James Bond, Snow White and a whole lot of hobbits and superheroes are in the running for the visual-effects prize at the Academy Awards.

The superhero blockbusters "The Avengers," "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" are among 10 films that made the cut for visual-effects nominations for the Oscars on Feb. 24.

The other seven contenders announced Thursday include the Bond adventure "Skyfall," "Snow White and the Huntsman," "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," "Cloud Atlas," "John Carter," "Life of Pi" and "Prometheus."

Members of the academy's visual-effects branch will view 10-minute excerpts from each of the films on Jan. 3, and then pick five nominees for the Oscars.

Republicans have rejected President Obama’s opening budget bid.

In a Capitol meeting with House Speaker John Boehner Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner submitted the Obama administration’s proposal for addressing medium term deficits, and avoiding across the board tax increases and spending cuts at the end of the year.

Republicans called the proposal outlandish and brushed it aside as unserious. But it’s almost entirely comprised of policies Obama campaigned on and included in his budget for the current fiscal year. And by satisfying GOP demands that Obama offer up a plan that includes spending cuts, it paints Republicans, who have been reluctant to specify their own Medicare cut proposal, into a tight corner.

The White House formally proposes to increase tax revenues by $1.6 trillion over 10 years by increasing top marginal income tax rates and taxes on both capital gains and dividends, and by limiting tax deductions for top earners, according to Republicans.

Obama proposes to reinstate the estate tax at its 2009 level, as well as patch the alternative minimum tax.

The administration asked Republicans to boost the economy, too, by either extending the payroll tax cut, or replace the holiday with a similar stimulus, such as the Making Work Pay tax credit in the Recovery Act. They also want to extend emergency unemployment benefits.

On top of that, the administration proposes $50 billion in new infrastructure spending, as well as a mortgage refinancing program. The plan would prevent automatic reimbursement cuts to physicians who treat Medicare beneficiaries, and would eliminate congressional control over the debt limit altogether.

In exchange, the administration proposes a tax reform proposal consistent with its $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues taken from top earners, and to cut 10-year deficits overall by $4 trillion, including $400 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid in Obama’s budget.

Meteorologists use the term "atmospheric river" to describe a long, narrow plume piping deep moisture from the tropics into the mid-latitudes.  One type of atmospheric river you may have heard of is the "Pineapple Express", a pronounced plume tapping moisture from the Hawaiian Islands to the U.S. West Coast.

Amazingly, according to NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), a strong atmospheric river can transport as water vapor up to 15 times the average flow of liquid water at the mouth of the Mississippi River! 

Suffice to say, if an atmospheric river stalls over a particular area, significant flooding can be the result.  In fact, a study by Ralph et al. (2006) found atmospheric rivers responsible for every flood of northern Calfornia's Russian River in a 7-year period. 

That said, they're also important for western water supply considerations. 

According to NOAA/ESRL, 30-50% of the average annual precipitation in the West Coast states typically occurs in just a few atmospheric river events.

With that in mind, one such atmospheric river is now soaking parts of the West Coast and will continue to do so through the weekend. Let's get to the forecast details
Flood Threat Through the Weekend

The graphic at the top of this article depicts the upper-air pattern that will stay in place through the weekend. Namely, a deep dip, or trough, in the jet stream is currently in place over the eastern Pacific Ocean. 

This will continue to send a parade of frontal systems and upper-level disturbances into the West Coast.

The first storm arrived on Wednesday and brought rainfall from California to the Pacific Northwest. The combination of wind and rain led to hefty delays at San Francisco International Airport.

The upper-level pattern has now tapped into the atmospheric river of moisture extending from just north and west of Hawaii to the West Coast. This will continue to send the ongoing latest round of very heavy rain and gusty winds into northern California through Friday afternoon. Expect a very wet commute with more possible airport delays in the Bay Area Friday morning.

Though rain showers will continue Friday night into Saturday, the intensity should let up some before the next round of very heavy rain and strong winds arrives in northern California and southwest Oregon for Saturday night into Sunday.

Is “password” your password?

Despite the obvious insecurity in using the word "password" as your password, it’s the most popular (and least secure) password used on the Internet, according to a new list published by SplashData.

The Internet security firm’s annual list of scary logins comes just in time for Halloween -- with a warning. Anyone caught using these lame passwords is most likely already or soon to be the victim of a security breach. 

"At this time of year, people enjoy focusing on scary costumes, movies and decorations, but those who have been through it can tell you how terrifying it is to have your identity stolen because of a hacked password,” said Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO.

    'Those who have been through it can tell you how terrifying it is to have your identity stolen by a hacked password.'

- Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO

“We're hoping that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different websites."

Several high profile password hacking incidents dotted headlines in 2012, including a handlful at major sites including Yahoo, LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Last.fm.

But despite these -- and the publicity created around the 2011 list of the worst Internet passwords -- little has changed, SplashData noted: The top three passwords, "password," "123456," and "12345678," remain unchanged from last year's list.

New entries to this year's list include "welcome, " "jesus," "ninja," "mustang, " and "password1."

SplashData, provider of the SplashID Safe line of password management applications, releases its annual list in an effort to encourage the adoption of stronger passwords.  It culls the list from millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers.

