Tuesday, 31 January 2012

The Hidden -- Original Roleplay

I've had this idea for quite some time now, so before I committed to posting on this site I wanted to see what the response was. The introduction is below.

Mankind long ago displayed its lack of understanding, and subsequent fear, of the unknown, that which defies explanation. Since its creation, Man has sought to eradicate the dragons, the witches, the monsters of the world. Anticipating their destruction, the other beings that inhabited this world went deep into hiding. Those that could, blended in with the oblivious masses. The others who could not, or simply chose not to, lived in secret, passing into myth as the Hidden.

It is now the year 2062. After seven long years of conflict, rumors of biological warfare began to spread and the global War of 2045 ended in a worldwide armistice. People are finally rebuilding their lives in earnest, but that doesn't stop the fearful whispers behind closed doors. As people again turn their interests to more peaceful pursuits, Armand Castillo, a technology distributor, forms a plan. Without the rest of humanity to occupy them, it would only be a matter of time before mankind begins to encroach into the wild places of the world once more and the Hidden are discovered. Armand takes the opportunity to extend an invitation to the Hidden: allow him to be their emissary and make their presence known or risk accidental discovery and the fearful backlash of humans already strained to their breaking point. The Hidden have a choice to make. Trust Armand has their best interests at heart and reveal themselves, or wait and hope to escape detection.

So would you be interested in this roleplay?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/E_7V3Vonejk/viewtopic.php

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90 Days Without a Cell Phone, Email or Social Media? (ContributorNetwork)

Could you live with daily electronic conveniences -- Twitter, Facebook, email, texting and more -- for 90 days? Jake P. Reilly, a 24-year-old college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did just that.

From October to December, he unplugged from social media, email, texts, and cell phones because he felt that we spend more quality time with gadgets and keyboards than we do with the people we really care about.

During his social experiment, he found that some people he counted among his close friends really weren't that close after all. He also discovered that taking a break from his relationship with social media and really paying attention to the people around him can revive real-life romance.

I spoke with Reilly over the phone this weekend about his 90-day project, what he learned from living without electronic leashes and how it changed his life.

You say you spent three months completely cut-off from the virtual world. What steps did you take to do that?

Reilly: I called Verizon and suspended service for my cell phone. I deactivated Facebook. I deactivated Twitter, deactivated Linked-In, deactivated Spotify, and anything where there was a social component. I put up an out-of-office on both of my email accounts, like, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I won't receive this until the end of the year."

Did you ever cheat and check to see what messages came in?

Reilly: I never went back on any of the social stuff. There were a few times when the bank would send me an email verification. My roommates would see me checking something like that, and they'd see me with my hands up to shield my eyes from the bulk of the screen, like a girl would do when she's watching a horror movie that she doesn't want to see. I genuinely didn't want to see what was there, because once you look you've got an urge to read it.

Before what you called "The Amish Project," how much time would you typically spend on social media sites, texting, and so forth every day?

Reilly: It was pretty bad. I was reading every single Tweet and I follow 250 people. Then, I would waste a good hour and a half on Facebook. I was sending more than 1,500 texts a month. I never really counted minutes on the phone, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 600 to 900.

What about now, has it changed?

Reilly: I mean, I struggle with that because everyone wants to know about it, and wants to know how different it is. It's hard, because I was just going to turn off my phone at first. That was the thing that bothered me most, but I realized that if I turned off the phone, people were just going to email me all the time or send me a million Facebook messages. It's kind of a hard thing, because we're getting to the point where if you're not responding to people's text messages within an hour of when they send them, or within a day for emails, it's just socially unacceptable. It's been hard for me since I've been back. I've been bad with my phone and people are, like, "What the hell? I text messaged you?" So I haven't been up to social standards in terms of responding and people don't really understand that, I guess.

In the opening of your "Going Amish" presentation, you say that you had friends over and realized what was going on. Describe what you noticed and your feelings right at that moment.

Reilly: I live with three guys and we had two of our best friends in visiting from New York City. We only see these guys once a year, maybe every six months. We were at the University of Wisconsin watching a Badgers basketball game or something like that. Every single person had either a laptop or a cell phone. That's just kind of funny to begin with, then, I was like, "What are we all doing?" I asked everyone what they were doing and somebody's playing Words with Friends, somebody's playing Angry Birds, somebody's playing online trivia. Nobody's really doing anything, just sitting quiet. It's like this was what we were all looking forward to and we're just sitting here numbing our minds.

That's the thing that drives me crazy. People go out to dinner with a crowd and everyone's on their phone. I mean, what else are you looking for?

How did you communicate with family, friends and business associates during your "Amish" period?

Reilly: Ha! Not well, to say the least.

Do you have a landline?

Reilly: At first, we didn't, but my mom started freaking out a little bit and we got a landline. For the first three weeks, there was a hospital right next to my apartment. I went into their waiting room where there's a courtesy phone for their patients. I was using that to call people. I had written a little address book with all the important people that I needed to have their phone numbers, but, you know, most people don't answer their phones. Most people just use them to see who called. Then, they'll text you, or they'll call you back when they have time. So, I'd either sit at the hospital waiting for people to call back or I'd go home. I was in and out of this stupid hospital waiting room all the time for the first couple of weeks.

Then, we started to have more fun with it. I started to carry chalk around with me. I ride my bike a lot, so, I'd ride my bike over to people's houses and leave them messages in chalk on their sidewalk. I set up a couple of systems with people where, when they got home, they would put something in the window, like a stuffed dog, or put a pumpkin up on the ledge that meant "Hey, I'm here. Come talk." I started having fun trying to dream up different ways to get people's attention.

Were there people who said, "I'm just not going to participate in this. If you can't answer my texts, I don't need to talk to you."

Reilly: Yeah, I mean, I definitely just lost complete contact with people that normally would have been part of my life. I mean it's also an interesting metric for your life to see who some of your closest friends are, you know, and who's willing to take the time. I started to feel bad for them, too, because it definitely became a nuisance, but, yeah, it definitely changed the level of, or the number of friends that I had and the level of contact that I had with them.

So, with some people it clearly decreased your level of interaction, but were there others with whom your contact increased in either quality or quantity while you were disconnected from the virtual social society?

Reilly: That was my other favorite part. I had so much free time on my hands. I also wasn't watching TV, because that felt sort of counter-productive. I would go to school, and then there was really nothing for me to do at home, so I would just ride my bike to people's houses, all these people that I would usually text or just see on the weekends or whatever. I would just ride by and chat with them, face to face. So, that was really cool, reconnecting, doing things you'd never normally do like having breakfast with someone's parents.

You posted several of the notes you received from friends during your isolation. One note read "Jake, I'm pregnant. Call me." What was that about?

Reilly: Ha! At the school, there's an elevator. No matter where you're going, everyone has to use the elevator on the ground floor. So, for the people that I went to school with, that was the first place we'd post projects or memes. I didn't say this is my message board, but one of the girls just started leaving messages, like, "Hey. I'm on the fourth floor. Come find me," or "Jake, where are you?" It's a very public forum, so everybody can read it. It became my message spot.

Then, people almost treated it like a Facebook wall. It evolved from leaving messages for each other, to joking around, like, "Jake, your mother called. She said she doesn't love you anymore," and "Jake, the cops are looking for you," and all this stuff. It turned into a funny thing.

At one point there was a Christmas greeting trampled in the snow? What were the circumstances around that?

Reilly: Yeah, that was mine for my long-term girlfriend who I had kind of stopped seeing, but then this whole thing kind of, I think, helped us get back together because whenever we were together there was no pressure. It was, OK, we're just going to enjoy each other right now, because I don't know when I'm going to see you again. There was no drunken text messaging and jealousy from Facebook. It was just her and I.

