Watch Syrian Rebels Make Rockets Out of Assad's Cluster Bombs

When Bashar Assad attacks his own people with cluster munitions, enterprising Syrian rebels don’t just run for cover. They harvest unexploded cluster bombs for parts they can use in homemade rockets to turn back on regime forces. Do not try this at home.

In the video above, shot by the Syrian rebel al-Farouq Battalions, the fuses from cluster bombs get recycled in makeshift weapons foundries for use inside Qassam-style short-range rockets. Taking a page from Hamas in Gaza, the Syrian rebels are now manufacturing their own rockets — much as they have other weaponry — even though gulf Arab states keep a weapons pipeline flowing.

The unexploded cluster bomb here looks to be a Russian AO-1 SCH, according to Steve Priestley, a weapons expert with Sterling Global Operations, a Tennessee-based security company, who agreed to check out the video for Danger Room. A rebel digs up the bomb and disarms it by unscrewing the fuse — which isn’t the greatest idea. The bomb is only supposed to explode when it slams nose-first into something solid, but, Priestley says via e-mail, “I would not be surprised if he’s presently enjoying the benefits of martyrdom … holding impact fuses nose-down, etc., what could possibly go wrong?”

Back at the foundry, the intact fuse has its benefits. The rebels remove the tail fin from the cluster bomb, leaving the main charge, and then attach a homemade rocket motor. (Priestley thinks the motor shows “quite good design/build.”) The rebel in the shot replaces the fuse. “And the rocket is good to go,” Priestley observes. Skip forward to the 6:24 mark, and you’ll hear some Transformers-sounding sound effects as the rebel group shows the finished product getting fired off.

Hamas has been turning captured ordnance into a rocket arsenal for years. Priestley says the Syrian version is, “in terms of quality, probably equal.” The adapter plate used in the videoed demonstration fits neatly between the warhead and the rocket motor and “seems to be well made.” These rockets seem to be smaller than the ones Hamas uses, but Hamas needs to send its rockets across farther distances than the ranges at which Syrian rebels typically fire at Assad’s forces. Another difference: Hamas doesn’t always harvest its warheads, but when it does, it typically takes the main fill from shells or mortars that packs it into a warhead “with ball bearings, scrap metal, etc.” That doesn’t appear to have happened in this video.

The quality of the rockets makes Priestley think the Syrian rebels may know what they’re doing — up to a point. “The way he is handling the rockets and munitions is scary,” he says. The Brown Moses Blog, which tracks the Syrian civil war in depth, has raised similar concerns: Rebels tend to film themselves handling unexploded cluster bombs like they’re not at risk of an unexpected detonation. Bad assumption.

Assad probably isn’t done firing cluster bombs on Syrian cities that the rebels have captured. But he may have something even more deadly in store: As Danger Room reported on Monday, U.S. officials fear that Assad has gotten his chemical weapons ready to fire. President Obama and his chief surrogates have warned Assad against any chemical weapons usage, a warning reiterated Thursday by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. No one wants to see the Syrian rebels coming across chemical ordnance, in any capacity.

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Kristen Wiig may join “Anchorman: The Legend Continues”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Kristen Wiig is being eyed for a role in “Anchorman: The Legend Continues” for Paramount Pictures, a person familiar with the negotiations has told TheWrap.

Wiig would play opposite Steve Carell, as a love interest in the sequel. The script is still being written, and no cast beyond the principals has been set.

Adam McKay is directing the feature, which is being produced by Judd Apatow through his Apatow Productions banner. The film is a sequel to the 2004 hit, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and is due to be released in October 2013.

Best known for her work on “Saturday Night Live,” Wiig is one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, since appearing in the film “Bridesmaids.” She could recently be seen at the Toronto International Film Festival in the indie feature “Imogene,” and has been busy filming a number of titles, including “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and “Hateship Friendship,” with Guy Pearce.

