Why don't these voters decide? Some like to mull

This photo taken Oct. 25, 2012 shows Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan?s Transport Refrigeration stands in one of his trucks, in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

This photo taken Oct. 25, 2012 shows Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan?s Transport Refrigeration stands in one of his trucks, in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

In this photo taken Oct. 25, 2012, Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan?s Transport Refrigeration is seen in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

This photo taken Oct. 25, 2012, shows Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan?s Transport Refrigeration in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

This photo taken Oct. 25, 2012 shows Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan's Transport Refrigeration reflected in the mirror of a truck in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

This photo taken Oct. 25, 2012 shows Kelly Cox, co-owner of Shehan's Transport Refrigeration in Delhi, Calif. Who are these people who still can?t make up their minds? They?re undecided voters like Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California?s walnuts, grapes, milk and much more across America. He doesn?t put much faith in Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Who are these people who still can't make up their minds? They're undecided voters like Kelly Cox, who spends his days repairing the big rigs that haul central California's walnuts, grapes, milk and more across America.

He doesn't put much faith in either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. But he figures he's got plenty of time ? a little more than a week ? to settle on one of them before Nov. 6. And he definitely does plan to vote.

"I'll do some online research," said Cox, co-owner of a Delhi, Calif., truck repair shop. "I don't have time to watch presidential debates because it's a lot of garbage anyway. They're not asking the questions that the people want to hear."

About 5 percent of Americans with solid plans to vote have yet to pick their presidential candidate, according to a new AP-GfK poll. When you add in those who lean only tentatively toward their choice or won't declare a favorite, about 16 percent of likely voters look ripe for persuasion. That's about the same as a month ago.

In a super-tight race, undecided voters have taken on almost mythic stature. Their questions at the town hall-style debate are parsed. Campaign techies wade through data to find them. The president dialed up 9,000 of them for an Air Force One conference call as he flew to Los Angeles this week.

But the undecided also endure Twitter sniping and late-night TV ribbing. They're derided as uninformed nincompoops who don't merit the power they wield. As David Letterman put it: "You're idiots! Make up your mind!"

Do these wafflers, ruminators and procrastinators deserve coddling ? or scorn? Are they just misunderstood?

A look at who they are and what they're waiting for:

___

THEY'RE NOT BLANK SLATES

Two-thirds of persuadable voters have an established party preference, the AP-GfK poll shows. They're roughly divided between those who call themselves Democrats or lean that way and those who are Republicans or lean to that side.

So why not just plan to vote with their party?

"They are really a little bit torn," said Lynn Vavreck, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. "They may have some issue positions that are counter to their party, or they're not sure how they stand on some things."

Nancy Hoang, a University of Minnesota freshman studying mathematics, considers herself a fiscal conservative and leans Republican. Yet she vacillated because she agrees with the Democrats' support for gay marriage and opposition to voter ID laws.

"I could have gone either way," said Hoang, 18. Not until after the final debate Monday did she decide: Her first-ever presidential vote will go to Romney.

Most of these undecided voters will come home to their favored party by Election Day, predicts Vavreck, who studies an ongoing survey of registered voters as well as trends from past elections.

___

STILL, A GOOD CHUNK ARE INDEPENDENTS

About 30 percent of persuadable voters say they're political independents. That's three times the presence of independents ? just 8 percent ? among likely voters who have decided who they'll vote for, according to the AP-GfK poll.

In an increasingly polarized America, they stand out. Robert Dohrenburg, a small business owner in McAllen, Texas, voted for Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, but not for Bush's son, George W. He backed Obama in 2008, then had second thoughts this year.

Dohrenburg, 56, watched all three presidential debates before making up his mind to stick with Obama, in part because Romney "says one thing today and another thing tomorrow."

He wishes Ron Paul had won the Republican nomination.

"I'm a very strong independent," he said. "I choose the best candidate."

___

ARE THEY EVEN PAYING ATTENTION?

Professors have a euphemism: low-information voters. The bulk of registered voters who are still undecided fall into that group, researchers say.

"They're basically not that interested in politics," Vavreck said. "They pay less attention to news in general."

Her image of the typical undecided American, based on her research: "the single mom with a couple of kids who just doesn't have time to be attuned to politics but feels like it's her civic duty to vote, and may or may not show up at the polls."

Yet the still-deciding who are committed to voting don't see themselves as out of touch.

In the AP-GfK poll, 85 percent of the persuadables said they have a "great deal" or "quite a bit" of interest in following the campaign, almost as high as among other likely voters.

Rita Kirk, a communications professor at Southern Methodist University, seeks out these involved-but-undecided voters in swing counties of states with close presidential contests. She gathered the groups that recorded their live reactions on CNN during the debates. They are following the race, she insists.

"They know that they're in a county that's going to make a difference," Kirk said. "They're wanting to make a good choice, and they kind of feel the weight and gravitas of that."

___

SO WHAT DO THEY THINK?

They're of two minds.

Persuadable voters are more likely to trust Romney to do a better job handling the economy and the federal budget deficit, the AP-GfK poll shows. And they're about as comfortable with Romney as they are with Obama on foreign policy.

They are more likely to say Obama has a clear vision for the future, however. They tend to say he understands the problems of people like them better than Romney does. They also give Obama a broad advantage on making the right decision on women's issues.

They're worried about the future.

Only 3 in 10 persuadable voters think the economy will improve in the coming year, compared with 6 in 10 decided voters.

"I'm not sure that either candidate is going to be able to correct the issues," said Cox, 43, who watched California's Central Valley suffer through recession and drought. "I'd like to get the jobs back in the United States. I'd like to quit owing China everything. Put the farmers back to work."

___

WHAT'S TAKING THEM SO LONG?

Some see virtue in refusing to rush.

Victoria Cook, a 27-year-old psychology student at Arapahoe Community College near Denver, leans toward Obama. But she stood in line to see Romney and Ryan at a rally with rocker Kid Rock this week.

"I don't want it to get to the point where you just write off the other guys right away," Cook said as she waited. "So I'll listen to what they have to say."

Professor Kirk said many undecided voters are so annoyed by months of TV commercials and punditry and news coverage that they just tune it all out until Election Day nears.

"They want to pay attention at the time they're ready to make a choice," she said. "It's like someone buying a car. That's when they start looking at the consumer magazines and all the attributes and how many airbags do the different models have. Not months in advance."

___

WILL THEY DECIDE THIS ELECTION?

It's possible.

"That small group of people can make a difference if the vast majority of them swing in one direction," said Rutgers University political science Professor Richard Lau, who studies how voters decide.

But that would be unusual. Late deciders tend to be divided, not vote as a block ? unless they are swept up in a bigger wave, Lau said. In 1980, for example, October polls showed President Jimmy Carter in a tight race with Ronald Reagan.

"It was very close up until the last few days and somehow everybody just decided, 'Enough. We're going to change courses here,'" Lau said. "Usually what happens is that the independent voters change in the direction that somehow the nature of the times is already going."

Still, an advantage among procrastinators could swing the race in a hotly contested state.

In the last two presidential elections, about 1 in 10 voters surveyed as they left polling places said they'd settled on their candidate within the previous week. About 5 percent decided on Election Day.

No word on how many made up their minds while standing in the voting booth.

___

Associated Press News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius in Washington and Associated Press writer Philip Elliott in Denver contributed to this report.

