"????? ??????????" ?????????? ????? ???????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? Microsoft: ???????? "????? ??????????" ? SPLA-???... Source: http://twitter.com/CNewsCloud/statuses/151956954238025728
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LONDON (AP) ? A statement on Sinead O'Connor's website says her brief marriage to therapist Barry Herridge has ended amicably.
The statement on sineadoconnor.com says "the marriage was 16 days. We lived together for 7 days only.. Until Xmas eve."
The statement says "from the moment myself and my husband got together ... there was intense pressure placed upon him by certain people in his life, not to be involved with me."
She adds: "As my good friend said 'well, at least you got married in Vegas in a pink Cadillac! Can't get more Rock n Roll than that.'"
Roman Szendrey, who maintains the site, told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday the report is accurate and was personally posted by O'Connor.
______
Online: http://www.sineadoconnor.com/
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Source: http://www.irvinemocktrial.com/conisderations-to-remember-before-buying-insurance/
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Obama administration cleared the way for states to legalize Internet poker and certain other online betting in a switch that may help them reap billions in tax revenue and spur web-based gambling.
A Justice Department opinion dated September and made public on Friday reversed decades of previous policy that included civil and criminal charges against operators of some of the most popular online poker sites.
Until now, the department held that online gambling in all forms was illegal under the Wire Act of 1961, which bars wagers via telecommunications that cross state lines or international borders.
The new interpretation, by the department's Office of Legal Counsel, said the Wire Act applies only to bets on a "sporting event or contest," not to a state's use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within its borders or abroad.
"The United States Department of Justice has given the online gaming community a big, big present," said I. Nelson Rose, a gaming law expert at Whittier Law School who consults for governments and the industry.
The question at issue was whether proposals by Illinois and New York to use the Internet and out-of-state transaction processors to sell lottery tickets to in-state adults violated the Wire Act.
But the department's conclusion would eliminate "almost every federal anti-gambling law that could apply to gaming that is legal under state laws," Rose wrote on his blog at www.gamblingandthelaw.com.
If a state legalized intra-state games such as poker, as Nevada and the District of Columbia have done, "there is simply no federal law that could apply" against their operators, he said.
The department's opinion, written by Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz, said the law's legislative history showed that Congress's overriding goal had been to halt wire communications for sports gambling, notably off-track betting on horse races.
Congress also had been concerned about rapid transmission of betting information on baseball, basketball, football and boxing among other sports-related events or contests, she summarized the legislative history as showing.
"The ordinary meaning of the phrase 'sporting event or contest' does not encompass lotteries," Seitz wrote. "Accordingly, we conclude that the proposed lotteries are not within the prohibitions of the Wire Act."
The department expressed no opinion about a provision in the law that lets prosecutors shut down phone lines where interstate or foreign gambling is taking place.
Many of the 50 U.S. states may be interested in creating online lotteries to boost tax revenues and help offset the ripple effect of a federal deficit-reduction push.
The global online gambling industry grew 12 percent last year to as much as $30 billion, according to a survey in March by Global Betting and Gaming Consultancy, based on the Isle of Man, where online gambling is legal.
Federal prosecutors in April charged three of the biggest Internet poker companies with fraud and money-laundering along with violations of another federal law, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 1986.
The government outlined an alleged scheme by owners of the three largest online poker companies - Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and PokerStars - to funnel gambling profits to online shell companies that would appear legitimate to banks processing payments.
(Editing by Derek Caney)
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TOKYO (Reuters) ? A lack of preparation and poor communication at top levels after disaster struck were among the failures that turned a nuclear accident at Japan's Fukushima plant into the worst atomic crisis in 25 years, a panel probing the disaster said on Monday.
The panel -- headed by an expert in why big mistakes are made -- said Tokyo Electric Power, the utility operating Fukushima's tsunami-wrecked Daiichi nuclear power plant, as well as regulators failed to sufficiently anticipate a massive tsunami and the devastating impact likely to result.
The Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was hit on March 11 by a tsunami that exceeded 15 meters in some areas. The tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems, resulting in meltdowns of nuclear fuel.
"The government's nuclear regulatory body did not require Tepco to take specific measures, such as additional construction, after they received simulation results from Tepco in 2008 and early in 2011 regarding the impact of tsunamis on their facilities," the panel said in the interim report.
In 2008 Tepco simulated a tsunami exceeding 15 meters reaching Daiichi but did not take action, dismissing the likelihood of such a wave, the panel added.
The report also noted that Tepco did not have enough expertise on the ground after the disaster struck, saying it made mistakes like misunderstanding the functioning status of the No.1 reactor's cooling system and mishandling the No. 3 reactor's cooling system.
The panel also said poor communication between the government's crisis management centre and top officials, despite both being housed in the same building, delayed the use of a system that predicts the spread of radioactivity, holding up and preventing more accurate evacuation orders.
The 12-member panel, set up in May on the initiative of then prime minister Naoto Kan and headed by Yotaro Hatamura, an engineering professor at Tokyo University who specializes in the study of failures, will release a final report next summer. The panel includes seismologists, former diplomats and judges.
