daylight savings time 2012 Where To Vote james harden breeders cup Mitch Lucker Red Cross CMA Awards 2012
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Watch This Gorgeous Short Film Shot From an Airplane Window
How to Prevent Running Blisters
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LiL7Tpbm_dc/how-to-prevent-running-blisters
hallmark grammy winners obama budget woolly mammoth belize resorts nikki minaj grammy performance shel silverstein
Divisive Debate on Need for More Nuclear Safeguards
[unable to retrieve full-text content]A dispute is developing between the nuclear industry and regulators, and among the regulators themselves, about the necessity of more safeguards at power plants.
rex ryan PNC Bank Louisville football Fidelity pnc Charlie Strong Calendar 2013
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Argentina heads to U.S. appeals court in bond fight
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Argentina will seek on Wednesday to persuade a U.S. appeals court to reverse an order that it pay $1.3 billion to a group of dissident bondholders stemming from the country's 2001 default, a showdown that could have wide impact on global debt markets.
The arguments at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York are being closely watched amid fears of a new Argentina debt crisis if the country must pay the so-called "holdout" investors.
For years, the holdouts have demanded full payment after spurning two debt exchanges. Led by Elliott Management affiliate NML Capital Ltd and Aurelius Capital Management, they say they are simply attempting to hold Argentina to its obligations and that the country has plenty of reserves to pay them.
Argentina, though, calls these investors vultures and has vowed not to pay them. A victory by the holdouts, Argentina argues, would harm investors who agreed to the debt restructurings as well as banks that handle its payments. The country also says such a ruling could make future debt crises "unresolvable" and spur further investor litigation.
A decision against Argentina would deal a major blow to President Cristina Fernandez. As a sign of the importance of the court hearing, Argentina's Economy Minister Hernan Lorenzino is planning to attend the hearing, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.
A three-judge panel is set to hear arguments from lawyers for Argentina and for the holdouts, as well as several other parties.
Argentina defaulted 12 years ago on about $100 billion in sovereign debt. About 92 percent of its bonds were restructured in 2005 and 2010, giving holders 25 cents to 29 cents on the dollar.
If ordered to pay the small group of holdout creditors, there are fears that Argentina could default again on $24 billion in previously restructured debt.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York ruled in February 2011 that Argentina violated a key provision of its bond contracts. That provision required the country to treat all of its creditors equally by paying the holdouts if it also paid investors who had agreed to the two debt swap deals, the judge found.
In October, the 2nd Circuit largely upheld that ruling. It is now reviewing Griesa's plan for how the payments would work. Griesa has said the next time Argentina made an interest payment to the exchange bondholders, it would have to pay $1.33 billion owed to the holdouts into a court escrow account.
The appeals court is also examining treatment of Bank of New York Mellon
In their appeal, Argentina's lawyers have contended U.S. courts do not have the authority to order a sovereign government to turn over assets to bondholders.
But Henry Weisburg, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling who has followed the case, said Argentina made similar arguments during its last hearing before the appeals court. And he also noted the appeal will be heard by the same panel that issued the October ruling backing Griesa.
"You have to wonder what traction they'll have the second time around," he said of Argentina.
In court papers, lawyers for Argentina have said the country would be willing to reopen its restructuring offer. Such a move, though, would require legislative permission and likely be rejected by the holdouts.
Argentina is separately awaiting a decision on whether the court will grant a rehearing of the October decision that required equal treatment of the holdout investors.
The U.S. government has backed that appeal, saying if the ruling is upheld, it could undermine the ability of other governments to negotiate future debt restructurings.
The appeals court's ultimate decision after Wednesday's hearing could be the final word on the matter. Although the court could end up rehearing the case or the Supreme Court could ultimately take up the case, such reviews are rare.
The case is NML Capital Ltd et al v. Argentina, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-105.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Additional reporting by Hilary Burke in Buenos Aires; Editing by Martha Graybow and Jackie Frank)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/argentina-heads-u-appeals-court-bond-fight-051533014--finance.html
barry sanders barry sanders jimmie johnson juan pablo montoya crash chardon high school shooting mark martin cleveland news
Elsevier announces the launch of a new journal: Methods in Oceanography
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 27-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Marije Hoogstrate
m.hoogstrate@elsevier.com
31-204-852-744
Elsevier
Amsterdam, February 27, 2013 Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of a new journal: Methods in Oceanography.
Published as a quarterly journal and adding to Elsevier's Aquatic Sciences portfolio of journals, Methods in Oceanography will publish articles that focus on new methodology of oceanographic research.
"The journal is geared toward providing a venue for scientific and engineering research that advances sensing, modeling and the ultimate understanding of the multitude of processes that play a fundamental role in the chemistry, physics and biology of oceanic processes," said Editor-in-Chief, Jules S. Jaffe Ph. D. of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (La Jolla, Ca, USA). "We also plan to publish so-called career narratives, authored by leading figures in oceanic methodology that will chronicle their role in the development of their field. These narratives will, hopefully, become cornerstones for understanding both the current state of research and what we might expect in the future."
Luaine Bandounas, Publisher at Elsevier added, "Authors and readers will benefit from several enhanced presentation methods offered in the journal. For example, besides the traditional article, authors are encouraged to submit an audio recording of a lecture presentation which will be posted alongside the article, providing readers with an introduction and summary of the research."
All articles published in the first issue are available on Science Direct.
###
For more information about the journal or to submit an article, go to: www.journals.elsevier.com/methods-in-oceanography.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 27-Feb-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Marije Hoogstrate
m.hoogstrate@elsevier.com
31-204-852-744
Elsevier
Amsterdam, February 27, 2013 Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of a new journal: Methods in Oceanography.
Published as a quarterly journal and adding to Elsevier's Aquatic Sciences portfolio of journals, Methods in Oceanography will publish articles that focus on new methodology of oceanographic research.
