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Monday, October 31, 2011
NATO operation in Libya ends after 7 months, could it be a model?
Some see the end of the NATO operation in Libya as a moment for Europe to step up with more robust support of the alliance. The US remains skeptical.
NATO's mission in Libya ends today after seven months.
Skip to next paragraphWhat it accomplished in the short term is described in superlatives both by US and European diplomats. Operation Unified Protector was "a true alliance effort,? says Ivo Daalder, the US representative to NATO.
?As good a war as it comes?with limited civilian casualties,? says Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform in London, citing the difference with other NATO operations in precision bombing. ?There were no Chinese embassies hit in Tripoli [as in Belgrade in 1999], no refugee convoys hit, no weddings that I know about [as in Afghanistan.]?
Yet whether the Libya operation is any kind of model ? or a ?one off? made possible by the circumstances of a potential humanitarian disaster in Benghazi ? remains unclear.
To optimists, this is a moment for Europe to step up its support for the 60-plus year alliance.To much of Europe the outcome in Libya is considered a clear cut victory. European leaders, led by Great Britain and France, may even see the Libyan NATO operation as a model for future operations giving the US a background role.
There is, however, more skepticism of that in US military circles. The French, who helped lead the effort, get high marks from Pentagon officials for the first time in many years.
But NATO is an institution that doesn?t operate separately from the collective agreement of its members and leaders. The resulting paucity of European might and resolve ? only eight of 28 NATO nations initially responded to the conflict ? underscores what Mr. Valasek describes as ?the appearance of a weaker European partner? in NATO.
Skeptics in the new post-war generations in Europe are unwilling in an era of austerity to wave much of a revamped NATO flag. And in some US circles, there are questions about why a small war took so long, and why allies at various points ran out of munitions.
Still, the level of European participation was a big change of NATO operations in Europe just over a decade ago. In Kosovo, the US conducted 90 percent of the strikes, and the other allies contributed 10 percent. In Libya, those figures were inverted, and the operation came with palpable support from places like the United Arab Emerites, Qatar, Jordon, and Morocco, as Mr. Daalder notes in The New York Times.
Thus far, there are no clear figures about civilian casualties in the UN mandated operation designed to protect civilians. Some commentators argue that estimates, if any, should be released to counter claims made and reported in some anti-Libya intervention blogs and media about tens of thousands of casualties.
The NATO alliance helped liberate a country whose National Transition Council leaders quickly opened up the question about whether Islamic rulings permitting polygamy should be revisited. European leaders don?t want to think that was part of any NATO liberation, and have said so in recent days.
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Ponder's Vikings top Cam's Panthers 24-21
Minnesota Vikings' Christian Ponder (7) scrambles against the Carolina Panthers during the second quarter of an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Minnesota Vikings' Christian Ponder (7) scrambles against the Carolina Panthers during the second quarter of an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Minnesota Vikings' Adrian Peterson (28) runs for a touchdown as Carolina Panthers' Greg Hardy (76) pursues during the second quarter of an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Carolina Panthers' Cam Newton (1) is upended by Minnesota Vikings' Husain Abdullah (39) during the fourth quarter of the Vikings' 24-21 win in an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Minnesota Vikings' Adrian Peterson, right, breaks the tackle of Carolina Panthers' Sherrod Martin, left, while running for a touchdown during the third quarter of an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Minnesota Vikings' Ryan Longwell, left, kicks a field goal late during the fourth quarter of the Vikings' 24-21 win over the Carolina Panthers in an NFL football game in Charlotte, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? With a big assist from Adrian Peterson, Christian Ponder came out on top of his rookie quarterback matchup with Cam Newton.
Peterson had 162 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns and Ryan Longwell kicked a 31-yard field goal with 2:43 left to lift the Minnesota Vikings to a 24-21 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday.
Ponder completed 18 of 28 passes for 236 yards and one touchdown as the Vikings (2-6) ended a two-game losing streak.
Newton threw for 290 yards and led the Panthers back down the field in the final two minutes, completing a 44-yard pass to Brandon LaFell on fourth-and-15. But Olindo Mare missed a 31-yard field goal wide left with 26 seconds left.
Newton threw a season-best three touchdown passes, but had two fumbles on blindside hits that led to a pair of Minnesota touchdowns in the first half.
The Panthers led 21-14 after a 22-yard touchdown catch by Steve Smith with 11:07 left in the third quarter, but Carolina's offense sputtered most of the second half ? going three-and-out on three straight possessions. The Vikings tied the game on a 9-yard touchdown run by Peterson, his ninth of the season.
Minnesota took the lead for good on a 13-play, 72-yard drive in the fourth quarter that took 7:10 off the clock.
Things looked dire for the Panthers, but Newton completed his long pass to LaFell to move the ball into Vikings territory. Newton then had a first down run inside the 10 called back on a holding penalty on Smith. Mare, who had connected on 13 of 15 field goals coming into the game, then shanked the kick wide left and the Vikings ran out the clock.
Smith, who came into the game leading the NFL in yards receiving, had seven catches for 100 yards. Tight ends Jeremy Shockey and Greg Olsen also had touchdown catches for Carolina.
Peterson ran for 86 yards and had 76 yards receiving, including a 19-yard scoring catch in the second quarter.
Jared Allen, who entered the game leading the NFL in sacks, had a big game for the Vikings with five tackles, a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Both of Minnesota's first-half touchdowns came after Newton fumbles in which he took blindside hits from Allen and E.J. Henderson. The Vikings scored within a minute of both of those turnovers.
Percy Harvin had four catches for 58 yards and scored on a touchdown run for the Vikings.
The game began with a crazy flurry of plays.
Marcus Sherels returned the opening kickoff and raced 78 yards to the Carolina 27. However, the Vikings went three-and-out and Longwell missed a 45-yard field goal.
