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Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
How To Celebrate A Birthday With A Tailgate Party In Seattle ? CBS ...
Combine your birthday with a Seahawks game (Credit, Omane Agyekum)
Birthday celebrations are always highly anticipated events among family and friends, and what better way to celebrate than with an NFL-themed tailgate party? Whether the Seattle Seahawks are playing at home or away, use this guide to plan an awesome get together that combines the best aspects of both tailgating and a traditional birthday party.
1. Choose your venue. If you have the time and space to plan for a party at home, utilize your den, family room or basement area as your party space. Set up extra seating for guests and tables for food, and make sure you have your home entertainment center equipped so everyone can see and hear the Seahawks game. Another option would be to reserve space at one of your favorite sports bars, restaurants or another venue where you know the Seahawks game will be televised.
2. Food and beverages. You can opt to make your own party foods and drinks or get takeout that everyone will like. If you have space reserved at a local venue, make arrangements with the staff to either bring in your own food and cake, or to have them cater your birthday and tailgating event. If the bar or restaurant offers happy hour specials, don?t forget to make use of those to save on beverage costs.
3. Buy Seahawks-themed decorations, party favors and other supplies. No birthday party is complete without balloons, banners, streamers and other supplies. You can either use the colors of the Seahawks, Pacific blue, neon green and white, or purchase official decorations with the Seahawks logo from locations such as Party City or other online stores. Examples of party favors with the Seahawks logo include mini footballs, ping pong balls, bead necklaces, confetti wands and ?can kaddy?s.? Party supplies available with the Seahawks logo range from plastic utensils and plates, to cups and mugs, to tin foil and table covers.
4. Order a Seahawks-themed birthday cake or cupcakes. Many local bakeries have the ability to create cakes or cupcakes that display the official Seahawks logo. Larger grocery chains such as Albertson?s and Safeway have a few cake theme options to choose from and whole sheet cakes or sets of cupcakes are reasonably priced.
5. Pre-game, post-game and halftime fun. Make a list of tailgating party games you and your guests can play before and after the game, and during halftime. Or maybe you would rather just toss the football around and use this time for singing happy birthday to the special guest, as well as open birthday presents.
Additional Tips To Remember:
- Honor the commandments of tailgating and make sure to come dressed in your favorite tailgating attire.
- Be respectful of fellow team fans, both Seahawks and the opposing team, at all times. You should always follow this rule whether you?re a guest in someone?s home or out at a public venue.
- Come prepared to party! This is no ordinary party as you?re combining a birthday and tailgating into one. So be sure to celebrate and make the most of it.
- As with any party, ask if there is anything you can contribute. You may be told not to bother, but it is still always a great gesture to offer your host a helping hand.
Check out Tailgate Fan to keep the party going at tailgatefan.cbslocal.com.
Sue Gabel has been writing in the greater Puget Sound/Seattle area since 1999. She writes about music, the Seattle scene and more. Her work can be found on Examiner.com.
Source: http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/12/09/how-to-celebrate-a-birthday-with-a-tailgate-party-in-seattle/
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NBC Sports partners with Yahoo! for content deal
NEW YORK (AP) ? NBC Sports and Yahoo are taking on the crowded sports media landscape with a partnership that fills in gaps for both companies.
NBC brings video and big-name broadcasters and Yahoo adds college coverage and fantasy games in the agreement announced Sunday. They hope their strengths will complement each other and attract more eyes to both as they vie with ESPN and other outlets for multimedia sports supremacy.
"It's just a natural fit," said Rick Cordella, senior vice president and general manager for digital media with NBC Sports Group.
Yahoo Sports and the NBC Sports Group will maintain separate websites and newsrooms, but will work together on news and events coverage online and on the air.
Yahoo has looked to expand its reach in the last couple of years with partnerships with TV networks. The company had done smaller deals with NBC Sports in the past, and in June it combined with another NBCUniversal property ? CNBC ? for financial news. Yahoo also has an agreement with ABC News, but Cordella didn't expect any significant conflicts when the worlds of news and sports collide as they frequently do.
For Yahoo, the deal gives the website a major boost in its ability to offer video, especially live sports. It will link to the NBC Sports Live Extra video player, where fans can watch live streams of the network's NFL game on Sunday night and the NHL game of the week, when the league resolves its labor dispute. Yahoo and NBC also will develop online video programs that will appear on both websites and include notable names from NBC's lineup such as announcer Bob Costas and former NFL coach Tony Dungy.
"There's a lot of yin and yang to it," Cordella said of how the two companies' fortes will mesh together.
For NBC, the agreement greatly expands its college and recruiting coverage for NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports Regional Networks through Yahoo's Rivals.com. Yahoo Sports also has drawn attention for its coverage of a handful of recent college sports scandals.
"We had a hole there," Cordella said. "We didn't necessarily cover colleges as well as Yahoo and some of our other peers."
And the deal can help drive Yahoo Sports' massive audience to NBCSports.com, a relative newcomer to the online sports arena.
The agreement also combines the fantasy news of NBC Sports' Rotoworld with Yahoo's extensive offerings of fantasy sports games.
"We think our users will love the result," said Ken Fuchs, vice president of Yahoo Global Media and head of Yahoo Sports and Games.
The deal for now does not include the Olympics, for which the two websites had competed for eyeballs in the past. Cordella said that as the two sides evaluate the success of this initial agreement, they might later add a partnership for other areas such as the Olympics and radio.
Yahoo stock has been languishing for years, but lately has been rising. Investors are betting its new CEO, Marissa Mayer, can engineer a turnaround. Mayer, a former Google executive hired in July, has vowed to fix up the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company by improving online services and rolling out more products tailored for smartphones and tablet computers. Mayer is the fifth CEO of Yahoo in five years.
The company is one of the Internet's top destinations but it's been losing out to rivals like search leader Google and the social network Facebook Inc. in the competition for advertisers.
The company has made a handful of small deals under Mayer's leadership, mainly to acquire personnel from small tech companies. Yahoo has also been buying back more of its own stock since she took the helm.
NBC is owned by Comcast Corp., the nation's largest provider of cable TV and Internet services.
___
Jay Cohen reported on this story from Chicago.
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nbc-sports-partners-yahoo-content-deal-010239604--finance.html
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Egypt president scraps decree that sparked protests
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has cancelled a decree that gave him sweeping powers and sparked violent unrest but did not delay this month's referendum on a new constitution that was a major demand of his opponents.
