classics.)," wrote SETI scientist Mark Showalter in a blog officially adding the name to the list on Feb. 12. "Thanks to William Shatner for the suggestion!"

These votes don't necessarily mean that P4 and P5 will end up being called Vulcan and Cerberus, however. SETI is going to recommend the winning names to the International Astronomical Union ? the organization responsible for naming the moons. The IAU will take the results into consideration, but ultimately they have final say over what the tiny moons are called.

Pluto has five moons??that astronomers currently know of. Scientists first caught sight of Pluto's largest moon Charon in 1978, but it was not until 2005 that astronomers discovered two other moons (Nix and Hydra) using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The moon P5 was discovered in 2012, also using the?Hubble telescope. The moon P4 was discovered in 2011. Both P4 and P5 are only 15 to 20 miles (20 to 30 km) in diameter.

Voting is closed, but you can still see how your favorite names did on?PlutoRocks.com.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter?@mirikramer?or SPACE.com?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2013?SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/U66nuXsjbYU/Vulcan-and-Cerberus-are-favorite-names-for-Pluto-s-moons

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Oscars to movie stars: Please tweet during the awards

Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

. As part of its push to attract younger viewers to the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is working to make the show a two-screen experience by offering new camera perspectives and interactive features on its website. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

By Sandy Cohen, Associated Press

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is encouraging celebrities to tweet during the Oscars.

The film organization has expanded its digital outreach for the 85th Academy Awards with a new feature that lets stars to snap photos of themselves backstage during Sunday's ceremony and instantly post them online.

What Twitter calls a "Magic Mirror" will take photo-booth-style pictures of participating stars in the green room and send them out on the academy's official Twitter account. Organizers expect multiple celebrity mash-ups.

The backstage green room is a private place for stars to hang out before taking the stage and is typically closed to press and photographers.

The Magic Mirror is "giving access to fans at home a part of the show they never got to experience before," Twitter spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said Friday.

A new video-on-demand/instant replay feature also being introduced Sunday will allow Oscar fans to view show highlights online moments after they happen and share them with friends on Twitter and Facebook. Dozens of clips from the red carpet and the awards telecast will be available on the official Oscar website beyond Sunday's ceremony.

Oscar.com also offers other behind-the-scenes interactive features, including various backstage camera perspectives and a new live blog that aggregates the show's presence across social media. It will track the traffic on whatever makes a splash, like Angelina Jolie's right leg did last year.

The academy wants to make its second-screen experience just as rich as its primary one.

"Social media is now mainstream," said Christina Kounelias, chief marketing officer for the academy.

"We're not doing social media to reach out to young kids," said the academy's digital media director, Josh Spector. "We're doing it to connect with all Oscar fans."

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitte.

More from TODAY and the Oscars:

Studios and promoters spend millions of dollars in the push to Oscar gold, and industry analysts say spending connected to this year's awards is higher than ever, especially when it comes to best picture. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.

?

Source: http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2013/02/24/17076052-oscars-to-movie-stars-please-tweet-during-the-awards?lite

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Cuban leader Raul Castro says he will retire in 2018

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Sunday he will step down from power after his second term ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor.

"This will be my last term," Castro, 81, said shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year tenure.

In a surprise move, the new parliament also named Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president, meaning he would take over if Castro cannot serve his full term.

Diaz-Canel is a member of the political bureau who rose through the Communist Party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro.

Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86.

Former President Fidel Castro joined the National Assembly meeting on Sunday, in a rare public appearance. Since falling ill in 2006 and ceding the presidency to his brother, the elder Castro, 86, has given up official positions except as a deputy in the National Assembly.

The new government will almost certainly be the last headed up by the Castro brothers and their generation of leaders who have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959 revolution.

Cubans and foreign governments were keenly watching whether any new, younger faces appeared among the Council of State members, in particular its first vice president and five vice presidents.

Their hopes were partially fulfilled with Diaz-Canel's ascension. He replaces former first vice president, Jose Machado Ventura, 82, who will continue as one of five vice presidents.

Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes, 80, and Gladys Bejerano, 66, the comptroller general, were also re-elected as vice presidents.

Two other newcomers, Mercedes Lopez Acea, 48, first secretary of the Havana communist party, and Salvador Valdes Mesa, 64, head of the official labor federation, also earned vice presidential slots.

Esteban Lazo, a 68-year-old former vice president and member of the political bureau of the Communist Party, left his post upon being named president of the National Assembly on Sunday. He replaced Ricardo Alarcon, who served in the job for 20 years.

Six of the Council's top seven members sit on the party's political bureau which is also lead by Castro.

Castro's announcement came as little surprise to Cuban exiles in Miami.

"It's no big news. It would have been big news if he resigned today and called for democratic elections," said Alfredo Duran, a Cuban-American lawyer and moderate exile leader in Miami who supports lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. "I wasn't worried about him being around after 2018," he added.