___

Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/ConnieCass

Follow Jennifer Agiesta on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/JennAgiesta

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-26-Campaign-Still%20Undecided/id-e7ec61deb86a4623936591c2e94cbbb8

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Amnesty Int: Ivory Coast tortures detainees

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) ? Amnesty International charges that Ivory Coast security officials are torturing dozens of detainees by administering electric shocks and other forms of abuse.

Gaetan Mootoo, West Africa researcher for Amnesty, said Friday that some inmates had also been sexually abused or had molten plastic poured over their bodies.

The victims include people charged with endangering state security in the wake of a recent spate of attacks targeting military installations.

United Nations officials have said that more than 200 people have been detained on suspicion of involvement in the attacks, and that torture has been documented at multiple detention facilities.

President Alassane Ouattara's government has blamed the attacks on allies of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was arrested in April 2011 following months of post-election violence.

Army officials deny the torture allegations.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amnesty-int-ivory-coast-tortures-detainees-132931523.html

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China passes law to curb abuse of mental hospitals

BEIJING (AP) ? China's legislature on Friday passed a long-awaited mental health law that aims to prevent people from being involuntarily held and unnecessarily treated in psychiatric facilities ? abuses that have been used against government critics and triggered public outrage.

The law standardizes mental health care services, requiring general hospitals to set up special outpatient clinics or provide counseling, and calls for the training of more doctors.

Debated for years, the law attempts to address an imbalance in Chinese society ? a lack of mental health care services for a population that has grown more prosperous but also more aware of modern-day stresses and the need for treatment. Psychiatrists who helped draft and improve the legislation welcomed its passage.

"The law will protect the rights of mental patients and prevent those who don't need treatment from being forced to receive it," said Dr. Liu Xiehe, an 85-year-old psychiatrist based in the southwestern city of Chengdu, who drafted the first version of the law in 1985.

"Our mental health law is in line with international standards. This shows the government pays attention to the development of mental health and the protection of people's rights in this area," Liu told The Associated Press by phone.

Pressure has grown on the government in recent years after state media and rights activists reported cases of people forced into mental hospitals when they did not require treatment. Some were placed there by employers with whom they had wage disputes, some by their family members in fights over money, and others ? usually people with grievances against officials ? by police who wanted to silence them.

Yang Yamei, of the Inner Mongolian city of Hulunbuir, has been locked up at a local mental hospital for the last eight months in what her daughter says is retaliation for her attempts to seek compensation from the government for a court ruling that unfairly sentenced her to three years in a labor camp.

This is the third time in four years that she has been forcibly committed, her daughter Guo Dandan said by phone.

"It's because my mother has been petitioning for help, but the authorities don't want to solve her problems, so they put her in there," Guo said. "I have tried many times to persuade her doctors to release her, but they refuse."

Guo's claim could not be independently verified. Local government offices and the mental hospital could not immediately be reached for comment.

"I only hope that the law will be stricter," Guo said. "In the cases of petitioners, when the authorities can use their personal relationships with doctors to fake medical records, hospitals should not be allowed to accept such cases."

The law states for the first time that mental health examinations and treatment must be conducted on a voluntary basis, unless a person is considered a danger to himself or others. Only psychiatrists have the authority to commit people to hospitals for treatment, and treatment may be compulsory for patients diagnosed with a severe mental illness, according to the law.

Significantly, the law gives people who feel they have been unnecessarily admitted into mental health facilities the right to appeal.

But it will likely be a challenge for people to exercise that right once they are in the system, said Huang Xuetao, a lawyer who runs an organization in the southern city of Shenzhen that assists people who have been committed against their will.

Though questions remain over how the law will be enforced and whether sufficient government funding will be provided to enable the expansion of services, psychiatrists said the passage of the legislation marked a milestone.

"It's very exciting. I honestly believe this will start a new trajectory," said Dr. Michael Phillips, a Canadian psychiatrist who has worked in China for nearly three decades and now heads a suicide research center in Shanghai.

Phillips said the biggest change for the psychiatric system is the curb on involuntary admissions. At least 80 percent of hospital admissions are compulsory, he said.

___

Associated Press researcher Flora Ji contributed to this report.

Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-passes-law-curb-abuse-mental-hospitals-074733511.html

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New allegations of sex abuse rock Miami Archdiocese

By Edward B. Colby, NBCMiami.com

New allegations of sexual abuse have prompted the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami to again place Father Rolando Garcia on administrative leave.

The archdiocese said in a statement it had only learned of the most recent allegations against Garcia on Tuesday, when Tony Simmons?made them public in a news conference.

Simmons said he was a 16-year-old runaway when he met Garcia at Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood in 1994. A lawsuit filed Tuesday says that Garcia initially gave him assistance and counseling, but began sexually abusing Simmons after they went to a movie one night.

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The Archdiocese put Garcia, who is the pastor of St. Agatha Catholic Church, on administrative leave on Wednesday. The Archdiocese also said it will offer counseling to Simmons and investigate the matter following procedures in its "Protecting God?s Children" policy.

Two lawsuits have previously been filed against Garcia?by men claiming he sexually abused them, most recently in September. An earlier lawsuit was resolved in 2009.

Garcia has adamantly denied the abuse charges.

The Archdiocese said Wednesday that it previously placed Garcia on administrative leave in August after one alleged victim made allegations against the priest. After investigating the claim, church officials said they found it was "not credible."

Read the full story at?NBCMiami.com?

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14696278-new-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-against-priest-rocks-miami-archdiocese?lite

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Mother Grieving Loss of Child - http://mothergrievinglossofchild ...

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I'm Angie Bennett Prince, a psychotherapist, a Christian, and a grieving mother. On 8/2/06, I lost my precious 19-yr-old daughter Merry Katherine. Here I share the agonizing process of my grief that is faithfully met with the love of my Comforter God. I pray it will minister to your hurt and grief, and that through it, you will feel our Comforter God wrapping His loving arms around you. Please feel free to contact me at MotherGrieving (at) gmail (dot) com.

Source: http://mothergrievinglossofchild.blogspot.com/2012/10/tuesdays-trust-who-can-you-trust-who.html

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Pain Centers Open E.P. Satellite - East Providence, RI Patch

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To accommodate the growing number of patients with chronic pain in the East Bay and greater East Providence area, a Steward Center for Pain Management of Saint Anne?s Hospital in Fall River has opened a satellite location here.

The pain center is located in the Coastal Medical building, 900 Warren Ave., East Providence.?

Patients at the new East Providence site have access to the program?s model of chronic pain management, according to a press release from the center. The program incorporates advanced medical, psychological and lifestyle care and technologies to eliminate or reduce chronic pain. ?

According to the American Pain Foundation, pain is a growing public health crisis that affects an estimated 76.5 million Americans each year.? In fact:?

Twenty-six percent ? more than one in every four ? of adults age 20 and over report that they have had a problem with pain that persisted for more than 24 hours in duration. In fact, chronic pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined.?

?An estimated 20% of American adults (42 million people) report that pain or physical discomfort disrupts their sleep a few nights a week or more.

?The annual cost of chronic pain in the United States, including healthcare expenses, lost income, and lost productivity, is estimated to be $100 billion.

Since its inception in 1994 at Saint Anne?s Hospital in Fall River, Mass., the Steward Centers for Pain Management have experienced growth that reflects these national trends.?

The centers began as a small clinic with one physician and one nurse in response to area physicians? requests. Saint Anne?s center has grown to include?four sites for pain management in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and has become the region?s largest and most comprehensive program for the treatment of chronic pain.?