The government announced on December 16 that reactors at the plant had reached a state of cold shutdown, a milestone in cleanup efforts and a pre-condition for allowing about 80,000 residents evacuated from a 20-km (12 miles) radius of the Daiichi plant.
But a public poll by the Nikkei newspaper on Monday showed that 78 percent of those surveyed did not agree with the government's decision to declare a cold shutdown.
Critics say the cold shutdown declaration was premature since the aftermath of the Fukushima accident is far from over.
"We can't agree with the prime minister's assertion that matters have been settled at Daiichi. The crops in Fukushima are still contaminated. No progress has been made in reducing the uncertainty felt by the residents," said Michio Furukawa, the mayor of Fukushima's Kawamata town and a member of the panel.
The government said last week it may take another seven years before the inside of the reactors can be checked due to high levels of radiation and technological constraints.
The report did not provide a detailed assessment on the damage to the Daiichi plant caused directly by the earthquake that triggered the tsunami, a key question that could affect whether other reactors that are now off-line for checks, can restart operations to avoid a power crunch.
Tepco has so far said the tsunami that followed the quake caused most of the damage.
Separately, the government said on Monday it would draw up new evacuation zones by the end of April, and areas where annual radiation levels are currently higher than 50 millisieverts would not be deemed suitable for living for at least five years.
The drawing up of new evacuation zones could in theory make it easier for Tepco's other Fukushima plant, the Daini plant to resume operations but Tepco has not begun applying to authorities for a restart and the Fukushima governor has said he wants all reactors in the prefecture to be decommissioned.
(Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China has arrested former executives at two brokerages on charges of insider trading, the securities watchdog said, as part of a crackdown on market malpractice that the new head of the agency has said will be one of his top priorities.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) detailed on its website four cases of market manipulation and insider trading that it has investigated, including two that led to the arrests of former executives at Southwest Securities Co Ltd (600369.SS) and Northeast Securities Co Ltd (000686.SZ).
The cases are the latest in an increasingly high-profile campaign by CSRC chief Guo Shuqing to stamp out rampant wrongdoing in the country's stock market, which has languished despite the country's nearly double-digit economic growth.
In one case, Qin Xuan, a Northeast Securities manager who advised on the restructuring of a Shenzhen-listed pharmaceutical firm, used the information he obtained in that process to trade the company's stock, and also leaked the information to a friend.
In another case, Ji Minbo, former vice president at Southwest Securities, gained 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) by using information that was not publicly disclosed to trade more than 40 stocks from 2009 to 2011, the CSRC said.
"No matter how concealed illegal practices are, inside traders will eventually be punished by law," the CSRC said in the statement that detailed Qin's case.
The other two cases on which the agency published details involved securities consultants using commentators, research reports and media to talk up stocks they own before selling the securities to make a profit.
China has been stepping up its crackdown against illegal trading activities and tightening supervision against fund managers, brokerages, consultants and executives of listed companies in a bid to build confidence in a stock market where illegal trading activities have been rampant.
In August, former stock analyst Wang Jianzhong was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 125 million yuan, on top of having illicit earnings of the same amount confiscated, becoming China's first convicted stock market manipulator.
Guo, the former China Construction Bank chairman who became CSRC chief in late October, said in a speech in early December that the regulator would adamantly crack down on accounting fraud, insider trading and other illegal activities.
Earlier this month, the agency exposed the country's biggest-ever case of stock market manipulation that involved an investment company, Guangdong Zhonghengxin, orchestrating "pump-and-dump" schemes related to 552 stocks, out of which it made 426 million yuan.
The CSRC has also recently published rules that would require listed companies to keep records on anyone who may have access to price-sensitive information.
($1 = 6.3364 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Jason Subler; Editing by Kazunori Takada)
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2012?s Rose Parade features the first HIV/AIDS awareness float ever. Sponsored by AHF and dedicated to Elizabeth Taylor.... Source: http://twitter.com/LibertyHill/statuses/150620507908210688
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Cuomo Reaches Contract Deal With State Law Enforcement Union bit.ly/u426iV 
NY1headlines NY1 News
Source: http://twitter.com/NY1headlines/statuses/150604645767708673
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? David Silverman/Getty
A woman on a bus looks out at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in Jerusalem, Israel.
While we've been distracted by alarmism over newly elected Islamist leaders enforcing hijabs and bikini bans in the Arab world, Israel is already embroiled in attempts to rein in this unruly matter of female "immodesty".
Last week, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on businesses in the southern town of Sderot signing up to a "dignified" dress code - whereby female employees must be "modestly" clothed. So far 20 stores have adopted this long-sleeves directive, initiated by a religious group which says it did not actively threaten to boycott non-signatory shops - but which, nonetheless, has considerable buying power. Not surprisingly, the women subjected to this new code have described it as religious coercion.
This is on top of some other instances of an apparent increase in ultra-religious modesty decrees. There have been recent religious pronouncements that men should walk out of army ceremonies where women are singing (immodestly, of course); along with attempts to erase women's faces from billboard advertising and increased attempts to impose gender-segregated queuing in stores.