The National Assembly meets for just a few weeks each year and delegates its legislative powers between sessions to the 31-member Council of State, which also functions as the executive through the Council of Ministers it appoints.

Eighty percent of the 612 deputies, who were elected in an uncontested vote February 3, were born after the revolution.

EFFORT TO PROMOTE YOUNGER GENERATION

Raul Castro, who officially replaced his ailing brother as president in 2008, has repeatedly said senior leaders should hold office for no more than two five-year terms.

"Although we kept on trying to promote young people to senior positions, life proved that we did not always make the best choice," Castro said at a Communist Party Congress in 2011.

"Today, we are faced with the consequences of not having a reserve of well-trained replacements ... It's really embarrassing that we have not solved this problem in more than half a century."

Speaking on Sunday, Castro hailed the composition of the new Council of State as an example of what he had said needed to be accomplished.

"Of the 31 members, 41.9 percent are women and 38.6 percent are black or of mixed race. The average age is 57 years and 61.3 percent were born after the triumph of the revolution," he said.

The 2011 party summit adopted a more than 300-point plan aimed at updating Cuba's Soviet-style economic system, designed to transform it from one based on collective production and consumption to one where individual effort and reward play a far more important role.

Across-the-board subsidies are being replaced by a comprehensive tax code and targeted welfare.

Raul Castro has encouraged small businesses and cooperatives in retail services, farming, minor manufacturing and retail, and given more autonomy to state companies which still dominate the economy.

The party plan also includes an opening to more foreign investment.

At the same time, Cuba continues to face a U.S. administration bent on restoring democracy and capitalism to the island and questions about the future largess of oil rich Venezuela with strategic ally Hugo Chavez battling cancer.

(Editing by Kieran Murray and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cuban-leader-raul-castro-announces-retire-2018-004912977.html

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Dem Whip Hoyer To GOP: Polling Proves You Better Cave To Obama On Sequestration

Feb 23, 2013 Spit Stixx

Excerpted from The Hill: The No. 2 House Democrat is citing new polling to pressure his GOP colleagues on scheduled automatic spending cuts, as both parties continue to blame the other for sequestration.

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pointed to a new Bloomberg poll that said that close to 60 percent of people want to turn off the $85 billion in cuts, which are scheduled to start going into effect on Friday, with a mix of other cuts and new revenues.

President Obama and top congressional Democrats are pushing for that approach. But Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP lawmakers say they are not willing to discuss the tax side after the ?fiscal cliff? deal, still less than two months old, raised $600 billion in new revenues.

?So, the American people get it: the only way to responsibly reduce the deficit while protecting our recovering economy is through a balanced approach of both spending cuts and revenues,? Hoyer said in a statement about the looming sequester cuts.

?Republicans, are you listening? Speaker Boehner, in case you lost your copy, here?s House Democrats? alternative to the sequester. We?re ready when you are to take action.?

Hoyer is far from the only prominent Washington official to brandish poll numbers in recent days to make their case on the sequester.

Few around D.C. expect the two sides to come together and find a way to replace the sequester next week, and both parties are looking to ensure that the other takes the blame if the cuts aren?t averted.

Republicans have started citing a new op-ed from Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, in which Woodward claims that Obama has moved the goalposts on the sequester.

GOP officials have cited their own polling that they say shows voters want only spending cuts to replace the sequester cuts, and top lawmakers like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) have discussed a laundry list of what they say is wasteful government spending.

?President Obama has said that unless he gets a second tax hike in eight weeks, he will be forced to let criminals loose on the streets, the meat at your grocery store won?t be inspected and emergency responders will be unable to do their jobs,? Cantor said in a statement this week. ?These are false choices.?

The White House, meanwhile, has talked up a recent Pew poll that found that about three in four wanted both taxes and spending cuts in the mix on the sequester.

?When you look at polling, 75 percent of the American people agree with me, that the way to reduce deficit sensibly is through a combination of spending cuts and tax revenue,? Obama said this week.

Source: http://patdollard.com/2013/02/dem-whip-hoyer-to-gop-polling-proves-you-better-cave-to-obama-on-sequestration/

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Mr. Perfect (GGGA) (12%'er) is watching NFL GameDay Morning

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Source: http://getglue.com/conversation/nathan_downhour/2013-02-22T02%3A11%3A41Z

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George Galloway's Israel denial may repel the mainstream, but it further cements his reputation within his religious constituency

The CEO may not know much about rape but he?s learned, it seems, a trick or two from Iran?s crowd-pleasing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The lesson couldn?t be simpler: when things are going badly, deny Israel?s right to exist. The opportunity presented itself at an Oxford University debate this week when the Respect MP was scheduled to speak in favour of a motion calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. His opponent, a third-year student called Eylon Aslan-Levy, had just begun to speak when Galloway interrupted him.