So we started seeing each other again, and I did a lot of cheesy stuff like writing a big chalk message on the street in front of her office building and sending her a cookie with a message written in frosting and stuff like that. On the last week that she was in Colorado I went out and wrote Merry Christmas to her -- that picture was taken from the roof of the apartment we were staying at.

Do you think that those who rely so heavily on social media to interact with others are training themselves to communicate only at the most superficial level?

Reilly: Yeah, for sure. I think that Facebook is the biggest waste of time, because everyone is just presenting such a filtered picture of themselves. You only put up your best pictures. People only check in when they are at the fanciest restaurant in the city. They only keep things up there that are flattering to themselves. I just think it's like keeping up with the Joneses, but for life. You're never going to get on top of it. Someone's always going to have a better job than you, go on better vacations than you, have a better looking wife than you, or whatever it is. So, it's superficiality on top of superficiality. You never get to see the real parts of people.

Did you have to relearn skills to function without electronic communications? Writing letters, for example. I know my son has nearly illegible penmanship because he has been typing everything instead of handwriting since he was very little.

Reilly: I really don't have good penmanship at all. The funny thing is that I had written like 15 or 20 letters, and I just held them for two weeks until one time I dropped my pack and realized that I had lost the letters. I had taken all the time to write the letters and then lost them, because I didn't take the time to go mail them. You know, when's the last time I sent a letter? Never. So, I had to remember to stamp it right away and get it in. Then, it's going to take a week to get there. So when you need to say something to someone, you need to get it right in on time.

You said that you had much more free time when you stayed off Facebook and social media sites. Did this extra time translate into higher productivity or better grades at school?

Reilly: Yeah, a hundred times over. Like I said, there wasn't really much to do at the house, so I stayed at school most nights until 10 when everyone else leaves around 6, without a doubt. I think what's so hard for people and so distracting for people is that where they work, there are social media distractions on the same machine that they are supposed to be using to do their work. I'm sure every office in the country suffers from these things. I couldn't go to these sites, and when you can't distract yourself, all you can do is work.

How did you fill all this extra time? What's one thing you would have never accomplished if you hadn't taken this break in your relationship with social media?

Reilly: I did a lot of things that I don't know [?] other people would say they want to do. But I think, if they actually did them, they'd be of incredible value. I started meditating. People give you a lot of books that you can take time for, like "The Power of Now."

The best part for me was just the difference between riding your bike to work and going for a bike ride just for the fun of it. I would sit in the park a lot, throw the football with my friends, go ice-skating, and all that kind of silly stuff that you take for granted. It's all around you. I think that was the best part and most people really overlook that.

So you ended up not only with more time for work, but more time for play as well.

Reilly: Yes, absolutely. It was weird, because you had to think of how to play. Most people think more time for play means let's watch a whole series of video clips or tag some pictures, but when you don't have all that stuff, you expand your mind about what you want to do with your free time.

There's a real difference in the quality of that time. If I sit and play Angry Birds for an hour a day, I don't look back and say "You know, I had a really great Angry Birds session three weeks ago. That was a really great time," but if I share a sunset walk on the beach with someone, that's a memory that I can treasure forever.

Reilly: Yeah, sometimes you just sit on the internet and four hours goes by, and you're, like, I really didn't do one single thing. Maybe I looked at an article, looked at pictures, watched some dumb videos and got stuck in a YouTube black hole for an hour, just looking, looking, looking. I think you'd have a hard time finding anyone who thought that was really enriching your life.

I mentioned your story to my father-in-law the other day, he said "You want to interview somebody, talk to me. I've been doing that for 69 years!"

Reilly: Ha! I think that's what's so much fun about it. I've had a lot of action on Twitter for the last few days and a lot of people send me emails saying exactly that. I think adults really relate to it and think it's cool that someone from my generation is choosing to do it. They all say, "That's how we lived for 40 years. Can you imagine our whole life is like that?" That was interesting to me. I asked my grandparents, "How did you guys find each other when you wanted to go out or something?" They said stuff like throwing window pebbles and just driving by people's houses, and having a diner that you would go and turn up at where people were always there. I mean, they obviously managed just fine, and I was anxious about it and didn't like it for the first few weeks. Then, I didn't even think about my phone or miss it at all. You just find new ways.

I understand your father, ESPN sportswriter Rick Reilly, had a suggestion about your experience?

Reilly: Yeah, he's tweeted it out on his account and he's gotten a lot of reaction to it, too. He's been talking about trying to do a romantic comedy about it. There were so many missed connections. I mean, at first, I would meet girls out at the bar, and they'd be, like, "Here, take my phone number." I would have to explain that I didn't have an email address or Facebook?

?but if they'll give you their address you'll stop by sometime?

Reilly: Yeah, and they were, like, "Screw you. If you don't want to call me just say so." I'd say "No, no. Tell me where your office is, and I'll send you a bike courier message or whatever." I think there's a lot of funny stuff like that. I keep telling people the hardest part was having to send all of my sexts by USPS. I mean, I didn't actually send pictures?

In the end, having finished this whole thing, is your life different now or did you fall right back into old habits?

Reilly: It's definitely different, but I catch myself doing exactly what I hated. Someone is talking to me and I'm half-listening and reading a text under the table. For me, it's trying to be more aware of it. It kind of evolved from being about technology to more of just living in the moment. I think that's what my biggest thing is: There's not so much chasing for me now. I'm here now, and let's just enjoy this. You can be comfortable with yourself and not have to go to the crutch of your phone. For me, that's more what I will take away from this.

Do you have future projects planned?

Reilly: I keep telling everyone I should do another 90 days where I don't speak to anyone in person and only communicate by internet or through technology, but that's just a joke. It's really changed my life. Like I said, I'm back with this girl. Everything's a lot simpler. I'm more than happy that I did it.

What else did you learn?

Reilly: I think the letters were the coolest part and how people were really into it. I think I wrote 75 letters and nearly, I'd say, 85 percent came back with responses. Now all these people are responding to the video online. All the appreciation, I think the coolest part is that all these people really see this in themselves and wish that there was a different way and we weren't so tied to all that stuff.

Let me ask you one more question about the letters. What's the difference in the level of thought and feeling that you put into writing a letter compared to typing 140 characters?

Reilly: What we do now, on e-chat, is people just flying off with whatever comes to mind. It's so much different to have it really thought-out. I'm a writer, so it's time consuming. I think it takes 20 minutes or half an hour to write a letter and really get it the way I want it. I think it's a better, purer way to communicate. People appreciate it so much more when you send them a handwritten letter or even a thank-you note showing that you're taking the time to think about them.

Conclusion:

With modern technology, texts and Facebook wall posts can serve as an attractive veneer making relationships seem more genuine than they really are. Conversely, social media can interfere with our most intimate real-life relationships. How many of your closest relationships would suffer if people had to invest more effort than sending a text to stay in touch? How much better could your relationship with your significant other be if you could give your partner your full attention whenever you're together? There's one way to find out, if you dare.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120129/us_ac/10900789_90_days_without_a_cell_phone_email_or_social_media

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Monday, 30 January 2012

Copying Is Not Stealing

Of course we don?t have such a conjurer. The good news, however, is that grocers and restaurateurs participate in a competitive environment. To return to another point where?Crain?s protestations aside?we appear to agree, what copyright does is provide a monopoly on sales of a product to the copyright holder. Monopolists, in their quest to maximize profits, behave differently from participants in competitive markets and set prices well above marginal production costs. This creates deadweight loss. There are customers who would derive some non-zero benefit from using the product, but the benefit would be smaller than the profit-maximizing sale price. To the extent that unauthorized copying helps such people get their hands on works, so-called ?piracy? is socially beneficial. This is all I?m claiming, and I think it should be an uncontroversial point. Given that it costs nothing to distribute an additional copy of a digital file, the socially optimal quantity of illicit copying is not zero, just as it would not be a boon to the world if nobody ever lent a book to a friend.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=052a93ecb37941b7f51329907666b4b7

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'Panic button' could help cancer defy drugs

Stressed yeast cells frantically reshuffle their chromosomes in a desperate last bid to find a combination that survives. This "panic" response enables them to rapidly evolve resistance to drugs.