Islamist supporters of Mursi have insisted the referendum should go ahead on time on December 15, saying it is needed to complete a democratic transition still incomplete after autocrat Hosni Mubarak's overthrow 22 months ago.
Ahmed Said, a leading member of the main opposition National Salvation Front said the decision to press ahead with the referendum was "shocking" and would deepen a political crisis.
"It is making things a lot worse," Said, head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters. "I cannot imagine that after all this they want to pass a constitution that does not represent all Egyptians." He said the Front would meet later on Sunday to give a formal response.
The announcement that Mursi had scrapped his November 22 decree followed talks on Saturday that ran into the night at his presidential palace. Billed as a "national dialogue", the meeting was boycotted by his main rivals and had little credibility among protesters in the most populous Arab nation.
The April 6 movement, which helped galvanise street protests against Mubarak, said in a statement about the outcome of Saturday's talks: "What happened is manipulation and a continuation of deception in the name of law and legitimacy."
The constitution was fast-tracked through an assembly led by Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Liberals and others walked out, saying their voices were not being heard.
"A constitution without consensus cannot go to a referendum," said Hermes Fawzi, 28, a protester camped with dozens of others outside the presidential palace. "It's not logical that just one part of society makes the constitution."
Nearby were tanks and military vehicles of the Republican Guards positioned there to protect the palace after clashes in the past week between Islamists and their rivals killed seven people and injured about 350.
The military, which led Egypt through a turbulent interim period after Mubarak fell, stepped into the crisis on Saturday to tell feuding factions that dialogue was essential to avoid "catastrophe." But a military source said this was not a prelude to the army retaking control of Egypt or the streets.
DEEP RIFTS
After Saturday's talks, Mursi issued a new decree in which the first article "cancels the constitutional declaration" announced on November 22, the spokesman for the dialogue, Mohamed Selim al-Awa, told a news conference held around midnight.
But he said the constitutional referendum would go ahead anyway next Saturday, adding that although those at the meeting discussed a postponement, there were legal obstacles to a delay.
The political turmoil has exposed deep rifts in the nation of 83 million between Islamists, who were suppressed for decades, and their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms. Many Egyptian just crave stability and economic recovery.
Islamists and more liberal-minded opponents have each drawn tens of thousands of supporters to the streets in rival rallies since the November 22 decree. Mursi's opponents have chanted for his downfall while Islamists have said there is a conspiracy to bring down the nation's first freely elected president.
The National Salvation Front, whose members include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and former foreign minister Amr Moussa, stayed away from Saturday's talks.
Ahead of stating its formal position, Front spokesman Hussein Abdel Ghani said: "My first personal impression is that it is a limited and insufficient step. We repeatedly said that among our top demands is for the referendum to be delayed."
Despite such opposition, Mursi is gambling he can push through the constitution via referendum with the backing of loyal Islamists and many Egyptians who are desperate to move on. Only after a constitution is in place can an election be held for a new parliament, expected about two months later.
The Islamist-led lower house of parliament elected this year was dissolved after a few months by a court order.
DISTRUST
The new decree removed some parts of the old decree that angered the opposition, including an article that had given Mursi broad powers to confront threats to the revolution or the nation, wording opponents said gave him arbitrary authority.
Another article in the old decree had put beyond legal challenge any decision taken by the president until a new parliament was elected, reflecting Mursi's distrust of a judiciary largely unreformed from Mubarak's era.
That article was not repeated, but the new decree said "constitutional declarations including this declaration" were beyond judicial review.
The new decree outlined steps for setting up an assembly to draft a new constitution should the current draft be rejected.
Further, the opposition was invited to offer suggested changes to the new constitution, echoing an earlier initiative by Mursi's team for amendments to be discussed and agreed on by political factions and put to the new parliament to approve.
Amid the violence and political bickering, the army has cast itself primarily as the neutral guarantor of the nation.
"The armed forces affirm that dialogue is the best and only way to reach consensus," the military statement said. "The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe and that is something we will not allow."
The army might be pushing the opposition to join dialogue and for Mursi to do more to draw them in, said Hassan Abu Taleb of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
He discounted the chance of direct military intervention. "They realise that interfering again in a situation of civil combat will squeeze them between two rocks," he added.
But the military seemed poised to take a more active role in security arrangements for the approaching referendum.
A cabinet source said the cabinet had discussed reviving the army's ability to make arrests if it were called upon to back up police, who are normally in charge of election security.
According to the state-run daily newspaper al-Ahram, an expanded military security role might extend to the next parliamentary election and, at the president's discretion, even beyond that.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-president-scraps-decree-sparked-protests-085639182.html
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Saturday, December 8, 2012
NASA's Van Allen Probes reveal new dynamics of Earth's radiation belts
Dec. 7, 2012 ? Just 96 days since their launch, NASA's twin Van Allen Probes have already provided new insights into the structure and behavior of the radiation belts that surround Earth, giving scientists a clearer understanding about the fundamental physical properties of these regions more than half a century after their discovery.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Dec. 4 at the American Geophysical Union's 2012 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, members of the Van Allen Probes science team discussed current findings made in unlocking the mysteries of the radiation belts. These two donut-shaped regions of high-energy and hazardous particles -- named for their discoverer and the mission's namesake, American physicist James Van Allen of the University of Iowa -- are created by our planet's magnetosphere, and can harm space technologies such as satellites, as well as affect human space travel.
Throughout the brief early life of the two-year mission, energetic events and ejections of plasma from the sun caused dramatic changes in the radiation belts that, for the first time, were observed by twin spacecraft within the belts. "The sun has been a driver of these systems more than we had any right to expect," says Daniel Baker, Principal Investigator, Van Allen Probes Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT, which is part of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite, or ECT), from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We're seeing brand new features we hadn't expected."
The twin probes, built and managed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., contain identical sets of five instrument suites. These suites have confirmed previous hypotheses about the belts' behavior, while also revealing that the belts are a far more dynamic and changing environment than previously thought. "We expected to see a fairly placid radiation belt system," Baker says. "Instead, we see that the belts have been extraordinarily active and dynamic during the first few weeks. We're looking in the right places at the right times."
