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Thursday, 28 February 2013
ScienceDaily: Top Science News
Budget battle guide: Skidding into a fiscal pileup
Following a closed-door party caucus, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow GOP leaders, meet with reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, to challenge President Obama and the Senate to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in four days. Speaking at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Boehner complained that the House, with Republicans in the majority, has twice passed bills that would replace the across-the-board cuts known as the "sequester" with more targeted reductions, while the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not acted. From left are, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kansas, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Boehner, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Following a closed-door party caucus, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow GOP leaders, meet with reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, to challenge President Obama and the Senate to avoid the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in four days. Speaking at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Boehner complained that the House, with Republicans in the majority, has twice passed bills that would replace the across-the-board cuts known as the "sequester" with more targeted reductions, while the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, has not acted. From left are, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kansas, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Boehner, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Air Force personnel salute as Air Force One, with President Barack Obama on board, arrives at in the rain at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. The president was returning from Newport News, Va., for an event on the automatic budget cuts. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Standing in front of a ships propeller, President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about about automatic defense budget cuts, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, accompanied by fellow members of the House GOP leadership, responds to President Barack Obama's remarks to the nation's governors earlier today about how to fend off the impending automatic budget cuts, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? America's leaders have threatened to shut the government down, drive it over a cliff and bounce it off the ceiling. Now they're ready to smack it with a "sequester." And it looks like they mean it this time.
Big, scary-sounding cuts in federal spending are set to begin Friday. Should Americans be worried?
A primer on the nation's latest fiscal standoff ? how we got here, who could get hurt and possible ways to end this thing:
___
What, again?
Like life in a bad Road Runner cartoon, the United States has survived the New Year's "fiscal cliff," double rounds of debt-ceiling roulette and various budget blow-ups over the past two years. Now the threat is $85 billion in indiscriminate spending cuts that would hit most federal programs and fall hardest on the military. Pentagon programs are slated for an 8 percent cut; other agencies would lose 5 percent for the current budget year.
By law, these cuts known as the "sequester" begin unfolding automatically at week's end unless President Barack Obama and Congress act to stop them. Even after they've begun, the cuts still could be halted or reversed through legislation.
Why did Congress and Obama agree to automatic cuts they don't like? To corner themselves into getting the nation's deficit under control.
___
Isn't deficit-cutting good?
Obama, nearly all of Congress and plenty of economists say two things:
1) The budget deficit needs to be reduced.
2) The sequester is the wrong way to do it.
"Only a fool would do it this way," says Paul Light, a budget expert at New York University. "Primordial. It's beyond belief."
It makes him think of the movie "Dr. Strangelove," with Slim Pickens riding bronco on an atomic bomb, waving his cowboy hat.
The sequester was designed to land with a mighty splat ? to create such a mess if allowed to occur that lawmakers would do the right and honorable thing and negotiate a measured, meaningful and discerning package of deficit reduction to head it off. But that didn't happen, so the sequester is about to.
And, yes, that should mean progress on the nation's debt. The sequester is one of several developments expected to restrain the nation's red ink after four straight years of deficits topping $1 trillion.
Yee-haw.
___
Are the cuts really that bad?
It's unlikely they will be as bad ? or at least as immediate ? as some overexcited members of the Obama administration have made out. But the cuts have the potential to be significant if the standoff drags on.
Early on, about 2 million long-term unemployed people could see a $30 cut in benefit checks now averaging $300 a week. Federal subsidies for school construction, clean energy and state and local public works projects could be pinched. Low-income pregnant women and new mothers may find it harder to sign up for food aid.
Much depends on how states and communities manage any shortfalls in aid from Washington.
Furloughs of federal employees are for the most part a month or more away. Then, they might have to take up to a day off per week without pay.
That's when the public could start seeing delays at airports, disruptions in meat inspection, fewer services at national parks and the like.
An impasse lasting into the fall would reach farther, probably shrinking Head Start slots, for example.
Much of the federal budget is off-limits to the automatic cuts. Among exempted programs: Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and veterans' programs.
Even so, officials warn of a hollowed-out military capability, compromised border security and spreading deterioration of public services if the sequester continues. It's "like a rolling ball," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "It keeps growing."
___
Maybe it's fiscal-crisis fatigue.
So far, Americans have yawned this one off. Only 27 percent of those surveyed for a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll last week said they had heard a lot about the looming automatic spending cuts.
Less than a third think the budget cuts would deeply affect their own financial situation, according to a Washington Post poll. Sixty percent, however, believe the cuts would have a major effect on the U.S. economy.