"The journal is geared toward providing a venue for scientific and engineering research that advances sensing, modeling and the ultimate understanding of the multitude of processes that play a fundamental role in the chemistry, physics and biology of oceanic processes," said Editor-in-Chief, Jules S. Jaffe Ph. D. of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (La Jolla, Ca, USA). "We also plan to publish so-called career narratives, authored by leading figures in oceanic methodology that will chronicle their role in the development of their field. These narratives will, hopefully, become cornerstones for understanding both the current state of research and what we might expect in the future."
Luaine Bandounas, Publisher at Elsevier added, "Authors and readers will benefit from several enhanced presentation methods offered in the journal. For example, besides the traditional article, authors are encouraged to submit an audio recording of a lecture presentation which will be posted alongside the article, providing readers with an introduction and summary of the research."
All articles published in the first issue are available on Science Direct.
###
For more information about the journal or to submit an article, go to: www.journals.elsevier.com/methods-in-oceanography.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/e-eat022713.php
19 kids and counting danny o brien alicia silverstone park slope food coop anchorman sequel safety not guaranteed lifehouse
Preorders For The Gaming-Focused Razer Edge Tablet Start March 1st, Ships Later In The Month
Surface Pro fanboys? Take notice. Your hot little tablet will soon be the runner-up in the ever-growing category of "incredibly expensive Windows 8 tablets aimed at a tiny, but rabid demographic". Razer just announced that the Edge and Edge Pro gaming tablet will ship in late March, with the startup accepting orders starting on March 1st.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7Ng7NqAVK_s/
project x the lorax lorax fisker karma super tuesday states shepard fairey is snooki pregnant
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Smartphones Growth Reshapes Cellphone Chip Market Order: IHS ...
(By Balaseshan) Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Samsung are capitalizing on the rise of smartphones and 4G due to the changes in the cellphone core integrated circuit (IC) business over the past five years, according to a report from information and analytics provider IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS).
Qualcomm in 2012 reigned supreme with 31% market revenue share in application-specific mobile handset core ICs market like baseband and radio-frequency semiconductors, according to the IHS iSuppli Wireless Competitive Landscape Tool.
The San Diego-based chip maker has held the top position since 2007 and even enlarged its lead by 8 percentage points during the period. South Korea's Samsung Electronics was the No. 2 vendor after Qualcomm, with a 21% share, after not even ranking in in the Top 10 in 2007.
IHS iSuppli said both the companies accounted for more than half of the total market, with the next eight vendors in the Top 10 accounting for another 34 percentage points of share. The Top 10 enjoyed a collective 86% share of the market.
The other vendors among the leaders were, in descending order, MediaTek, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Skyworks (NASDAQ: SWKS), Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN), ST-Ericsson, Renesas, Spreadtrum (NASDAQ: SPRD" title="SPRD : Stock Quote, News and Research" class="showrtquote">SPRD) and Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM).
"The arrival of Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone five years ago changed the game and paved the way for the current market rankings. This change is dramatically illustrated by looking at the major differences in the cellphone core IC rankings from 2007 to 2012," said Brad Shaffer, analyst for consumer & communications at IHS.
While Qualcomm increased its lead at the top from 2007 to 2012, Texas fell from second to sixth place?down from a 20% share to 4%. TI's proprietary OMAP product line of chips for portable and mobile multimedia applications has not taken off as quickly as expected, and the company as a result could not offset its planned exit from baseband products, IHS iSuppli noted.
IHS said the structure of the mobile handset core IC market will continue to shift, particularly as LTE becomes more widespread. Baseband chips, already accounting for more than half the revenue of the total handset core IC space, will maintain their pre-eminence in determining the market-share gains and losses of industry vendors moving forward, IHS believes.
love hewitt new ipad solar flare joseph kony 2012 arian foster dennis kucinich apple ipad
Spanish Test: Mediterranean Diet Shines In Clinical Study
Don't hold back on the olive oil, a Spanish study concludes.
hiphoto40/iStockphoto.comDon't hold back on the olive oil, a Spanish study concludes.
hiphoto40/iStockphoto.comPour on the olive oil in good conscience, and add some nuts while you're at it.
A careful test of the so-called Mediterranean diet involving more than 7,000 people at a high risk of having heart attacks and strokes found the diet reduced them when compared with a low-fat diet. A regular diet of Mediterranean cuisine also reduced the risk of dying.
The findings, published online by The New England Journal of Medicine, come from a study conducted right in the heart of Mediterranean country: Spain.
A group of men and women, ages 55 to 80 at the start of the study, were randomly assigned to a low-fat diet or one of two variations of the Mediterranean diet: one featuring a lot of extra-virgin olive oil (more than a quarter cup a day) and the other including lots of nuts (more than an ounce a day of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts).
The Mediterranean diet is rich in fish, grains, nuts, fruits and vegetables. The diet is low in dairy products, red meat and processed foods.
In this study, funded mainly by the Spanish government, the researchers made sure people got regular training sessions in the particulars of each diet. They also checked people's actual consumption of olive oil and nuts with lab tests.
One thing the researchers didn't do was set any limits on calories or targets for exercise.
While lots of research has found benefits from the Mediterranean diet, many of the studies have observed what people have eaten and looked for associations. One of this study's strengths is that it randomly assigned people at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease to diets that stood to help them.
The study was stopped early (after a median follow-up of 4.8 years) because the benefits from the Mediterranean diet were already becoming apparent. Overall, the people consuming the diets rich in olive oil or nuts had about a 30 percent lower risk of having a heart attack, stroke or dying from a cardiovascular cause.
In absolute terms, there were about 8 of those problems for every 1,000 person-years in the Mediterranean diet groups compared with 11 per 1,000 person-years in the low-fat diet group.
How does the Mediterranean diet work? The prevailing theory is that it lowers bad cholesterol and triglycerides while increasing protective good cholesterol. It may also also help the body's ability to process sugar.
seth macfarlane jennifer lawrence oscar winners mediterranean diet kristen stewart dancing with the stars
Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies
FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2002 file photo, former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop testifies in Concord, N.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2002 file photo, former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop testifies in Concord, N.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
FILE - In this May 12, 1997 file photo, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop discusses the proposed increase of the New Hampshire cigarette tax at the governor's office in the Statehouse in Concord, H.H. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Andrew Sullivan, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 1, 1993 file photo, former Surgeon Genera C. Everett Koop, left, sits with then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during a meeting with more than 100 prominent doctors in the White House in Washington. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 29, 1991 file photo, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop speaks in Washington during a conference for preventing transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Hepatitis B Virus to patients during procedures by medical personal. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 14, 1988 file photo, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop speaks in Philadelphia. Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, died Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, in Hanover, N.H. He was 96. (AP Photo/Robert J. Gurecki, File)
With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era ? and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.