It seemed Carolina had seized the early momentum with that defensive stop, but on their first play from scrimmage Henderson sacked Newton and Allen recovered the ball at the Carolina 16. Harvin, lined up in the backfield, scored two plays later on a 10-yard run to give the Vikings a 7-0 lead.
The Panthers evened the score in the second quarter when Shockey hauled in his first touchdown pass of the season, a 1-yarder from Newton, and celebrated by blowing kisses to the crowd. Less than four minutes later, following an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Harvin, Newton took advantage of great field position at midfield and connected on a 39-yard touchdown strike down the seam to Olsen to give Carolina a 14-7 lead.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
HBT: Live chat on Game 6 of Series
For the Rangers, this one?s for the all the marbles. They?re just one victory away from the first World Series title in the 51-year history of the franchise.
For the Cardinals, a win means survival. It means a Game 7 on Friday night in downtown St. Louis.
Chat with us from the evening?s first pitch until the final out. Or simply hang out and follow along.
It?ll be Rangers right-hander Colby Lewis versus Cards left-hander Jaime Garcia in World Series Game 6. For starting lineups, bang it here.
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Supercommittee GOP, Democrats swap offers
October 29, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republicans on Congress' deficit?reduction supercommittee outlined a plan Wednesday that includes spending cuts but none of the increases in tax revenue sought by Democrats, completing an initial exchange of offers that left the two sides far apart despite weeks of secret talks.
Officials also said a Democratic proposal on Tuesday and the GOP counter?proposal 24 hours later both included a provision to slow the annual cost?of?living increases in future Social Security benefits, suggesting it could become part of any compromise that might emerge.
The Republican offer calls for somewhat more than $2 trillion in deficit savings over a decade, according to officials in both parties. Less than half of that amount would come from increases in items such as Medicare premiums, the sale of public lands and airport fees ? measures that increase government revenue without changing personal or corporate taxes.
Spending cuts include about $500 billion from Medicare over a decade and another $185 billion from Medicaid, these officials said.
By contrast, Democrats want $1.3 trillion in higher tax revenue, a similar amount in spending cuts and enough other savings elsewhere in the budget to reduce deficits by more than $3 trillion over the coming decade while financing a $450 billion jobs bill along the lines that President Barack Obama is recommending.
The officials who described the rival approaches did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to provide details of the committee's confidential discussions. In private, each side also disparaged the other, providing yet another indication that the panel's deliberations have not shown significant progress.
Still, the exchange marked a quickening in the pace of activity by the committee after dozens of hours of closed?door meetings, and with time running out, senior leaders in both parties are becoming more involved. Another committee meeting was set for Thursday.
The panel of six Republicans and six Democrats has until Nov. 23 to recommend deficit savings of $1.2 trillion. But in fact, most if not all of the decisions must be made by early next month to give the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office time to render precise estimates on their costs on future deficits.
Whatever the committee recommends must be approved by both houses of Congress in December if lawmakers want to avoid automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion across a range of federal programs.
There were signs of Democratic dissension one day after Sen. Max Baucus, D?Mont., outlined a proposal on behalf of his party's negotiators that included changes in large government benefit programs.
According to several officials, he called for $1.3 trillion in increased tax revenue over a decade, and $1.3 trillion in spending cuts. Another $1 trillion in savings would come from the presumed reduction of Pentagon costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and $500 billion more from a reduction in interest costs resulting from declining deficits.
Those savings would be on top of cuts that Congress approved earlier in the year of nearly $1 trillion.
For Democrats on the committee, it appeared that the most contentious of the items would slow the growth of monthly checks to recipients of Social Security and other benefit programs, curtail Medicare spending by $400 billion over a decade and Medicaid by another $75 billion.
Several Democrats said during the day that the presentation had the support of a majority of the six Democrats on the panel, leaving the impression that at least one, and possibly two, of the party's lawmakers had not signed on. They also stressed that Obama has previously endorsed each of the proposals they made, including the one to adjust the government's calculation for inflation in a way that curtails the growth of benefit programs.
Others suggested that Rep. James Clyburn, D?S.C., a member of the party's leadership, and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D?Calif., had not agreed to support the recommendations.
Aides to the two men would not confirm the accounts.
By contrast, Republicans appeared to avoid any ideological pitfalls in their counter?offer, pulling well back from a position that House Speaker John Boehner, R?Ohio, took earlier in the year in private talks with Obama.
In those discussions, Boehner and the president discussed legislation to enact tax reform that was assumed to result in economic expansion and increases in tax revenue of $800 billion over a decade.
After the collapse of those talks, Republicans have struggled in the ensuing months to avoid any conflict with Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist and author of a pledge not to raise taxes that many GOP lawmakers have signed.
In fact, tax reform has figured prominently in the deficit committee's private discussions, according to officials in both parties, and is viewed as a possible key to an agreement.
Under this theory, if Republicans are willing to agree that additional revenue that results from reform does not constitute a tax increase, it might entice Democrats to agree to savings from Medicare and other government benefit programs that account for much of the growth in federal spending in recent years.
Apart from the deficit committee's work, the official web site of the Republican?controlled House Ways and Means Committee sketches a plan to reduce the corporate tax from a current 35 percent to 25 percent, with unspecified provisions to broaden the tax base.
It also makes a favorable reference to a reform of the individual income tax system, without specifics.
___
Associated Press?(News - Alert) writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Vankoryth D?tente: A Hunt for a Beast
A week has come and passed, and still the presence of the werebeast hangs over the lands of Castle Vankoryth. With the victim count on the rise, has the beast's reckoning come? Or will the Vankoryth D?tente succumb to the ferocity of the beast that plagues their lands.