“Anchorman: The Legend Continues” will see the original film’s cast return, including Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and Carell. The story follows the on-set adventures of San Diego’s top newsman who is played by Ferrell. “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” made around $ 85 million at the box office.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Running in Reverse

This column appears in the Dec. 9 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Backward running, also known as reverse or retro running, is not as celebrated as barefoot running and will never be mistaken for the natural way to run. But a small body of science suggests that backward running enables people to avoid or recover from common injuries, burn extra calories, sharpen balance and, not least, mix up their daily routine.

The technique is simple enough. Most of us have done it, at least in a modified, abbreviated form, and probably recently, perhaps hopping back from a curb as a bus went by or pushing away from the oven with a roasting pan in both hands. But training with backward running is different. Biomechanically, it is forward motion’s doppelgänger. In a study published last year, biomechanics researchers at the University of Milan in Italy had a group of runners stride forward and backward at a steady pace along a track equipped with force sensors and cameras.

They found that, as expected, the runners struck the ground near the back of their feet when going forward and rolled onto the front of their feet for takeoff. When they went backward though, they landed near the front of their feet and took off from the heels. They tended to lean slightly forward even when running backward. As a result, their muscles fired differently. In forward running, the muscles and tendons were pulled taut during landing and responded by coiling, a process that creates elastic energy (think rubber bands) that is then released during toe-off. When running backward, muscles and tendons were coiled during landing and stretched at takeoff. The backward runners’ legs didn’t benefit from stored elastic energy. In fact, the researchers found, running backward required nearly 30 percent more energy than running forward at the same speed. But backward running also produced far less hard pounding.

What all of this means, says Giovanni Cavagna, a professor at the University of Milan who led the study, is that reverse running can potentially “improve forward running by allowing greater and safer training.”

It is a particularly attractive option for runners with bad knees. A 2012 study found that backward running causes far less impact to the front of the knees. It also burns more calories at a given pace. In a recent study, active female college students who replaced their exercise with jogging backward for 15 to 45 minutes three times a week for six weeks lost almost 2.5 percent of their body fat.

And it aids in balance training — backward slow walking is sometimes used as a therapy for people with Parkinson’s and is potentially useful for older people, whose balance has grown shaky.

But it has drawbacks, Cavagna says — chiefly that you can’t see where you’re going. “It should be done on a track,” he says, “or by a couple of runners, side by side,” one facing forward.

It should be implemented slowly too, because its unfamiliar motion can cause muscle fatigue. Intersperse a few minutes periodically during your regular routine, Cavagna says. Increase the time you spend backward as it feels comfortable.

The good news for serious runners is that backward does not necessarily mean slow. The best recorded backward five-kilometer race time is 19:31, faster than most of us can hit the finish line with our best foot forward.

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Obama’s Tax Plan Would Spare Many Affluent Families

President Obama’s insistence that marginal tax rates rise for families making more than $250,000 has convinced millions of affluent Americans that they are likely to be writing larger checks to the government next year.

But many of those families have no reason to fret.

A close look at the president’s plan shows that a large majority of families making up to $300,000 – as well as hundreds of thousands of families with even larger incomes – would not pay taxes at a higher marginal rate.

Because the complexity of the tax code makes it difficult to draw clean lines, they are the beneficiaries of choices the administration has made to ensure that families earning less than $250,000 do not pay higher rates.

Some of those affluent households still would pay higher taxes next year under other parts of the president’s tax plan and increases imposed by the Affordable Care Act, but not under the centerpiece, the part most frequently promote by the president and most bitterly opposed by Congressional Republicans.

John Boudreau, the president of a Connecticut construction firm who expects to make about $300,000 this year, said that was a welcome surprise. He voted for Mr. Obama and said he was ready to pay taxes at a higher rate. But he’d rather not.

“I’m willing to, but if it works that I’m not, so be it,” he said. “I will not be a person that’s going to stick an extra check in my tax bill as my donation to my country.”

Unless the White House and Congress are able to reach an agreement, federal taxes are scheduled to rise sharply next year for a large majority of Americans. Tax cuts first passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush are scheduled to expire. So are cuts passed during Mr. Obama’s first term.