His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.
Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.
Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.
An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.
Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.
"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.
Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."
A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.
Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.
Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.
"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.
In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."
Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.
Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."
But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.
In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.
He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.
Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.
Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.
Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.
Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.
At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.
Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.
Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.
He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.
Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.
In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.
Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.
Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients ? ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.
Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.
He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.
"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."
___
Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.
Associated Presstaylor swift zac efron the scream stephen colbert new madrid fault rihanna and chris brown affirmative action helicon
Monday, 25 February 2013
Microsoft set to launch surface in Japan: report
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) will begin selling its Surface tablet computer in Japan as early as next month, the Nikkei reports in its Sunday morning edition. The company launched the device, its first tablet, in the U.S., China and elsewhere in ?
Read more at MarketWatch.
Source: http://www.twytter.net/blog/microsoft-set-to-launch-surface-in-japan-report/
2012 nfl draft kevin durant jazz fest zurich classic selena lamichael james lamichael james
Sunday, 24 February 2013
The Simplest New Way To Shop For A Wedding Dress
There's a new way to shop for a wedding dress, and it doesn't even require leaving your house.
Bridal designer Kirstie Kelly recently launched a program called "Borrow Me," which allows brides to order gowns from the website, keep them for two days to try on, and either buy them or mail them back. It costs $35 to borrow each dress.
Another bridal company, The Dessy Group, also offers a similar program.
With the harsh lighting and too-small sample sizes that often come with shopping in a bridal boutique, the idea of trying on dresses at home is pretty intriguing. Plus, if you like the dress and you know it fits (or will fit with minor alterations) you can feel confident making the purchase online. So tell us: would you take advantage of this service?
Check out some Kirstie Kelly dresses in the slideshow below.
Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Weddings on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Also on HuffPost:
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
giants super bowl 2012 half time show halftime show 2012 kelly clarkson super bowl 2012 ok go peyton manning super bowl nsx
my theory: Dems + GOP primaries = good news for @IPnyc. MT @RoadToCityHall: @Azi @nahmias @alykatzz & Michael Aronson http://t.co/6bm3b4BpQn
Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/node/7941229
ludwig mies van der rohe jamie lynn sigler mega millions jackpot black panther party frank martin pink slime eagle cam
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Pragmatism in Florida
IN THE hierarchy of Obamacare haters, Rick Scott, the Republican governor of Florida, ranked near the top. In 2009 the former hospital executive bankrolled ads warning of government-run health care, with horror stories from Canada and Britain. In 2010 Mr Scott campaigned with the promise to scuttle the health law. Florida led states? efforts to challenge Obamacare in court. When the Supreme Court upheld the law in June, Mr Scott declared, ?This is just another burden the federal government has put on American families and small businesses.?
Though conservatives despaired over the ruling, some took comfort in the fact that it gave states the option of rejecting a major part of the law: the expansion of Medicaid, which funds health care for the poor. Given the choice, Mr Scott declared that Florida would opt out of the Medicaid expansion. He even wrote a column titled, "More Medicaid? No Thanks."
So Mr Scott's announcement on February 20th that he would, after all, expand Medicaid is, to say the least, a blow to conservatives. ?He has squandered his credibility as an opponent of Obamacare?, wrote Cato?s Michael Cannon, who served on Mr Scott?s gubernatorial transition team. The move is ?a huge threat to Florida's financial future?, declared Americans for Prosperity. "Terribly disappointed" is how Erick Erickson summed up his reaction. Conservatives are displeased, but they should not be surprised.
The maths are too obvious to ignore. Mr Scott will expand Medicaid for only three years (he says), when the federal government will cover the full bill. So in 2016, for example, Washington will pump an extra $6.7 billion into Florida?s Medicaid programme, 49% more than would've been spent had Florida not expanded the programme, while the state's tab will increase by less than 1%.
Florida has 1.3m uninsured adults who will be newly eligible for Medicaid, according to the Urban Institute. Without an expansion, 995,000 would be without insurance, eligible for neither Medicaid nor the subsidies to buy insurance on a federal exchange. (Mr Scott has drawn the line at creating his own health exchange.) ?While the federal government is committed to paying 100% of the cost of new people in Medicaid,? Mr Scott explained, ?I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care.?
The politics are obvious, too. Barack Obama won Florida in November, and Mr Scott is up for re-election next year. His tea-party inspired governing has so far led to dismal approval ratings, so he has begun to reverse course in some areas. In the case of Medicaid expansion, the governor was lobbied hard by the state's hospitals.
During the debate over health reform, hospitals agreed to payment cuts in exchange for the promise of more insured patients. But without a Medicaid expansion, this is a bum deal. Florida?s hospitals, in particular, stand to benefit from a bigger Medicaid programme?Medicaid payments to hospitals would jump by $33.6 billion from 2013 to 2022. This 31% increase is larger than that of any other state.
Though it is unlikely to quiet his conservative critics, Mr Scott can at least claim to have gotten something in return for his reversal?a waiver from the feds allowing him to privatise the management of Medicaid. This may not have been an explicit trade, but the timing of the two announcements certainly makes it seem that way. In a sop to conservatives, Mr Scott also declared that Medicaid expansion would expire after three years. But this seems unlikely to happen. Whoever is governor of Florida in 2017 will not want to yank insurance away from 1m people.
Mr Scott is not the only Republican to support Medicaid?s expansion. The governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio have said they will expand Medicaid, too. As more of them come around, the pressure mounts on hold-outs to get their slice of the pie. When such a sweet deal is on offer, it is tough to resist.
(Photo credit: AFP)
Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/02/medicaid-and-obamacare?fsrc=rss
super bowl halftime show 2012 ahmad bradshaw halftime super bowl 2012 super bowl score madonna super bowl performance madonna half time m.i.a
What does a 'secure' border look like?