Our planet's magnetosphere captures particles from the billions of tons of plasma ejected by the sun and from other sources; fields and waves of electricity and magnetism control and guide the charged particles within the belts, with the particles "surfing" on the waves, losing or gaining large amounts of energy along the way as they enter and leave the region. Measurements made by instruments like the Electric Fields and Waves Suite (EFW) and the Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) are helping scientists understand how those fields and waves affect the particles. "The electric field and magnetic field measurements on the Van Allen Probes are the best ever made in the radiation belts," says the University of Iowa's Craig Kletzing, Principal Investigator for EMFISIS. "For the first time, we've been able to see how long intense low frequency electric fields and waves at the edge of the radiation belts can last -- sometimes for over five hours during geomagnetic storms. Before, it was like we could see a car zoom past, but not see anything about the details. Now, we can see what color the upholstery is."
The inner belt, where many satellites must operate, is home to the most hazardous and energized particles, mostly protons. "A staggering number of the spacecraft we rely upon daily have to spend a part of their orbit in the harshest area of Earth's radiation environment," says Joseph Mazur of the Aerospace Corporation, Principal Investigator of the probes' Relativistic Proton Spectrometer (RPS). The Van Allen Probes are providing researchers with detailed views of how the populations of those particles vary with altitude, which should help engineers more effectively protect satellites. "This is the first time we've been able to measure the high energy particles in the heart of the radiation belts," Mazur said. "We're able to measure at the one billion electron volt level; particles at that energy are virtually impossible to shield against. They will easily penetrate half-inch thick aluminum plate." Particles at that energy level are known to cause a range of damages to spacecraft, from physical degradation to instrument malfunctions and false readings.
"NASA built these spacecraft to be super tough, and thank goodness we did," says APL's Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist. "The instruments are seeing the exact sorts of damaging effects we designed the spacecraft to survive."
The Van Allen Probes are part of NASA's Living With a Star Program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. APL built the twin spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/xep8Qtdlzl4/121207100912.htm
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A Clear Picture Requires A Good VGA Cable
Some things work so well that even the technology experts in the computer industry are hesitant to change them. The connection between a computer and a colour monitor has been the same for decades, and it looks like it could remain that way for a while longer. Even though higher definition monitors that require special cabling are becoming more prominent in the computer world, there is still plenty of room for the popular VGA cables that have been used for years. It is a technology that has been utilized by the people who require the clearest monitor images and it remains in use, even as the monitor connections continue to evolve.
A VGA cable is a 15-pin computer connection device that connects a computer monitor interface with the monitor itself. The 15-pin configuration has been in use for decades and most good VGA connections come with thumbscrews that allow you to secure the plug in place. The slightest movement by the monitor cable could cause the picture to flicker, change colour or even disappear. That is why it is important that people utilize those thumbscrews and secure the plug in place as strongly as possible.
One element of the VGA connection that people sometimes take for granted is the need for shielded cabling. When you work in a computer environment, or any area where there is a lot of technology in use, there is a tremendous amount of radio waves and other kinds of electronic interference that can affect the quality of a monitor image. That is why most businesses invest in shielded cables to help protect their monitor connections. As wireless Internet connections and electronic devices become more prevalent in the average home, it becomes a good idea for home-based computer users to invest in shielded VGA cabling as well.
Devices such as surveillance systems, medical monitors and mobile police computer systems still utilize VGA connections. These kinds of ports become useless when a user is trying to maximize the resolutions on the new high definition computer monitors. But just about every computer being made today still comes with the old reliable monitor ports, and that is unlikely to change any time soon. When you use a VGA connection to broadcast your computer images to a monitor, you should plan on using a shielded cable, and be sure to use those thumbscrews to secure the plug in place as well.
The author has experience in VGA Cable and VGA Cable.
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Friday, December 7, 2012
Climate talks head to fraught end
7 December 2012
Last updated at 07:30 ET
UN climate talks in Doha are due to finish with little sign of any agreement between negotiators.
Developing countries say there is a lack of ambition among richer countries to cut greenhouse gases faster.
The EU and US say the global economic crisis means they don't have any extra money to help poorer nations adapt to rising temperatures.
And the host nation Qatar has been criticized for poor leadership in letting the talks process drift.
There are still outstanding disputes about finance, compensation for damages caused by climate change and allocations of carbon permits - so-called hot air.
As politicians delay, scientists continue to warn of ever-increasing greenhouse gases.
But this conference - the 18th Conference of the Parties, or COP18 - will not prevent any CO2 being released into the atmosphere - that will be left to future meetings. Indeed if it does not tighten the rules on "hot air" this conference could result in an increase in emissions.
The Doha talks represent the hinge point between the existing UN system - the 15-year-old Kyoto protocol - and a future system to be settled by 2015.
The Kyoto protocol binds a dwindling number of rich nations into cutting emissions and helping poor nations get clean energy and adapt to climate change. The new system, championed by the US and others, will oblige rich and poor to share the burden.
Hot-air rushThe transition has drawn all the world's nations into a negotiation of swirling diplomatic complexity.
Of the outstanding issues, finance is the most intractable. Rich nations promised at 2009's turbulent climate summit in Copenhagen - COP15 - to mobilise a fund of $100bn annually by 2020 to help developing nations cope with climate change. But there's precious little indication of how, or indeed if, this figure will be met.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Lidy Nacpil Jubilee SouthWe cannot go back to our countries and tell them that we allowed this to happen, that we condemned our own future?
Some EU countries have offered interim funding but the US has been unwilling to commit. US campaigners here have said they are ashamed of their leaders, especially after President Obama appeared to re-kindle his enthusiasm for tackling climate change after re-election.
The finance issue overlaps another conference dispute over a proposed Loss and Damage Mechanism to compensate developing for damage from any future disasters caused by climatic events, although the C-word - compensation - is being avoided because of the implication of guilt.
The other stand-out is hot-air. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Poland and Russia were handed free carbon permits to allow their heavy industries to continue to operate. But when Eastern European industry collapsed, the permits - which have a financial value - were not needed. At this point they became "hot air", with the potential to be sold to other nations. This undermines the regime of cutting emissions overall.
Poland has refused to surrender its permits. The EU has been heavily criticized for allowing this loophole but it's also been trying to avoid any more internal diplomatic crises. So it looks to be moving towards a compromise which will restrict the future sale of "hot air".