The president’s plan would prevent most of the scheduled increase for those below an income threshold Mr. Obama generally describes as $250,000. The Senate has passed similar legislation. But Democrats remain at loggerheads with House Republicans, who want to prevent scheduled increases for the most affluent households, too. And the parties disagree about how to prune federal spending.

The number that now divides the parties was introduced by Mr. Obama in 2007, in the early days of the presidential campaign, when he promised to extend the Bush tax cuts for families that made less than that amount.

“I can make a firm pledge,” Mr. Obama said in September 2008. " Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

When policy makers talk about income, however, they don’t mean the amount of money a family earns; they mean the portion subject to taxes. The government does not tax contributions to retirement plans, interest payments on mortgages or charitable donations, among other things. As a result, two families with the same incomes will most likely have different taxable incomes.

To guarantee that tax rates do not increase for any family making less than $250,000, the Obama administration proposed in 2009 to raise marginal rates on taxable income above roughly $230,000 – because the minimum amount of income a family is entitled to shelter from taxation is roughly $20,000.

But the average amount families in that income range are entitled to shelter from taxation is much larger, closer to $60,000. In other words, families with taxable income of $230,000 on average earned about $290,000 in 2009.

“They wanted to be able to say that ‘Absolutely nobody making less than $250,000 could possibly pay higher taxes under our plan,'” said Bob McIntyre, the director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal advocacy group “So they had to assume the most ridiculous assumptions, that even if you’re a childless couple with no itemized deductions making $250,001, your taxes still won’t go up. They figured that if this couple existed and their taxes went up, somebody would find them and jump on ‘em.”

Furthermore, to remain consistent with the president’s original promise, the administration has adjusted the original numbers for inflation. When Mr. Obama says $250,000, the White House says he means “in 2009 dollars.” It is now proposing to raise marginal rates on families with taxable incomes above $246,000 – meaning, on average, families earning more than about $305,000.

While the president has said that he wants to raise tax rates for the top 2 percent, only about 1 percent of taxpayers will face higher marginal rates, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a widely respected research group.

The restoration of the other provisions temporarily suspended by the Bush tax cuts, including limits on deductions and higher taxes on investment income, still would raise taxes for only about 32 percent of families with income between $250,000 and $300,000, according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice. About 77 percent of families with income between $300,000 and $350,000 would face an increase.

Neera Tanden, domestic policy director for Mr. Obama’s 2008 general election campaign, said the president might not have succeeded in rallying popular support for any tax increase if he had not made the $250,000 promise.

But Ms. Tanden, now president of the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said the administration should reconsider that commitment.

She co-authored a deficit-reduction plan released earlier this week recommending modest tax increases on households making as little as $100,000.

“We think it’s reasonable to ask a couple more dollars from people who make $150,000,” she said.

Some of the beneficiaries see good reasons why their taxes should not rise.

“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m disappointed,” said Ryan Ruby, 36, of Bothell, Wash., after learning that the president’s tax plan probably wouldn’t affect him even though he and his wife make between $250,000 and $300,000 a year. “I do think our tax rates should go up eventually, but right now I think the need for people to have disposable income to get the economy moving is probably more important than broadening the base.”

Most affluent households still will pay higher taxes next year for other reasons.

A two-year-old payroll tax break is scheduled to lapse at the end of this year. That would increase Social Security taxes by 2 percentage points on wage income below $113,700.

And the Affordable Care Act levies new taxes specifically targeting married couples earning more than $250,000 and singles earning more than $200,000 in adjusted gross income.

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Dispute over computer tied to killing of 4 at home, sources say

Detectives believe the quadruple homicide at a Northridge house over the weekend stemmed from a dispute over a computer and other property, law enforcement sources said.

Four suspects were taken into custody Tuesday at the Silverton Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Law enforcement sources told The Times the killings appeared to stem from a dispute over personal property, including a computer. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, said detectives were surprised that the dispute would have led to multiple deaths.

Photos: Four killed in Northridge shooting

City Councilman Mitchell Englander said one of the suspects was believed to have lived at the Northridge home, which authorities said had been converted into an illegal boardinghouse. It's unclear whether any of the victims lived at the home.