The pain center's main campus is in Swansea, Mass. Additional satellite sites are at Saint Anne?s Hospital in Fall River and Hawthorn Medical Associates in North Dartmouth, Mass.

Saint Anne?s pain specialists treat a wide range of chronic pain conditions. Treatment may include a combination of approaches, including a wide range of interventional procedures, physical conditioning, medication management, behavioral medicine components, such as relaxation training and stress management, and psychological interventions to address depression and anxiety that often accompany chronic pain.

The new?Rhode Island pain management?satellite offers a team of physicians; registered nurses and nurse practitioners who are board-certified in pain management; licensed mental health counselors; and rehabilitation specialists. Dr. Eric Dominguez is the center?s medical director, and Kristine Walker, MS, RN-BC, NE-BC, is executive director of pain management services.?

The Steward Centers for Pain Management are accepting patients by physician referral.? For more information, visit www.steward.org/painmanagement or call the center, toll-free, at 1-888-675-PAIN (1-888-675-7246).

Source: http://eastprovidence.patch.com/articles/pain-centers-open-e-p-satellite

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Breast Cancer: Detecting early signs

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - When someone says you fight like a girl, it's not usually meant as a compliment. However, when it comes to breast cancer, women can throw and take some tough punches. Men can also be impacted, but it's predominately found in women.

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, 2 News brings you a week-long special series that?celebrates survivors. They will share?what they've learned during their journey. But first, experts in the field talk about caring for women?dealing with?the disease.????

"It's such an earth-shattering diagnosis for a woman to hear," said Dr. Melissa Roelle, a surgeon at?Miami Valley Hospital.?She and her colleagues at Miami Valley South's High-Risk Breast Center use their minds, skills and hearts to battle breast cancer.

"Mammography saves lives, and women save each other," said Dr. M. Patricia Braeuning, a radiologist at Miami Valley South.????

Hang on to the last part of what she just said, we'll get back to it in just a moment, but first, mammograms. Doctor Braeuning says they're still the best way to find breast cancer early. Mammograms can sometimes find the disease up to three years before it can be felt.

"Mortality deceases by at least 40% - if not greater - in people who have yearly mammography," said?Braeuning. "It's not going to save everybody, but if you can save at least 40% of?people with mammograms, that's huge."

Sticking with 40, that's the age she recommends women with a normal risk begin yearly mammograms. The process takes about 20 minutes and she says it's relatively painless.

About 10% of cases of breast cancer involve an inherited component. A genetic counselor, like Julie Sawyer, can help identify?a family's risk.

"We can actually run calculations that can give us an idea statistically what the chances are they can carry a gene that's changed in such a way that it raises the risk of breast or ovarian cancer in the family," said Sawyer, Miami Valley South.

The gene mutations are called BRCA-1 and BRCA-2. Sawyer says men can also be carriers. So, a father's family is just as important as a mother's when evaluating risk. Women with a mutation have up to an 85% risk of developing breast cancer, says Sawyer. "We talk about all those 'what ifs'," she said. "(We talk about) How a woman will feel in various circumstances and various results so she isn't blindsided, so she has a chance to decide if that's even something she wants to know at this point in her life."

Doctor Roelle says treatment for breast cancer depends on the individual, and she encourages patients to take their time in understanding the diagnosis, "And learn as much about it as you can," she said. "To understand what the disease is, talk with people, and spend some time with your doctors."

A woman can have the lump removed - called a lumpectomy. Or, remove the entire breast - called a mastectomy. Doctor Roelle says the survival benefit is about the same.

"There's a slightly higher chance that a woman who has a lumpectomy with radiation will have a reoccurrence," she said. "Now, it's not zero in women who have a mastectomy either. It's still about 5% as we look many years down the road. Even if you have a mastectomy there's always a chance the cancer could come back."

She says in her practice, she's seeing more women who develop cancer in one breast opting to remove both breasts to reduce their risk of reoccurrence. She says reconstruction is an option for many.

Returning to that comment earlier in the story, about women saving each other. Well, we just may be our best ally in the fight against breast cancer.

"People don't take the time to take care of themselves," said Dr. Braeuning. "Sometimes you need to grab your sister, or your best friend, or your mother and have your mammogram together. That's a fun way to do it because then you don't forget every year, and you have your bosom buddy to do it with you."

Source: http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/local/montgomery/breast-cancer-detecting-early-signs

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USD/CAD: Pair trading higher ahead of the BoC rate decision | GCI ...

GCI Forex News - USD/CAD: Pair trading higher ahead of the BoC rate decision

USDCAD Movement

For the 24 hours to 23:00 GMT, the USD declined 0.22% against the CAD to close at 0.9922.

In the Asian session, at GMT0300, the pair is trading at 0.9925, with the USD trading marginally higher from yesterday?s close.

The pair is expected to find support at 0.9907, and a fall through could take it to the next support level of 0.9888. The pair is expected to find its first resistance at 0.9954, and a rise through could take it to the next resistance level of 0.9983.

Trading trends in the pair today are expected to be determined by the release of retail sales in Canada. Meanwhile, investors also eye the Bank of Canada?s (BOC) rate decision, in which the bank is expected to keep rates on hold at 1.0%.

The currency pair is trading in between its 20 Hr and 50 Hr moving averages.

This entry was posted in USD/CAD. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://forexnews.gcitrading.com/currencies/usdcad/usdcad-pair-trading-higher-ahead-of-the-boc-rate-decision.htm

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Baseball: Giants oust reigning champs to reach World Series

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QUITE A WIN. Pitcher Sergio Romo #54 and catcher Buster Posey #28 of the San Francisco Giants celebrate after the Giants defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 9-0 in Game Seven of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park

SAN FRANCISCO, USA - Rising from the brink of elimination, the San Francisco Giants reached the World Series by beating St. Louis 9-0 on Monday, October 22, ousting the reigning champions from the Major League Baseball playoffs.

The Giants captured the best-of-seven National League Championship Series 4-3 after having trailed the Cardinals 3-1. For the second playoff series in a row, San Francisco advanced by winning the last three games.

San Francisco will face the Detroit Tigers, who swept the New York Yankees in the American League final, when the best-of-seven World Series championship series starts Wednesday, October 24 in the Giants' ballpark.

The Giants seek their second World Series crown in three seasons while the Tigers, who lost to St. Louis in 2006 in their most recent World Series, have not won the championship since 1984.

Giants dominate

Winning pitcher Matt Cain pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings for the Giants, striking out four Cardinals while surrendering five hits and a walk, and aided his own cause by knocking in a run in the second inning.

San Francisco opened the scoring in the first when Angel Pagan singled, took third base on a Marco Scutaro single and crossed home plate on Pablo Sandoval's ground out to the pitcher.

The Giants took a 2-0 lead when Gregor Blanco singled, advanced on Brandon Crawford's ground out to first base and scored on a Cain single up the middle.

San Francisco pounded in five runs in the third inning to seize command.

Hunter Pence blasted a bases-loaded double to centerfield to drive in two runs and a fielding error on the play by Jon Jay allowed a third run to score.

Pence advanced to third on Brandon Belt's single and scored when Crawford hit into a bases-loaded fielder's choice. Belt scored from third when Pagan hit into a fielder's choice and the Giants took a 7-0 edge.