The discovery might also apply to cancer, because cancer cells often have abnormal numbers and arrangements of chromosomes. Understanding one of the mechanisms by which cancers develop resistance to drugs could in turn open up new ways to combat cancer.

The key panic button driving the reshuffling is heat-shock protein 90 (Hsp90), which normally ensures that chromosomes are faithfully copied when cells divide and multiply. When Hsp90 is knocked out, the chromosomes get completely reshuffled. That's normally a disaster, but in a desperate situation it's a potential lifeline.

Freak cells

A team led by Rong Li of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri, exposed baker's yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to stressful stimuli like heat and chemicals, and looked for changes in chromosome replication. The biggest effect came when Hsp90 was disrupted.

The stressed yeast cells lost or duplicated random chromosomes when they divided, producing colonies with a vast array of freak cells. Li then exposed these freak strains to drugs, creating colonies of drug-resistant yeast.

Unique chromosome shuffling patterns evolved in the different yeast cells, helping some of them survive the various drugs. For instance, in four of the five colonies that survived a dose of fluconazole, each yeast had an extra copy of chromosome 8. This carries the ERG11 gene, which can make organisms resistant to fluconazole. By having twice the usual number of ERG11 genes, the shuffled yeast survived the onslaught.

Shuffled cancer?

We don't know if human cancer cells that lack Hsp90 also change their chromosomes. Li points out that, unlike yeast cells, human and mammalian cells have a protein called p53 that kills cells with abnormal numbers of chromosomes. But in half of all cancers, p53 malfunctions, which means that if cancers with shuffled chromosomes do exist, they could survive and evolve drug resistance.

Li says her discoveries offer a new insight into how to treat cancer. "We may need to understand not only what a cancer is currently, but also how it will evolve in response to treatment," says Li. "If we can predict cancer's evolutionary path, we may have a better chance to corner it."

"The next step is to understand whether this shuffling is predictable and controllable," she says.

"Unstable chromosomes have been associated with cancer cell resistance to a number of drugs," says Rebecca Burrell of Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute.

Paradoxically, some drugs that disable Hsp90 have shown promise against cancer, by stopping the cancer from building proteins it needs to survive. "If our findings hold true in human cells, [these drugs] may be counterproductive," says Li. "Hsp90 inhibitors might actually help cancer cells evolve drug resistance."

"If these data can be replicated in cells from more advanced organisms, they may begin to raise concerns about targeting Hsp90 in the clinic because of the potential to cause diversity in tumour cells," Burrell agrees.

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature10795

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1c3bb376/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cdn213980Epanic0Ebutton0Ecould0Ehelp0Ecancer0Edefy0Edrugs0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Sunday, 29 January 2012

`Beasts of the Southern Wild' wins at Sundance (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? A mythical film starring an 8-year-old girl and a documentary about the war on drugs took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival.

"Beasts of the Southern Wild" won the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition, and "The House I Live In" won the same honor in the U.S. documentary category Saturday at the independent film festival's awards ceremony.

Directed and co-written by 29-year-old first-time filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" follows a girl named Hushpuppy who lives with her father in the southern Delta. The film also won the cinematography prize.

Zeitlin said he was grateful to the Sundance Institute and labs, where he worked on the film for more than three years.

"This project was such a runt, this sort of messy-hair, dirty, wild child, and we just have been taken care of and just eased along until we were ready to stand up on our own," he said in an interview after the ceremony. "It's just great that it happened here. This is the right place for the world to meet the film."

Zeitlin described his spunky young star, Quvenzhane Wallis, as "the biggest person I know." She said she is ready to be a movie star, but first will be going back to third grade.

Fox Searchlight acquired the film earlier this week.

Eugene Jarecki's documentary "The House I Live In" examines the social, human and financial costs of the war on drugs. The filmmaker won the same award in 2005 for his documentary "Why We Fight."

As he accepted his award, Jarecki called the war on drugs "tragically immoral, heartbreakingly wrong and misguided."

"If we're going to reform things in this country, putting people in jail for nonviolent crime, in many cases for life without parole, for possession of a drug, for sentences longer than is now given for murder in this country, must end," he said.

Kirby Dick's documentary about rape in the military, "The Invisible War," won the audience award, as did Ben Lewin's heartfelt drama "The Surrogate," which stars John Hawkes as a paralyzed 38-year-old man who hires a sex surrogate, played by Helen Hunt, to help him lose his virginity. Fox Searchlight acquired that film, too.

"I don't think most people have ever seen this sort of story before," Lewin said after the ceremony. "I think it was very new and unexpected... From the experiences I've had seeing it with an audience, it seems to be a real emotional ride."

"The Surrogate" also won a special jury prize for its ensemble cast.

World cinema jury prizes went to the documentary "The Law in These Parts," about Israel's legal system in occupied Palestinian territories, and the drama "Violeta Went to Heaven," about Chilean musician Violeta Parra.

The audience favorites in world cinema were the documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," which also won a special jury award, and the drama "Valley of the Saints," which also claimed the Alfred P. Sloan film prize. A second winner of the Sloan Award, which recognizes films with science as a theme or a scientist as a major character, was "Robot and Frank." The film, which premiered at Sundance, stars Frank Langella as a retired jewel thief who befriends the caretaker robot his children have given him, eventually bringing the robot along on his illegal outings.

Other winners:

? U.S. drama directing award: Ava DuVernay, "Middle of Nowhere."

? U.S. documentary directing award: Lauren Greenfield, "The Queen of Versailles."

? World cinema drama directing award: Mads Matthiesen, "Teddy Bear."

? World cinema documentary directing award: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, "5 Broken Cameras."

? U.S. drama screenwriting award: Derek Connolly, "Safety Not Guaranteed."

? World cinema screenwriting award: Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutierrez, Pedro Peirano, Sebastian Sepulveda, "Young & Wild."

? U.S. documentary editing award: Enat Sidi, "Detropia."

? World cinema editing award: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky, "Indie Game: The Movie."

? U.S. documentary cinematography award: Jeff Orlowski, "Chasing Ice."

? World cinema drama cinematography award: David Raedeker, "My Brother the Devil."

? World cinema documentary cinematography award: Lars Skree, "Putin's Kiss."

? U.S. drama special jury prize for producing: Andrea Sperling and Jonathan Schwartz, "Smashed" and "Nobody Walks."

? U.S. documentary special jury prizes: "Love Free or Die," "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry."

? World cinema drama special jury prize: "Can."

? Short film audience award: "The Debutante Hunters."

? Best of NEXT audience award: "Sleepwalk With Me."

___

Follow Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org/festival/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_en_mo/us_film_sundance_awards

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Saturday, 28 January 2012

Former Guatemala dictator faces war crimes charges (Reuters)

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) ? Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt will face trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity as the Central American nation seeks to close files on a brutal 36-year civil war.