Once, the barren mesas and shrub-covered canyons that extend east of the Pacific Ocean held the most popular routes for illegal immigrants heading into the U.S. Dozens at a time sprinted to waiting cars or a trolley stop in San Diego, passing border agents who were too busy herding others to give pause.
Now, 20 years after that onslaught, crossing would mean scaling two fences (one topped with coiled razor wire), passing a phalanx of agents and eluding cameras positioned to capture every incursion.
The difference, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on a recent tour, is like "a rocket ship and a horse and buggy."
In pure numbers it is this: Where border agents made some 530,000 arrests in San Diego in fiscal year 1993, they had fewer than 30,000 in 2012.
There is no simple yardstick to measure border security. And yet, as the debate over immigration reform ramps back up, many will try.
"Secure the border first" has become not just a popular mantra whenever talk turns to reform but a litmus test for many upon which a broader overhaul is contingent.
"We need a responsible, permanent solution" to illegal immigration, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who is working to develop a reform plan, said in his State of the Union response this month. "But first," he added, "we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws."
In fact, the 1,954-mile border with Mexico is more difficult to breach than ever. San Diego is but one example.
Two decades ago, fewer than 4,000 Border Patrol agents manned the entire Southwest border. Today there are 18,500. Some 651 miles of fence have been built, most of that since 2005.
Apprehensions, meantime, have plummeted to levels not seen since the early 1970s ? with 356,873 in FY2012. Compare that to 1.2 million apprehensions in 1993, when new strategies began bringing officers and technology to border communities in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Now sensors have been planted, cameras erected, and drones monitor the borderlands from above.
But for those who live and work in communities along the international boundary, "secure" means different things. In Arizona, ranchers scoff at the idea. In New Mexico, locals worry about what's heading south in addition to flowing north. And in Texas, residents firmly believe that reform itself would finally help steady the flow of people and drugs.
These places have been transformed. Sealed? No. But as one border mayor asked: "How secure is secure?"
___
SAN DIEGO: From "banzai runs" to Brooks Brothers
Don McDermott spent most of his 21 years in the Border Patrol working the San Diego sector. He remembers the "banzai runs," when hordes of immigrants would storm inspection booths at one international crossing, scattering as they ran past startled motorists.
Back then, migrants crossed with audacity ? even played soccer on U.S. soil as vendors hawked tamales and tacos. The "soccer field" was too dangerous to patrol, so agents positioned themselves a half-mile out, waiting for nightfall when groups would make a run for freedom.
"Hopefully you would catch more people that you saw going past you," said McDermott, who retired in 2008. "You caught who you could and knew they would be back before the night was over."
The tide turned when the U.S. government launched "Operation Gatekeeper" in 1994, modeled on a crackdown the previous year in El Paso, Texas. The effort brought 1,000 additional agents to San Diego. They parked their trucks against a rusting 8-foot-high fence made of Army surplus landing mats, and refused to yield an inch. They called it "marking the X."
As apprehension numbers fell, home values skyrocketed. In 2001, an outlet mall opened right along the border. It now counts Brooks Brothers, Polo Ralph Lauren and Coach as tenants.
More than manpower helped to shut down the path into San Diego. An 18-foot-high steel mesh fence extending roughly 14 miles from the Pacific Ocean was completed in 2009, with razor wire topping about half of it. A dirt road traversing an area known as "Smugglers Gulch," which border agents had to navigate slowly, was transformed into a flatter, all-weather artery at a cost of $57 million.
This past year the Border Patrol's San Diego sector, which covers 60 miles of land border, made fewer arrests than in any year since 1968. Agents averaged 11 arrests each, a change that marvels veterans. Agents today may even pursue just one crosser over several shifts.
"I'm not going to say it's impossible, but it's a lot more difficult to cross the border here," said agency spokesman Steven Pitts.
After Gatekeeper, smugglers tried new tactics. They pelted agents with rocks, hoping to create an opening for a mad dash when other agents rushed to help. Or one group would jump the fence to draw agents' attention long enough for another to try its luck.
Now, other threats have emerged. U.S. authorities identified 210 human and drug smuggling attempts at sea during FY2012, up from 45 four years earlier. A Coast Guardsman died in December when a suspected smuggling vessel struck him.
And nearly all of more than 70 drug smuggling tunnels found along the border since October 2008 have been discovered in the clay-like soil of San Diego and Tijuana, some complete with hydraulic lifts and rail cars. They've produced some of the largest marijuana seizures in U.S. history.
Still, few attempt to cross what was once the nation's busiest corridor for illegal immigration. As he waited for breakfast at a Tijuana migrant shelter, Jose de Jesus Scott nodded toward a roommate who did. He was caught within seconds and badly injured his legs jumping the fence.
Scott, who crossed the border with relative ease until 2006, said he and a cousin tried a three-day mountain trek to San Diego in January and were caught twice. Scott, 31, was tempted to return to his wife and two young daughters near Guadalajara. But, with deep roots in suburban Los Angeles and cooking jobs that pay up to $1,200 a week, he will likely try the same route a third time.
"You need a lot of smarts and a lot of luck," he said. "Mostly luck.
"It's a new world."
___
EL PASO, Texas: Steel bars still up; crossings and crime down
Burglar bars still protect many a home in the Chihuahuita neighborhood near downtown El Paso, a reminder of a time when immigrant crossers would break in looking for food or trying to duck the Border Patrol. Carmen Silva recalls those days. At 90, she tells of migrants hiding under cars and in backyards. Now, she says: "Nobody comes through anymore."
Patricia Rayjosa has lived in the same neighborhood as Silva for the past 18 years. Once, she said, migrants crossed 30, 40, 50 at a time to overwhelm agents standing watch. Others swam across the Rio Grande or waded north on tire tubes.
"One morning, as I went out to feed my dogs, I found ... wire cutters. I didn't see them but I could tell they went across my backyard," said Rayjosa, 53. But she agrees with Silva's assessment. Now, "It's not easy to cross."