Last week, religiously imposed gender segregation of buses prompted a stand-off, as a female passenger simply refused to move to the back - despite requests to do so from the bus driver and a police officer called in to sort out the dispute. Dozens of public bus lines used by Israel's ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) sector have been gender-segregated for years. Israel's supreme court tried to reverse this practice a year ago, but balked at actually banning the "women at the back" policy - making it more a voluntary issue.
The woman who stood up to it all sparked a round of indignation at these religious dictates in the Israeli media - and from Israeli leaders, including prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who issued some generic outrage premised on those favourite politico buzzwords: unity and coexistence.
Netanyahu is in a coalition that includes dominant religious parties - a support base he isn't likely to antagonise. Israeli governments are adept at making the right noises over religious enforcements in public spaces, but meanwhile doing nothing to seriously tackle the flourish. Underpinning this is the matter that, while Israel might be secular on the streets, it has never been secular as a state - with fundamentals from birth to death managed in some way by rabbis.
But this vocal protest premised on liberal, secular values is an easy run for Israel's leaders. Gender rights is one of the cornerstones of Israel's self-image as "the only democracy in the Middle East". Officials championing the subject can rely on solid support from mainstream Israelis - still a non-Orthodox majority - who worry that the Haredi sector's influence over public norms is getting out of hand. Part of the public fight-back includes a plan, on New Year's Day, for a mass boarding of gender-segregated buses to challenge this arrangement.
Pointedly, there is a big difference when it comes to defending another component of Israel's "only democracy" calling card: freedom of expression. In that frame, the Israeli government is currently trying to pass a series of laws that salute the spirit of McCarthy, while large sections of the public seem to have approved the line that any criticism of the country is basically treason.
But it seems unlikely that these trends are unrelated. Israel is increasingly becoming a place that's bigoted about dissent and difference. If the landscape as a whole is more aggressively intolerant, why shouldn't that include the Haredi sector, too?
Source: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/239231-Israel-s-treatment-of-women-is-hardly-that-of-a-democracy
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Twin Cities golfers are gearing up for some winter golf. (Photo By Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
BLOOMINGTON ? Twin Cities golfers will be ringing in the New Year with nine holes next weekend.
The 39th Annual Snowbird Open at Highland Park Golf Course is January 1st. With the recently warmer than normal temperatures, Bloomington Golf Courses Director Jason Wingate doesn?t expect the weather to be a factor this year.
?We?ve had some years where we have had typical weather, which has been pretty miserable,? he said. ?We?ve also had some years when temperatures have been reasonable and we thought, ?What a better way to start the New Year off than with a round of golf???
Regardless of the conditions, the hardcore golfers always turn out.
?I can think of just a few years ago we had eight or nine inches of snow on the ground, and we still had people play,? Wingate said. ?They actually tied string to their golf ball so they could find it.?
The entry fee is $2 per person, with registration 9 a.m. ? noon. The open will be played as nine hole individual stroke play.
Paul Morello can be reached at paul@wjbc.com.
Source: http://wjbc.com/winter-golf-comes-to-bloomington-normal/
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Make Us Great Again, a super PAC that supports Rick Perry, has a new ad out that thwacks Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with old newsreel-style footage and then brags on Governor Perry by a way of a new iPad. It's posted below.
Earlier today, Rachel sent over an email asking if the black fingernail polish on the person holding the iPad signifies anything. Tricia McKinney answered that whatever it means, you can't make an iPad do what it's doing in this ad.
Sing along, iPad crowd: You can't swipe the screen and change the image with one finger if another finger is already on the screen.
Source: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/22/9639599-even-rick-perrys-ipad-cant-do-that
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Benchmark crude rose 36 cents to $99.89 per barrel in New York. Brent crude fell 6 cents to $107.83 per barrel in London.
Tensions between Iran and the West, along with unrest in Syria, Bahrain, Kazakhstan and Iraq have raised worries that oil supplies could be disrupted if the unrest spreads or grows more serious.
U.S. economic data released this week showed signs of an improving economy, but on Friday the Commerce department reported weak consumer spending and income growth.
Average retail gasoline prices rose less than a penny Friday to a national average of $3.22 per gallon.
Source: http://www.katu.com/news/business/Oil-approaches-100-on-global-security-concerns-136140788.html
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? An emotional Melanie Amaro won the TV singing contest "The X Factor" on Thursday, earning a $5 million recording contract and closing the first U.S. season of the heavily hyped Fox show.
Josh Krajcik finished second after a public vote and Chris Rene came in third after a Christmas-themed, two-hour finale that also saw performances by Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder, Leona Lewis and 50 Cent.
Amaro, 19, a ballad singer whose voice has drawn comparisons to Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, had been tipped by the four judges to win after delivering a powerful rendition of Beyonce's hit "Listen" in Wednesday's live show.
On Thursday, she dropped to her knees in prayer and wept with joy, speechless at her victory.
More than 100,000 people auditioned for a chance to compete in "The X Factor," which judge and entrepreneur Simon Cowell brought to American television after making it the most-watched show in his native Britain.