?Are you an Israeli?? he demanded. When the student confirmed that he was, Galloway responded that he didn?t debate with Israelis. ?I?ve been misled, sorry,? he declared and walked out. It was a typical Galloway performance, characterising himself as the victim of what was actually very bad manners on his part. Didn?t he ask in advance who else was taking part? Galloway?s behaviour has caused outrage in some quarters and I have no quarrel with that, even though I?m not a fan of the current Israeli government or its policies. But the important thing to understand about Galloway is that it?s years since he spoke for a broad range of people on the left.

Journalists tend to have a soft spot for him ? he provides good copy, if nothing else ? but he was thrown out of the Labour Party a long time ago, and he?s alienated those of us who opposed the Iraq war but still believe the last Labour government did some good things.

Even so, Galloway?s brand of populism found admirers who managed to stomach his long-ago interview with Saddam Hussein and his more recent defence of the Holocaust- denying Ahmadinejad: ?The truth is Ahmadinejad is not an extremist. There are people in Iran who think he is far too moderate, far too centrist.? Galloway has denied that Iran executes gay men just for being gay, causing fury among gay activists, but until recently his rows tended to be one-offs and with specific interest groups.

The difference in the past few months is that Galloway has now taken on half the human race. It may be that his stunning by-election victory in March last year blunted his political antennae, but it wasn?t the smartest move, in the midst of a lively revival of feminism, to express downright idiotic and offensive views on rape. The MP?s recent pronouncements have led significant numbers of people to regard him as a preening buffoon with rebarbative attitudes towards gender. Much-married George has a problem with women, in other words, and that?s where we need to look when thinking about the origins of this latest brouhaha.

Connoisseurs of bad theatre might wish to re-run the video podcast from last August in which the MP, shirtsleeves rolled up and thumping the table like a revivalist preacher, denounces the women who?ve accused Julian Assange of sexual assault and rape. With a curious oval disc moving behind his head (it looks like a poorly attached halo but is more likely part of a chair), Galloway lays down the law: ?Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don?t constitute rape, at least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.?

It?s vintage Galloway, positioning himself as the iconoclast who?s prepared to say aloud what everyone else is only thinking. But on this occasion, many of us were actually thinking that the MP had himself failed to understand the law ? or, to put it succinctly, ?what a prat?.

His claim in the same podcast that ?not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion? was guaranteed to offend half the population, many of whom said so on Twitter, and it didn?t endear him to female members of his own party. Respect?s leader, Salma Yaqoob, condemned his views on rape and resigned her post a month later. Bradford?s first Muslim lord mayor, the Labour councillor Naveeda Ikram, said that women were ?outraged? and pointed out that ?Muslim women, in particular, played a large role in electing Mr Galloway for Bradford West?.

It was a pretty spectacular miscalculation, but not one that came as a surprise to those of us who have followed his career. Galloway has pretty standard Catholic views on abortion, talking about women who ?kill their children unborn?, even if they sit rather oddly with his boast about having ?carnal knowledge? with more than one woman on a trip to Greece in the 1980s. Nor is it surprising that he?s ended up representing the nearest thing Britain has to a religious party, asking voters during the by-election campaign to think about how they would justify their choice of candidate on Judgement Day.

Such tactics don?t play well in largely secular Britain, but Galloway has an even bigger problem. When she resigned as the party?s leader, Yaqoob said she had always admired Galloway?s ?anti-imperialist stances?. But she also said that having to choose between that and standing up for the rights of women was ?a false choice?. Many Muslim women don?t like patriarchy, any more than women on the secular left. Rewind to this week: ditch patriarchal attitudes or stage a diversion over Israel? No contest, son, as Galloway himself might say.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/george-galloways-israel-denial-may-repel-the-mainstream-but-it-further-cements-his-reputation-within-his-religious-constituency-8507035.html

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?Anonymous? becomes latest victim in Twitter hacking spree

Feb 23 (Infostrada Sports) - Results and standings from the English premier league matches on Saturday Saturday, February 23Arsenal 2 Aston Villa 1 Fulham 1 Stoke City 0 Norwich City 2 Everton 1 Queens Park Rangers 0 Manchester United 2 Reading 0 Wigan Athletic 3 West Bromwich Albion 2 Sunderland 1 Standings P W D L F A Pts 1 Manchester United 27 22 2 3 64 31 68 2 Manchester City 26 15 8 3 48 24 53 3 Chelsea 26 14 7 5 55 28 49 -------------------------4 Tottenham Hotspur 26 14 6 6 44 30 48 -------------------------5 Arsenal 27 13 8 6 52 30 47 -------------------------6 Everton 27 10 12 5 41 34 ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-becomes-latest-victim-twitter-hacking-spree-040055307.html

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