In the early 1990s, El Paso ran second to San Diego in the number of illegal immigrants coming north. Then, in 1993, the Border Patrol launched "Operation Hold the Line," the first of a series of enforcement actions intended to gain "operational control" of the Southwest border.
It was a shift in strategy from apprehending migrants already in the U.S. to preventing entry in the first place, and the effect was almost immediate: Within months, illegal crossings in El Paso went from up to 10,000 a day to 500, according to a Government Accountability Office report in 1994 called "BORDER CONTROL: Revised Strategy Is Showing Some Positive Results."
Burglaries in neighborhoods like Chihuahuita decreased. Car thefts went down. And, as happened later in San Diego, apprehensions plunged: from nearly 286,000 in 1993 to about 9,700 last fiscal year in the El Paso Border Patrol sector, which encompasses 268 miles from West Texas across New Mexico. (Border Patrol staffing in the sector went from 608 agents in 1993 to more than 2,700 today.)
To El Paso Mayor John Cook, hinging reform to continued calls for a "secure border" seems absurd given the changes in his city.
"It is as secure as it has ever been. How secure is secure?" he said. "Some people who come with these ideas have no idea.
"I wish they would come down here and see."
But you don't have to drive too far into the New Mexico desert to see problems.
Marcus Martinez, the police chief in Lordsburg, N.M., recalled an incident in January where a local hotel manager stepped out to have a cigarette and saw a convoy of vehicles speeding through town. Four cars were eventually stopped ? 80 miles north of the border ? and 6 tons of marijuana were seized.
Patrick Green of the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office in Lordsburg, said northbound traffic is only part of the problem. Even as people and drugs are smuggled north, guns and money are flowing back south. He deals with constant reports by homeowners and ranchers about break-ins.
The area has seen a huge influx of Border Patrol agents, but officers like Green fear the government will always be behind the curve in dealing with sophisticated smuggling operations.
"If the Border Patrol puts more people in the ground, they will take to the mountains," Green said. "We are always playing catch up."
___
MCALLEN, Texas: In bicultural region, residents root for reform as the path to "secure"
Some 800 miles southeast of El Paso is the Rio Grande Valley, where rapid growth has overtaken sugar cane and cotton fields and sleepy hamlets are now thriving cities. More than 1.2 million people live in the two border counties on the U.S. side of this southernmost tip of Texas, and a similar number are directly across the border anchored by the sprawling cities of Matamoros and Reynosa.
Here, illegal crossers can quickly slip into communities without being forced to trek for days through wide-open spaces.
Part of the solution was the border fence, and 400 landowners ? most of them in this part of Texas ? had property seized to build it. The fence divided people from swaths of their own land, but also struck many as an offensive gesture in this bicultural, bilingual region that views itself as one community with its Mexican sister cities.
More effective, locals said, has been the influx of Border Patrol agents ? 2,546 in the Rio Grande Valley today, almost seven times more than 20 years ago.
And while some agents still patrol on horseback, others are aided now by night-vision goggles and unmanned Predator drones watching from 19,000 feet overhead with high-powered infrared cameras.
Definitions of a secure border vary here, but there's agreement that the premise should not stand in the way of immigration reform.
Tony Garza remembers watching the flow of pedestrian traffic between Brownsville and Matamoros from his father's filling station just steps from the international bridge. He recalls migrant workers crossing the fairway on the 11th hole of a golf course ? northbound in the morning, southbound in the afternoon. And during an annual celebration between the sister cities, no one was asked for their papers at the bridge. People were just expected to go home.
Garza, a Republican who served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2002 to 2009, said it's easy to become nostalgic for those times, but he reminds himself that he grew up in a border town of fewer than 50,000 people that has grown into a city of more than 200,000.
The border here is more secure for the massive investment in recent years but feels less safe because the crime has changed, he said. Some of that has to do with transnational criminal organizations in Mexico and some of it is just the crime of a larger city.
Reform, he said, "would allow you to focus your resources on those activities that truly make the border less safe today."
Monica Weisberg-Stewart was born and raised an hour upriver in McAllen. Her father ran a store downtown that she runs today, filled with socks, underwear and jewelry. She echoes Garza's assessment that things feel less safe now but says that has more to do with the area's growth than with what's happening in Mexico.
"I thought that this was definitely the best place to raise my family," she said, "and I still believe that to be true today."
Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino points out that drug, gun and human smuggling is nothing new to the border. The difference is the attention that the drug-related violence in Mexico has drawn to the region in recent years.
He insists his county, which includes McAllen, is safe. The crime rate is falling, and illegal immigrants account for small numbers in his jail. But asked if the border is "secure," Trevino doesn't hesitate. "Absolutely not."
"When you're busting human trafficking stash houses with 60 to 100 people that are stashed in a two, three-bedroom home for weeks at a time, how can you say you've secured the border?" he said.
Trevino's view, however, is that those people might not be there if they had a legal path to work in the U.S.
"Immigration reform is the first thing we have to accomplish before we can say that we have secured the border," he said.
____
NOGALES, Ariz.: In nation's busiest illegal corridor, ranchers scoff at "secure"
Everywhere he goes on his cattle ranch, Jim Chilton has a gun at the ready. He has guns at his front door, guns in his pickup truck, guns on his horse's saddle. His fear? Coming across a bandit or a smuggler on his land northwest of Nogales, Ariz.
Cattleman Gary Thrasher frequently encounters immigrants and smugglers running through his property. Some have showered in his barn. He and his family live in constant dread.
"They really have secured the towns right along the border, but what that does is it drives all the traffic out into the rural areas around here," said Thrasher, a rancher and veterinarian for more than 40 years on the border east of Douglas, Ariz. "It sends the traffic right into our backyards."
The question of border security hits close to home to those who work the land in southern Arizona. It was here, in 2010, that cattle rancher Robert Krentz was gunned down while checking water lines on his property near Douglas. Local authorities have said they believe the killer was involved in smuggling either humans or drugs.
That same year, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout near Nogales with Mexican gunmen that brought attention to the federal government's botched weapons-trafficking probe called "Fast and Furious."