Post Order
Vankoryth D?tente: Lostamongtrees, SkullJester, Masslz, Nikora
Other: Tiko, Vyral
Note: 48 hour time limit on posting.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/f4F5ZzDHY5I/viewtopic.php
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Friday, October 28, 2011
Mint finally moves its personal finance service to the iPad ...
Intuit-owned personal finance service Mint.com has finally launched an application for Apple?s iPad, which will help users who prefer the interactivity of tablets with tracking and analyzing their spending habits.
It?s strange that Mint.com has taken so long to launch on the iPad granted that the company has been generally fastidious about mobile development. Mint launched its iPhone app in late 2008 and mosied its way to Android in May 2010. Regardless of how slow it?s been, we?re sure Mint users that own iPads will appreciate the effort.
Mint.com for iPad naturally shares a lot of similarities with the iPhone app and the website and at times, it seems a cross between the two. The app allows you track all of your personal financial accounts from one dashboard, including credit cards, debit cards, student loans, personal loans and investment portfolios.
Besides tracking the accounts to see your overall wealth (or because you?re using this app, perhaps overall poverty), the iPad app delivers things like account alerts, bill reminders and advice. It also allows users to allocate certain types of spending and look at pretty graphs that show you how much money you owe or have in the bank.
Mint currently has 7 million users and was acquired by Intuit for $170 million back in September 2009. With Mint taking more a year between major mobile releases, perhaps that Intiuit acquisition has made the once timely Mint a slow beast with many burdens.
Are you a Mint.com user? What do you think of the new iPad app?
Next Story: Want your links to live longer? Share them on StumbleUpon?(infographic)
Previous Story: Research in Motion pushes back PlayBook OS update to?February
Companies: Intuit, Mint.com
Sean Ludwig is a staff writer for VentureBeat and a technology consultant. Sean covers mobile tech, social media, streaming media, and cloud services. He runs Ludwig Social Solutions has written for PCMag, Fast Company, Computer Shopper, LAPTOP Magazine, and Seattle Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @seanludwig or on Google+ at http://gplus.to/seanludwig. Please send all pitches to tips@venturebeat.com.
Source: http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/26/mint-ipad-personal-finance/
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Rockstar Games announces Grand Theft Auto V (Yahoo! News)
The next installment in the record-breaking franchise is ready to show its face
There aren't many video game franchises that can evoke cries of joy from the gaming populous simply by announcing that the next game in series is indeed on its way, but Grand Theft Auto is one of those names. Developer Rockstar Games has replaced their website's front page with a massive GTA V logo, and a promise that a video trailer for the game will be released on November 2.
The original Grand Theft Auto was a top-down, highly pixelated, 2D action game that played much like modern GTAs?but on a much smaller scale. That trend continued until GTA III, when Rockstar brought the series into the third dimension. The game was a massive success on the PlayStation 2 and spawned several sequels.
GTA IV was released in 2008 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC and at the time of its launch, it was the best-selling game of all time. It broke the single-day and 7-day sales records, but those marks have since been surpassed by other titles. However, if there's on game that can steal the crown again, it's Grand Theft Auto V. We'll keep an eye out when the trailer launches in November, so be sure to check back!
This article originally appeared on Tecca
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
Conn. jury mulls man's fate in hostage-arson case (AP)
HARTFORD, Conn. ? A jury began deliberating Monday after closing arguments in the trial of a former Connecticut advertising executive charged with kidnapping his ex-wife and holding her hostage for nearly 12 hours before allegedly burning down the house they once shared in July 2009.
The six jurors began their discussions after a prosecutor told them that Richard Shenkman was mounting an insanity defense not because he was mentally ill but because he wanted to avoid prison time.
But Shenkman's lawyer said two prominent psychiatrists testified that Shenkman was psychotic during the series of events, and Shenkman had been diagnosed with mental health problems years before.
Prosecutor Vicki Melchiorre, who presented state-hired experts who testified that Shenkman wasn't insane, urged the jury not to "buy" Shenkman's "act."
"Fear of going to jail is not psychotic," Melchiorre said, "especially when you're a 60-year-old, short, out-of-shape guy with an annoying disposition. It's not something that would make him popular in jail."
Jurors discussed the case for about two hours before leaving for the day. Deliberations are set to resume Tuesday morning.
Melchiorre said the real reason Shenkman kidnapped his ex-wife, attorney Nancy Tyler, in Hartford, and burned down the house they used to share about 9 miles away in South Windsor was because he was upset that she filed for divorce and he didn't want her to have the house. On the day of the kidnapping, Shenkman faced either handing over the house to Tyler as part of their divorce case or going to jail for contempt.
"This defendant is like a 2-year-old throwing a temper tantrum," Melchiorre said.
Defense lawyer Hugh Keefe said his client had previously been diagnosed with mental illness, and losing his wife, his business and his family contributed to worsening it.
"A psychosis is a break from reality," Keefe said. "If you have a psychotic break and you are not able to control your conduct, you are not guilty by reason of insanity."
Keefe said Shenkman believed "he was losing it all," meaning his businesses and family, and that led to what the lawyer called "a major league snap."
Keefe also asked the jury to find Shenkman not guilty of burning down the house, saying evidence suggested that the fire began after police fired gas canisters into the home.
The jury will decide whether Shenkman is guilty, not guilty or not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
If convicted, Shenkman, 62, could face decades in prison. If found not guilty but insane, he would be sent to the state's psychiatric hospital for criminals, with reviews every six months to see if he remains a danger to himself or others and if he could be released back into the community. He's charged with kidnapping, assault, arson and other crimes.
Shenkman, who didn't testify, has been detained since his arrest. He put his head down on the defense table several times during the closing arguments.
Shenkman and Tyler married in 1993, and she filed for divorce in 2006. A judge approved the divorce in 2008, but court proceedings continued as Shenkman appealed.