But the U.S. show has fallen short of the ratings and critical expectations set up by Cowell this year. It has drawn an average of 12 million viewers or about half the audience for long-running singing contest "American Idol" that is also on Fox.
Amaro gets a $5 million contract with Cowell's Sony Music-owned record label SyCo and a starring role in a new commercial from sponsor Pepsi.
"We came here to find a superstar and we found a superstar," said a delighted Cowell after Amaro won the contest.
Krajcik, 30, a bluesy rock singer who worked in a burrito restaurant before joining the show, also congratulated Amaro.
"Melanie deserves it. She has a wonderful voice. I have had such an incredible experience. I got to be myself and sing what I wanted to sing. I couldn't be happier," Krajcik said.
Rene, 28, a recovering drug addict and rapper whose original song "Young Homies" has been a YouTube hit, was eliminated at the halfway point of Thursday's live show.
All three contestants had performed two songs apiece on Wednesday. Host Steve Jones did not reveal the number of votes cast by the public by phone, text message, Twitter and online.
"I feel amazing that I got to do this, that I am here," Rene said. "I got to touch a lot of people's hearts out here."
"The X Factor" will return for a second U.S. season in the fall of 2012.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111223/tv_nm/us_xfactor
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WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and the Democratic Party have set a combined fundraising goal of $60 million for the final three months of 2011, an amount that would help them surpass $200 million for 2011.
Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee have collected $156 million through the end of September and would easily push past $200 million if the goal is met. The campaign and DNC raised about $70 million from July through late September.
The campaign and DNC have not yet met the fundraising goals but the president is not expected to participate in any fundraising events for the remainder of the year, a campaign official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly.
Obama told top fundraisers recently that his re-election is not a "slam dunk" because many people are grappling with unemployment and the aftermath of the housing meltdown. He said his campaign would put forth a "vision that is truest to our history and most representative of the core decency of the American people."
Campaign officials expect the eventual Republican nominee to be competitive with Obama on fundraising, given the role of super PACs, independent groups that may accept unlimited donations but are not supposed to directly coordinate with candidates. Leading Republican contenders Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have not yet outlined fundraising goals for the quarter.
Obama headlined 15 campaign fundraising events in October through December, about half the number of events he participated in during the first three months of his re-election campaign. The campaign has offered a "Dinner with Barack and Michelle" to boost campaign contributions online, allowing donors the chance to enter a drawing to have dinner with the first couple. The move followed a "Dinner with Barack" promotion earlier in the year.
Obama departed Washington on Friday to begin a delayed vacation in Hawaii.
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FILE - In this July 29, 1996, file photo, House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens as President Clinton talks to reporters in the Cabinet Room of the White House prior to a meeting to discuss terrorism. To hear Republican presidential contender Gingrich tell it, he and Clinton were political partners in the 1990s, lowering unemployment, balancing the federal budget and keeping the nation's economy in robust health. In fact, the economy wasn?t as rosy as he?s claiming during his time in leadership. And the Clinton-Gingrich relationship was marked by intense cycles of warfare and courtship. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, File)
FILE - In this July 29, 1996, file photo, House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens as President Clinton talks to reporters in the Cabinet Room of the White House prior to a meeting to discuss terrorism. To hear Republican presidential contender Gingrich tell it, he and Clinton were political partners in the 1990s, lowering unemployment, balancing the federal budget and keeping the nation's economy in robust health. In fact, the economy wasn?t as rosy as he?s claiming during his time in leadership. And the Clinton-Gingrich relationship was marked by intense cycles of warfare and courtship. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, File)
FILE - In this June 11, 1995, file photo, President Bill Clinton, right, laughs as Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich makes a point during a town meeting at the Earl Bordon Senior Center in Claremont, N.H. To hear Republican presidential contender Gingrich tell it, he and Clinton were political partners in the 1990s, lowering unemployment, balancing the federal budget and keeping the nation's economy in robust health. In fact, the economy wasn?t as rosy as he?s claiming during his time in leadership. And the Clinton-Gingrich relationship was marked by intense cycles of warfare and courtship. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? To hear Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich tell it, he and Democratic President Bill Clinton were political partners in the 1990s, lowering unemployment, balancing the federal budget and keeping the nation's economy in robust health.
"I worked with President Clinton ... and we ended up with about 11 million new jobs in a four-year period, went down to 4.2 percent unemployment," Gingrich said in a recent debate, suggesting that as president, he could do it again.
In fact, the economy wasn't as rosy as he's claiming during his time in leadership. And the Clinton-Gingrich relationship was marked by intense cycles of warfare and courtship. The major economic boost while they were both in power, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, was the product of compromise that enraged their respective political bases. And it inspired this pair of outsized personalities to huddle over secret plans for a centrist coalition to help them step around the purists on Social Security and Medicare reform. Only the House's impeachment proceedings against Clinton blew those plans apart.
"I like the guy so much I want to do a deal with him," Gingrich, then the House speaker, confessed to his outraged lieutenants during a government shutdown almost exactly 16 years ago, according to a book about the stormy Clinton-Gingrich partnership.