That's what economists and business people are nervous about.
The political standoff is the factor that economists blame most for the slowing economy, according to the latest Associated Press Economic Survey. The uncertainty about future government spending is causing businesses to hold back on investment and hiring, and it's making consumers less confident about their own spending, economists warn.
___
How did it come to this?
Obama and congressional Republicans have been deadlocked over spending since the GOP won control of the House in 2010, with a big boost from tea party activists who champion lower taxes and an end to red-ink budgets.
House Republicans refused to raise the nation's borrowing limit in 2011 without major deficit cuts. To resolve the stalemate, Congress passed and Obama signed the Budget Control Act, which temporarily allowed borrowing to resume, set new spending limits and created a bipartisan "supercommittee" to recommend at least $1.2 trillion more in deficit reduction over 10 years. Republicans and Democrats on the supercommittee failed to compromise, however.
That triggered the law's doomsday scenario ? the so-called "fiscal cliff" package of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts.
In a New Year's Eve deal, Obama and Congress agreed to raise taxes on some of the nation's wealthiest earners. And they postponed the spending cuts for two months ? until Friday.
That was supposed to buy time for a deal.
___
But there's still no deal.
Obama and congressional leaders have scheduled talks for Friday, the day the automatic cuts begin taking effect. Democrats and Republicans still look far apart, however.
Obama insists on blending spending cuts with targeted tax increases. Republican leaders reject any more tax increases and want to shear spending while protecting the military's budget.
While both sides talk about reducing the deficit, Obama and other Democrats say this must be done gradually, to avoid wounding an already weak economy.
The president has been taking his case to the people, blasting Republicans at campaign-style events. GOP leaders, just back from last week's congressional vacation, are grousing that Obama should be bargaining with them, not grandstanding.
___
Is there a way out?
Expect negotiations to intensify if enough Americans begin yelping about the pain from reduced federal spending.
Obama and Congress could agree to pare down the budget cuts to a more logical package of reductions, perhaps with some tax changes, too. Such a deal could also retroactively restore the missed spending where they want to.
The "sequester" isn't the only line in the sand, however.
On March 27, legislation that has been temporarily financing the government expires. Without agreement to extend it, the threat of a partial government shutdown looms. Later in the spring, it will be time to raise the nation's debt limit again.
So far, two years of budget crises have been settled with temporary fixes. They have barely dented the underlying disagreement over how to reform Medicare, Social Security, taxes and spending to address the nation's long-term deficit problem.
If those festering questions remain unanswered, the U.S. economy will remain a hostage to politics.
___
AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
___
Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass
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Sunday, 24 February 2013
Union workers at N. Ind. trailer hitch plant set to close this year accept severance package
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GOSHEN, Indiana ? Union workers at a northern Indiana trailer-hitch manufacturer have voted to forego arbitration and accept a severance agreement that will pay the most senior employees $36,000.
Most of the 350 United Steelworkers Local 9550 workers at Cequent Performance Products in Goshen supported the package in votes tallied Friday night, Local 9550 Vice President Deb Hathaway said.
"No matter what they give us it's still not enough for us losing our jobs," she said.
Steelworkers Sub District 4 Director Mike O'Brien said 240 of the 350 union members at the plant voted. He didn't disclose vote totals.
"It was certainly not unanimous but it wasn't close," O'Brien said. "I think a lot of people looked at, 'Well, this is what the company is offering and we take a chance going to arbitration.'"
Cequent, a subsidiary of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based TriMas Corp., announced in November it would move operations from the 450-employee plant 25 miles southeast of South Bend to Reynosa, Mexico, to lower shipping costs.
Workers with less than a year's seniority will receive $500 while those with 30 years or more will receive $36,000. Workers also will receive company health benefits for at least a month after they are laid off. The total severance package is worth more than $3.5 million, O'Brien said.
Layoffs began Friday, but O'Brien said he didn't know how many workers lost their jobs.
More than half the employees are scheduled to remain on the job through the end of June, with the last due to be let go in December.
Source: http://www.tribtown.com/view/story/6982006e756e48fcb37a80518a293f1f/IN--Cequent-Factory-Closing
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Iran Revolutionary Guard begins military exercises
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard has begun a three-day ground and air military exercise aimed at upgrading its combat readiness.
State TV says the drills involve ground forces of the Guard, Iran's most powerful military force, around the city of Sirjan in the country's south. It showed tanks and artillery attacking hypothetical enemy positions.