A judge found sufficient evidence that linked Rios Montt, who ruled during a particularly bloody period in 1982 and 1983, to the killing of more than 1,700 indigenous people in one counterinsurgency effort.

"I believe that there is enough evidence in these charges," said Judge Carol Flores, who agreed with prosecutors that Rios Montt, as head of the government, should answer for brutality under his rule.

Prosecutors allege that Rios Montt, who ruled as commander-in-chief for 17 months, turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson to rid Guatemala of leftist insurgents.

Lawyers also charge that Rios Montt conceived a counterinsurgency plan that killed at least 1,771 unarmed members of the Ixil tribe that he said were aiding guerillas and drove another 29,000 more into forced exodus.

Defense attorneys claim that Rios Montt, 85, did not control battlefield operations during the 1960-1996 internal conflict that left nearly a quarter of a million dead or missing and therefore cannot be held responsible.

"Each commander is responsible for making decisions in his own post," attorney Danilo Rodriguez said.

Ixil women clad in bright red indigenous dresses attended the hearing that ended in Rios Montt being ordered to house arrest until a preliminary hearing in March.

The right-wing party Rios Montt founded has lost relevance and the former general was turned out of Congress in a September general election, loosing the immunity from prosecution granted to public officials.

(Reporting By Michael McDonald; editing by Christopher Wilson and Eric Beech)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_guatemala

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Costa offers $14,460 per person for ruined cruise (AP)

ROME ? Costa Crociere SpA is offering uninjured passengers euro11,000 ($14,460) apiece to compensate them for lost baggage and psychological trauma after its cruise ship ran aground and capsized off Tuscany when the captain deviated from his route.

Costa, a unit of the world's biggest cruise operator, the Miami-based Carnival Corp., also said it would reimburse passengers the full costs of their cruise, travel expenses and any medical expenses sustained after the grounding.

The agreement was announced Friday after negotiations between Costa representatives and Italian consumer groups who say they represent 3,206 cruise ship passengers from 61 countries who suffered no physical harm when the Costa Concordia hit a reef on Jan. 13.

The deal does not apply to the hundreds of crew on the ship, the roughly 100 cases of people injured or the families who lost loved ones.

Passengers are free to pursue legal action on their own if they aren't satisfied with the deal.

Some consumer groups have already signed on as injured parties in the criminal case against the Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, who is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all passengers were evacuated. He is under house arrest.

In addition, Codacons, one of Italy's best known consumer groups, has engaged two U.S. law firms to launch a class-action lawsuit against Costa and Carnival in Miami, claiming that it expects to get anywhere from euro125,000 ($164,000) to euro1 million ($1.3 million) per passenger.

But Roberto Corbella, who represented Costa in the negotiations, said the deal offered Friday provides passengers with quick, "generous," and certain restitution that consumer groups estimate could amount to some euro14,000 per passenger including the reimbursements.

"The big advantage that they have is an immediate response, no legal expenses, and they can put this whole thing behind them," he told The Associated Press.

Angry passenger Herbert Greszuk, a 62-year-old German who left behind everything he had with him, including his tuxedo, camera, jewelry, and even his dentures, told the AP before the compensation was announced that it was an issue of accountability.

"Something like this must not be allowed to happen again. So many people died; it's simply inexcusable," he said.

The Concordia gashed its hull on reefs off the island of Giglio after Schettino made an unauthorized deviation from its approved route to bring it closer to Giglio. Some 4,200 passengers and crew were hastily evacuated after the Concordia ran aground and capsized a few kilometers away near the port of Giglio.

Sixteen bodies have been recovered and another 16 remain unaccounted for and presumed dead. Search efforts for them resumed Friday as salvage crews prepared to begin extracting some 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil before it leaks.

Italy's civil protection office on Friday released a list of some of the other possibly toxic substances aboard the cruise liner amid concerns of possible environmental pollution. They include 50 liters of insecticide and 41 cubic meters of lubricants, among other things.

But so far, even though there has been some film detected in the waters around the ship, tests on the waters indicate nothing outside the norm, according to Tuscany's regional environment agency.

"Toxic tests have all resulted negative," the agency said. "For now, there are no significant signs of sea water pollution."

The crystal clear seas around Giglio are a haven for scuba divers and form part of a marine sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

Passengers have said the evacuation was chaotic, with crew members unprepared to deal with an emergency and constantly downplaying the seriousness of the situation. Coast guard data shows the captain only sounded the evacuation alarm an hour after the initial collision, well after the Concordia had listed to the point that many lifeboats couldn't be lowered.

Schettino has admitted he had taken the ship on "touristic navigation" near Giglio but has said the rocks he hit weren't charted on his nautical maps.

Codacons has called for a criminal investigation into the not-infrequent practice of "tourist navigation" ? steering huge cruise ships close to shore in a publicity stunt to give passengers a view of the sites.

The chief executive of Costa, Pier Luigi Foschi, told an Italian parliamentary committee this week that "tourist navigation" wasn't illegal, and was a "cruise product" increasingly sought out by passengers and offered by cruise lines to try to stay competitive.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Carl Levin: Mitt Romney criticism of Obama defense budget not factual (+video) (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington ? Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin says Mitt Romney?s tough criticism of the Obama defense budget is ?just a political statement which is not borne out by the facts.?

In the two most recent Republican presidential debates, the former Massachusetts governor has blasted President Obama?s plans to trim defense spending to comply with spending targets set by the Budget Control Act passed by both parties last August. 

At a Pentagon press conference Thursday afternoon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will spell out the Obama administration?s strategy for defending the nation while spending $487 billion less on defense over the next ten years. 

Five ways 9/11 has transformed the US military

Mr. Levin, a Michigan Democrat, was briefed on the plans at a dinner with Secretary Panetta on Wednesday evening. The plan would involve spending about $513 billion, not including the costs of the war in Afghanistan. 

At the most recent presidential debate on Jan. 23, Mr. Romney said Obama's plan to build nine ships a year was inadequate. "We ought to raise that to 15 ships a year," he said.  

At the Jan.16 debate, Romney said, ?The most extraordinary thing that's happened with this military authorization is the president is planning on cutting $1 trillion out of military spending.? He added, ?Our Navy is smaller than it's been since 1917. Our Air Force is smaller and older than any time since 1947. We are cutting our number of troops. We are not giving the veterans the care they deserve. We simply cannot continue to cut our Department of Defense budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth.?

After dismissing that criticism as political, Levin told a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters Thursday, ?Our military in incredibly strong ... no other military comes close. We have shown our capabilities, our adeptness, our ability to move quickly yesterday in Somalia, before that with Bin Laden.?

Levin said he has spoken with the nation?s top military officers who ?were deeply involved in this budget request and they very much support this budget request not because they have to, but because they were involved in preparing it. They believe it is a sound budget, a strong budget.?

Military leaders are worried about one thing, Levin said. ???The fear that they have is that the sequestration will be triggered. Then you have a totally different ball game.??

Under the 2011 Budget Control Act, there will be additional automatic budget cuts of at least $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, unless Congress acts. The Pentagon would take a major share of those cuts ? some $600 billion starting in January, 2013.

At the breakfast, Levin said he thinks Republicans will vote to raise additional tax revenue to avoid those cuts at the Pentagon. ???The dam has got to be broken on revenues. What will break it I believe is the threat of sequestration."

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Five ways 9/11 has transformed the US military 

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/usmilitary/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20120126/ts_csm/456826

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Friday, 27 January 2012

AUTOMOTIVE - DRIVEN: Two Gems From South Korea

The South Korean automakers ? Hyundai and its sibling Kia ? have made tremendous strides in the past few years, delivering interesting and distinctive vehicles that drive well and look good.