"I respect his ability to think and do," Clinton said of Gingrich this week on Fox News Channel. "And I eventually hammered out a really productive relationship with him."
At the brink of the 2012 election year, Gingrich is in strong contention for the Republican presidential nomination and is casting himself as the most electable candidate in the GOP field against Democratic President Barack Obama. He cites his two decades in the House, four years as speaker and knowledge of history as ample preparation for helping the economy recover from recession.
As he has all year, Gingrich is hitching his presidential hopes to the relatively healthy economy of the 1990s.
"For four years, we balanced the budget and paid off $405 billion in debt," Gingrich said in May as he kicked off his campaign. "We've done it before. We can do it again."
Sometimes, he mentions Clinton.
During a debate earlier this month, Gingrich cited his work with Clinton, the 11 million jobs created and the low unemployment figure of 4.2 percent. When Gingrich became speaker in January 1995, the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent. When he left office four years later, the rate was 4.3 percent.
Other times, he leaves out Clinton ? even though presidents have the highest-profile role in economic policy and therefore get most of the credit or blame for what happens on their watch.
"When I was speaker, our budget was balanced and 11 million jobs were created," Gingrich says in a campaign ad released this week.
Still, Gingrich's version is a potent message for an angry electorate this holiday season, as Americans struggle to get or keep jobs, pay their holiday bills and hang onto whatever trust they still have in government leaders who have spent the year making big decisions only under threat of catastrophe.
Gingrich did contribute to the economy of the 1990s, according to an account of the Clinton-Gingrich talks of 1996-98, which resulted in a balanced budget act ? and more.
"It's a fair claim for him to make," says Steven M. Gillon, who won Clinton and Gingrich's cooperation for his 2008 book, "The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation." For a "very fertile period ... they worked behind the scenes crafting significant legislation that had a positive impact on the economy. And they were doing so at great risk."
"Conservatives didn't trust him," recalled John Feehery, an aide at the time to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, who chaperoned Gingrich to meetings with the president to keep them from making deals. Throughout the four years Clinton's aides, too, maneuvered to keep the president and House speaker from being alone together, according to Gillon's book.
As part of the 1997 balanced budget deal, Gingrich agreed to a proposal to give block grants to states to pay for health care for uninsured children who didn't qualify for Medicaid. The deal forced Republicans to swallow a major new entitlement, the largest expansion of taxpayer-financed health insurance coverage for children since Medicaid began in the 1960s.
Many Republicans saw the State Children's Health Insurance Program as too much government involvement in private industry and a step toward the mandated health insurance championed by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gingrich not only supported the idea, he backed SCHIP's reauthorization in 2007.
The budget deal marked a change in the pair's relationship from the days after the 1994 Republican "revolution" that made Gingrich speaker ? and the two government shutdowns the following year. By striking the massive budget act, "They realized they could accomplish more by working together, even if that meant abandoning the liberal and conservative wings of their respective parties," Gillon writes.
Gingrich and Clinton tried to do even more together, convening a secret meeting on Oct. 28, 1997, in the Treaty Room of the White House on revamping Social Security and Medicare ? for which centrists would be the key to passage, Gillon wrote. The plan was for Clinton to propose reforming entitlements in his State of the Union speech, while Gingrich would respond with supportive words. But a week before the president's annual speech to the nation, the story broke about Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
"I knew it was over," Gingrich reflected of his partnership with Clinton, according to the book. Under fire from conservatives after his own lieutenants tried to overthrow him, Gingrich left Congress in January 1999. The House impeached Clinton on charges connected to his testimony about an affair, but the Senate acquitted him.
Fast-forward a dozen years, and Gingrich is casting his role in the 1990s economy his way.
"This country has enormous potential ... to balance the budget, as we did for four years when I was speaker," Gingrich said on Fox News.
In fact, the national debt went up, not down, during the four years Gingrich was speaker. In January 1995, when he assumed the leadership position, the gross national debt was $4.8 trillion. When he left four years later, it was $5.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion.
As for annual deficits, he did not preside over a four-year period of balanced budgets. In the 1996 and 1997 budget years, the first two years he influenced as speaker, the government ran deficits. In 1998 and 1999, the government ran surpluses.
Washington achieved surpluses for two years after that, making four consecutive years of black ink. But Gingrich only had a hand in the first two.
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Jaden Schwartz?s leadership skills were obvious before he even arrived at Team Canada?s training camp.
He was the obvious choice as captain and had the C stitched onto his Team Canada jersey Thursday.
Coaches love guys who have character and experience, guys who have battled.
Schwartz has fought through an emotional battle most teenagers, luckily, don?t have to deal with.
The Colorado College winger did everything he could to help his sister, who played hockey at Yale, during a two-and-a-half year fight with acute myeloid leukemia.
His 23-year-old sister, Mandi, died last April.
?It just puts everything in perspective,? Schwartz said of the hard lessons he?s learned over the past few years.
?To go through adversity like that, it was one of the hardest things ever to deal with.
?If you can get through that, you can get through anything.?