The broadcast says the aim of the exercise is to upgrade the capabilities of the Iranian forces. It did not elaborate.
The war games are taking place amid escalating tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program. Israel has hinted that it may take military action if talks fail to get Iran stop its uranium enrichment program.
The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/23/3249254/iran-revolutionary-guard-begins.html
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Ronda Rousey wins historic women's UFC debut
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) ? Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche made history just by stepping into the UFC cage. When Rousey recorded another savage victory with her signature move, she demonstrated why she could be a trailblazer in women's sports for years to come.
Rousey won the UFC's first women's bout Saturday night, beating Carmouche on an armbar with 11 seconds left in the first round of their bantamweight title fight at UFC 157.
Rousey (7-0) defended her belt with her seemingly inevitable move, forcing Carmouche to tap out after bending back her arm. Rousey raised both arms in victory while flat on the canvas after the longest fight of the mixed martial artist's ascendant career.
"Is this real life right now? I'm not sure," said Rousey, a former judo star with just two years of pro MMA experience.
Former UFC champion Lyoto Machida counterpunched his way to a split decision over Dan Henderson on the undercard at Honda Center, and bantamweight Urijah Faber beat Ivan Menjivar with an acrobatic rear naked choke late in the first round.
But the sellout crowd largely showed up to see Rousey, whose unique combination of star power, athleticism and skill singlehandedly ended UFC President Dana White's long-standing disinterest in women's MMA. White even put Rousey and Carmouche in the main event of a pay-per-view show by the sport's dominant promotion.
Rousey was awarded the equivalent of the bantamweight belt she won in the now-defunct Strikeforce before her first UFC fight, but quickly showed she deserved it.
"I was actually less nervous walking out than I was for some of my earlier fights," Rousey said. "I felt like the UFC champion, and I know how hard I am working. This was a wild ride, and I can't wait to get back in the octagon."
Rousey and Carmouche didn't disappoint in their pressure-packed debuts. Although Rousey was heavily favored, Carmouche (7-3) actually had Rousey in trouble early, nearly landing a rear naked choke while clinging to Rousey's back in the opening two minutes.
Rousey, who had never been seriously threatened in any previous bout, barely escaped the chokehold by getting her chin and mouth underneath Carmouche's arm. Rousey gradually imposed her will on the former Marine after that, rolling her across the canvas and finally getting side control on Carmouche before patiently separating her arms to land an armbar.
"That was the most vulnerable a position I've been in so far in my career," Rousey said. "That was pretty tight, that neck crank, and I was very happy to get out of it. She had the choke across my mouth and ... her forearm was pushing against my teeth. That can't have been any more fun for her than it was for me. Crazy sport we're in, huh?"
Rousey has won all seven of her professional MMA bouts and three amateur fights by armbar, a judo move that has dislocated at least two prior opponents' elbows.
"I had to learn to take my time in MMA, and I was just able to keep a clear head," said Rousey, who became the first American woman to win an Olympic judo medal in Beijing.
Rousey dealt with constant attention from media and fans in recent weeks, a function of her rising stardom in the UFC and the larger sports world. She said the pressure wasn't anything she couldn't handle.
"There's no amount of press that can save these girls from me," she said.
Carmouche earned a huge ovation from the sellout crowd for giving Rousey more trouble than she had ever faced.
"I thought I had it," said Carmouche, who served three tours of duty in Iraq. "Like everything else, you make a mistake, and it turns around."
Machida (19-3), the former light heavyweight champion, had lost three of his previous five bouts before edging Henderson (29-9) in a slow, technical fight. Machida used his typical elusiveness and unorthodox, karate-based techniques to pick away at Henderson.
Both fighters raised their arms in victory after the final horn, but Machida landed 68 percent of the fight's significant strikes, with a 23-8 advantage in head strikes.
Two judges favored Machida 29-28, while the third had Henderson winning 29-28.
"He's a very great opponent for me, and I have a lot of respect for him," Machida said while fans booed. "My strategy was to keep the fight standup, and I think I got it. I think I completely dominated the first round, second round, third round."
Faber (28-6) got his career back on track with an impressive victory over Menjivar (25-11). With his home-state crowd behind him, Faber took early control on the ground and then finished Menjivar by clinging to his back and wrapping both legs around his standing opponent, forcing Menjivar to tap out while on his feet with 26 seconds left in the opening round.
"Ivan is a very crafty veteran," Faber said. "I just attacked the neck. He let me hold on too long, and that was that."