LAPD officials identified the suspects as Ka Pasasouk, 31, of Los Angeles; Howard Alcantara, 30, of Glendale; Donna Rabulan, 30, of Los Angeles; and Christina Neal, 33, of Los Angeles.

Pasasouk was arrested on suspicion of murder, Beck said.

Court records show Pasasouk has an extensive criminal record and was on probation at the time of the killings. He has several convictions dating back to at least 2004. Pasasouk pleaded no contest to possession of methamphetamine in 2011. The year before that, he pleaded no contest to unlawful taking of a vehicle and was sentenced to state prison. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery and assault likely to produce great bodily injury and sentenced to state prison. In 2004, he pleaded guilty and no contest in separate cases again involving unlawful taking of a vehicle.

The three others faced charges of aiding a felon; Alcantara faced an additional charge of robbery.

All four suspects remained in Clark County Jail and were expected to be extradited to Los Angeles in the coming days, Beck said. The FBI assisted with the arrests, along with Las Vegas and Henderson, Nev., police.

Officers went to the home in the 17400 block of Devonshire Street in Northridge about 4:25 a.m. Sunday after a 911 caller reported hearing yelling and shots fired, police said. Authorities found four people — two men and two women — shot dead outside.

Three of the victims — a man and two women — were shot on the walkway on the left side of the home, a source familiar with the case told The Times on Monday. They were wearing hooded sweat shirts and were about two feet apart. All three had at least one bullet wound to the head.

One victim was crumpled on her knees, the source said, her face buried in the palms of her hands, "almost like she was praying." The other two victims on the walkway were face down.

The fourth victim — a man — was farther away and appeared as if he was trying to run to the backyard when he was shot. He had at least one gunshot wound, according to the source.

"It looked like a quick kill," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

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Skiing Needs a Surfline for Mountain Conditions

The snow industry needs help.

This has nothing to do with the hardware you strap to your feet. On the contrary — the hard goods scene in snowboarding and skiing is incredibly vibrant and exciting. No, the problem with the snow industry is its lousy relationship with the internet, and the world of surfing could hold the answer.

We’re in sore need of a single service that accurately and consistently reports snow conditions across multiple resorts. What the industry — and more importantly, the community — needs to do is take a page from the surfing world. It needs a Surfline for snow reports.

Say you’re trying to decide which mountain to hit tomorrow. Pull up nearly any resort’s website and you’d be hard-pressed to find any truly detailed information. The level of info they make available is akin to what we’d get in the 1980s whenever we’d wake up at the crack of dawn and call the resort’s conditions hotline to hear the recorded message. Resort websites usually just report the same rudimentary things: the weather, which lifts are turning, amount of snow in the past 24 hours, and the general condition of the runs. The only real difference is that the information is presented on a beautifully designed website, next to lift ticket prices and photos of families skiing in the deepest powder you’ve ever seen.

For a sport where the conditions can vary wildly from day to day — and even from hour to hour — a resort’s homepage should be as dynamic as its Twitter and Facebook feed.

Sure, webcams now accompany those stats, but most cams are placed at the top of a run — or worse, at the base of the resort. Watching people get on or off a chair lift tells you nothing about the conditions on the runs those lifts serve.

If you want details, you’re better off turning to Twitter and Facebook, where most resorts maintain accounts. You can get chair conditions, photos of actual runs, and videos of the best skiers on the mountain blasting trough powder. All this stuff shows up on social networks, and the fans and followers (people just like you) comment and add their own observations in real time. It’s real information, served up on platters of glistening snow with an extra helping of “Don’t you wish you were here?”

Sure, there are independent apps available that give you the latest conditions from the resorts, like SnoCru, North Face’s Snow Report and Ski and Snow Report. They’re great, but they aren’t as centralized or comprehensive as Surfline’s massive, crowdsourced service.