'Get a grip'Meanwhile, pressure is growing for a dramatic gesture from the host country, Qatar, which has the highest per-capita carbon emissions in the world.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the conference on Tuesday at the invitation of the host country. NGOs had been led to believe that gas-rich Qatar would pledge to cut its emissions and help poor nations do the same. But in the end the announcement heralded plans for a Qatari institute for climate studies.
"This is welcome," UK climate minister Greg Barker told BBC News. "It's helpful to get new climate science from all sorts of different voices. But we are really looking for more leadership from Arab nations at this time."
The momentous announcement by the UN secretary-general left many wanting
The talks are a foment of rumour, and some say China has leaned on Qatar and Saudi Arabia to avoid financial pledges until the last minute, 2015, in order to stave off pressure for China to make contributions too.
The Lebanese youth campaigner Wael Hmaidan, from Climate Action Network, told BBC News that young people in the region expected Qatar and other wealthy Arab nations to do much more.
"We know what climate change will do to the human situation on the planet - we need to show what we are going to do about this.
"Arab nations haven't yet made decisions on this. The Qatari presidency really needs to get a grip of this process."
The president of the conference, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, told BBC News that he had tried in vain to create a joint Arab position on climate. "I want us to move together on climate change but I can't get consensus on this."
John Lanchbery from Birdlife International told BBC News: "These talks have succeeded in sorting out some outstanding technical business but what's dreadful is that it hasn't done anything to reducing emissions now. The hot-air deal will probably result in emissions being increased.
Lidy Nacpil, director of the Asia/Pacific branch of NGO network Jubilee South, called on delegates to reject the negotiating texts: "We are a million miles from where we need to be to even have a small chance of preventing runaway climate change," she said.
Ms Nacpil is based in the Philippines which is currently experiencing devastation as a result of Typhoon Bopha.
"We cannot go back to our countries and tell them that we allowed this to happen, that we condemned our own future. We cannot go back to the Philippines, to our dead, to our homeless, to our outrage, and tell them that we accepted this."
She puts the blame for failure on rich nations, especially the US, Canada and Japan which refused to sign up to a new interim commitment for the Kyoto Protocol.
Asad Rehman, for Friends of the Earth International, also dismissed the European Union's offers as: "An empty shell, an insult to our futures. There is literally no point in countries signing up to this sham of a deal, which will lock the planet in to many more years of inaction."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20639215#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Instant view: Canada clears CNOOC?s $15 billion Nexen purchase
Posted by admin on December 7th, 2012
(Reuters) ? Canadian ministers cleared Chinese state-owned energy company CNOOC Ltd?s $ 15 billion bid to buy Canadian oil and gas producer Nexen Inc, allowing the largest foreign takeover by a Chinese firm to proceed. The following is instant reaction from investors and analysts. KEITH MOORE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MKM PARTNERS LLC ?When the deal was announced we thought it would eventually be approved with concessions, but that there was going to be a lot of headline risk. ?
Politics News Headlines ? Yahoo! News
Source: http://hotspyer.com/2012/12/07/instant-view-canada-clears-cnoocs-15-billion-nexen-purchase/
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Minnesota House ALEC members: a look at the minority caucus ...
In Capitol 10: Legislation you won?t be seeing in 2013, Politics in Minnesota staff asked its Capitol insiders what won't be on the agenda:
This week we asked the Insiders which issues no longer have a chance of passage. Here were their top answers:
1.?? ?Right to work
2.?? ?Castle Doctrine
3.?? ?Tort reform
4.?? ?Tax cuts
5.?? ?(tie) Repeal of statewide business tax
5.?? ?(tie) Election/voter reform
7.?? ?Teacher evaluation changes
8.?? ?The American Legislative Exchange Council agenda
9.?? ?(tie) Balanced-budget amendment
9.?? ?(tie) Nuclear deregulation
While the ALEC agenda came in near the bottom of the list, Bluestem thinks it's worth noting that Right-to-Work, the Castle Doctrine, tort reform,? voter restriction, teacher evaluation changes, and nuclear deregulation are the ALEC agenda. ( A comprehensive list is found here at ALEC Exposed, with new information here).
As we reported in Retirement, redistricting and rejection thin ranks of ALEC members in Minnesota legislature,? state public co-chair Mary Kiffmeyer has ascended to the Minnesota Senate, while the other, Senator Gen Olson, retired.
Kiffmeyer is now the sole chair for Minnesota on ALEC's website.
While the Republicans'? loss of both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature and a sitting DFL governor, along with the thinning of the local herd, it's unlikely that much direct damage can be done by ALEC members in the next two years. It's worth keeping track of where they're landing, nonetheless, and so with the release of the House minority caucus's recommendations of committee assignments to Speaker Thissen's office, Bluestem has checked to see who's on which committee.
First, the ranking members who are known ALEC pals, then the committee recommendations for all known ALEC members in the Minnesota House. Other committee recommendations for ALEC members who are in the first list are also in the second list.
House Committee?????????????? Lead ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? Last Known ALEC Task Force
Capital Investment ??????????? ?? Matt Dean???????????????????? International Relations
Environment et al Finance ?? Denny McNamara?????????? Energy, Environment & Agriculture
Trans Finance ????????????? ?? ????
Mike Beard ?????????????????? Commerce, Insurance & Econ Dev.
Housing ????????????????????????? ?? ?? Paul Anderson ????????????? Health and Human Services
Judiciary ?????????????????????? ?? ??? Steve Drazkowski ? ?????? Civil Justice
Education Policy ??? ?? ?????????? Sondra Erickson ? ? ????? ? Education
Early Education ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Pam Myhra??????????????????? Tax and Fiscal Policy
Energy ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Pat Garofalo????????????????? Education
Transportation Policy ? ? ? ? ?? Linda Runbeck??????? ? ?? Tax and Fiscal Policy
Government Operations ?? ?? Joyce Peppin ? ? ? ? ? ????? None
Other Committee recommendations for known Minnesota House ALEC members:
Paul Anderson: Environment et al Finance
Mike Beard: Ways & Means; Transportation Policy
Mike Benson: Transportation Finance; Regulated Industries
Matt Dean: HHS Finance; Rules; Ways & Means
Steve Drazkowski: Environment et al Finance; Government Operations; Taxes
Sondra L. Erickson: Education Finance; Property Tax Division
Pat Garofalo: Property Tax Division; Taxes
Denny McNamara: Evironment et al Policy; Ways & Means
Pam Myhra: Taxes; Education Finance
Joyce Peppin: Taxes; Rules
Linda Runbeck: Property Tax Division; Taxes
Kurt Zellers: Rules; Commerce
Although Dean Urdahl (R-18A) has put his jacket on ALEC legislation like the famous cheeseburger no-fault bill, he's not an ALEC member.