#              Password                Change from 2011
1               password                 Unchanged
2               123456                    Unchanged
3               12345678                Unchanged
4               abc123                     Up 1
5               qwerty                     Down 1
6               monkey                    Unchanged
7               letmein                     Up 1
8               dragon                     Up 2
9               111111                    Up 3
10             baseball                   Up 1
11             iloveyou                   Up 2
12             trustno1                   Down 3
13             1234567                  Down 6
14             sunshine                  Up 1
15             master                      Down 1
16             123123                    Up 4
17             welcome                  New
18             shadow                    Up 1
19             ashley                      Down 3
20             football                     Up 5
21             jesus                        New
22             michael                     Up 2
23             ninja                         New
24             mustang                   New
25             password1               New

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Last March, when the people of America were drooling at the thought of winning a record $656 million Mega Millions jackpot, we poured an icy bucket of mathematical reality over your head: You weren't going to win.

And you didn't. Three winning tickets were sold, but you weren't involved. It was never going to happen. As we wrote then, you stood a better chance at hitting two consecutive holes in one than winning that jackpot.

Now, with a record $500 million Powerball jackpot up for grabs on Wednesday, we figured it was a great time to, once again, dash your dreams. We know, we know -- someone will win at least a share of the prize, if not Wednesday, then in some subsequent drawing. But it won't be you.

Why you keep playing the lottery

The chance of a ticket winning a Powerball jackpot is 1 in 175,223,510 (slightly better than the chance of winning a Mega Millions jackpot, which is 1 in 175,711,536). Here are a few unlikely scenarios that, we're sorry to say, are much more likely than you taking home this jackpot.
Lottery winners' lives ruined

From the Harvard School of Public Health:

-- Dying from a bee sting: 1 in 6.1 million.

-- Dying from being struck by lightning: 1 in 3 million.

From U.S. Hole in One, which insures golf prizes for holes in one:

You, win the $500M Powerball jackpot

-- An amateur golfer making a hole in one on a par-3 hole: 1 in 12,500.

-- A golfer hitting a hole in one on consecutive par-3 holes: 1 in about 156 million.

From a 2011 State Farm study on collisions between vehicles and deer:

-- Hitting a deer with a vehicle in Hawaii, the state where State Farm says deer-vehicle collisions are least likely: 1 in 6,267.

Mayim Bialik is splitting from her husband of nine years.

The 36-year-old actress says in a statement posted online Wednesday that she and husband Michael Stone have decided to divorce. The couple has two young sons.

Bialik recently released a book about attachment parenting, but says the philosophy that encourages forming close bonds with near-constant physical contact played no role in the couple's split.

The Emmy-nominated star of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" says "relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose."

She says divorce is "terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible" for children and adds that the couple's sons remain their priority.

Bialik first gained fame as the star of the 1990s sitcom "Blossom." She holds a doctoral degree in neuroscience from UCLA, specializing in obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescents.

For his first professional acting job, a 22-year-old Anthony Hopkins took a train from South Wales to Manchester. With time to kill on a rainy day, he dropped off his bags and headed to the movies, where a long queue wound outside the cinema.

"It was packed," Hopkins recalls. "I sat down and I didn't know what the hell I was in for. I had heard stories about it. When it got to the shower scene, I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life."

The movie was, of course, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," a film that 52 years after its shocking premiere still hasn't released audiences from its subversive thrall. The film, which Hitchcock called "a fun picture," was revolutionary in its violence, its sexiness, its sympathy to the perspective of the criminal mind – and, perhaps above all, its technique.

"What if someone really good made a horror picture?" wonders the British director, played by Hopkins, in the new film "Hitchcock."

Directed by Sacha Gervasi, it depicts the making of "Psycho" with a keen focus on Hitchcock's relationship – and profession indebtedness – to his wife Alma Reville (played by Helen Mirren).

It is only the latest example of the undying fascination with "Psycho," a film that ushered in a new darkness in American movies, one with a playful sense of irony toward violence but also a serious treatment of that which had previously been considered mere "schlock." Though Hitchcock made a dozen films that could easily be labeled masterpieces, none seized audiences with the same power as "Psycho."

Made for just $800,000 at the end of Hitchcock's contract with Paramount (which distributed the film but left Hitchcock to finance it himself), "Psycho," based on Robert Bloch's novel, went on to gross $32 million – the biggest hit of his career. The director famously handed out manuals to theaters with explicit directions not to let anyone in after the movie began. Though most critics dismissed the film then, some finally began to consider Hitchcock an artist of the highest order – most notably Robin Wood, who called "Psycho" "perhaps the most terrifying film ever made."

"We are (taken) forward and downward into the darkness of ourselves," wrote Wood. "`Psycho' begins with the normal and draws us steadily deeper and deeper into the abnormal."

 Organizers say American R&B star Chris Brown has canceled a stadium concert in Guyana after local protests over his 2009 beating of then-girlfriend Rihanna.

Brown was billed to headline a Dec. 26 show. But he drew the ire of women's rights groups and opposition lawmakers who said Brown would not be welcome in Guyana three years after his assault of Barbadian superstar Rihanna.

Concert promoter Hits & Jams Entertainment said Thursday that Brown backed out, citing discomfort with the protests.

In 2009, Brown hit, choked and bit Rihanna during an argument in Los Angeles. He later pleaded guilty to assault.

Since then, Brown has worked to repair his image, undergoing violence counseling and putting out a new album. He has a duet with Rihanna on her recently released record.