Blanco scored from third base in the seventh inning when Aubrey Huff grounded into a double play and Belt blasted a solo home run in the eighth for the Giants' final runs.

St. Louis threatened in the eighth with runners at second and third and one out, but David Freese grounded out to the pitcher and Giants relief pitcher Javier Lopez struck out pinch-hitter Tony Cruz to end the inning.

The Cardinals put runners on second and third again in the ninth inning with two outs but Matt Holliday flew out to second baseman Scutaro to end the game in heavy rain. - Agence France-Presse

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rappler/~3/3euiRgslo7w/14690-baseball-giants-oust-reigning-champs-to-reach-world-series

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Self-powered sensors to monitor nuclear fuel rod status

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2012) ? Japan's Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear disaster that occurred in 2011 -- a result of the strongest earthquake on record in the country and the powerful tsunami waves it triggered -- underscored the need for a method to monitor the status of nuclear fuel rods that doesn't rely on electrical power.

During the disaster, the electrical power connection to the nuclear reactor failed and rendered back-up electrical generators, coolant pumps, and sensor systems useless. The nuclear plant's operators were unable to monitor the fuel rods in the reactor and spent fuel in the storage ponds.

To address this issue, Penn State researchers teamed with the Idaho National Laboratory to create a self-powered sensor capable of harnessing heat from nuclear reactors' harsh operating environments to transmit data without electronic networks. The team will present their research at the Acoustical Society of America's upcoming 164th Meeting, October 22-26, 2012, in Kansas City, Missouri.

"Thermoacoustics exploits the interaction between heat and sound waves," explains Randall A. Ali, a graduate student studying acoustics at Penn State. "Thermoacoustic sensors can operate without moving parts and don't require external power if a heat source, such as fuel in a nuclear reactor, is available."

Thermoacoustic engines can be created from a closed cylindrical tube -- even a fuel rod -- and a passive structure called a "stack."

"We used stacks made from a ceramic material with a regular array of parallel pores that's manufactured as the substrate for catalytic converters found in many automotive exhaust systems. These stacks facilitate the transfer of heat to the gas in a resonator, and heat is converted to sound when there's a temperature difference along the stack," Ali elaborates.

When a thermoacoustic engine operates, an acoustically driven streaming gas jet circulates hot fluid away from the heat source -- nuclear fuel -- and along the walls of the engine and into the surrounding cooling fluid.

Penn State and Idaho National Laboratory are also investigating using thermoacoustic sound to monitor microstructural changes in nuclear fuel, measure gas mixture composition, and to act as a failsafe device in emergency situations.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Acoustical Society of America (ASA), via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electronics/~3/PrVgiGLNGA4/121023123958.htm

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Beirut girl hurt by car bomb needed 300 stitches

BEIRUT (AP) ? Jennifer Shedid had just arrived home from school and she was hungry. As she asked her older sister what she could eat, a massive explosion shook their entire block and turned the glass of their 4th floor apartment into flying knives that slashed 10-year-old Jennifer from head to toe.

Their father Richard was climbing the stairs to the apartment on his way back from buying bread for the family when the car bomb struck on Friday afternoon less than 20 meters (yards) away, shaking doors and shattering his home.

He grabbed his bleeding daughter from the arms of her older sister Jozianne and rushed her downstairs.

"As I carried her down the stairs, she was trembling and telling me: 'Please dad rescue me,'" the father told The Associated Press on Monday.

A neighbor helped him carry Jennifer and a soldier then took the girl and whisked her to an ambulance that sped off to the hospital. An AP picture, published in newspapers around the world, showed the girl being carried out with deep head and face wounds and her sneakers soaked red with blood.

"As we were in the ambulance, she was better but losing lots of blood," said her father.

The blast, which hit the Shedids' narrow residential street in Beirut's predominantly Christian neighborhood of Achrafieh, targeted Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, a top intelligence official who was one of the most powerful opponents of Syria in Lebanon. He was killed along with his bodyguard and a female civilian ? a mother of three. It has sparked angry accusations from Syria's opponents in Lebanon that Damascus was behind the bombings.

Jennifer was one of the dozens wounded in the blast.

On Monday, she lay in a hospital with more than 300 stitches in her body, 90 of them in her face and head while and about 50 more on her hands. Her head was shaved and her face was swollen.

Smiling faintly with a monitor behind her showing her heart rate and blood pressure, Jennifer blew kisses to visiting reporters and called out "hi, hi."

Antoine Younan, the doctor leading the team treating Jennifer, showed reporters on Monday a picture of the girl when she arrived at the hospital.

"Her body was riddled with glass wounds," he said. Younan said Jennifer is in stable condition. The veins of her right hands, severely damaged by the glass, are healing and she moved her fingers for the first time on Monday. She underwent operations to remove the glass, repair her veins and stitch her wounds.

Jennifer's 17-year-old sister Jozianne, sitting in the lobby of the hospital, recounted the scene in their home just after the blast struck.

Jennifer was on the floor bleeding while Jozianne said she was thrown by the power of the blast and landed under a China cabinet where she suffered minor injuries. She immediately got up to help her younger sister.

"As I opened my eyes I saw that much of the apartment was turned upside down," she told reporters. "I stood up and started shouting 'Jenny, Jenny' but no one answered. Then I found her next to a couch and covered with debris that fell from the ceiling," said Jozianne, who had a bandage on her left brow from a glass injury.

"I screamed for help but no one answered," said Jozianne, wearing a cross around her neck. "I carried her and kept talking to her. I did not want her to go unconscious. She was holding me saying: 'Help me.'"

Jennifer's mother Nisrin was at work on the other side of the city in the commercial neighborhood of Hamra when she received a message on her phone about an explosion in her neighborhood Achrafieh. She jumped into a taxi, but had to get out about a mile away because cars were kept away from the scene to clear the roads for ambulances.

The cellphone network was overloaded and she could not get through to her husband or children. But she did receive a call from her daughter's school that let her know she had arrived home in her school bus.

She ran toward her apartment.

"I wanted to be with the children so that they would not be afraid," she said.

When she arrived at her street, security forces prevented her from reaching the building because the area was cordoned off for an investigation of the car bomb.

Then she saw something that made her collapse.

"As I looked at the street, I saw Jennifer's shoes covered with blood," Nisrin said. "I bit my tongue and fainted."

She was treated by a paramedic. When she asked him about her daughters, he took her to Jozianne.

"When I saw the blood on Jozianne's clothes, I knew that Jennifer's injuries were serious," Nisrin said. She then received a call from the hospital where Jennifer was being treated and headed over.

A few hours after she arrived, Jennifer was taken out of the operating room and she saw her daughter wearing a green hospital gown.

"I looked at her. My heart broke," the mother told journalists outside the Intensive Care Unit where Jennifer has been since Friday.

Jennifer, a top student in her 5th grade class, loves drawing and taking pictures with the cell phones of her parents and sister. She is no fan of science or math but loves reading and sports.

Her favorite cartoon is Tom and Jerry.

On Sundays, she goes with her Maronite Christian family to church for prayers.

On Monday, Jennifer opened her eyes from the latest operation and started communicating for the first time.