Tyler testified about her harrowing ordeal, saying Shenkman fired a handgun twice near her head, prepared a noose for her and claimed to have rigged the house with explosives, as swarms of police surrounded the home. Tyler had called a friend on her cellphone just before the kidnapping and urged her to call police.
Tyler managed to escape without serious injury. She said Shenkman handcuffed her to an eyebolt in a basement wall, but she managed to unscrew the bolt and run outside when Shenkman went upstairs to check on police activity.
Shenkman talked on the phone to dispatchers and police officers several times during the crisis. Jurors heard the recorded conversations, in which Shenkman sometimes sounded frantic, screamed and counted down the seconds to his threatened killing of Tyler.
Keefe said the recordings showed the mindset of a man who was mentally ill. Tyler, who listened to closing arguments Monday, put her face in her hands at times as Keefe replayed some of the recordings.
Police testified that the nearly 15-hour standoff ended when Shenkman came out of the burning home and pointed a handgun at his head. Minutes later, officers fired rubber bullets at Shenkman and used a stun gun on him twice before police subdued him and took him into custody.
Much of the testimony centered on Shenkman's mental health. Tyler testified that Shenkman sometimes acted "crazy" to get his way, and prosecution experts testified that Shenkman wasn't insane.
Shenkman also awaits trial on another arson charge connected to a fire that destroyed the couple's beachfront home in East Lyme in 2007, just hours before he was to hand it over to her as part of their divorce.
He is the brother of Mark Shenkman, founder and president of one of the nation's largest money management firms, Shenkman Capital Management. His former advertising firm, Primedia, once produced the former "Gayle King Show" starring Oprah Winfrey's best friend.
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Today's Lifehacker Workout: The Deck of Cards [Video]
Our group exercise program, The Lifehacker Workout, is in full swing, and today we're mixing it up with a Deck of Cards workout. If you're just joining us, no worries, dive in with us now.
Here's a refresher for how to do this workout: Grab a deck of cards. Draw a card, and the suit represents the exercise you do; the number on the card represents how many reps to do. If it's a face card (jacks, queens, kings), do 5, 10 or whatever number of reps you feel comfortable with. Continue as fast as you can until you've completed the deck.
Because this can be intense, you can start with half the deck or a quarter of the deck.
These are the exercises we'll be doing:
- Hearts (easy to remember that aerobics work your heart) = Jumping Jacks or Jump rope if you have one (aerobics)
- Diamonds = chair dips or bench dips
- Clubs = knee-to-elbow plank
- Spades = lunges
Tip: Take one card for each suit out and put a post-it note on top with the name of the exercise, as a reminder while you're working out.
Instruction Videos for Deck of Cards Exercises
Jumping Jacks: 
Chair Dips:
Knee-to-Elbow Plank:
Lunges: Front lunge:
Modification: Back lunge or rear lunge, which might be easier on your knees
For variation and a whole leg workout, you can also alternate in side lunges:
We're logging our workouts on Fleetly and you can join our 1 month challenge there as well.
Notes on Monday
By the way, Monday's workout went really well, I think (I actually got outside my house! and managed 6 rounds of the strength exercises). It was nice to see so many people joining us and the comments. We had a playlist prepared (you can see it on YouTube) for Monday with videos you can workout along with, but unfortunately had issues with getting it embedded. We'll post it on Friday.
If you've done Monday's workout or today's, tell us how it went!
You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter or Google+.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Nokia's kinetic future: flexible screens and a twisted interface (video)
Continue reading Nokia's kinetic future: flexible screens and a twisted interface (video)
Nokia's kinetic future: flexible screens and a twisted interface (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Obama's 2012 pitch: Still unfinished business
President Barack Obama deplanes after he arrives at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. The President is scheduled to attend fundraisers in Denver Tuesday night and speak at Metro State University on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
President Barack Obama deplanes after he arrives at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011. The President is scheduled to attend fundraisers in Denver Tuesday night and speak at Metro State University on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
DENVER (AP) ? Raising money and appealing for votes, President Barack Obama is framing his 2012 re-election campaign as a call to complete unfinished business and as a clear choice between his ideas and those of potential rivals who he says are no different than the congressional Republicans who are thwarting him now.
The message lets Obama highlight accomplishments and lump Republican presidential candidates with unpopular legislators. Time and again Obama reminds his campaign backers that the 2012 election will be more difficult than the last. And, aware that some Democrats are less enthusiastic about him than they were three years ago, he is using every opportunity to enumerate achievements, from health care to financial regulatory changes to the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay service members.
Lately, Obama has been telling audiences that he is marking off a list of campaign promises he made in 2008.
"We're through about 60 percent of it," he told a group of 100 donors in Denver Tuesday. "Which isn't bad for three years."
"There's still a lot of people hurting and there's still a lot of work to do," he continued. "And that 40 percent that's not done, I'm going to need you, because I need five more years."
Denver was the last stop in a three-day swing that also took him to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a fundraising-rich tour that let him spend time with top Los Angeles celebrities and to get some media attention in the battleground states of Nevada and Colorado.
During a quick stop in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, Obama sought to draw a distinction between his economic plans and those of his Republican rivals, who he said are only interested in cutting taxes for the wealthy and eliminating regulations.
"It's not as if we haven't tried what they're selling. We have. And it didn't work," he told a 200-person crowd, each of whom paid a minimum of $5,000 to attend.
With his poll numbers sagging and enthusiasm among some of his supporters waning, the president reminded backers that his administration has had significant accomplishments, from overhauling health care to ending the military's ban on gay service members. But he acknowledged that change hasn't always been easy to come by.
"It's not as trendy to be an Obama supporter as it was back in 2008," he said. "We've had setbacks, we've had disappointments. I've made mistakes on occasion."