Besides, shouldn’t all that information you can cull from apps and social channels be presented clearly on the resort’s main webpage? For a sport where the conditions can vary wildly from day to day — and even from hour to hour — a resort’s homepage should be as dynamic as its Twitter and Facebook feeds. Even when the stars align and a resort is smart about incorporating social media, you run into the problem of a resort exaggerating the current conditions by dropping the word “powder” into report — even if they only received an inch of new snow. Poor form, and they risk losing our business by playing dirty tricks.

I’m telling you: The Surfline model is the way to go.

For the first 10 years, Surfline was an over-the-phone conditions service. Unlike the ski resorts’ hotine, however, Surfline’s information was relayed via actual surfers reporting on their home break. In 1995, the service launched Surfline.com, and those individual reports were accompanied by webcams of the actual surf breaks.

Want to see the break at Huntington Beach pier? A quick trip to Surfline shows the current conditions, a forecast of swell conditions over the next 14 days, a live video of the waves and, more importantly, a shot of the crowd in the line-up. The site offers limited live information and forecasts for free. For $70 a year, surfers can stare at live uninterrupted video of waves all day if they want. If you’re an avid surfer, the monthly expense of $5.83 is well worth it.

But the idea of resorts banding together to create a single stream that presents current, dynamic conditions so riders can decide which resort gets all their money today? That’s a pipe dream. Resorts are businesses, and its unlikely they’ll cooperate to send paying customers to different hills on different days.

Instead, like Surfline, an independent business would have to be formed. Finding people at each resort to report on daily and hourly conditions should be no problem. Most skiers have at least one friend who rides nearly every day. That friend usually spends their mornings researching weather conditions and how those conditions will affect local resorts. Why not give those folks a regular paycheck and a place to share that information with other like-minded individuals? Thanks to smartphones, videos and photos could be uploaded and presented in one place, all within minutes.

Tracking snow and mountain conditions is something resorts have been doing for years. But the industry needs to advance the depth of information being shared with skiers. Like other industries, it may be up to the community to solve that particular problem.

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Kathie Lee Gifford’s “Scandalous” musical to close after three weeks

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – So much for Kathie Lee Gifford‘s career as a playwright. The former “Live!” co-host’s Broadway musical “Scandalous: The Life and Times of Aimee Semple McPherson,” is shuttering a little after three weeks after it opened.

The musical, which opened November 15, will have its final performance December 9 at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York.

Gifford wrote the book and lyrics for “Scandalous,” which chronicled the life of evangelist and proto-celebrity Aimee Semple McPherson, who rose to prominence in the 1920s, only to fall from public grace amid scandalous love affairs and other controversies.

In all, “Scandalous” will have played 29 regular performances before it goes dark and 31 previews. The musical stars Carolee Carmello (left) and George Hearn, among others, and is directed by David Armstrong (“A Christmas Story the Musical,” “Catch Me if You Can”).

Though Gifford had ample opportunity to plug the production via her “Today” co-hosting duties – and she certainly took advantage of the opportunity – critics were generally unkind in their appraisal of the show.

“‘Scandalous’ isn’t so much scandalously bad as it is generic and dull,” wrote the New York Times’ Charles Isherwood.

Newsday’s Linda Winer took specific aim at Gifford’s “bombardment of nursery-rhyme lyrics.”

Talkin’ Broadway’s Matthew Murray, meanwhile, scoffed that the play “is not distinctive in one positive way.”

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Report Bolsters Case for Large U.S. Natural Gas Exports

HOUSTON — In a victory for the oil and gas industry, a federal Energy Department study released Wednesday concluded that the national economic benefits of significant natural gas exports far outweighed the potential for higher consumer energy prices.

The Obama administration has been cautious on whether to embrace large exports of gas out of concern that consumers who rely on gas for heating and cooking could see their utility prices rise. Higher exports could raise costs to manufacturers that now benefit from a glut of cheap gas, some economists warn, although huge terminal projects would generate thousands of construction jobs and gas could be a lucrative export earner.

The new report, prepared by NERA Economic Consulting for the government, concluded that domestic gas prices would not rise sharply as a result of exports and that expanded export revenue would generally help most Americans.