Here's the entire spreadsheet of the recommendations:
2013-2014 GOP Committee Assignments RecommendationsPhoto: MN ALEC state chair Mary Kiffmeyer got? her Photo ID constitutional amendment on the ballot--and motivated DFL voters to get to the polls to turn her party out of control of the? legislature. (Photo by T.W. Budig/ECM Publishers).
Blog begathon: Bluestem is supported by reader contributions. If you liked this post, consider throwing some coin to the tip jar. If you don't like using PayPal, email at the address on this page for a snail mail address. We'll be running our twice-yearly "bleg" though Christmas.
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Thursday, December 6, 2012
Eminem Has A Boy-Band-Loving Daughter?
Hailie Mathers appeared to declare her One Direction love on Twitter, going against years of her dad's 'NSYNC and Backstreet distaste.
By Nadeska Alexis
Eminem
Photo: Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698399/eminem-one-direction-hailie-boyband-loving-daughter.jhtml
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Egypt activist movement rejects talks with Mursi
Well, this is nice. Though the marriage was called off once in 2011, it seems that 86-year-old Hugh Hefner and his 26-year-old fianc?e, Playboy's Miss December 2009 Crystal Harris, are finally going to tie the knot at the end of this month. Yes, the couple went and got their marriage license in Beverly Hills and have set the date for New Year's Eve, which will be festive, because Hugh will already be dressed up like Father Time, as is his duty every year. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-activist-movement-rejects-talks-mursi-220859636.html
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HP EliteBook Revolve: A Laptop Plus A Tablet With Windows 8 As OS
6 December 2012 No Comment
The Windows 8 device from Microsoft called Surface is quite cool, but most people still choose a laptop/notebook for work. And the HP EliteBook Revolve is a hybrid convertible tablet (and laptop too) with Windows 8 OS that is intended for office workers who want the flexibility of a laptop as tablet.
The advantages of this hybrid laptop/notebook is the flexibility of the screen that can be rotated to the front, back, and even put to sleep so it?s facing up. When it?s used for presentations, it can face the opposite direction from the keyboard and facing users.
Because the device is marketed for the enterprise market, HP also included the security features such as HP Client Security or HP Absolute Data Protect, HP?s e-print software, and deployment integration services of corporate image files. HP EliteBook Revolve can be purchased starting in March 2013.
Possibility, this hybrid convertible tablet will have a battery with life up to 10 hours, as the purpose that they want to bring a laptop as a tablet which is usually also has more durable battery.
HP EliteBook Revolve Specification:
- 11.6-inch, 1366 x 768 Gorilla Glass touchscreen
- Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors
- Up to 256GB SSD storage
- All-magnesium chassis, 8.35 inches x 11.22 inches x .8 inch
- About 3 pounds
- Full-sized, backlit, spill-resistant keyboard with bottom-case drain
- Trackpad
- 720P camera
- Optional 4G LTE broadband connectivity
- MicroSD slot, Micro-SIM
- Two USB 3 and DisplayPort, Wi-Fi and near-field-communication connections
- Eight- to 10-hour battery, 210 hours of standby
- Optional pen, with clip
- Fully serviceable drive bays
- HP enterprise management software
HP EliteBook Revolve: A Laptop Plus A Tablet With Windows 8 As OS.
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Taylor Swift And Ne-Yo Both Go 'Red,' Call It 'Completely Coincidental'
'It's got to mean something,' Ne-Yo tells MTV News about his R.E.D. album coinciding with Swift's Red.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by James Lacsina
Ne-yo and Taylor Swift
Photo: Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698361/taylor-swift-neyo-red-album.jhtml
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Japan?s Space Agency Says Rocket Information Was Stolen by Computer Virus
TOKYO ? Japan?s space agency said on Friday that information on one of its newest rockets was stolen from a desktop computer by someone using a computer virus.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said that the virus in a computer at its Tsukuba Space Center northeast of Tokyo was found to be secretly collecting data and sending it outside the agency. The agency said that after the virus was detected by antivirus software on Nov. 21, it conducted an emergency sweep for viruses that showed no other computers at the center had been infected.
The agency said it was unclear if the virus was a cyberattack. Japanese defense companies, however, have been recent targets of similar information-stealing viruses, some previously traced to China.
The data stolen from the space agency included information about the Epsilon, a solid-fuel rocket still under development. While the Epsilon is intended to launch satellite and space probes, solid-fuel rockets of that size can also have a military use as intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Epsilon, whose first launching is scheduled for next autumn, will also feature new technology that will allow it to be remotely controlled by a personal computer.
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Auto Insurance Comparison Startup Leaky Launches Nationally ...
Leaky, a Y Combinator-incubated startup that helps customers compare the price they?d pay with car insurance companies, is expanding to full nationwide coverage today.
The startup first launched more than a year ago, but the site quickly attracted attention (as well as cease-and-desist letters) from insurance companies, so it was taken down and reemerged in March with a new approach.
Rather than pulling prices directly from insurers? websites, Leaky looks at their state regulatory filings, then predicts what each user would be charged based on their personal details. Leaky can also predict how changes in your life, such as moving across the country or buying a new car, will affect your insurance costs.
Co-founder and CEO Jason Traff said that until now, Leaky was only available in California, so this is a big expansion. The site has also grown from supporting seven insurers to more than 100. Traff added that the monitoring feature, which was released after the March relaunch, has been a hit.
?By creating a profile, Leaky will monitor your insurance and let you know when you are eligible for discounts based on a number of factors, including your driver profile and your accident history,? he told me via email. ?The monitoring has really become a popular feature since it gives people peace of mind to know that someone is looking out for their insurance needs.?
The company is also announcing that it has raised $675,000 in seed funding from YC, 500?Startups, Start Fund, Box Group, and several angel investors. Future plans include providing these sorts of features for other types of insurance.
Leaky helps consumers make better decisions about insurance.