"My happiness today is beyond explanation," said her mother Nisrin.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/beirut-girl-hurt-car-bomb-needed-300-stitches-185300534.html

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11-year-old accused in Maine baby death arraigned

FILE - This undated file photo provided by Nicole Greenaway shows her 3-month-old daughter, Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, of Clinton, Maine, who died on July 8, 2012 while in a babysitter's care. An 11-year-old U.S. girl charged with juvenile manslaughter in the baby's death entered a "no answer" plea Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, during a hearing in Skowhegan, Maine. (AP Photo/Nicole Greenaway, File)

FILE - This undated file photo provided by Nicole Greenaway shows her 3-month-old daughter, Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, of Clinton, Maine, who died on July 8, 2012 while in a babysitter's care. An 11-year-old U.S. girl charged with juvenile manslaughter in the baby's death entered a "no answer" plea Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, during a hearing in Skowhegan, Maine. (AP Photo/Nicole Greenaway, File)

SKOWHEGAN, Maine (AP) ? The youngest person to be charged with homicide in Maine in at least 30 years ? and possibly ever ? twiddled her fingers, bit her nails and looked down on Monday during her first court appearance. Afterward, her attorney said the manslaughter charge was "too harsh" for someone so young.

The girl was charged over the summer at age 10 with juvenile manslaughter in the death of 3-month-old Brooklyn Foss-Greenaway, who was staying overnight in the girl's home in Fairfield in the care of the girl's mother.

The girl, now 11, entered a juvenile plea called "no answer," which is neither a denial nor admission of the charges.

The girl's mother called police early on July 8 to report that the infant was not breathing, authorities said. The infant, who was reportedly fussy, was sleeping in a portable crib in the 10-year-old's bedroom that night, said the infant's mother, Nicole "Nicki" Greenaway of Clinton.

The state hasn't released the cause of death, but Greenaway was told that her daughter ingested medication and was suffocated.

Outside the courthouse, defense lawyer John Martin said manslaughter was an "extremely severe" charge for someone who's so young. "When I say too harsh, I mean she's just 11," Martin said. "It's harsh. There's no other word for it."

But Greenaway said the mother should be held accountable, as well, since she left her daughter in the bedroom, leaving her infant without adult supervision.

"I feel that she does need to be charged. To me right now it makes me feel like she's allowing (her daughter) to take full responsibility," Greenaway said.

Greenaway left the court hearing angry and frustrated, saying she felt that the girl and her mother were smirking. The girl's mother left without talking to reporters.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson declined to comment on whether there could be additional charges.

The girl, who had her hair pulled back and wore glasses, sat quietly with her eyes down for most of the brief hearing. When the judge asked if she understood what was required of her, including cooperating on a competency examination, she simply nodded.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which removed the young suspect from the home, faulted the baby sitter for leaving the infant in the room with the girl. In a letter, an agency case worker said the 10-year-old had a behavior disorder that made her unsuitable for caring for the infant.

The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles accused of crimes.

If convicted as a juvenile, the maximum penalty is incarceration until age 21. For an adult, manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, but the state opted not to try the girl in an adult courtroom.

To protect the girl's privacy, Maine District Court Chief Judge Charles LaVerdiere issued a special order warning that no recording device of any type was allowed in the courtroom Monday. Afterward, an umbrella was used to shield her from photographers as she left the courthouse.

During the hearing, LaVerdiere ordered a competency evaluation that'll help establish the path for the case. "Procedurally that's going to kind of guide the way this case goes," Martin said afterward. "That first determination is something that's going to be important in this case."

___

Follow David Sharp on Twitter at http://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-10-22-Baby%20Death-Youngster%20Charged/id-f38e5401b6934d7c9d64e4f1ef4d195b

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Kate Upton: Curvy, Confident in Vogue

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/10/kate-upton-curvy-confident-in-vogue/

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Foreign affairs: 23 new books I wish Obama and Romney would read

President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will go head-to-head on Monday, Oct. 22 for the third and final presidential debate, this time with a focus on foreign policy. Here's a list of new and upcoming books on foreign policy that I would like to see on any presidential reading list.

- Kristin Rawls,?Monitor contributor

1. 'The Race for What?s Left: The Global Scramble for the World?s Last Resources,' by Michael T. Klare

"The Race for What?s Left" is a troubling look at accelerated resource depletion and the potential consequences that loom just ahead if nothing changes: food scarcity, environmental calamity, and even new resource wars.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/3UE0_aZNNmY/Foreign-affairs-23-new-books-I-wish-Obama-and-Romney-would-read

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RSS Feed Search Engine - Real-Time Search Powered by FeedRank

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.rssmicro.com/rss.web?q=Tornado

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5 Reasons Why Do-it-Yourself Marketing Can Actually Hurt Your ...

Entrepreneurs, by nature, are do-it-yourself people. Not a bad thing. While that trait may serve you in many areas there?s one where it actually works against you: Marketing. Here?s five reasons why.

1)?? You Don?t Know What You Don?t Know.

While you might feel savvy after reading a couple marketing books or listening to a savvy marketing guru, it doesn?t compare to working with a qualified team or consultant with great experience and a great record. You simply don?t know what you don?t know, and if you do it yourself, what you don?t know will hurt you. Like having a tag-line that makes no sense, or sends a wrong message. Like pouring money into SEO or your website when the better focus is Content Marketing and improved organic search. Like not realizing you need video. Or having a self-produced video that?s so unprofessional it works against you. The list goes on.

2)?? A Business Owner Can?t Be Objective.

Passionate business owners tend to be absorbed by their business?an advantage when it comes to DIY marketing, right? Not really. Effective marketing starts with an unbiased perspective. To be successful at marketing, business blemishes must be seen clearly. As a business owner you just don?t have that objectivity. If you read Ken Segall?s book Insanely Simple, about his working with Apple, you?ll read how Steve Jobs was proven wrong time and time again by his more objective and talented outside team who created some of the most iconic and successful marketing ever done.

3)?? The Best Marketing Isn?t About A System or Formula.

As more small business owners attempt to save money by trying to do their own thing, more self-proclaimed marketing gurus are popping up on the Internet with their ?Amazing Profit-Making Marketing? systems. They all sound amazing and they all claim amazing results. They even have amazing testimonials. But every business is different, and a cookie-cutter, systematic approach is not the most effective way to market a business or product. While an ?Amazing Profit-Making Marketing System? sounds amazing, the ones making the most money from them are usually the ones getting you to spend money on them.

4)?? Great Marketing Requires Talent.

Great marketing is part science, part art. Yet, the creative part often gets lost or diminished in this ever-advancing tech world. Focused, creative talent is the ingredient that helps communicate your message and persuade your prospects to buy. It?s not easy to find, but if you do it?ll make a huge difference.

5)?? DIY? Doesn?t Really Save Money.

Because you?re not spending money on outside resources you might think you?re saving tons of money with a DIY approach. Just remember this?it?s not just what you spend, it?s what you spend and get back on what you spend.

Great marketing will get you back more, and sometimes significantly more, than what you spend. So, how do you get great marketing? You find and hire great marketing people, like Steve Jobs did, like Nike?s Phil Knight did, and like every successful business owner does. And, they didn?t just do it when they were big successful companies with huge marketing budgets. They did it from the very beginning of their companies, only months after they incorporated.

You also have to factor in what your time is worth. It?s not cheap. If you kept track of every minute you spent trying to do it yourself and applied a dollar value to that, you?d be surprised at the expense. Also realize that every expensive minute you spend fumbling with something you don?t do great is taking away valuable time and talent from something you do do great. That?s another expense.

To sum up I?ll end with a simple quote from someone who?s interviewed hundreds of small business owners and knows what it takes to be successful:

?Business success is all about finding the right outside service providers and using them wisely. You can?t do it all yourself.?

? Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends

DIY Photo via Shutterstock

About John Follis

John Follis is a business owner and nationally respected marketing exec profiled on Wikipedia. His successful campaigns have been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USAToday, Forbes and two college textbooks. He?s also author of "How to Attract and ExciteYour Prospects" a guide to getting the best marketing results. His innovative ?Marketing Therapy? program helps businesses around the US achieve their marketing goals faster, smarter, and more cost-effectively.

?

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/10/5-reasons-why-do-it-yourself-marketing-can-actually-hurt-your-business.html

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Israel, US begin joint military drills | Al Akhbar English

Israeli and US soldiers were on Sunday beginning a series of massive military drills called Austere Challenge 12, in the largest-ever joint military collaboration between the allies, officials said.

The drills, which involve 3,500 personnel from the US European Command (US EUCOM) and 1,000 Israeli troops and are expected to last three weeks.

The drills are likely meant to send a message to Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

The West and Israel accuse the Islamic republic of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists the program is solely for peaceful purposes.

Israel has threatened to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Officials said the soldiers will train together on Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, the latest version of the US Patriot and the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, jointly developed by the two countries.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Source: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel-us-begin-joint-military-drills

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6 Afghan police killed in insider attack

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) ? An Afghan police officer and cook poisoned their colleagues at a checkpoint in an assault coordinated with insurgent fighters that left six dead in the country's south, officials said Saturday.

It was the latest in a string of attacks from inside the Afghan army and police that are threatening to undermine both the partnership with international troops ? which have been the target of many attacks ? and the morale of Afghan forces, who have suffered equally heavy casualties from such strikes.

The police officer and the cook worked with outside insurgents in the assault, which hit police manning a checkpoint in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, the governor's office said in a statement.

They poisoned two of the officers and then the militants attacked from outside, killing the remaining four officers, provincial spokesman Ahmad Zirak said. He did not say how the officers were poisoned. The police officer was captured as he fled, but the cook escaped and remains at large, Zirak added.

The gunmen escaped by motorcycle with weapons and ammunition, the governor's statement said.

A recent upsurge in the number of insider attacks on coalition troops by Afghan soldiers or police ? or insurgents disguised in their uniforms ? has further undermined public support for the war in the West. So far this year, at least 52 foreign troops ? about half of them Americans ? have been killed in insider attacks.

The Afghan government has not provided statistics on the number of its forces killed in insider attacks. However, U.S. military statistics obtained by The Associated Press show at least 53 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed in such strikes by the end of August.

Meanwhile, a Taliban attack elsewhere in Helmand killed two district community council members, while Taliban-fired rocket-propelled grenades destroyed a warehouse full of food destined for the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.

Insurgents ambushed the council members while they were driving to a tribal meeting in the volatile Sangin district, the governor's office said in its statement.

The attack against the council members is a reminder of the other worrying trend in insurgent tactics this year ? a shift toward more targeted killings of those affiliated with the government. The United Nations has recorded a sharp increase in such killings in the first six months of 2012 as compared with the same period of 2011.

The jump in insider attacks and assassinations are throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan government and security forces to take over as international troops reduce their presence. The U.S. has pulled back the "surge" troops President Barack Obama sent soon after he took office, and other members of the international coalition have already started drawing down their forces ahead of a planned handover to the Afghans in 2014.

But Kabul's Western allies also are trying to assure the Afghans that they are not deserting them, and several countries have reached agreements with Afghanistan pledging at least financial assistance past 2014.

France, for one, recently signed a treaty with Afghanistan pledging such help, a deal that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Kabul on Saturday "symbolizes our friendship, our cooperation."

He noted that France is committing funds at a time when its budget is strained and said that while the remaining forces will not be fighting, they will be an essential part of a smooth transition to Afghan control.

About 2,000 French troops are departing by the end of this year, which will leave about 1,400 to help with training Afghan security forces and logistics.

In Saturday's warehouse attack, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a compound used by military contractor Supreme Group to store food and other supplies destined for Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in the country. A warehouse inside the compound caught fire in the assault and burned through the night.

"The local fire brigade attended the scene and brought the fire under control, but the warehouse itself and all contents were destroyed," Victoria Frost, a spokeswoman for Supreme Group in Dubai, wrote in an email. She said no one was injured and staff at the site did not have to evacuate.

The fire could still be seen burning Saturday morning, said Mohammad Asif, the deputy administrator for Bagram district, where the compound is located. He said the Supreme compound encompasses about five hectares (12 acres).

Frost said the fire was contained much earlier.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email that the fire at the Supreme Group compound destroyed a "large stock of food meant for U.S. troops."

Frost did not say how much material was destroyed though she did say it was "primarily food supplies," adding that the company was working to make up the loss with inventory from other warehouses.

____

Vogt reported from Kabul. Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report in Kabul.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/6-afghan-police-killed-insider-attack-075012356.html

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Council for the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island celebrates 20 ...

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Twenty years young and strong and thriving, and the Council for the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island has only just begun. That was the mantra Thursday night as COAHSI celebrated its 20th anniversary with a gala at the Old Bermuda Inn, Rossville.

Centered on the theme ?Give To Art. Love Art,? the night emphasized all the organization has done to build a creative and thriving arts culture in the borough. It came with music, dancing and dinner, and culminated in the recognition of three people whose work has been indispensable in that regard.

Sisters Doreen Cugno and Luanne Sorrentino received The Laura Jean Watters Service to COAHSI and the Arts Community Award; Michael Fressola the Achievement in the Arts and Humanities Award, and Colin Jost the Emerging Young Artist Award.

COAHSI Executive Director Melanie Franklin Cohn predicted that Islanders can expect much more as COAHSI matures.

?The organization has really grown with the arts community in Staten Island, and the arts community in the borough is getting more and more vibrant all the time,? she said. ?And it?s fabulous that the arts council has been able to keep pace and support it.?

Mrs. Cugno and Mrs. Sorrentino, along with their mother, the late Rosemary Cappozalo, rescued the St. George Theatre; Mrs. Sorrentino said it was the sisters? privilege to bring to fruition their mother?s work of restoring the showplace to its former brilliance.

?It was our mother?s dream to see this theater succeed and thrive and shine,? said Mrs. Sorrentino. Mrs. Cugno said she was equally honored to accept the award named for Ms. Watters, whom she credits as an inspiration.

Fressola is the arts editor for the Advance and has covered the Island cultural community for more than 30 years.

?I already do something I love and have been doing forever. And I don?t plan on stopping, so an award seems unnecessary, but thank you,? he said.

Jost, 28, a former Advance staffer and now recently named head writer for ?Saturday Night Live,? paid homage to the newspaper, where he started as an intern, and lauded his fellow honorees.

Source: http://www.silive.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2012/10/council_for_the_arts_and_human.html

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Flagler Auditorium Flagler's Performing Arts Center | FlaglerLive ...

Paid Advertising | October 17, 2012

Flagler Auditorium is Flagler County?s premier performing arts center. It was created by a public bond issue twenty years ago. This 1000 seat venue is available for professional performances, community performances and activities, and for Flagler County School needs. The Auditorium offers a large variety of entertainment: nationally touring Broadway, cultural programs, big bands, symphonies, family theater and celebrity entertainment.

Artist fees and operating expenses are supported mostly through ticket sales; however, additional funds come from our sponsors, advertisers, and our wonderful patrons. Governmental help is provided from the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and Tourist Development Council (TDC). Other needed funds are provided by fund-raising activities.