Noting that gas exports could produce up to $47 billion in new economic activity in 2020, when many new terminals would be up and running, the report said, “welfare improvement is highest under the high export volume scenarios because U.S. consumers benefit from an increase in wealth transfer and export revenues.”

Only a decade ago, it appeared that the country’s domestic gas supplies were drying up, and that huge amounts of expensive gas in liquefied form would have to be imported from Trinidad, Africa and the Middle East. But over the last few years, a technological revolution has occurred in shale gas fields across the country, producing a glut that has driven the price of natural gas down by two-thirds since 2008.

The report, the second Energy Department study this year, is likely to be challenged by manufacturing and chemical companies like Dow Chemical warn that large-scale exports that raise domestic gas prices would hurt their ability to compete with foreign firms.

Yet oil and gas companies are eager for exports to bolster the lagging price of natural gas, and the report is likely to spur a competitive lobbying campaign for regulatory approval of export terminals. Executives in the oil and gas industry were enthusiastic about the report. “It’s great news,” said Rodney Waller, a senior vice president at Range Resources, a natural gas producer. “It’s encouraging to see that experts are joining the expectation that we are in a global marketplace and the United States has a huge opportunity to generate economic growth and at the same time reduce our energy costs.”

But several powerful members of Congress, including Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who is in line to be the next chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, have opposed large-scale exports.

In a recent letter to the energy secretary, Steven Chu, Senator Wyden noted the importance of the country’s newfound gas wealth to “improve the economic competitiveness of American manufacturers” and that “U.S. law has long held that imports and exports of energy must be considered differently than other commodities.”

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have joined the opposition to exports in a bid to limit domestic production, which is increasingly dependent on hydraulic fracturing, a technique that blasts open shale rock with water, sand and chemicals to release gas and oil. Environmentalists say drinking water supplies can be put in jeopardy, a charge disputed by the oil industry.

The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade group whose members include ExxonMobil, Sempra Energy and Royal Dutch Shell, has argued that more gas exports will bolster domestic gas production and with it expand demand for oil field equipment and steel piping.

The Energy Department report noted that large exports of gas would produce “some shifts in output by industrial sectors” and “the electricity sector, energy-intensive sector and natural gas dependent goods and services producers will all be impacted by price increases.” Industries that are likely to be most impacted, economists say, would be producers of chemicals and fertilizers.

But the report said that natural gas exports could produce $10 billion to $30 billion of annual export revenue. The country now exports some gas by pipeline.

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Villaraigosa says ports, union to use federal mediator to try to end strike

By Times Staff

December 4, 2012, 10:23 a.m.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference today that the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and a union representing 800 clerical workers will use a federal mediator to try to end an eight-day strike.

 Speaking in Wilmington, the mayor did not say workers would return to their jobs during the mediation process. The walkout has shut down the ports, forcing ships to anchor off the coast or head to competing ports in Northern California, Panama and Mexico.

Comments are filtered for language and registration is required. The Times makes no guarantee of comments' factual accuracy. Readers may report inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse link next to a comment. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.

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Buzzword Ban: Are You Motivated, Effective and Experimental? Try Being Something Else

LinkedIn has its year-end roundup of the buzzwords most overused in the profiles of its 187 million members. If you find yourself describing yourself with any of these terms, stop. Now.

Interestingly the oversuse of terms varies by geography. The Swiss fancy themselves “analytical,” while Brazilians are “experimental.” If you are looking for work in unemployed Spain, you describe yourself as “specialized.”

Somewhat puzzling is the same overused term used by LinkedIn users in France and Italy, “responsible.” There are few things those two nations have in common, and an overarching ethos of responsibility isn’t one of them.

Still better perhaps than the way Americans describe themselves in LinkedIn profiles: “creative.” How uncreative is that?

Michael V. Copeland is a senior editor at WIRED, where he focuses on all things related to the business of technology, but especially making sense of data analytics, where social is going next, and the collision between computer science and biological science. Prior to WIRED he was a senior writer at Fortune Magazine covering everything from electric cars to genomics and the latest in jet-powered surfboards.

Read more by Michael V. Copeland

Follow @MVC on Twitter.

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