When Schwartz was drafted ? 14th overall by the St. Louis Blues at the 2010 NHL Entry Draft ? he used his moment in the sun to direct traffic to a website (Become Mandi?s Hero) that helped during a worldwide search for a bone marrow match.
That search didn?t produce the match the Schwartz family was hoping for, but with everyone from the New York Times to ESPN picking up the story, more than 10,000 people signed up as donors.
Other lives have been saved.
?I learned a lot from that and I learned a lot from Mandi,? Schwartz said.
?I?m just trying to lead by example and be a good guy off the ice.?
Schwartz said his family was excited to hear he had been named Team Canada captain.
?It?s a tremendous honour and a huge privilege,? he said. ?It feels pretty special, but I?m not going to change who I am or the way I play.
?I?m just going to be myself.?
Brett Connolly, Devante Smith-Pelly, Quinton Howden and Brandon Gormley will rotate as alternate captains.
Schwartz is one of four returning players, but he broke his ankle in the second game of last year?s tourney.
Showing the character of a future captain, he came back on the ice and even scored a goal.
But once team doctors saw the fracture, his tournament was over.
He?s not taking this second kick at the can for granted.
?It?s a second chance and something you dream of,? he said. ?Last year, it was a tough way to go out.
?I?ve been waiting for this since last year?s tournament ended.?
Head coach Don Hay said handing the C to Schwartz wasn?t a difficult decision.
?With Jaden, he?s a real mature young man,? Hay said. ?He seemed to be a logical choice.
?The players gravitate towards him and he?s a personable young man, and he?s got experience.?
Hay said he expects his new captain will lead through action rather than words.
?He seems very mature in his approach to the game and his approach to life,? Hay said. ?He?s prepared and he works hard.
?Those are important things, to have someone who?s prepared to practice and then in the games, he quietly goes about his job.
?He?s not going to be a big vocal guy, but when he talks, the players will listen.?
Hay was intent on giving his most experienced players the remaining letters.
?I think it?s a strong leadership group,? he said. ?The guys have world junior experience, Memorial Cup experience, NHL experience.
?So we?re comfortable with the group of guys we?ve chosen as leaders.?
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2011/12/22/schwartz-named-canadas-captain
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WASHINGTON ? Rules aimed at preventing airline pilots from flying while dangerously fatigued were issued Wednesday by the Federal Aviation Administration, a move safety advocates have been urging for more than two decades.
The rules update current pilot work schedule regulations, which largely date back to the 1960s, to reflect studies on how much time pilots need for rest and an understanding of how travel through time zones and the human body clock's response to light and darkness can affect performance.
Carriers have two years to adapt to the new rules. The FAA estimated the cost to industry at $297 million over 10 years, a fraction of the $2 billion a year that an airline trade association had estimated a draft proposal released by FAA over a year ago would cost.
The new rules come nearly three years after the deadly crash of a regional airliner flown by two exhausted pilots. Family members of the 50 people killed in the accident near Buffalo, N.Y., have lobbied relentlessly for more stringent regulations.
The rules would limit the maximum number of hours a pilot can be scheduled to be on duty ? including wait time before flights and administrative duties ? to between nine and 14 hours. The total depends upon the time of day pilots begin their first flight and the number of time zones crossed.
The maximum amount of time pilots can be scheduled to fly is limited to eight or nine hours, and pilots would get a minimum of 10 hours to rest between duty periods, a two-hour increase over the old rules. Pilots flying overnight would be allowed fewer hours than pilots flying during the day.
But cargo carriers ? who do much of their flying overnight when people naturally crave sleep ? are exempted from the new rules. The FAA said forcing cargo carriers to reduce the number of hours their pilots can fly would be too costly compared to the safety benefits.
Imposing the rules on cargo airlines like Federal Express or United Parcel Service would have added another $214 million to the cost, FAA officials said.
The exemption for cargo carriers runs counter to the FAA's goal of "one level of safety" across the aviation industry. It's also certain to provoke complaints from pilot unions, who point out that cargo pilots suffer from fatigue the same as pilots for passenger-carrying airlines. And, while cargo planes aren't carrying passengers, the risk to the public on the ground from an air crash is just as great.
The charter airlines that transport nearly 90 percent of U.S. troops around the world had also lobbied heavily for an exemption to the new rules, saying military missions could be jeopardized. But FAA officials rejected those pleas.
The new rules give "pilots enough time to get the rest they really need to safely get passengers to their destinations," FAA Acting Administrator Michael Huerta said.
The rules will prevent about one and a half accidents a year and an average of six deaths a year, FAA officials said. They will also improve pilots' health, officials said.
Researchers say fatigue, much like alcohol, can impair a pilot's performance by slowing reflexes and eroding judgment. The National Transportation Safety Board has been campaigning for two decades for an overhaul of pilot work schedule rules. An effort by the FAA in the late 1990s to develop new rules stalled when pilot unions and airlines were unable to find common ground.