The Flagler Auditorium Governing Board relies upon the generosity of individuals and corporations to present the latest professional performances at affordable prices and to help support the arts in Flagler County Schools. Please help us to enhance the cultural life of Flagler County by becoming a patron, sponsor, or advertiser. All donor levels are 100% tax deductible.

The Flagler Auditorium Governing Board has created an Endowment for the Arts at Flagler Auditorium. To obtain information on various committees and charitable contributions, visit us on line at http:www.flaglerauditorium.org or call us directly at 386-437-7547 or 1-866-FLAGLER (866-352-4537)

UPCOMING SHOWS

Drumline Live ? National Tour
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012
7:30 p.m.

This versatile group of musicians and dancers brings an explosive energy and athleticism to an eclectic mix of sounds. Equally at home with the hottest contemporary hip hop, R&B, classic Motown tunes, and the rousing sounds of the great brass tradition, DRUMLINE LIVE is thrilled to share the Amercian Marching Band Experience!

?

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Titanic ? 100th Anniversary ? National Tour
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2012
7:30 p.m.

On the 100th anniversary of its tragic journey, TITANIC recounts the dreams, hopes and aspirations of those aboard the fateful ship. WINNER OF FIVE 1997 TONY AWARDS including BEST MUSICAL.

Bowfire ? Holiday Heart Strings ? National Tour
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2012
7:30 p.m.

BOWFIRE Holiday Heart Strings mixes greatest hits with a holiday twist! Celebrate the festive season with some of the world?s greatest fiddlers and violinists in many genres, with stepdancing like you have never seen.

BOWFIRE Holiday Heart Strings mixes greatest hits with a holiday twist! Celebrate the festive season with some of the world?s greatest fiddlers and violinists in many genres, with stepdancing like you have never seen. Get ready for a Ho Ho Ho Down!

Holiday Heart Strings includes all time favorite classics, such as The Nutcracker Suite, Sleigh Ride, So This Is Christmas, Dreydl, Dreydl, Dreydl, and The Christmas Song, with added singing as well as the best of BOWFIRE that audiences have come to love from its years of touring and performing.

As seen on PBS, BOWFIRE?s ensemble of world-renowned musicians takes audiences on a journey that moves seamlessly from Jazz to Classical to Bluegrass to Celtic to Rock. It is a must-see performance.

For more information on BOWFIRE, its cast and tour dates, please visit www.bowfire.com

Please support FlaglerLive. Go to our Contributions/Donations Page.

Source: http://flaglerlive.com/45500/flagler-auditorium5500-east-hwy-100-palm-coast386-437-7547-or-toll-free-1-866-352-4537/

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North Dakota race comes down to ticket-splitters

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) ? Dwight Thompson is a solid conservative businessman who will be voting for a Republican for president and a Democrat for Senate.

He's a ticket-splitter, a rare political breed critical to Democratic Senate candidates in states like North Dakota, where Republican Mitt Romney is expected to easily win the presidential race while down-ballot contests remain stubbornly close.

North Dakota is enjoying an energy development boom and, unlike most of the rest of the nation, its economy is robust. Unemployment is 3 percent, the lowest of any state in the nation. The Senate race here largely has come down to the personalities of Democrat Heidi Heitkamp and Republican Rep. Rick Berg.

Thompson, 57, of Grand Forks, sees no contradiction in his decision. For him, it's about familiarity and Heitkamp's "feistiness."

"I think that draws people to her," said Thompson, the chief financial officer of Altru Health System. "It's more for Heidi than against Berg."

Less than three weeks from Election Day, the North Dakota Senate race looms large in the broader race for control of the Senate.

Republicans need to gain four seats to take control of the Senate if President Barack Obama is re-elected, three if Mitt Romney wins the White House. That's because the vice president, who also serves as president of the Senate, has a vote in case of a tie.

The GOP task of gaining four has become increasingly difficult because of candidates like Heitkamp in races the GOP had once considered plum pickup opportunities.

Republicans romped in North Dakota in 2010. Berg took the state's lone seat in the House away from a Democrat as GOP Gov. John Hoeven easily won a Senate seat formerly in Democratic hands. Afterward, four-term Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad decided against running again.

Voters like Thompson have long since made up their minds about the presidential race. Romney, like every Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1964, is expected to win in a waltz.

But the contest between Berg and Heitkamp has remained close. A recent Mason-Dixon poll of the state conducted for Valley News Live had the two candidates tied at 47 percent each. The same poll showed Romney easily beating Obama and Republican Kevin Cramer comfortably ahead of his Democratic challenger, Pam Gulleson, in the race for Berg's House seat.

Ticket-splitting has a long history in North Dakota. Until 2010, the state's congressional delegation had been entirely Democratic since 1986, even as the state regularly voted for the GOP presidential ticket.

Republicans had hoped that the Senate race would be over by now, that Romney voters intrigued by Heitkamp would settle in with Berg. The first-term congressman's case to voters has been similar to Romney's: a healthy emphasis on the national debt, a dismissal of Obama's policies and the promise that he can bring his skills as a businessman to the Senate.

For much of the campaign, Berg has made a simple partisan appeal against Heitkamp, a former state attorney general. His ads and his stump speeches focused largely on her past support of Obama's policies, particularly the president's health care law. He said she would be a rubber stamp for Obama and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid. Berg's more recent ads have questioned Heitkamp's self-styled independence.

"Independent means you stand up to Obamacare," a narrator says in his newest one.

Berg says he wants to bring North Dakota's principles and its prosperity to the Senate. He's campaigned recently with Hoeven, a widely popular figure in the state.

Republicans recently have highlighted Heitkamp's donations from attorneys who oppose the drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a big issue in this state where a booming oil industry has largely shielded people from the country's larger economic woes. Berg's supporters say such things show Heitkamp's independence is more style than substance.

"She won't represent North Dakota interests as well as Berg can," said Gene Nicholas, a retired state legislator and small grain and livestock farmer. "He's more mainstream."

Speaking while riding a tractor through his soybean field, Nicholas said Berg would also provide an important counterweight if Obama wins re-election.

"We've got trillion-dollar deficits and he's done nothing to solve that problem," he said. "Heidi won't help that."

Heitkamp has made preserving her independent image a centerpiece of her campaign.

In one television ad, Heitkamp, wearing a baseball pullover, helmet and batting glove on her left hand, hits line drives in a batting cage while her own narration describes how she expected political opponents to "try and hit me with all sorts of stuff" in a Senate campaign.

"I'm just getting warmed up," she says, winking at the camera.

And occasionally it has seemed as if she's running in opposition to Obama. At a North Dakota Chamber of Commerce forum earlier this month, she said the first thing she would tell Obama about his energy policy is: "You're wrong. You're wrong on energy. ... You made bad decisions."

"It's time for you to get into the real world," Heitkamp said she would tell the president.

Republicans have called this bluster, but it appeals to voters like Bob Rost, the Grand Forks County sheriff.

"I've known Heidi for a lot of years," Rost said. "I knew her when she was attorney general. There was a lot of issues that came up and she was not afraid to roll her sleeves up and deal with those sort of issues."

Even Berg's supporters say Heitkamp can be charming. Dennis Johnsrud, an Epping farmer who supports Berg, says the Republican must overcome Heitkamp's "likability factor."