? Learn moreY Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. Y Combinator looks for companies with ?good? ideas over companies with experience and a business model. The company made its first investments in Summer 2005. Y Combinator selects companies to finance and consult with twice a year. They are located in...
? Learn more500 Startups is an early-stage seed fund and incubator program located in Mountain View, CA. They invest primarily in consumer & SMB internet startups, and related web infrastructure services. Their initial investment size is typically $25K-$250K. Selected areas of interest include financial services & e-commerce, search/social/mobile platforms, personal & business productivity, education & language, family & healthcare and web infrastructure.
? Learn moreSource: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/leaky-national-launch-seed-funding/
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N. Nevada casino operators prepping for online gaming | Lake ...
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By Rob Sabo, Northern Nevada Business Weekly
Northern Nevada casino operators are working feverishly to usher online gaming into Nevada despite working under a regulatory environment that?s still defining how the whole process will work.
Most of the large casino operators in northern Nevada have applied for interactive operator?s licenses, says AG Burnett, recently appointed commissioner of the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
The license is required for casino operators, who in turn are either partnering with technology companies or executing in-house strategies to develop poker software and Web sites that are expected to go live late next year pending regulatory approval of their products.
The Eldorado, Atlantis and Siena are among early leaders working through the challenges of bringing online poker to Nevada-based players.
Play is limited to gamblers within the Silver State, though most operators expect to have a much wider jurisdictional reach in coming years. Currently, only online poker has been legalized in Nevada by the Gaming Control Board.
David Farahi, executive director of gaming operations for Monarch Casino & Resort, says the executive team at the Atlantis has looked at this new approach to gaming for the past several years.
Monarch was among the first casino operators in state to get its interactive operators license, which allows Monarch to run a online wagering poker site. The license is separate from the gaming license required to operate the Atlantis.
Licensure for online gaming depends on a company?s level of involvement, Burnett says.
?There is a license for operator of the interactive gaming website; there is a license for a manufacturer of the interactive system itself; and there is a license for those who make products associated with the Web site,? he says.
Monarch seeks to partner with a technology provider to develop software and run the back-end operations of a new web site for poker wagering, much like the joint venture announced by the Eldorado and Reno?s 3G Studios. Farahi says Monarch is being courted by companies seeking to license their gaming software to the company and to provide IT services for the new site.
?We are doing our due diligence and researching potential partners. As we learn more we are developing our plan on how we are going to get into this industry.?
The new website likely would tie into the Atlantis? current site in some fashion, Farahi says, in part to capitalize on the strength of the Atlantis brand and also to leverage its strong relationship with northern Nevada customers. Because gaming sites currently can only be accessed by Nevada-based players, the property would use some form of geo-location software to ensure compliance, Farahi says.
Tech companies, software development firms or Internet service providers can?t run for-money poker sites themselves because they don?t have the required interactive operator?s license. The bucks stop with brick-and-mortar institutions such as the Atlantis, Eldorado and Siena because those businesses already have the financial controls in place ? monitoring, compliance, auditing ? to ensure that each process conforms with Gaming Control Board standards.
David Colvin, majority owner of the Siena Hotel Casino, is taking a much different approach to the concept of online gaming.
The Las Vegas-based gaming mogul also owns bingo and keno giant Gaming Arts, and he?s spun off a new company, Z4 Poker, to handle all three aspects of online gaming. He?s got about a dozen employees working for Z4 Poker, and another 20 Gaming Arts staffers sharing time on the venture as well.
The Siena would be the operator, Gaming Arts would be the service provider, and Z4 Poker would be the interactive content provider to have everything under one umbrella. Colvin says once all the wrinkles are ironed out that he would bring in other casino properties as either fully licensed operators or affiliates.
Colvin expects to go live with a free-to-play site in the second quarter of 2013 and could transition the site to a revenue model pending regulatory approval. The landscape of how online gaming will actually work still is a little muddled, he says.
?It is a foggy now as it has ever been.?
Like 3G Studios, which already has developed a host of additional games in anticipation of a much broader scope of gaming options than just poker, Z4 Poker has nearly 100 games already developed, including a full suite of keno and bingo games.
On the other side of the coin, staff at the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission have been working diligently to encompass the myriad aspects of legalized online gaming in the state. Burnett says the board and commission had to become experts in the field on the fly.
?I can?t stress enough the level of understanding our staff in every division has reached on these matters,? he says. ?We really ramped up for this and made a hard push to keep Nevada at the forefront of this emerging industry.?
The biggest obstacles overcome so far have been reviewing a host of competing products in house and from independent test labs to ensure that each company?s software complies with newly developed regulations. Once that process is complete, Burnett says, the operators will be free to get their sites up and running.
A separate regulatory structure has been established for online service providers. Those companies will have to be vetted by the Gaming Control Board and contract their services to casino operators. Revenue models will work differently depending on how deals are structured.
For instance, the Atlantis is looking at a revenue-share model in which a portion of the revenue goes to the technology provider and the casino?s revenue is generated from the poker rake, or the money taken from each pot for the house, Farahi says.
The Siena, on the other hand, would likely participate in a similar revenue-share scenario with larger casinos that get an operator?s license from the state. However, smaller properties that aren?t able to pony up the half-million licensing fee would work under a fee-based model, Colvin says.
The advent of online wagering is a natural extension of the products offered on casino floors, Farahi notes.
?Gaming is a form of entertainment, and people come to a casino because they want to be entertained. We work hard at doing that, and being able to entertain someone in their living room playing on their computer is just another form of entertainment. We have learned how to entertain people, and this is just another way of doing it.?
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Daley Nephew Indicted In 2004 Bar Death
CHICAGO ? The nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was indicted Monday for involuntary manslaughter in the 2004 death of a 21-year-old man outside a Chicago bar, and a grand jury is continuing its inquiry into whether authorities covered up or impeded an investigation of a relative of the city's most powerful man.
Richard Vanecko, 38, was indicted by a Cook County special grand jury in the death of David Koschman of Mount Prospect. Koschman died days after he fell and struck his head during a fight with Vanecko outside a bar in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.
The indictment states that Vanecko "through the use of physical force and without lawful justification, recklessly performed acts which were likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another, and such acts caused the death of David Koschman."
On Monday afternoon, Koschman's mother held an emotional news conference in which she talked about sitting by her son's bed for nearly two weeks before taking him off life support.