The Western tour is one of Obama's busiest donor outreach trips of the season. In Los Angeles Monday, he turned to celebrities, including actor Will Smith and basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson, to bring in money, and mingled with Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas over canap?s at the movie star couple's home.
Celebrities are a tried-and-true fundraising draw, particularly for Democratic presidents. Both the president and the stars bask in their reflected fame and the endorsement of stars can be a useful asset.
California ranks as Obama's top donor state, and he raised about $1 million in the Los Angeles area alone during the last two fundraising quarters, according to an Associated Press review of contributions above $200.
Not that he needs the votes in California, a solidly Democratic state. However, Sacramento-based Democratic consultant Roger Salazar said the president, echoing national trends, is less popular now in the state than he was when he was elected.
"Democrats by their nature are going to give the president the benefit of the doubt," said Salazar, a veteran of California and national political campaigns. "But they want him to do something about it. They want to see some movement."
Obama is promising some movement. He has been promoting his $447 billion jobs bill, which has been broken up into its component parts in hopes Congress can pass some of them.
He's also focusing on steps his administration can take without congressional approval, including an initiative announced Tuesday to offer millions of student loan borrowers the ability to lower their payments and consolidate their loans. Earlier this week, the administration unilaterally created new rules to allow homeowners who are deeply underwater on their mortgages to refinance at lower rates.
_____
Associated Press writer Jack Gillum in Washington contributed to this report.
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ECB's Trichet wants more euro zone power over states (Reuters)
BERLIN (Reuters) ? Outgoing European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet called on Monday for euro zone authorities to have greater powers over the economic policies of the bloc's errant members, setting out a vision for a closer-knit currency area.
Speaking as euro zone leaders struggle toward a strategy to fight the bloc's debt crisis, Trichet used his last scheduled public speech as ECB president to call for deeper euro zone economic integration that would impact national sovereignty.
In the speech, entitled "Tomorrow and the day after Tomorrow: A Vision for Europe", Trichet said euro zone states should examine all aspects of each others' economic policies. This would go beyond fiscal policy surveillance.
"For countries that lose market access, the current approach of providing aid against strong conditionality is justified," he said, referring to the rescue packages the EU and IMF have extended to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
"Countries deserve an opportunity to put the situation right themselves and to restore stability. But ... this approach should have clearly defined limits."
He presented a proposal for dealing in future with a country that persistently fails to meet its economic program targets.
"Under this second stage, euro area authorities like us would gain a much deeper and more authoritative role in the formulation of that country's economic policies," he said.
"Implementing this idea of the second stage would evidently require a Treaty change. It would also imply a new concept of sovereignty."
Trichet, who hands over the ECB presidency at the end of this month to Italian Mario Draghi, made his speech in Berlin's Humboldt University, where protesters held up banners reading 'No more money for the banks', "Say no to debt tyranny" and "Troika out of Greece".
He was briefly interrupted by a woman, who shouted: "How long can we keep on listening to those lies?"
Germany's experience showed how sound policies and bold reforms can allow a country to regain competitiveness and prosper within the euro area, he said.
"Today, Germany is in the lead in rebounding from the crisis ... it sets an example that is very important for the current situation."
In June of this year, Trichet set out a vision for a central finance ministry for the 17-nation euro zone. The case for such an approach had strengthened, he said.
"This European finance ministry would, first, oversee the surveillance of both fiscal policies and competitiveness policies, and when necessary, have responsibility for imposing the 'second stage' I just described," he said in Berlin.
"Increasingly, it seems that it is not too bold to consider a European finance ministry, but rather too bold not to consider creating such an institution."
(Reporting by Paul Carrel and Annika Breidthardt; editing by Ron Askew)
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Turks weep as survivors, bodies pulled from rubble (AP)
ERCIS, Turkey ? Turkish families wept in joy and sorrow Monday as a few lucky survivors and many more victims were pulled out of the rubble after a 7.2-magnitude quake leveled over a hundred apartment and office buildings.
One trapped man saved his own life by calling for help on his cell phone, and others survived being buried alive for more than a day.
But as death toll rose to 279 from Sunday's quake in eastern Turkey, dozens of people were still trapped in mounds of broken concrete, twisted steel and other construction debris after buildings in two cities and mud-brick homes in nearby villages pancaked or partially collapsed.
Dozens more were placed in body bags or covered by blankets, laid down in rows so people could search for their missing relatives.
"It's my grandson's wife. She was stuck underneath rubble," said Mehmet Emin Umac.
Worst-hit was Ercis, where about 80 multistory buildings collapsed. The eastern city of 75,000 lies close to the Iranian border in one of Turkey's most earthquake-prone zones.
Grieving families cried outside the Ercis mosque.
"My nephew, his wife and their child, all three dead. May God protect us from this kind of grief," resident Kursat Lap told The Associated Press. "They all came here for a Sunday breakfast and then what happened, happened."
Several other men carried a child's body wrapped in a white cloth as weeping family members followed behind.
Yalcin Akay, meanwhile, was dug out from a collapsed six-story building with a leg injury after he called a police emergency line on his phone and described his location, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. Three others, including two children, were also rescued from the same building in Ercis 20 hours after the quake struck, officials said.
Two other survivors were trapped for over 27 hours.
Abdurrahman Antakyali, 20, was brought out of a crumbled Internet cafe after an eight-hour long joint rescue effort by Turkish and Azerbaijani teams. His father and brother wept with joy as he emerged, Anatolia reported.
Tugba Altinkaynak, 21, had been at a family lunch with 12 other relatives when the temblor hit. She was rescued but there was no immediate word on the fate of her relatives.
More than 2,000 teams with a dozen sniffer dogs were involved in search-and-rescue and aid efforts, and more often than not they found dead bodies, not survivors. Cranes and other heavy equipment lifted slabs of concrete, allowing residents to dig for the missing with shovels.