"I think it's very effective," Johnsrud said of Berg's strategy of tying Heitkamp to the president. "I think it's the only reason (the race) is close."

___

Jackson reported from Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-dakota-race-comes-down-ticket-splitters-064624589--election.html

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IMF jumps ship on Europe | | MacroBusiness

So you take a 2 week holiday, and when you return you find the?IMF have switched sides!

?Fiscal policy should be appropriately calibrated to be as growth-friendly as possible,? the International Monetary and Financial Committee said in a communique.

The statement came after days of back and forth between those ? led by Germany ? urging no let-up from belt-tightening and those arguing for a loosening of the grip of austerity.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Thursday she was happy for Greece ? struggling under the weight of cuts demanded by international creditors ? to have two more years to meet its deficit reduction targets.

So has the IMF suddenly woken up the fact that demanding every?government slash spending and raise taxes is, in many cases, counter productive because they have?underestimated the fiscal multiplier in government spending ? ?No this isn?t new. As I?noted?back in August 2011, the IMF along with its new President have been well aware for some time that their theories on expansionary fiscal contraction have underestimated the negative effects of attempting government sector austerity at a time of private sector de-leveraging, specifically in a fixed currency environment.

Ms Lagarde is finally vocalising what many critics, such as myself, have been arguing since the crisis began. Tightening fiscal policy in the absence of increased private sector investment or external surpluses leads to weaker growth, which in turn worsens public finances further. Without external debt relief and/or the ability to externally devalue this becomes a spiral downwards as domestic retrenchment adds to this counter-productive dynamic. I discussed this in detail here.

Ms Lagarde does, however, appear to be covering all bases by attempting to frame this in the context of worsening economic circumstances caused by externalities while insisting government debt is still the major issue.?I suspect that the renewed tension in Spain is the real driver of Ms Lagarde?s comments as she is using it as an opportunity to once again attempt to separate the IMF and herself from the damage the organisation she has inherited has done while it slowly aborts its European mission.

The Germans, for their part , don?t seem too impressed by a renewed push to once again sideline their policy efforts:

Germany?s finance minister said Friday there is ?no alternative? to cutting debt in European countries, a day after the head of the IMF called for Greece to be given more time to pare its deficit.

?There?s no alternative to reduce in the medium term too high sovereign debts, especially and of course for? the eurozone as a whole,? Wolfgang Schauble said in a debate with IMF managing director Christine Lagarde in Tokyo.

Lagarde on Thursday appeared to soften slightly on the need for heavily indebted countries to trim their fiscal cloth, when she said: ?Instead of frontloading heavily it is sometimes better? to have a bit more time.?

She said the IMF was happy for debt-addled Greece to have another two years to get its fiscal house in order and bring budget deficits down to levels agreed with international creditors.

Schauble is correct, there is no alternative to cutting debts across the Eurozone, but that isn?t actually the point of Lagarde?s comments. The real point is whether the current strategy is actually working in doing just that ?and if we look at the trajectory of debt in much of the European periphery the answer ?appears to be no. ?Greece is the leading example:

Euro zone officials are considering new ways to reduce Greece?s huge debts because delays to reforms by Athens and continued recession have put the target of a debt to GDP ratio of 120 percent in 2020 out of reach,?euro zone?officials said.

A Greek debt sustainability analysis prepared by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission in March forecast Greek debt would rise to 164 percent of GDP in 2013 from around 160 percent in 2012 under a baseline scenario assuming the Greek economy would stop contracting next year.

But?Greece?now expects its economy to shrink by 3.8 percent in 2013, its sixth consecutive year of contraction, boosting its debt ratio to 179.3 percent.

?At the moment it looks like Greece?s debt level will rise to well above the target of 120 percent of GDP by 2020,? ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

Schauble went on to say that it does not build confidence when policy is changed midway through its political course, which I agree with, but given the solid backtracking from northern creditors, including Germany, on pledges made at the July summit its a fairly ironic statement in my opinion. Schauble went on to use this example to demonstrate his point:

When you want to climb a mountain and you start by going down, the mountain gets higher

True enough, but again not particularly relevant to his argument as this is actually the problem with the current policy that Ms Lagarde is referring to. Spain is another clear example of this:

The black hole in Spain?s?budget?has expanded faster than Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy?s attempt to shrink it, portending the same unrest roiling Greece.

The harshest austerity since the return to democracy in 1978 has failed to contain the deficit as the economy sinks deeper into recession. The shortfall increased in the first half of the year, as it did in the previous 12 months. Even after a sales-tax increase and health-care cuts kick in this quarter, it may still approach last year?s 9.4 percent of gross domestic product, said Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, an economist at the independent?applied Economic Research Foundation?in Madrid.

And like other periphery countries before it, this sliding further down the mountain is met with lower ratings:

S&P warned that rising unemployment and harsh austerity measures are likely to intensify social unrest and cause further friction between Spain?s central and regional governments.

?The downgrade reflects our view of mounting risks to Spain?s public finances, due to rising economic and political pressures,? said the rating agency in a statement.

?In our view, the capacity of Spain?s political institutions (both domestic and multilateral) to deal with the severe challenges posed by the current economic and financial crisis is declining, and therefore, in accordance with our rating methodology (see ?Sovereign Government Rating Methodology And Assumptions,? published June 30, 2011), we have lowered the rating by two notches.?

The downgrade to BBB- from BBB+ late on Wednesday leaves Spain one notch above ?junk? status. S&P also attached a ?negative outlook?, which warns of a possible downgrade in the medium term.

This should come as little surprise to MB readers, as I stated back in July this was all just a matter of time as the existing policy responses are ultimately counter-productive to debtors and creditors alike. Of course the ECB is waiting in the wings with its OMT and this latest ratings downgrade could be the trigger that finally forces Rajoy to seek external help. This is exactly the dynamic that is keeping Spanish bond yields suppressed even though the economy is worsening. However, it should be noted that a further downgrade to ?junk? will force up margins on Spanish bonds at clearing houses and also remove them from investment grade indexes. This what we saw in the case of Portugal which is why their bonds deteriorated so rapidly.

In the meantime the Spanish housing market continues to deteriorate?with cumulative declines in the Tinsa housing index increasing to 32.9% from peak in September. Once again Catalonia is leading the pack?with the ?Mediterranean Coast? falling 39.2% followed by 36% for ?Capitals and Major Cities?, 33.2% for ?Metropolitan Areas?, 28.6% for the ?Balearic and Canary Islands? and 28.5% for ?Other Municipalities?. ?Given the circumstances I can only assume that this means a further increase in the already record high bad debts in the banking system which will again apply more pressure to the government.

As I stated above the current response isn?t helping anyone long term. The bailouts and the monetary policy responses are buying time for the creditors at further expense of the debtors, but the creditors certainly aren?t climbing any mountains either. Unsound credit and bad loans are being masked by these monetary operations but as part of their implementation the real economy of the Eurozone is weakening while social tensions rise. As we?ve seen with Greece this ultimately means the creditors are forced to wear the costs anyway.

The IMF has signaled once again that it believes the current plan is failing and, as I stated ?nearly a year ago?would eventually occur, are slowly pushing back against the fiscal framework. It?s early days but given the developing weakness across the zone I wouldn?t be surprised to see some more side-switching on fiscal policy in the coming months, even from the supposedly?stringently fiscal responsible (even though most of them are not).

Source: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/10/imf-jumps-ship-on-europe/

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