They?ve really come a long way from their former role of marketing cars and SUVs that were purchased solely by people who couldn?t afford anything better. Now they are building desirable vehicles in their own right, while still offering very competitive pricing and highly persuasive warranties.

The automakers? double-digit U.S. sales gains during 2010 and 2011 tell the tale.

Here are a couple of sharp little cars, one from Hyundai and one from Kia, that show how far they?ve come and how good they are:

Veloster features one door on the driver side and two on the passenger side. (Photo: Hyundai) Most young people want to be different, distinctive and daring. I know I did, although it?s a distant memory. Hyundai Veloster targets that adolescent notion with a neat little hatchback with all the flares and spoilers you could ever desire, along with a three-door configuration that makes it interestingly asymmetrical.

The third door is hidden behind the front passenger door with a handle that looks like part of the coupe trim. It allows improved access to the rear seat so that your friends, small as they might be, won?t have to crunch too much when they?re getting in.

This is not the first three-door car I?ve driven? the late, lamented Saturn built one before its demise. The Saturn had a clamshell setup on the driver?s side that was hinged in the rear, also giving their little coupe some extra access. The best thing about it was how easily the driver could stow or retrieve items from the back seat, always a downside for a regular coupe.

While it seems to make sense that an extra rear door should be on the passenger side, I favor the driver-side setup, like the Saturn had. For a little car like this in which a rear-seat passenger would be a rarity, the easy access by the driver seems to be more usable on a regular basis. There?s also a hatch in back for added versatility.

The Veloster's interior is appropriately sporty. (Photo: Hyundai) The Veloster (and I keep calling it velociraptor from the movie Jurassic Park) is a new entry for Hyundai and it seems to have hit the spot, following up on the successful revisions of the compact Elantra and Accent.

Handling and drivability are quite good, and the little 1.6-liter four-banger makes decent power ? 138 horsepower at 6,300 rpm and 123 pounds-feet of torque at 4,850 rpm ? especially when equipped with the six-speed manual, as was the test car. The shifter?s throws are short and precise, another huge improvement for Hyundai.

A big plus is Veloster?s fuel mileage, which rates at 29 mpg city and the magic number of 40 mpg on the highway. That?s some rarified territory occupied by only a few subcompact competitors and hybrid cars.

Veloster comes in just one base model with optional upgrades. The interior is roomy and accommodating and seems higher grade than the price tag would indicate.

Pricing starts at $17,300 for the well-equipped stickshift base model, and the test car had about $4,000 worth of options, including leather seats and accents, 18-inch alloys and performance tires, panoramic sunroof, sporty alloy pedals, premium sound system, navigation, backup camera, and keyless entry and start.

The total of $21,300 including shipping was a decent bottom line for a distinctive little three-door hatchback.

Source: http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/driven-two-gems-from-south-korea/

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Obama courts Latino vote on economic tour (AP)

BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. ? President Barack Obama is courting Hispanics in politically important states, setting himself up as a champion of the crucial Latino voting bloc and as a foil to Republican candidates fighting for a share of support from the same groups.

With Latino voters voting overwhelmingly Democratic, Obama is not in danger of losing the support of a majority of Hispanics. But he does need their intensity, and a Gallup tracking poll shows that while a majority of Hispanics approve of Obama, that approval is not as high as it is among black voters.

Pitching his economic agenda during a three-day, five-state trip this week, Obama has not ignored the fact that three of the states ? Nevada, Arizona and Colorado ? all have Hispanic populations of 20 percent or more. A majority of them are Democratic, but they also could be a factor in upcoming nominating contests in those states. Nevada and Colorado hold caucuses within two weeks and Arizona has a primary Feb. 28.

In Arizona Wednesday, where he was drawing attention to his efforts to increase manufacturing, Obama playfully interacted with a supporter who shouted out: "Barack es mi hermano! (Barack is my brother!)"

"Mi hermano ? mucho gusto (My brother, a real pleasure)," Obama shouted back.

And it was no accident that he scheduled an interview with Univision, the Spanish language network that reaches a broad swath of the U.S. Latino population, while he was in Arizona and with local Telemundo affiliates Thursday in Las Vegas and in Denver. All that while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republican presidential field were battling in Florida, another state with a key Latino voting bloc.

"It's an important community in this country and he will continue to have those interactions," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of Obama's efforts to reach out to Spanish language media.

No issue reverberates more in the appeal to Latinos than immigration.

For Obama, it reared up suddenly for him Wednesday when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed one of the toughest laws to curtail illegal immigration, greeted him at the airport tarmac in Mesa, Ariz., with a handwritten invitation for the president to join her in a visit to the Mexican border.

Obama replied coolly, noting that he did not appreciate the way she had depicted him in a book she published last year, "Scorpions for Breakfast." In the book, Brewer writes that Obama was condescending and lectured her during a meeting at the White House to discuss immigration. "He was a little disturbed about my book," Brewer told two reporters shortly after the encounter.

Obama continued to promote his economic plan Thursday in Nevada and Colorado, focusing on energy policy and his attempts to expand oil and gas exploration while also emphasizing clean energy.

"Doubling down on a clean energy industry will create lots of jobs in the process," the president said at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, where the Air Force has installed solar panels and tested jets that run on biofuels.

As such, he was indirectly pitching to Hispanics as well. A new Pew Research Center poll found that 54 percent of Latinos believe that the economic downturn has been harder on them than on other groups in the U.S.

"There is no question that Latinos were hard hit, especially by the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting steep decline in construction work," Carney said Thursday. "Latinos are overrepresented in the construction industry. It's one of the reasons why, certainly, Latinos would greatly benefit from infrastructure investments that put construction workers back to work."

In 2008, Obama beat Republican John McCain by a 2-1 margin among Hispanics.

To win again, he will need that level of enthusiasm to make up for weaknesses elsewhere in his voter support. In a bright spot for Obama, the Pew poll found that even though Hispanics believe their economic condition is poor, two-thirds of those polled said they expect their financial situation to improve over the next year, whereas 58 percent of the overall population expect the same.

In his interview with Univision, Obama made a point of noting that both Romney and Gingrich have said they would veto legislation, known as the DREAM Act, that would give a pathway to citizenship to children who came to the United States illegally but who attend college or enlist in the military.

"They believe that we should not provide a pathway to citizenship for young people who were brought here when they were very young children and are basically American kids but right now are still in a shadow," Obama said. "They've said that they would veto the DREAM Act. Both of them."

At a debate Monday on NBC, however, both Gingrich and Romney said they would support modified legislation that only applied to young people who joined the military. "I would not support the part that simply says everybody who goes to college is automatically waived for having broken the law," Gingrich said.

Obama, in the interview, explicitly connected the Republican presidential field to congressional Republicans, who suffer from bottom-dwelling approval ratings right now. Asked why he had been unable to deliver on his promise for overhauling the immigration system, Obama replied:

"Well, it's very simple. We couldn't get any Republican votes. Zero. None," he said. "So this is the kind of barrier that we're meeting in Congress. We're just going to keep on pushing and pushing until hopefully we finally get a break."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama

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Sprint vs. Verizon vs. AT&T Wireless Plans (ContributorNetwork)

Finding a wireless carrier that fits your needs is an important venture - especially for smartphone users.

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint combined have over 60 percent market share of cellular providers, and the needs of nearly anyone can be met within the framework of one of these choices. When considering a smartphone, choosing the wrong plan, carrier, or features can leave users stuck with hidden fees or unnecessary monthly premiums. Customer service is also a key consideration when selecting service.