Those efforts were hampered by over 200 aftershocks that rocked the area, with one on Monday rising up to 5.0 magnitude.
Aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to help the thousands left homeless or too afraid to re-enter their homes. Many exhausted residents spent the night outside, lighting fires to keep warm.
"We stayed outdoors all night, I could not sleep at all, my children, especially the little one, was terrified," said Serpil Bilici of her six-year-old daughter, Rabia. "I grabbed her and rushed out when the quake hit, we were all screaming."
The bustling, larger city of Van, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Ercis, also sustained substantial damage, but Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search efforts there were winding down.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the quake left 279 dead and some 1,300 injured. Other officials said 10 victims were students learning about the Quran at a religious school that collapsed. Arinc said search-and-rescue efforts could end as early as Tuesday.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who inspected the area late Sunday, said "close to all" the mud-brick homes in surrounding villages had collapsed in the temblor that also rattled parts of Iran and Armenia.
The terrifying moments of the powerful temblor still haunted many.
Abubekir Acar, 42, was sipping tea with friends as the quake leveled a nearby coffee house.
"We did not understand what was going on, the buildings around us, the coffee house all went down so quickly," he said. "For a while, we could not see anything ? everywhere was covered in dust. Then, we heard screams and pulled out anyone we could reach."
Leaders around the world, including President Barack Obama, conveyed their condolences and offered assistance, but Erdogan said Turkey was able to cope for now. Azerbaijan, Iran and Bulgaria still sent aid, he said.
Among those offering help were Israel, Greece and Armenia, who all have had issues in their relations with Turkey.
The offer from Israel came despite a rift in relations following a 2010 Israeli navy raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine Turks dead. Greece, which has a deep dispute with Turkey over the divided island of Cyprus, also offered to send a special earthquake rescue team.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties due to tensions over the Ottoman-era mass killings of Armenians and the conflict in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkey lies in one of the world's most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.
Istanbul, the country's largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line, and experts say tens of thousands could be killed if a major quake struck there.
_____
Fraser reported from Ankara.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Battlefield vs Modern Warfare: Which side are you on?
EA/Activision
With "Battlefield 3" (screenshot left) and "Modern Warfare 3" (screenshot right) both about to launch, it's time to get ready for a shootout.
By Winda Benedetti
With "Battlefield 3" launching Tuesday and "Modern Warfare 3" launching Nov. 8th?? the lines have been drawn and so have the guns. So very many guns.
But which side will you join?
All of the video game industry has its eyes on this rivalry?that pits Team DICE/Electronic Arts against Team Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer/Activision ? a rivalry that?has inspired passionate side-choosing among gamers around the world.
Of course, the big question is: Which game will come out on top in the long run? Game analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities thinks he knows. He told Forbes that he predicts "Modern Warfare 3" will dominate, selling some 16 million copies worldwide this year while "Battlefield 3" will sell half that at 8 million copies globally this year.
Live Poll
Which game will you buy?
164519
'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3'
29%
164520
'Battlefield 3'
39%
164521
Why pick one when you can play both?
28%
164522
Yet another first-person-shooter. Yet another sequel. I'll pass on both.
5%
VoteTotal Votes: 2550
Interestingly, he also predicts that some 2 to 3 million gamers will buy both titles.
Of course, if Pachter's predictions are correct, the big winner here is going to be the video game industry. He believes the two games will generate more than $1.4 billion in revenue and make up 15 percent?of total packaged videogame software sales in the fourth quarter alone.
Ultimately, both games will run you, the player, $60. And the real question is: Where will you spend your money and your time? The developers and publishers have released the launch trailers for each game. Check them out below and then cast your vote.
"Modern Warfare 3" launch trailer:
"Battlefield 3" launch trailer:
For more game news, check out:
Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things here on Twitter or join her in the stream here on Google+. ?And be sure to check out the In-Game Facebook page here.
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Moderates stall rise of Swiss nationalists (AP)
BERN, Switzerland ? Swiss voters backed moderate forces in their general election in which nationalists failed in their effort to break through the 30 percent barrier with a campaign heavy on anti-immigrant sentiment.
The nationalist Swiss People's Party, or SVP, was projected to take 25.9 percent of the vote for the lower house, a drop of 3 percent from four years ago, according to public television station SF's latest projections early Monday morning.
On the left, the Greens also sustained a surprising setback, taking 7.9 percent of the vote, a drop of 1.7 percent from four years ago. The SVP and Greens were each projected to lose seven seats in Switzerland's lower chamber, the 200-seat National Council.
"We didn't achieve our election goal," People's Party president Toni Brunner conceded as results from Sunday's voting trickled in.
His party diminishment reverses 20 years of steady growth in parliamentary elections that are held every four years. It drew 11 percent of the vote in 1987, but captured as much as 28.9 percent in 2007.
During that time, support had eroded for two major center-right parties, the Free Democratic Party and Christian Democratic People's Party, from a combined 42.5 percent in 1987 down to 30.3 percent in 2007.
Now, two of the SVP's small centrist competitors are rebounding ? at its expense.
The SVP's rise was stalled by the Conservative Democratic Party whose members split from the SVP in 2007, and the centrist Green Liberal Party, which picks up 9 seats in the National Council successfully riding a wave of anti-nuclear sentiment following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant in March.
Both those centrist parties are expected to receive more than 5 percent of the vote for the National Council. Voters are also deciding on 45 of 46 seats for the upper house, or Council of States.
Barely one of every two eligible Swiss voters typically exercise their privilege. Estimated turnout for Sunday's general election remained virtually unchanged at 48.9 percent, slightly up from 48.2 percent in 2007.
The panoply of political parties in Switzerland makes for intense haggling after every election, however, as each group demands fair representation in the country's cross-party government.
The result is a unique "magic formula," designed to condense complex electoral results into a seven-member Cabinet capable of governing by consensus in spite of sometimes widely differing views.