Although Faber has a huge fan following for his years of success in other promotions, he was just 2-2 since moving to the UFC two years ago, dropping narrow decisions to bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and Renan Barao.
Robbie Lawler stopped Josh Koscheck with 1:03 left in the first round with a series of strikes, earning the knockout of the night award in his first UFC fight since October 2004. Court McGee also beat Josh Neer by unanimous decision in his welterweight debut.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ronda-rousey-wins-historic-womens-ufc-debut-052619750--spt.html
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Manti Te'o Will See Rise in Draft Stock After NFL Combine Workout
After so much unwanted attention by the media, Manti Te?o is finally preparing to have people talk about his skills and not just his personal life. With the NFL combine beginning, Te?o is planning on showing everyone that he is one of the top prospects at the linebacker position.
The former Notre Dame linebacker will be working out with other linebackers and defensive linemen on Monday. This group will also be participating in the bench press during Sunday?s workouts.
Te?o has seen quite a drop in his draft stock in the past few weeks. After appearing to be a likely top-10 pick, he has fallen significantly down the boards. Bleacher Report's Matt Miller has Te?o listed as the third overall middle linebacker, and the 44th overall player in the draft.
Miller?s projection for Te?o before combine workouts is consistent with where others have him as well.? Players like Arthur Brown from Kansas State and Alec Ogletree from Georgia have begun to look like more appealing options.
These next few days will be a great opportunity for Te?o to prove that he is still a very solid pick in the NFL Draft. After all of the controversy surrounding him, people seemed to have forgotten that he was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, as well as the recipient of several other major awards.
There is little doubt that people will quickly forget about the girlfriend incident after Te?o works out in front of NFL scouts. His size and athleticism will make him a very appealing draft pick to any team who needs a middle linebacker.
In fact, several teams have expressed interest in him already. The Chicago Bears have reportedly expressed interest, and will interview with him during the combine, according to Chicago Sun-Times.? The Bears have the 20th pick in the draft.
If Te?o has an impressive enough workout, the Bears may not even get the chance to pick him up. Teams like the Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers will need a serious presence in the middle of the defense for the future, and Te?o could actually become a serious option after the combine.
There are few players in this year?s draft that have been under as much scrutiny as Te?o, and almost all of that attention had nothing to do with football. People have forgotten how truly dominant he was at Notre Dame, but he will remind everyone of just how good he is this weekend.
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Saturday, 23 February 2013
Cookbook helps breast cancer patients
kvue.com
Posted on February 22, 2013 at 6:51 PM
Updated today at 7:07 PM
AUSTIN -- Somewhere between the pictures and the people, Bill Bastas found his purpose.
"We want to make a bigger impact on the breast cancer community," Bastas said.
For years he?s turned his passion for photography into a money-making mission, raising more than $21,000 for local breast cancer charities with his 'Smile Never Fades' organization.
It's why no one should be surprised Bastas cooked up his latest venture - a cookbook featuring breast cancer survivors and their families.
"I think this is going to be a good seller," said Bastas.
Kristene Edwards counted on her quiche to get her through breast cancer.?
"I was diagnosed in May of 2011. This is my go-to comfort food,? Edwards said.
She was diagnosed ten years after her younger sister battled the same disease.
After a lumpectomy, months of chemotherapy and radiation, Edwards is cancer-free and sees this as her opportunity to give back.
"I'm not a big cook, but I am honored to be part of helping raise money for something that's dear to my heart," she said.
It's a sentiment shared by everyone who has been asked to submit a recipe, Terri Gruca?s mom included.
"It's just a blessing to be alive and to do something like this,? said Hedy Gruca.
Hedy just celebrated four years of being cancer-free.
"I always loved to cook and am always looking for a new cookbook and I can't wait to see all the other recipes," said Hedy.
Bastas hopes to have 200 survivors, recipes and inspiring stories on every page.
"It's our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our wives, the best of our society. It's not acceptable," said Bastas.
Bastas knows this better than most. He lost his own wife to breast cancer eight years ago.
"It solidifies my mission," he said.
His recipe: to make a difference in the lives of breast cancer patients.
Proceeds from the "Comfort Cooking - Recipes To Make You Smile" cookbook will pay to provide concierge care for patients undergoing breast cancer treatment. It will start next year by providing things like housecleaning services.
Bastas is still looking for survivors to feature in the cookbook which he hopes to have out in time for Christmas.
Click here to contact Bill Bastas.
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