Here is an in-depth look at exactly what each provider has to offer and how to best go about choosing one that meets your needs and budget.

Voice Plans

Though the primary advantage of owning a smartphone is to take advantage of mobile connectivity, no phone is complete without a good voice plan. Entry level nationwide (U.S.) plans for all three providers start at $39.99 per month for 450 minutes of talk time, though Sprint has a basic option for 200 minutes at $29.99 (AT&T offers a 200 min. / $29.99 per month plan for customers age 65 and older).

Unlimited plans are $69.99 per month on Verizon and AT&T. Sprint bundles its unlimited voice plan with an Unlimited Everything plan to include data and messaging, which will be discussed in detail in subsequent sections, for $99.99 per month.

Data Plans

The real fun of using a smartphone lies in the ease of accessing email, browsing the web, connecting on social media, and streaming media. Sprint provides excellent value with its choices in plans as it does not limit the amount of data usage, choosing instead to have its customers couple it with the proper bundle as an unlimited feature. Starting at $69.99 per month, Sprint customers can use 450 minutes of talk time and unlimited data.

AT&T offers its smartphone customers 300MB of data for $20 per month and goes up to 5GB for $50. Verizon is comparable, starting with 2GB for $30 per month but allows for up to 10GB per month for $80.

For users who don't plan on using streaming sites such as YouTube or Netflix, the basic plans may suffice. But for most users, a plan with at least 2GB is needed. Each service has tools to monitor your usage and adjust the plans accordingly on the fly - a must when looking to get the most value out of your smartphone's data plan.

Messaging

To have a smartphone without messaging capability would be like having a television without volume. What I'm getting at is that these are devices meant to make messaging easy and fun. The right plan is absolutely necessary to take advantage of this fact.

AT&T and Verizon both offer unlimited text messaging for smartphones for an extra monthly charge of $20, and Sprint bundles its messaging plans with its Everything Messaging plan, which includes 450 minutes of talk time and unlimited text messages. This plan starts at $49.99 per month.

Coverage

None of the above features will have any substance if the network your smartphone uses is down or unavailable. But which is the best? It really depends on which area of the United States you live in, but a great resource is this universal coverage map .

Within reason, major metropolitan areas across the country will give users no issues with smartphones on either Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint. Network traffic is also something to consider - AT&T has the most market share and is a high-volume network. Verizon is similarly busy while Sprint is the least used among the three.

Product Selection / Availability

The iPhone 4S, arguably the most popular smartphone on the market, is available via AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon and will drive many users into the smartphone market on its own merit. However, each has something unique to offer when it comes to overall selection - and many users are becoming increasingly willing to stray from Apple's stranglehold on the industry.

Samsung's Galazy S II is available on both Sprint and AT&T and is widely thought of as one of the top products on the market as of January 2012. The DROID RAZR 4G, another hot item, is available through Verizon.

Value

Clearly, AT&T and Verizon are two juggernauts among wireless providers. Sprint, however, is working hard to assert itself as more than a role player in the smartphone game. This is apparent in its effort to provide similar services to AT&T and Verizon at a lower cost. Conveniently, most of Sprint's services are bundled to make choosing the right fit much easier for the consumer.

Verizon's marketing has driven the consumer to choose its service based on the reliability of its network to justify its cost ("Can you hear me now?"). AT&T seems more driven to provide its patrons with the best overall experience. In my opinion, any one of these providers can fit one's lifestyle by considering the steps above.

How to Buy

Making a decision on a provider can be made much easier by finding a comprehensive, one-stop-shop for all of the three providers mentioned. RadioShack provides potential customers with just that and is a great way to compare features and devices side by side. With stores nationwide, it is also possible to walk in see first-hand what each service provider has to offer in your area.

Michael C. Jones is a Yahoo! Featured Contributor in Technology and an avid smartphone user.

Follow Michael on Twitter

Sources:

Verizonwireless.com

Sprint.com

AT&Twireless.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120125/tc_ac/10872887_sprint_vs_verizon_vs_att_wireless_plans

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Panetta: US ground forces would be cut by 100,000

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlines the main areas of proposed spending cuts during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Jan., 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlines the main areas of proposed spending cuts during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Jan., 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, right, outline the main areas of proposed spending cuts during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington, Thursday, Jan., 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta outlines the main areas of proposed spending cuts during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Jan., 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(AP) ? Pentagon leaders outlined a plan Thursday for absorbing $487 billion in defense cuts over the coming decade by shrinking U.S. ground forces, slowing the purchase of a next-generation stealth fighter and retiring older planes and ships.

In a bid to pre-empt election-year Republican criticism, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the plan shifts the Pentagon's focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace. More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said.

"We believe this is a balanced and complete package," Panetta told a news conference, with Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at his side.

Some lawmakers were quick to dispute him.

"Taking us back to a pre-9/11 military force structure places our country in grave danger," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that will hold hearings on the Pentagon budget plan.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the Panetta plan "ignores the lessons of history." He said it provides for a military that is "too small to respond effectively to events that may unfold over the next few years."

Dempsey, however, said the military is united in its support for the new approach.

"This budget is a first step ? it's a down payment ? as we transition from an emphasis on today's wars to preparing for future challenges," he said, adding, "This budget does not lead to a military in decline."

Panetta announced that the administration will request a 2013 budget of $525 billion, plus another $88 billion for operations in Afghanistan. Combined, those totals are about $33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this year.

Panetta said, however, that the Pentagon's base budget will grow to $567 billion in 2017. At that point, the cumulative budgets over five years would be $259 billion less than had been planned before the administration struck a deficit-cutting deal with Congress last summer that requires projected defense spending to be reduced by $487 billion by 2022.

Among the details Panetta disclosed:

The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11.

The Marine Corps would drop from today's 202,000 to 182,000 ? also above the level on 9/11.

The Air Force would retire some older planes including about two dozen C-5A cargo aircraft and 65 of its oldest C-130 cargo planes.

The Navy would keep a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers but retire seven cruisers earlier than planned. It also would delay purchase of some other ships, including a new Virginia-class submarine.

Purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, would be slowed.

Current plans for building a new generation of submarines that carry long-range nuclear missiles would be delayed by two years. The current fleet of nuclear-capable bombers and land-based nuclear missiles would be left unchanged.

Military pay raises will remain on track until 2015, when the pace of increase will be slowed by an undetermined amount.

President Barack Obama will ask Congress to approve a new round of domestic base closures, although the timing of this was left vague and there is little chance that lawmakers would agree to this in a presidential election year.

The defense spending plan is scheduled to be submitted to Congress as part of the administration's full 2013 budget on Feb. 13.

Prominent in the Obama plan is a renewed focus on Asia, where China's rapid military modernization has raised worry in Washington and rattled U.S. allies.

The Pentagon has embraced a proposal by special operations chief Adm. Bill McRaven to send more manpower and equipment to worldwide "Theater Special Operations Commands" to strike back wherever threats arise, according to a senior defense official who spoke to The Associated Press and to other current and former U.S. officials briefed on the program. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the proposal are still being worked out, including how fast the changes could be made.

The stepped-up network would put top special operations personnel closer to the problems they face, better able to launch unilateral raids like this week's Somalia mission. McRaven also wants the newly invigorated commands to build new relationships with foreign armies to help them lead their own operations, the senior defense official said.

Panetta also has made clear the administration will resist any effort to shrink the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers. He said last weekend while on board the fleet's oldest carrier, the USS Enterprise, that keeping 11 of the warships is a "long-term commitment" that Obama believes is important to keeping the peace.

"Our view is that the carriers, because of their presence, because of the power they represent, are a very important part of our ability to maintain power projection both in the Pacific and in the Middle East," he said.