That effort was revived after the February 2009 crash Continental Connection Flight 3407 near Buffalo. Neither pilot appeared to have slept in a bed the previous night. The flight's captain had logged onto a computer in the middle of the night from an airport crew lounge where sleeping was discouraged. The first officer had commuted overnight from Seattle to Newark, N.J., much of the time sitting in a cockpit jumpseat. They could be heard yawning on the ill-fated flight's cockpit voice recorder.
However, by a 2-1 vote the NTSB decided not to cite fatigue as a contributing factor to the crash. The board agreed that the captain's incorrect responses to a stall warning caused the accident, and that other pilot errors contributed to the crash. But investigators said it wasn't possible to determine whether those errors were the result of fatigue.
But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and former FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt vowed to put strong fatigue rules in place.
"We made a promise to the traveling public that we would do everything possible to make sure pilots are rested when they get in the cockpit. This new rule raises the safety bar to prevent fatigue," LaHood said in a statement.
The families of victims killed in the crash won congressional passage of a law requiring the FAA to issue new rules by Aug. 1 of this year, but the White House Office of Management and Budget delayed release of the rules.
Safety advocates applauded the new rules.
The changes replace "rules that were dangerously obsolete and completely ineffective," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "The rule applies fatigue science in a way that makes sense."
__
Online:
Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/
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Continue reading iFaith v1.4 allows downgrade to iOS 5.0, jailbreaker's dream come true
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Reporting from Washington?
?
When an energized U.S. delegation arrived in Copenhagen for world climate talks two years ago, environmentalists were encouraged by its willingness to tackle global warming.
In the months before Copenhagen, the House of Representatives had passed climate change legislation, and the new Obama administration had crafted an agreement with the auto industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the main contributor to global warming.
But now, halfway through a two-week round of climate talks in Durban, South Africa, that excitement has disappeared. Weakened by reversals in Congress and the ailing economy as a presidential election looms, the U.S. delegation has staked out a position that has confused and frustrated environmentalists and other nations.
Doubts have arisen about Washington's willingness to cut emissions more substantially and its commitment to follow through on helping developing countries already battling climate change, people at the talks said.
The U.S. has shown up "empty-handed, with questions about whether it will be able to meet the emissions-reduction pledge President Obama put forward before Copenhagen," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"The question now is whether the U.S. will facilitate progress or block it," said David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America.
The administration and some allies have pushed back against the mounting criticism, pointing to new rules the U.S. adopted to cut auto emissions and progress at last year's climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, to aid developing countries.
"The United States is committed to meeting the climate challenge," said Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change. "Thanks in significant part to U.S. leadership, the Cancun agreements reached last year included commitments for the first time from all major economies, developed and developing alike, and principles for a system of transparency so that all countries can see whether others are meeting their commitments. There is, of course, much more to be done, but we have made an important start."
As representatives from the nations of the world began meeting last week in Durban at the 17th United Nations Climate Change Conference, they were confronted with increasingly dire news.
Global temperatures in the last decade were the hottest ever recorded, and greenhouse gas emissions are at their highest levels, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization. Without more aggressive efforts to reduce emissions, the world will miss the chance to keep the global average temperature from rising to more dangerous levels, the International Energy Agency recently said.
Many countries and environmentalists contend that the incremental, voluntary efforts championed by the U.S., China and other big emitters of greenhouse gases have proved inadequate in slowing climate change.
On Wednesday, the chief executives of 16 major environmental groups sent U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a blunt letter asking that the United States abandon its negotiating positions.
"America risks being viewed not as a global leader on climate change but as a major obstacle to progress," said the letter, whose signatories include the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Environmental Defense Fund. "U.S. positions on two major issues ? the mandate for future negotiations and climate finance ? threaten to impede in Durban the global cooperation so desperately needed to address the threat of climate change."
Environmentalists and developing nations are pushing to begin talks that would eventually lead to the ratification of a legally binding worldwide agreement.
The only such agreement so far, the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and went into effect in 2005, will expire at the end of next year. The protocol's participants committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2% below 1990 levels. The U.S. did not ratify the accord. The European Union did. EU members and many other nations would like to see the protocol extended as countries work to establish another agreement that would go past 2020.
The U.S. has a history of playing hardball at climate talks. But this time, participants are dismayed that the Obama administration insists on preconditions to negotiations for a legally binding agreement that major emitters such as China and India are unlikely to accept. For instance, Washington seeks unconditional commitments from developing countries to reduce emissions to certain levels, when it remains unclear whether they will get the financial or technological support to do so.
"I think the Americans are nervous that the Republicans are watching what they say and do," Meyer said from Durban. "They are being very careful so that their position can't be distorted and used against the president on this issue. That's perhaps why they're being more hard line."
Under a nonbinding accord reached in Copenhagen, participants agreed to cut emissions based on voluntary targets in order to keep the global average temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2020. That temperature has risen almost 1 degree Celsius so far.
Some environmental analysts are more sympathetic to the Obama administration's position.
"This obsession with a legally binding treaty is an obstacle for countries achieving targets they have committed to," said Paul Bledsoe, a former spokesman for the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton. "What we need is national will to reach stated goals."
neela.banerjee@latimes.com
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Elk Lake Resort
Elk Lake Resort in central Oregon shuttles guests 11 miles to their snowbound cabins via snowcat or a Suburban on tracks.