"I'm going to go tell David tomorrow that he can be in peace," said Nanci Koschman, who added that she hopes the indictment and investigation will clear her son's name.
"When that detective came in and said it's all your son's fault, it's all his responsibility, that's like a knife through a mothers' heart," she said.
Both she and her attorneys said they are hopeful the investigation will answer what role Vanecko's relationship to the mayor played in the investigation. Koschman's family argued earlier this year that the Cook County state's attorney's office has political ties to Daley and is not fit to handle the case.
Koschman's family also has contended there was a police cover-up, and because of that, asked for a special prosecutor.
Koschman had special praise for the Chicago Sun-Times, which she said helped spur the investigation with a series of articles that raised questions about the handling of the initial investigation.
The judge who appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb as the special prosecutor agreed in April that there was evidence to support allegations of police misconduct in the initial investigation, including ignoring or falsely recording witness statements and labeling the victim as the aggressor.
In public statements, prosecutors and police portrayed Vanecko as acting in self-defense despite never having interviewed or spoken to him, the judge said when he ordered the appointment of a special prosecutor.
On Monday, a message left for Vanecko's attorney was not immediately returned and a man answering a phone number listed to Vanecko hung up.
In a statement, Webb said that the grand jury's investigation into whether the Chicago Police Department and the county's state attorney's office "acted intentionally to suppress and conceal evidence, furnish false evidence and generally impede the investigation" is continuing "at a vigorous pace."
Webb's statement did not hint at what, if any, conclusions have been reached, only that "thousands of documents have been reviewed and more than fifty witnesses have been interviewed." The release also included that Koschman was 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds, while Vanecko, then 29, was 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds.
A message left at the office of Dick Devine, who was state's attorney at the time of Koschman's death, was not immediately returned. But the current state's attorney, Anita Alvarez, defended her office's handling of the case.
Alvarez told the Sun-Times that her office's investigation only ended earlier this year when a special prosecutor was appointed.
"We were not done and then the order for the special prosecutor came out, and that ended my investigation," she told the newspaper.
On Monday, Nanci Koschman said after the fight, she was told by a police detective that she would be "impressed" by who Vanecko was related to and that if she sued, his family had the wherewithal to tie the case up in court "for years."
She also said she does not want to see Vanecko sent to jail, explaining that she doesn't think he "went out that night" intending to hurt her son. Still, she said, an apology from "would be nice," though she added that she does not expect that to happen.
Vanecko will be arraigned later this month, and bond has been set at $100,000.
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Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Undermining faith in law enforcement and national security: the legacy of Eric Holder (Powerlineblog)
Monday, December 3, 2012
GOP issues a new 'fiscal cliff' offer to Obama
FILE - This Nov. 29, 2012 file photo shows House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. House Republicans negotiating with President Barack Obama on avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff are proposing to increase the eligibility age for Medicare and to lower cost-of-living hikes in Social Security benefits. Boehner said the GOP proposal is a "credible plan" for Obama and that he hopes the administration would "respond in a timely and responsible way." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - This Nov. 29, 2012 file photo shows House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. House Republicans negotiating with President Barack Obama on avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff are proposing to increase the eligibility age for Medicare and to lower cost-of-living hikes in Social Security benefits. Boehner said the GOP proposal is a "credible plan" for Obama and that he hopes the administration would "respond in a timely and responsible way." (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
In this Nov. 30, 2012, photo provided by CBS News Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner answers questions about averting the "fiscal cliff" on an episode of ?Face the Nation? on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012 Geithner said Republicans have to stop using fuzzy ?political math? and say how much they are willing to raise tax rates on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans and then specify the spending cuts they want. (AP Photo/CBS News, Chris Usher)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? House Republicans put forth a $2.2 trillion "fiscal cliff" counteroffer to President Barack Obama on Monday, calling for raising the eligibility age for Medicare, lowering cost-of-living hikes for Social Security benefits and bringing in $800 billion in higher tax revenue ? but not raising rates for the wealthy.
The White House declared the Republicans still weren't ready to "get serious" and again vowed tax rate increases will be in any measure Obama signs to prevent the government from the cliff's automatic tax hikes and sharp spending cuts. Administration officials also hardened their insistence that Obama is willing to take the nation over the cliff rather than give in to Republicans and extend the tax cuts for upper-income earners.
With the clock ticking toward the year-end deadline, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republicans said they were proposing a "reasonable solution" for negotiations that Boehner says have been going nowhere. Monday's proposal came in response to Obama's plan last week to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion over the coming decade but largely exempt Medicare and Social Security from budget cuts.
Though the GOP plan proposes to raise $800 billion in higher tax revenue over the same 10 years, it would keep the Bush-era tax cuts ? including those for wealthier earners targeted by Obama ? in place for now. Dismissing the idea of raising any tax rates, the Republicans said the new revenue would come from closing loopholes and deductions while lowering rates.
Boehner called that a "credible plan" and said he hoped the administration would "respond in a timely and responsible way." The offer came after the administration urged Republicans to detail their proposal to cut popular benefit programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.
The White House complained the latest offer was still short on details about what loopholes would be closed or deductions eliminated, and it insisted that any compromise include higher tax rates for upper-income earners.
Asked directly whether the country would go over the cliff unless GOP lawmakers backed down, administration officials said yes. Officials said they remained hopeful that scenario could be avoided, saying the president continues to believe that going over the cliff would be damaging to the economy. And they signaled that Obama wouldn't insist on bringing the top tax rate all the way back to the 39.6 percent rates of the Clinton era. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal White House deliberations.
"Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won't be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.
Boehner saw the situation as just the reverse.
"After the election I offered to speed this up by putting revenue on the table and unfortunately the White House responded with their la-la land offer that couldn't pass the House, couldn't pass the Senate and it was basically the president's budget from last February," he said Monday.
The GOP proposal itself revives a host of ideas from failed talks with Obama in the summer of 2011. Then, Obama was willing to discuss politically risky ideas such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare, implementing a new inflation adjustment for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and requiring wealthier Medicare recipients to pay more for their benefits.
Monday's Republican plan contains few specific and anticipates that myriad details will have to be filled in next year in legislation overhauling the tax code and curbing the growth of benefit programs.
Tine is growing shorter before the deadline to avert the fiscal cliff, which is a combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that are the result of prior failures of Congress and Obama to make a budget deal.