Obama has said he hopes to further reduce the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but Panetta said the basic structure ? a "triad" of land, sea and air nuclear forces ? will be maintained. The Pentagon said it will study the potential to shrink that force later.

The defense budget is being reshaped in the midst of a presidential contest in which Obama seeks to portray himself as a forward-looking commander in chief focusing on new security threats. Republicans want to cast him as weak on defense.

Obama has highlighted his national security successes ? the killing of Osama bin Laden, the death of senior al-Qaida leaders and the demise of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi ? to counter Republican criticism. He also has emphasized the completion of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and the start of a drawdown in Afghanistan as turning points that offer new opportunities to scale back defense spending.

But several congressional Republicans see a political opening in challenging the reductions in projected military spending that the GOP and Obama agreed to last summer as part of a deal to raise the nation's borrowing authority. They've echoed Obama's potential presidential rivals Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who plead for fiscal austerity but contend that sizable cuts would gut the military.

___

Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

___

Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-26-US-Defense-Budget/id-4a4c5197356c4f30b7f4a50622fb7795

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Thursday, 26 January 2012

In GOP response, Daniels blames Obama for economy (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama has resorted to "extremism" with stifling, anti-growth policies and sought to divide Americans, not unite them, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said in the formal Republican response to the president's State of the Union address.

Eight months after deciding against a bid for his party's presidential nomination, Daniels used his nationally televised speech Tuesday to lash out at Obama and cast the GOP as compassionate and eager to unchain the country's economic potential.

He took particular aim at Obama's efforts to raise taxes on the rich and castigate them for not contributing their fair share to the nation's burdens. Joined by Republicans on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail, the GOP goal was to both blunt and shift the focus away from Obama's theme on Tuesday of fairness, which included protecting the middle class and making sure the rich pay an equitable share of taxes.

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said, speaking from Indianapolis. "As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat."

"This election is going to be a referendum on the president's economic policies," which have worsened the economy, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The politics of envy, the politics of dividing our country is not what America is all about."

Campaigning for president in Florida on Wednesday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama "seemed to be setting up an entire year of divisiveness, an entire year of getting nothing done."

Also drawing frequent GOP attacks were Obama's proposed tax increases, which included making sure millionaire earners pay at least a 30 percent tax rate.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Obama's proposals to boost taxes on the wealthy and give tax breaks for domestic U.S. manufacturers and others were "nothing more than the usual Washington game that has led to a tax code already littered with lobbyist loopholes."

Daniels is a rarity in the GOP these days ? a uniting and widely respected figure, contrasting with the divisiveness emanating from the contest for the presidential nomination being waged among former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others.

President George W. Bush's first budget chief and a two-term Indiana governor, Daniels often rails against wasteful spending big budget deficits, though critics note he served during the abrupt shift from fleeting federal surpluses to massive deficits early in Bush's term.

"When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true," Daniels said. He added that while Obama did not cause the country's economic and budget problems, "He was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."

The night's rhetoric come at the dawn of a presidential and congressional election year in which the defining issues are the faltering economy and weak job market and the parties' clashing prescriptions for restoring both. Obama and congressional Democrats have focused on the more populist pathway of financing federal initiatives by taxing millionaires, while Republicans preach the virtues of less regulation and smaller government.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Obama's address "a campaign speech designed to please his liberal base," and warned that he should keep legislation advancing his priorities "free from poison pills like tax hikes on job creators."

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who heads large group of House conservatives, said Obama's speech was riddled with "the ridiculous idea that America isn't fair because successful people get to keep too much of the money they earn."

Republicans fired back at Obama's vision of "an economy built to last," saying it was their party that understood the best way to trigger economic growth was to get the government out of the way.

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly sane pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy," Daniels said.

Obama has halted, for now, work on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas' Gulf Coast. Republicans say the project would create thousands of jobs, a claim opponents say is overstated. The administration has also pursued policies aimed at reducing pollution and global warming.

To underscore Obama's decision on Keystone, Boehner invited three officials from companies he said would be hurt by the pipeline's rejection to watch the speech in the House chamber, along with a pro-pipeline legislator from Nebraska, through which the project would pass.

Obama was delivering his address during a rowdy battle for the GOP presidential nomination that has ended up providing ammunition for Obama's theme of fairness.

That fight has called attention to the wealth of one of the top contenders, Romney, and the low ? but legal ? effective federal income tax rate of around 15 percent that the multimillionaire has paid in the past two years. Romney, in Florida campaigning for that state's Jan. 31 primary, released his tax documents for the two-year period on Tuesday.

"The president's agenda sounds less like `built to last' and more like doomed to fail," Romney said in Tampa, Fla. "What he's proposing is more of the same: more taxes, more spending, and more regulation."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_state_of_union_gop_reaction

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Potter star Daniel Radcliffe at new film premiere (AP)

LONDON ? Daniel Radcliffe has attended a premiere for "The Woman in Black," his first movie role since the final Harry Potter movie was released last year.

Radcliffe, who is known to most movie-goers as the boy wizard Potter, says it felt "very natural" to move away from that character and start the next phase of his career.

The 22-year-old plays a widowed father and lawyer in the film adaptation of the Susan Hill's gothic ghost story, one of the longest-running plays in London's West End.

Nonetheless, many of Radcliffe's fans lining the red carpet at London's Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday greeted him with Potter books and other memorabilia to be signed.

Radcliffe attended the premiere with his co-star, British actress Liz White, who plays the title role.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_en_mo/eu_britain_people_daniel_radcliffe

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Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Mitt Romney to release his taxes: beyond the obvious ($$), six things we can learn

Mitt Romney is releasing his 2010 tax returns and estimated 2011 taxes on Tuesday, providing information on his income, deductions, and how the wealthiest Americans navigate the system.

When Mitt Romney releases his tax returns for 2010 and his estimated taxes for 2011 Tuesday, tax experts expect it will be a relatively complicated return with schedules and forms that most Americans will never have to fill-out.

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As William Gale, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, sees it, Romney?s tax return will provide an ?opportunity to understand how high-income people navigate the tax system.?

In a statement, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul says the release, which is expected in the morning, will show that ?Governor Romney pays millions in taxes each year, that he gives millions in charitable contributions, and that his investments are reported and taxed in full compliance with US tax law. Governor Romney has paid 100 percent of what he has owed.?

Here are six key things to watch for:

One simple way to measure this would be to look at Mr. Romney?s tax liability divided by his adjusted gross income. At a recent press conference, Romney said he thought his tax rate would be about 15 percent.

However, some tax experts think it might be even lower. ?His tax rate is likely to be substantially below 15 percent,? says Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan group that looks at tax policy, in Washington. ?It could be as low as 13 percent,? he says.

On Monday, Warren Buffet, speaking to Bloomberg Television, said he did not fault the Republican presidential candidate. ?He will not pay more than the law requires,? said Mr. Buffet.

According to Romney?s comments in the recent past, his cash income would come from his speaking fees which he estimated at $370,000, plus some royalties on books.

But, the largest amount will come from long-term capital gains and dividends, taxed at 15 percent, from his time at Bain Capital, which he headed up from 1984 to 1999. On Tuesday, Romney will reveal how much that amounted to in the past two tax years.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1LpG1JpauX0/Mitt-Romney-to-release-his-taxes-beyond-the-obvious-six-things-we-can-learn

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Morgellons: Unexplained skin condition is non-infectious, not linked to environmental cause: CDC report

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2012) ? The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has completed a comprehensive study of an unexplained skin condition commonly referred to as Morgellons and found no infectious agent and no evidence to suggest an environmental link.