By Colleen McBrinn, msnbc.com contributor
Book your snowbound cabin nestled in the woods, pack your food and cross-country skis, grab the kids?? and don?t forget to reserve the snowcat.
A handful of snowbound lodges and resorts in the Northwest are making winter adventures more accessible for families by throwing in a little help: Stocked cabins, reached by burly snowcats.
Skiers and snowshoers can rent rustic to luxury log cabins loaded with linens, cookware and firewood ? and an option for a snowcat to carry in up to 12 people plus food and gear. Young kids and those not up to getting there on their own can ride in the snowcat while others ski or snowshoe the usually three to 10 miles from the nearest road in to the cabins.
Tucked in the Cascade Mountain range about 35 miles south of Bend, Ore., the snowbound Paulina Lake Lodge operates 11 rustic huts roughly three miles from a snow park. Visitors have a few options for reaching the cabins, which range from $100 to $265 per night: ski or snowshoe in, ride in a snowcat or rent a snowmobile.??
Bend residents Jenny Blechman and Tim Carney have cross-country skied in to the Paulina Lake huts two years in a row with their two young boys, along with other families. The second year, two parents rode with all 5 kids in the snowcat while the other adults enjoyed skiing in. The three families split the $150 round-trip snowcat cost, rented a cozy cabin together, and during the day tag-teamed, with some adults skiing while others played in the snow with the kids.
?The snowcats give us the freedom to continue our adventures with the kids in tow,? Blechman said. ?It?s doable without the extra transport, but it sure makes things easier ? and for travel with kids, easier is always best.?
In addition to food and gear, Blechman said the snowcat hauled in the kids? skis, travel cribs and baby seats ? things they wouldn?t have been able to carry on their backs while skiing.
Paulina Lake Lodge co-owner Karen Brown said most families have been coming for years and making full use of the snowcat shuttle.
?We have kids that I?ve watched grow up,? she said. ?We only see them once or twice a year, but it?s really a family atmosphere up here. We have one kid graduating in June that started coming as a little one.?
Paulina Lake Lodge also rents snowmobiles for guided tours or for visitors to ride in and keep at the cabins. The lodge, built in the 1920s, is now a full cocktail bar and restaurant, which gives?guests the option to eat there as well as cook in the cabins.
Nearby, Elk Lake Resort offers 13 snowbound cabins ranging from very rustic ($29 per night, sleeps two) to a 3,000-foot luxury cabin ($459 per night, sleeps 10). Resort staff shuttle in?guests ??those not skiing the 11 miles in ? on a snowcat or hefty Suburban on tracks for $40 per person roundtrip.?
?A lot of families wouldn?t be able to come here without the snowcat or Suburban,? said co-owner Mitch Cole. ?We?re passionate about making this resort accessible to families, mostly because my partners and I have kids, too. It?s amazing to see kids up here for the first time in their own private, snowbound resort. They have a blast.?
Those looking for a really special, snowy treat for a family reunion or big gathering can rent Silcox Hut perched above Mt. Hood?s Timberline Lodge, about an hour?s drive from Portland, Ore. At 7,000 feet, it?s Oregon?s highest hotel. For $175 per person per night during the weekend (kids a little less), you get lodging, dinner, breakfast and snowcat transportation. Kids too young to downhill ski can romp in the snow outside the hut or down at Timberline Lodge, which also offers ski and snowplay programs for kids.
Other backcountry huts are scattered throughout the Northwest, but few come with snowcat services. The Rendezvous Huts in Washington?s Methow Valley along the eastern flanks of the North Cascades are dotted about every five miles along 21 miles of groomed Nordic ski trails. While the Methow Valley Sport Trails Association doesn?t have snowcat transportation, it does offer a freight hauling service for food and gear. This can lighten parents? loads so while cross-country skiing, they can pull young kids in to the huts on their own Chariots (kid trailers on skis attached to a waist harness).
The snow season for these resorts and lodges starts in mid-December and lasts through mid-March, depending on snow level.??
Other stories you might like
Colleen McBrinn, a freelance writer in Portland, Ore., strives to maintain an active lifestyle of outdoor sports and travel with two wee ones in tow.
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Source: http://todaytravel.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9169813-hitch-a-ride-to-a-snowbound-cabin
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Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer this holiday season? Square has launched a new campaign to encourage existing users to give their favorite entrepreneur or small business owner a mobile payments device as a holiday gift. The Square reader comes nicely gift wrapped in snowflake wrapping paper and the purchaser only has to pay $1 (FYI?un-wrapped Square readers are free). Square tells us the campaign launched on November 15 and has already brought over 20,000 orders for gift-wrapped devices. And as the holiday shopping season kicks off, Square has also noticed a significant uptick in sales at its 9,000 retail partners, which include Apple, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Target and Wal-Mart. At these stores, Square readers retail for $9.99 in stores but each purchaser can redeem a $10 credit to their bank account.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LOls_jwd-Mg/
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