Despite its worse-than-expected result, the People's Party retains the biggest share of the vote and immediately laid claim to two seats in the Cabinet, whose ministers run federal agencies and take turns as president for a year.
The party has built up a strong base of voters with campaigns warning of immigrants spoiling an Alpine nation that's been an oasis of relative stability within stormy Europe.
In its campaign, the SVP accused foreigners of driving up Switzerland's crime rate, and called for those convicted of crimes to be deported. It also wants to reintroduce quotas on immigration from the 27 countries of the European Union, of which Switzerland isn't a member, illustrating the point with striking posters of black boots stomping on the Swiss flag with the message "Stop Mass Immigration."
The number of foreigners living in Switzerland rose almost 3 percent to 1.7 million over the past year ? mostly Italians, Germans, Portuguese and Serbs. Switzerland, along with Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, has one of the highest proportions of foreign inhabitants in Europe.
They account for one of every five of the country's nearly 7.9 million permanent residents, and mostly live in the large cities of Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne and Bern.
Many foreigners who work in Switzerland come for jobs for which they're considered highly qualified, but that hasn't stopped the Swiss from worrying that the influx of outsiders in their midst is spurring a rise in crime, house prices and joblessness.
For some voters, however, the People's Party's relentless focus on foreigners went too far.
Pushing a stroller in the capital Bern with his twin 1-year-old sons ? half Swiss, half Sri Lankan ? architect Timo Odoni pointed to one of the nationalists' posters.
"I just can't stand how they do their posters because it reminds me of 60 years before, in Germany, a little bit. And we have to do something about it," Odoni said.
"I certainly will vote the green and left parties," he said. "We have no problem with immigration, really. We have other problems, but not this problem."
___
Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Geneva.
___
Follow John Heilprin at http://www.twitter.com/JohnHeilprin
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Monday, October 24, 2011
Courtney Stodden Kicked Out Of Pumpkin Patch For Being Too Sexy!
Teenage famewhore Courtney Stodden continues to show the world that she is one sexy biotch. Her latest stunt got her kicked out of a pumpkin patch and I have to say I would I have kicked her butt out too! Over the weekend 17 year old Stodden and her creepy 51-year-old husband Doug Hutchison visited a pumpkin patch in Santa Clarita Valley, California. In true Courtney fashion she was dressed like no other. Decked out in white hooker boots, Daisy Duke jean shorts that barely covered her goods if you know what I mean and a plaid button down shirt tied in front to show her cleavage and her tummy. Can you say classy, NOT! Apparently those in charge of the pumpkin patch were not so impressed by the teen?s slutty, yes I said it, attired because she and her husband got the boot after other patrons complained. It wasn?t just her wardrobe choices that got the odd couple kicked out of the family friendly venue. The couple?s behavior, which according to RadarOnline was very inappropriate if you get what I am sayin, is what got them 86?ed. Being given the old heave ho from the pumpkin patch sure didn?t [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/rHI-WjxBYhw/
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Top Dems oppose detention policy in defense bill (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees are opposing provisions in a sweeping defense bill that would require military custody of terrorist suspects and limit the government's authority to transfer detainees.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the lawmakers ? Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy and Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein ? said the provisions would undercut U.S. counterterrorism efforts and urged him to remove the sections from the bill. The Obama administration also opposes the provisions.
"Professionals in the intelligence community and law enforcement need the flexibility to use all tools to effectively interrogate, incarcerate and bring terrorists to justice," Leahy and Feinstein wrote Oct. 21 along with 11 other Democratic senators.
The issue has exposed divisions within the Senate and the Democratic Party.
The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the $683 billion defense bill in June that would authorize spending on military personnel, weapons systems and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The panel, led by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., approved the provision on military custody on a 25-1 vote.
But the administration's opposition and Reid's concerns have delayed Senate consideration of the legislation with about 10 weeks remaining in the session.
The provision in the bill would require military custody of a suspect determined to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliate and involved in the planning or an attack on the United States. The administration argues that such a step would hamper efforts by the FBI or other law enforcement to elicit intelligence from terror suspects, and Reid has said "limitations on that flexibility, or on the availability of critical counterterrorism tools, would significantly threaten our national security."
Levin has argued that the provision included a national security waiver that the administration could exercise to bypass the requirement.
This isn't the first time Congress has tried to limit the administration on the detainee issue. Last year's defense bill barred the transfer of detainees at the naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States. The omnibus spending bill that President Barack Obama and Congress approved in April also prevented the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the U.S., prohibited the construction or modification of facilities in the United States to house detainees and required the defense secretary to notify Congress before transferring a terror suspect to a foreign country.
Congressional Republicans and some Democrats want to keep the facility at Guantanamo open despite Obama's efforts, which have proven unsuccessful, to close the prison. Lawmakers also favor trying suspects in military commissions instead of federal courts.
Separately, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Obama expressing frustration with the administration's unwillingness to discuss the House-passed defense bill's provisions on terror suspects. The House bill, approved this past summer, includes different provisions limiting the administration's authority on handling detainees that the White House opposes.
"The administration has shown a willingness to undertake nothing short of extraordinary action regarding targeting terrorists overseas," McKeon wrote in an Oct. 20 letter. "Yet is has shown none of this resolve when it comes to detaining our enemies instead."
McKeon argued that the administration has "foreclosed options that are critical to our national security."
The House and Senate versions of the defense bills need to be reconciled and cleared by Congress for the president. In doubt is Congress' four-decade record of completing defense bills and sending them to the president.
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Caribbean islands struggling to dismantle gangs (AP)
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts ? When Dudley Williams was a police commander in the mid-1980s, law enforcement in St. Kitts and Nevis was a leisurely occupation. Violent crime was rare on the sleepy specks of land in the eastern Caribbean.