The full results are reported in the Jan. 25 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

In this study, investigators took an in-depth look at a skin condition characterized by unexplained lesions that contain fibers, threads, or other foreign material, accompanied by sensations of crawling, biting, or stinging. The condition is not currently recognized as a distinct clinical disorder with established diagnostic criteria. However, increasing inquiries to the CDC in 2006-2009 regarding the condition prompted the study in Northern California, where many of the persons who reported these symptoms lived.

The researchers found and enrolled 109 persons with symptoms of this condition by searching through the electronic medical record database of a large HMO. They conducted extensive testing to rule out infectious causes, and found no indication that the condition was attributed an infection. The researchers also determined that the fibers associated with the lesions were apparently fragments of cloth or other debris. The investigators showed that the condition is uncommon, estimating that it results in fewer than four out of 100,000 people seeking medical attention. About half of the study participants had evidence of other medical, most commonly psychiatric, illnesses.

The CDC suggests that people suffering with symptoms similar to those reported in the study should see their health care provider for a complete physical to ensure proper diagnosis of all illnesses, including psychiatric, and follow the recommended treatments.

"We found no evidence that this condition is contagious, or that suggests the need for additional testing for an infectious disease as a potential cause," says Dr. Mark Eberhard, Director of CDC's Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria and a lead study investigator. "This alleviates concerns about the condition being contagious between family members and others."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Public Library of Science.

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Journal Reference:

  1. Michele L. Pearson, Joseph V. Selby, Kenneth A. Katz, Virginia Cantrell, Christopher R. Braden, Monica E. Parise, Christopher D. Paddock, Michael R. Lewin-Smith, Victor F. Kalasinsky, Felicia C. Goldstein, Allen W. Hightower, Arthur Papier, Brian Lewis, Sarita Motipara, Mark L. Eberhard. Clinical, Epidemiologic, Histopathologic and Molecular Features of an Unexplained Dermopathy. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (1): e29908 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029908

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120125172321.htm

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TRW Automotive Remains Significantly Undervalued - Seeking Alpha

As part of our process, we perform a rigorous discounted cash-flow methodology that dives into the true intrinsic worth of companies. In TRW Automotive's (TRW) case, we think the firm is undervalued. Our fair value estimate is $55 per share, and our report on TRW Automotive and other companies can be found here).

For some background, we think a comprehensive analysis of a firm's discounted cash-flow valuation, relative valuation versus industry peers, as well as an assessment of technical and momentum indicators is the best way to identify the most attractive stocks at the best time to buy. This process culminates in what we call our Valuentum Buying Index (click here for more information on our methodology), which ranks stocks on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.

If a company is undervalued both on a DCF and on a relative valuation basis and is showing improvement in technical and momentum indicators, it scores high on our scale. TRW Automotive scores a respectable 7 on our scale (reflecting its undervaluation and very bullish technicals).

Our Report on TRW Automotive

click to enlarge images:

Investment Considerations

Investment Highlights

TRW Automotive earns a ValueCreation rating of excellent, the highest possible mark on our scale. The firm has been generating economic value for shareholders for the past few years, a track record we view very positively. Return on invested capital (excluding goodwill) has averaged 16.8% during the past three years.

Although we think the firm's DCF valuation indicates a potential attractive investment opportunity, we'd be more comfortable investing in the firm if it was more attractively priced on a relative basis versus
peers as well.

TRW Automotive's cash flow generation and financial leverage are at decent levels, in our opinion. The firm's free cash flow margin and debt-to-EBITDA metrics are about what we'd expect from an average firm in our coverage universe.

The firm posts a VBI score of 7. We don't find the firm that attractive based on this measure, and we'd grow more constructive if it registered an 8 or higher on our scale.

The firm's technicals look very attractive. If current prices hold, the firm's moving averages could create a golden cross, a very bullish technical pattern.

Click to enlarge:

Economic Profit Analysis

The best measure of a firm's ability to create value for shareholders is expressed by comparing its return on invested capital (ROIC) with its weighted average cost of capital (WACC). The gap or difference between ROIC and WACC is called the firm's economic profit spread. TRW Automotive's 3-year historical return on invested capital (without goodwill) is 16.8%, which is above the estimate of its cost of capital of 10.4%. As such, we assign the firm a ValueCreation rating of excellent. In the chart below, we show the probable path of ROIC in the years ahead based on the estimated volatility of key drivers behind the measure. The solid grey line reflects the most likely outcome, in our opinion, and represents the scenario that results in our fair value estimate.

Click to enlarge:

Cash Flow Analysis

Firms that generate a free cash flow margin (free cash flow divided by total revenue) above 5% are usually considered cash cows. TRW Automotive's free cash flow margin has averaged about 3.2% during the past 3 years. As such, we think the firm's cash flow generation is relatively medium. The free cash flow measure shown above is derived by taking cash flow from operations less capital expenditures and differs from enterprise free cash flow (FCFF), which we use in deriving our fair value estimate for the company. At TRW Automotive, cash flow from operations increased about 34% from levels registered two years ago, while capital expenditures fell about 39% over the same time period.

Valuation Analysis

Our discounted cash flow model indicates that TRW Automotive's shares are worth between $37.00 - $73.00 each. The margin of safety around our fair value estimate is driven by the firm's high ValueRisk rating, which is derived from the historical volatility of key valuation drivers. The estimated fair value of $55 per share represents a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of about 8.7 times last year's earnings and an implied EV/EBITDA multiple of about 4.7 times last year's EBITDA. Our model reflects a compound annual revenue growth rate of 3.7% during the next five years, a pace that is higher than the firm's 3-year historical compound annual growth rate of -0.7%. Our model reflects a 5-year projected average operating margin of 9.2%, which is above TRW Automotive's trailing 3-year average. Beyond year five, we assume free cash flow will grow at an annual rate of 3.4% for the next 15 years and 3% in perpetuity. For TRW Automotive, we use a 10.4% weighted average cost of capital to discount future free cash flows.

Click to enlarge:

Margin of Safety Analysis

Our discounted cash flow process values each firm on the basis of the present value of all future free cash flows. Although we estimate the firm's fair value at about $55 per share, every company has a range of probable fair values that's created by the uncertainty of key valuation drivers (like future revenue or earnings, for example). After all, if the future was known with certainty, we wouldn't see much volatility in the markets as stocks would trade precisely at their known fair values. Our ValueRisk rating sets the margin of safety or the fair value range we assign to each stock. In the graph below, we show this probable range of fair values for TRW Automotive. We think the firm is attractive below $37 per share (the green line), but quite expensive above $73 per share (the red line). The prices that fall along the yellow line, which includes our fair value estimate, represent a reasonable valuation for the firm.

Click to enlarge:

Future Path of Fair Value

We estimate TRW Automotive's fair value at this point in time to be about $55 per share. As time passes, however, companies generate cash flow and pay out cash to shareholders in the form of dividends. The chart below compares the firm's current share price with the path of TRW Automotive's expected equity value per share over the next three years, assuming our long-term projections prove accurate. The range between the resulting downside fair value and upside fair value in Year three represents our best estimate of the value of the firm's shares three years hence. This range of potential outcomes is also subject to change over time, should our views on the firm's future cash flow potential change. The expected fair value of $79 per share in Year three represents our existing fair value per share of $55 increased at an annual rate of the firm's cost of equity less its dividend yield. The upside and downside ranges are derived in the same way, but from the upper and lower bounds of our fair value estimate range.

Click to enlarge:

Pro Forma Financial Statements

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/321384-trw-automotive-remains-significantly-undervalued

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