"The border is not secure," said Chilton. "Period. Exclamation mark."
Defining "secure border" in Arizona is never easy. Just last week, U.S. Sen. John McCain hosted two town hall meetings on immigration reform in his home state, and was left defending a plan he's been developing.
During a heated gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, one man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.
McCain urged compassion. "We are a Judeo-Christian nation," he said.
The crackdowns in Texas and California in the 1990s turned Arizona's border into the busiest for human smuggling for 15 years running now.
In 2000, agents in the Tucson sector made more than 616,000 apprehensions ? a near all-time high for any Border Patrol sector. The number eventually began dipping as the agency hired more than 1,000 new agents and the economy collapsed. State crackdowns such as the "show me your papers" law ? requiring police enforcing other laws to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally ? are also thought to have driven migrants away.
The result: the sector had 120,000 apprehensions in fiscal 2012.
But the amount of drugs seized in Arizona has soared at the same time. Agents confiscated more than 1 million pounds of marijuana in the Tucson sector last year, more than double the amount seized in 2005.
In Nogales, Sheriff Tony Estrada has a unique perspective on both border security and more comprehensive immigration reform. Born in Nogales, Mexico, Estrada grew up in Nogales, Ariz., after migrating to the U.S. with his parents. He has served as a lawman in the community since 1966.
He blames border security issues not only on the cartels but on the American demand for drugs. Until that wanes, he said, nothing will change. And securing the border, he added, must be a constant, ever-changing effort that blends security and political support ? because the effort will never end.
"The drugs are going to keep coming. The people are going to keep coming. The only thing you can do is contain it as much as possible.
"I say the border is as safe and secure as it can be, but I think people are asking for us to seal the border, and that's unrealistic," he said.
Asked why, he said simply: "That's the nature of the border."
___
Spagat reported from San Diego, Llorca from El Paso, Sherman from McAllen and Skoloff from Phoenix. Also contributing to this report was AP writer Cristina Silva in Phoenix.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/does-secure-border-look-152824265.html
girl scout cookies screen actors guild royal rumble results sag awards 2012 kyra sedgwick honor killings mary tyler moore
Friday, 22 February 2013
Jesse Jackson Jr. pleads guilty in campaign case
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., holding back tears, entered a guilty plea Wednesday in federal court to criminal charges that he engaged in a scheme to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items. He faces 46 to 57 months in prison, and a fine of $10,000 to $100,000, under a plea deal with prosecutors.
A few hours later, his wife, Sandra Jackson, pleaded guilty to filing false joint federal income tax returns that knowingly understated the income the couple received. She faces one to two years in prison and a fine of $3,000 to $40,000.
In a 17-page prosecution document, Jackson's wife admitted that from mid-2006 through mid-October of last year, she failed to report $600,000 in income that she and her husband earned from 2005 to 2011.
Before entering the plea to a conspiracy charge, Jesse Jackson told U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins, "I've never been more clear in my life" in his decision to plead guilty.
Later, when Wilkins asked if Jackson committed the acts outlined in court papers, the former congressman replied, "I did these things." He added later, "Sir, for years I lived in my campaign," and used money from the campaign for personal use.
Jackson dabbed his face with tissues, and at point a court employee brought some tissues to Jackson's lawyer, who gave them to the ex-congressman. Jackson told the judge he was waiving his right to trial.
"In perfect candor, your honor, I have no interest in wasting the taxpayers' time or money," he said.
U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen called the guilty plea "so tragic because it represents such wasted potential" and that Jackson used his campaign as "his own personal piggybank." He said that Jackson could have been the voice of a new generation.
Machen credited Jackson for coming in early and telling the truth. "But today is his day of reckoning," the prosecutor said.
The fraud, perpetuated over seven years, was "not a momentary lapse of judgment," Machen said.He called Jackson's victims the American people and said that Jackson betrayed the trust of contributors who "donated their hard-earned money."
Machen declined to say what launched the investigation, but he said it did not stem from the House Ethics Committee investigation into Jackson's dealings with Rod Blagojevich when he was governor. Blagojevich is serving a prison sentence for trying to sell President Barack Obama's former Senate seat.
Jackson had been a Democratic congressman from Illinois from 1995 until he resigned last November. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 28, and his wife on July 1. Wilkins, who presided over both guilty pleas, is not bound by the terms of the plea agreements. Both Jacksons are free until sentencing.
Since last June, Jesse Jackson has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, and he stayed out of the public eye for months, even during the November elections. His attorney said after the court appearance that Jackson's health is "not an excuse" for his actions, "just a fact."
Jackson entered the courtroom holding hands with his wife and looking a bit dazzled as he surveyed the packed room. He kissed his wife and headed to the defense table.
Jackson's father, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, sat in the front row. Before the hearing started, he wrote notes on a small piece of paper. When the proceedings started, he sat expressionless and virtually motionless, hands folded. As he made his way back to the courtroom for Sandra Jackson's hearing, he took in a deep breath and let out a sigh. Several other family members also attended.
Jesse Jackson Jr., wearing a blue shirt and blue-patterned tie and dark suit, answered a series of questions from the judge, mostly in a muffled tone. When the judge asked if he had consumed any drugs or alcohol in the previous 24 hours, Jackson said he had a beer Tuesday night.
As the proceedings wound up, Jackson sat at the defense table, furrowed his brow and shook his head, in what looked like an expression of disbelief. After the hearing was adjourned, he walked over to his wife, grabbed her hand, and then was greeted by his father. Jackson Jr. patted his father on the back a few times.
"Tell everybody back home I'm sorry I let them down, OK?" Jackson told Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet, according to her Tweet from the scene.
Sandra Jackson, 49, wearing a black pantsuit, sobbed visibly during her court hearing, as her husband watched from the row behind the defense table. Sandi, as she's known, was a Chicago alderman before she resigned last month during the federal investigation.
Jesse Jackson Jr., 47, used campaign money to buy items including a $43,350 gold-plated men's Rolex watch and $9,587.64 worth of children's furniture, according to court papers filed in the case. His wife spent $5,150 on fur capes and parkas, the court documents said. Under the plea deal, Jackson must forfeit $750,000, plus tens of thousands of dollars' worth of memorabilia items and furs. Sandi Jackson must also pay $168,000 in restitution.