Many economists say such a one-two punch could send the fragile economy back into recession.
GOP aides said their plan is based on one presented by Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of a deficit commission Obama appointed earlier in his term, in testimony to a special deficit "supercommittee" last year ? in effect a milder version of a 2010 Bowles proposal that caused both GOP and Democratic leaders in Congress to recoil.
Unlike Bowles' official 2010 plan, drafted with former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, the version released Monday drops the earlier endorsement of Obama's proposal to increase tax rates on family income exceeding $250,000 back to Clinton-era levels, with the top rate jumping from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.
Bowles, in a statement, said he was flattered but the GOP plan does not represent his proposal.
Still, he added, "Every offer put forward brings us closer to a deal, but to reach an agreement, it will be necessary for both sides to move beyond their opening positions."
By GOP math, their plan would produce $2.2 trillion in budget savings over the coming decade: $800 billion in higher taxes, $600 billion in savings from costly health care programs like Medicare, $300 billion from other proposals such as forcing federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions and $300 billion in additional savings from the Pentagon budget and domestic programs funded by Congress each year.
Boehner signaled in discussions with Obama in 2011 that he was willing to accept up to $800 billion in higher tax revenues, but his aides maintained that much of that money would have come from so-called dynamic scoring ? a conservative approach in which economic growth would have accounted for much of the revenue. Now, Boehner is willing to accept the estimates of official scorekeepers like the Congressional Budget Office, whose models reject dynamic scoring.
Under the administration's math, GOP aides said, the plan represents $4.6 trillion in 10-year savings. That estimate accounts for earlier cuts enacted during last year's showdown over lifting the government's borrowing cap and also factors in war savings and lower interest payments on the $16.4 trillion national debt.
Last week, the White House delivered to Capitol Hill its opening proposal: $1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade, a possible extension of the temporary Social Security payroll tax cut and heightened presidential power to raise the national debt limit.
In exchange, the president would back $600 billion in spending cuts, including $350 billion from Medicare and other health programs. But he also wants $200 billion in new spending for jobless benefits, public works projects and aid for struggling homeowners. His proposal for raising the ceiling on government borrowing would make it virtually impossible for Congress to block him going forward.
Republicans said they responded in closed-door meetings with laughter and disbelief.
The GOP plan is certain to whip up opposition from Democrats opposed to any action now on Social Security, whose defenders say should not be part of any fiscal cliff deal. And Democrats also are deeply skeptical of raising the Medicare age.
Both ideas were part of negotiations between Boehner and Obama in the summer of last year.
In a letter to the president, Boehner and six other House Republicans insisted that the November election that returned Obama to the White House and the GOP to majority control in the House requires both parties to come together "on a fair middle ground."
"With the fiscal cliff nearing, our priority remains finding a reasonable solution that can pass both the House and Senate, and be signed into law in the next couple of weeks," Republicans wrote.
One of the few things the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans can agree to is a framework that would make a "down payment" on the deficit and extend all or most of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts but leave most of the legislative grunt work until next year.
Signing the letter was Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential candidate. Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican Conference chair, also signed the letter.
Earlier Monday, Obama answered questions on Twitter for an hour as the White House sought to keep up the pressure on the issue.
In response to a question about his insistence on higher tax rates for the wealthiest earners, Obama said that "high end tax cuts do (the) least for economic growth & cost almost $1T." By contrast, he said, "extending middle class cuts boosts consumer demand & growth."
Obama said he was open to "smart cuts" in spending, "but not in areas like R&D" and education, which "help growth & jobs." He also said he opposes spending cuts that would hurt the disabled or other vulnerable groups.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Julie Pace contributed to this report.
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Why Multimedia-Rich MMS Messaging Could Work | The VAR Guy
Is the world ready for multimedia messaging system (MMS) communication between mobile devices? In a post last month on a new MMS API developed by Mogreet, I was hesitant to answer that question with a resounding yes. But after hearing Mogreet?s perspective on some of the technological and marketing hurdles associated by MMS, I?m more convinced that it could work. Here?s why.
The MMS APIs that Mogreet introduced last month provide a platform for organizations to integrate multimedia into marketing communications distributed to users? cell phones. The MMS support enhances the SMS marketing technology that Mogreet has long offered (and continues to provide) for its global customer base.
But since the deployment of MMS for this purpose remains pretty novel?a fact Mogreet its acknowledges in promoting its APIs as the first in the industry to allow marketers to distribute videos, photos, audio and other rich media to mobile platforms?the technology on which it depends has yet to be totally proven. That?s why I wondered previously whether handset hardware, mobile networks and consumer expectations were prepared for the new technology.
Preparing the World for Mass MMS
These, of course, are not issues Mogreet has overlooked. In a recent conversation, Mogreet?s director of Marketing, Serena Ehrlich, explained why the company is confident its MMS strategy will work. She emphasized the following key points regarding market readiness:
- Hardware-wise, 93 percent of cell phones worldwide (and 98 percent of those in the United States) can receive MMS content, according to Mogreet. So ensuring successful delivery of MMS content to consumers will not be an issue in the vast majority of cases.
- Thanks to the investment carriers have made in recent years in preparing their networks to handle multimedia-rich content, mobile networks are ready for the bandwidth and other overhead that MMS could involve. Moreover, as Mogreet staff also pointed out, MMS in some cases could put less strain on networks than they are already handling with voice communications, which require stronger cell coverage than many messaging scenarios.
- Users are prepared to consume the new content, especially because MMS, which is bundled into regular messaging, will not affect their data plans. Under the unlimited SMS contracts that most cell phone owners have signed today, MMS will not pose additional costs.
Ehrlich added that MMS promises to prove particularly attractive in emerging markets, where messaging has been preferred over voice for mobile communication for a long time. But she also emphasized Mogreet?s commitment to developed markets as well, and its especially strong presence in the United States.
The Mogreet APIs are still quite new, and organizations are still becoming familiar with the possibilities they offer and the best ways to leverage them. Nonetheless, a number of companies both large and small have already expressed interest in Mogreet?s MMS platform, according to Ehrlich, including in niches, such as the travel industry?which might not be the first place one would expect a strong early following. Stay tuned for further updates as Mogreet?s latest endeavor moves forward.
Source: http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/12/03/why-multimedia-rich-mms-messaging-could-work/
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