"If fellows got into a heated dispute at a rum bar, things were settled with fists, a piece of stick, a knife at the worst," said Williams, now 79. "You'd get a shooting once every five years."
Times have changed here and for many islands across the Caribbean, where an escalating arms race among criminal gangs has turned once-peaceful neighborhoods into battle zones.
St. Kitts and Nevis, a two-island federation of nearly 50,000 people, has tallied 31 homicides so far in 2011, already making it the bloodiest year on record. Police blame gangs with names like Killer Mafia Soldiers and Tek Life for the escalating violence.
Usually far from the view of sunbathing tourists, tit-for-tat shootings by trigger-happy gangsters have become common in the Caribbean, according to a new report on global homicides by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
Alarmed citizens are putting pressure on politicians throughout the region to attack the problem. In Trinidad and Tobago, which is off Venezuela's coast along a prime drug shipment route, the government has declared a state of emergency, imposing nightly curfews and giving police and soldiers broad powers to conduct searches and seizures.
Little of the violence so far has affected tourists to the Caribbean, where about 6 million Americans visit each year. Many stick to all-inclusive resorts, and those who don't rarely stray into the gritty slums where the violence flares up.
Still, there are isolated cases: A vacationing U.S. Army sergeant was killed during a robbery in Trinidad last year. A Welsh couple was butchered in an Antigua vacation cottage on the last day of their two-week honeymoon in 2008. In St. Kitts, bandits held up a small bus of tourists last year, prompting two cruise lines to briefly suspend stops there. Two British women were raped on a remote beach in St. Lucia earlier this year.
Drug traffickers have helped drive up the crime rates by introducing firearms and narcotics with a street value exceeding the size of the Caribbean's legal economy.
Although the islands remain near-perfect conduits for drug shipments, with their numerous unpoliced islets and barely monitored coasts, the U.N. crime office says Caribbean drug seizures actually diminished 71 percent between 1997 and 2009 as more contraband shifted to Central American routes.
According to the agency, the increase in the Caribbean's lethal violence can partly be traced to frenzied competition between underworld groups fighting for turf in a diminished drug smuggling market.
Caribbean experts worry a culture of violence has become entrenched on the islands, where nearly 70 percent of homicides are committed by firearms.
"Until fairly recently, we had an innocence about ourselves in the Caribbean, but that's been lost. This thing is a Pandora's Box and I'm not sure you can ever close it again," said Marcus Day, director of the Caribbean Drug & Alcohol Research Institute in St. Lucia.
Comparisons with other parts of the world can be stark. Jamaica, an island of roughly 3 million people that has been hit hard by drug and extortion gangs for years, chalked up 1,428 killings in 2010. Chicago, a city of nearly 3 million, reported 435 homicides last year.
Statistics from the U.N. crime office show homicide rates nearly doubling in a number of Caribbean countries since 1995. In St. Kitts and Nevis, slayings have increased sixfold since 2002, when there were just five killings.
Ivelaw Griffith, an expert on Caribbean security at City University of New York, said outmaneuvered and outgunned law enforcement agencies on the islands have a limited ability to cope with the problem on their own.
He said the spread of cable television and popular music has raised expectations among youths by depicting the easy life even as the rough global economy is making pockets of poverty grow deeper and wider. It's "really creating a very unholy and unhealthy recipe for these small societies," Griffith said.
To counter the gang culture, the Bahamas is toughening crime and bail laws, building more courts, trying to round up unlicensed guns and funding programs to steer at-risk youth away from crime.
The archipelago off Florida's east coast has seen 104 people killed so far this year, easily topping the previous full-year record of 94 set just last year.
Norelle Scott, a 19-year-old college student who lives on the most populous island of New Providence, said she is now fearful of leaving home at any time of day and is pessimistic about the chances for change.
"Criminals are getting bold these days. I'm ashamed to know that my people are killing each other over small things, material things, and it's getting worse," she said.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is urging Bahamians to join neighborhood watch programs and help police identify criminals.
"Community engagement and service will be more effective in combating crime than iron bars and gated communities," Ingraham said during a recent televised address.
Trinidad and Tobago's emergency decree, imposed in August and expected to extend through December, angered some young people, but others applauded the move.
"We don't mind living under curfew conditions if it makes the country safer," said Zana Ramdial, a fortysomething mother of three in the capital of Port-of-Spain.
Many Caribbean islands have been known for feeble local enforcement. In St. Lucia, drug smugglers know immediately when the maritime police are on patrol, making evasion nearly effortless, said Day, the crime researcher in St. Lucia.
"We don't really have enough fuel to pay for the police boats so we can only run them at certain times. And the criminals know when they go out," Day said.
Some of the poor, developing islands have reached out to Scotland Yard and the FBI for help, or brought in foreign police and security consultants.
St. Kitts recruited a new police commissioner, Celvin G. Walwyn, who is a native islander with long experience as police officer in Texas and Florida. He has warned street gangs he plans to eradicate them and has special teams of police and soldiers to patrol crime hotspots together. A tough new law can put people away for 20 years if they are convicted of recruiting for the gangs.
"Rumors on the street are that the gangs have an arsenal. But if push comes to shove, we can wipe them out," Walwyn told The Associated Press.
He said employment and other services will be available for young people who wish to leave gangs.
Dale Watley, a 31-year-old who served three years in an overcrowded St. Lucia prison for a shooting, says youths can be lured away. He turned his back on the underworld life he had known since childhood and now runs his own barber shop.
"The young guys, they want a movie kind of life, like 'Scarface,'" he said. "But once they get a chance to survive in the real world with respect, they don't want to shoot anyone anymore. They want to live."
_____
Associated Press writer Megan Reynolds in Nassau, Bahamas, contributed to this story.
___
David McFadden on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmcfadden
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