More details emerged in a 22-page statement compiled by prosecutors, filed Wednesday, in which Jackson admitted that he and his wife used campaign credit cards to buy 3,100 personal items worth $582,772.58 from 2005 through April of last year. Personal expenditures at restaurants, nightclubs and lounges cost $60,857.04. Personal expenditures at sports clubs and lounges cost $16,058.91, including maintaining a family membership at a gym. Personal spending for alcohol cost $5,814.43. Personal spending for dry cleaning cost $14,513.42.
Among the individual purchases made with campaign credit cards:
?A $466 dinner for two of "a personal nature" at Mandarin Oriental's CityZen restaurant.
?A washer, a dryer, a range and a refrigerator for the Jacksons' Chicago home.
?Multiple flat-screen televisions, multiple Blu-Ray DVD players and numerous DVDs for their Washington, D.C., home.
?A five-day health retreat for one of Mrs. Jackson's relatives.
?Stuffed animals and accessories for them.
?Goods at Costco, from video games to toilet paper.
According to the prosecution's court papers, Jackson even arranged for the use of campaign money to buy two mounted elk heads for his congressional office. Last summer, as the FBI closed in, a Jackson staffer identified only as "Person A" tried to arrange for the sale of the elk heads, but the FBI was one step ahead. The bureau had an undercover FBI employee contact the staffer, claiming to be an interior designer who had received the person's name from a taxidermist and inquiring whether there were elk heads for sale. They agreed on a price of $5,300.
Jackson's wife, knowing that the elk heads had been purchased with campaign funds, directed the staffer to move the elk heads from Washington to Chicago and to instruct the sale contact to wire the proceeds to her husband's personal account.
Over the years, the unidentified "Person A" provided significant help to the Jacksons in carrying out the scheme. Jackson used the aide for many different bill-paying activities, including paying construction contractors for work on Jackson's Washington home.
From 2008 through last March, Jackson's re-election campaign issued $76,150.39 in checks to the staff member, who was entitled to only $11,400 for work done for the campaign. The aide spent the remainder of the funds from the campaign for the Jacksons.
Machen, the U.S. attorney, said that prosecutors could have come up with more severe charges against Sandi Jackson.
"They do have children. We're sensitive to that," he said. "We utilized our discretion."
One of Jesse Jackson Jr.'s lawyers, Reid H. Weingarten, told reporters after the hearing that there's reason for optimism.
"A man that talented, a man that devoted to public service, a man who's done so much for so many, has another day. There will be another chapter in Jesse Jackson's life," he said.
Weingarten said that his client has "serious health issues. And those health issues are directly related to his present predicament. That's not an excuse, that's just a fact. And Jesse's turned the corner there as well. There's reason for optimism here too. Jesse's gotten great treatment, he's has great doctors, and I think he's gotten his arms around his problem."
As the hearing for Jackson got under way Wednesday, newly filed court papers disclosed that the judge had offered to disqualify himself from handling the cases against Jackson and his wife.
As a Harvard Law School student, Wilkins said he had supported the presidential campaign of Jackson's father and that as an attorney in 1999, Wilkins had been a guest on a show hosted by Jackson's father.
Prosecutors and lawyers for the couple said they were willing to proceed with the cases with Wilkins presiding. Judicial ethics require that a judge disqualify himself if his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
___
Follow Fred Frommer on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ffrommer
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jesse-jackson-jr-pleads-guilty-campaign-case-171348098--politics.html
act of valor woody guthrie benson henderson 2012 dunk contest edgar vs henderson berkshire hathaway ufc 144
Medicaid expansion would bring jobs and money, advocates say
Supporters pushing Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature to approve?Medicaid expansion?under the federal health care overhaul said the move would provide a needed jolt to?Florida?s still-fragile economy.
Families USA released a report that said making more lower-income Floridians eligible for health coverage under Medicaid will yield 71,300 new jobs and pump $8.9 billion more in economic activity into the state.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said given the broad social and economic reach of a Medicaid expansion, ?A refusal would be an act of fiscal malpractice.?
House and Senate committtees examining the Affordable Care Act and its effect on Florida are looking likely to recommend a direction on Medicaid expansion by early March.? Among the considerations, is whether the federal government will approve the state?s 2011 request?to move?most of the state?s current 3.2 million Medicaid enrollees into?managed care.
Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, chairman of the Senate panel reviewing the law, told the Palm Beach Post there is ?clearly a nexus between the two.?
?Without the waiver, we are not likely to move ahead with expansion,? Negron said.
Federal officials?have been negotiating with the state for two years on the managed care?shift, but?the two sides are expected to be close to reaching agreement.
Families USA, a health care advocacy organization, said?that many of the new jobs?it forecasts will be created in the health care industry, already a huge employer in Florida. But the amount?of revenue pumped into the state with the expansion ? which could amount?to $26 billion over the next decade ? will also course through many areas of the workforce, the report concludes.
Tags: Affordable Care Act, bnblogs, Sen. Joe Negron
Source: http://www.postonpolitics.com/2013/02/medicaid-expansion-would-bring-jobs-and-money-advocates-say/
Devon Walker Tom Cruise ryan reynolds Star Trek: The Original Series Carlton Morgan Freeman Dead Stand Up to Cancer
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Syracuse Crunch coach Jon Cooper could be in the mix for Buffalo Sabres job
Update: The Buffalo News is reporting that Ron Rolston has been named interim coach of the Sabres for the rest of the season.
Could Syracuse Crunch Jon Cooper be the next coach of the Buffalo Sabres?
It's likely he's certainly in the mix of candidates to replace the fired Lindy Ruff.
Sabres beat writer John Vogl of the Buffalo News speculated that Cooper could be on the short list of possibilities.
Cooper, no doubt, will be somewhere in the NHL very soon. He was the AHL coach of the year last season for taking Norfolk to the Calder Cup and has the Crunch in first place this year.
He was also a candidate for the Washington Capitals position last summer, perhaps among opportunities as well.
Source: http://blog.syracuse.com/crunch/2013/02/syracuse_crunch_coach_jon_coop_2.html
emmys torrey smith torrey smith oakland raiders Jessica Lange NFL scores week 3 kat dennings
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
NASA Unveils 1st Radar Video of Asteroid Flyby
NASA has revealed the first radar video of an asteroid flyby that sent a space rock half the size of a football field buzzing by Earth last week.
The new?asteroid flyby video, released today (Feb. 19), shows the asteroid 2012 DA14 as it headed away from Earth over the weekend. The asteroid zipped close by Earth on Friday (Feb. 15), when it approached closer to the planet than many communications satellites.
Before Friday's flyby, astronomers suspected asteroid 2012 DA14 was about 150 feet (45 meters) across. At its closest point, the asteroid came within 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) of Earth, but never posed a threat of impacting the planet.
Based on the new radar observations, scientists now think asteroid 2012 DA14 is about 130 feet (40 m) wide at its largest point, NASA officials said in a statement.
The new video of the asteroid was made by combining radar observations of 2012 DA14 by NASA's Deep Space Network radio antenna in Goldstone, Calif. The 230-foot (70 meters) antenna captured 72 images of asteroid 2012 DA14, which was about 74,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) from Earth at the time, during observing windows on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 15 and 16). The images have a resolution of about 13 feet (4 m) per pixel. [See more photos of asteroid 2012 DA14]
"The images span close to eight hours and clearly show an elongated object undergoing roughly one full rotation," NASA officials explained. During that eight hours, asteroid 2012 DA14 moved even farther from Earth to a point about 195,000 miles (314,000 km) away.
Astronomers Lance Benner and Marina Brozovic at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., led the radar observing campaign for the asteroid flyby. They planned to conduct a series of follow-up observations on Feb. 18, 19 and 20.
Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered in February 2012 by amateur astronomers at the La Sagra Observatory in Spain. Its close flyby was determined soon afterward, and astronomers ultimately found that it posed no chance of hitting the Earth.
NASA scientists and astronomers around the world tracked asteroid 2012 DA14 as it approached Earth over the last week, with the space agency and several groups holding public webcasts to chronicle the space rock's close shave. It was the closest flyby of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 that astronomers have known about in advance.
Asteroid 2012 DA14 came about 5,000 miles (8,046 km) closer to Earth than the fleet of communications satellites that fly in geosynchronous orbits about 22,400 miles (36,000 km) above the planet. NASA provided satellite operators with regular updates on the asteroid's position and path in case the satellites would have to be moved clear of the space rock.
NASA and a network of scientists around the world regularly monitor the night sky for signs of asteroids that could pose an impact threat to the Earth.
By coincidence, a 55-foot (17 m) meteor exploded over Russia just hours before asteroid 2012 DA14's flyby. The meteor explosion injured nearly 1,200 people in Russia's Chelyabinsk region, shattered windows and damaged thousands of buildings in the area.
NASA scientists have said the trajectory of the meteor was different than that of asteroid 2012 DA14, and that the two events were unrelated. Subsequent fireball sightings over the San Francisco Bay Area and Miami, Fla., were also unrelated.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter?@tariqjmalik.?Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?&?Google+.?
Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-unveils-1st-radar-video-asteroid-flyby-224148318.html
David Boudia David Rakoff Bourne Legacy Chad Johnson London 2012 Soccer dwight howard Olympics closing ceremony
Rec sports: Deadlines loom for Little League sign-ups
Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.
Source: http://www.rgj.com/article/20130219/NEIGHBORHOODS/302190003/1459
the heart attack grill joe kennedy iii joseph kennedy iii ghost hunters lightsquared david lee honduras prison fire
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
NBA ALL STAR GAME: Paul leads West to wild victory
Kevin Durant, shown here in a past game, scored 30 points in the All Star Game.
slideshow HOUSTON ? Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Kobe Bryant turned this West victory into an L.A. story.Paul had 20 points, 15 assists and won MVP honors, Bryant blocked LeBron James? comeback attempt, and the Western Conference beat the East 143-138 on Sunday night.
Kevin Durant scored 30 points and Griffin finished with 19, joining his Clippers teammate, Paul, in creating Lob City deep in the heart of Texas.
James scored 19 points but shot only 7 of 18 after having no shooting troubles during the latter part of the season?s first half. Carmelo Anthony led the East with 26 points and 12 rebounds.
The first dunk of the game came 16 seconds in, Paul throwing a pass to Griffin as part of the West?s 7-0 start.
The West led after each of the first three quarters, though was never ahead by more than eight points through three periods.
They finally pushed it into double figures early in the fourth fueled by former Oklahoma City teammates Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
But they couldn?t put it away until a late run behind the guys from the city of Los Angeles ? who along with Lakers center Dwight Howard gave Los Angeles all but one of the West?s starting spots.
Paul hit two 3-pointers, Bryant made a layup, and his block of James led to Durant?s dunk that made it 136-126.
Griffin had one last forceful dunk to help close it out, throwing a pass to himself off the backboard.
and climbing high in his neon green sneakers to slam it home and make it 142-134.
Harden had 15 points in his home arena, where the sights of the game were on the floor and the sounds were at the rim ? which shook repeatedly after thunderous dunks for most of the game before, as usual, players tried to make some stops down the stretch.
Players? sneakers were a variety of pastels and fluorescent colors that looked like they came right from Easter Sunday church, many clashing so badly with their multi-colored socks that they may as well have been created by spilling out random paint buckets.
James and Dwyane Wade wore purple, and Griffin?s neon look was also sported by the usually-not-so-loud Tim Duncan and Brook Lopez.
But the?NBA?s?high-flyers sure could leap in them.
Durant slammed one down so hard at one point that he stumbled backward after landing, appearing woozy. He came in as the career leader in points per game with 28.3 and may have won a second straight MVP award if not for Paul?s big finish.
Source: http://rn-t.com/bookmark/21743365
amber rose drew peterson Art Modell Frank Ocean Gay bill clinton andy roddick Costa Rica Earthquake
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)