"Live your life like a dog..." The Old Dog

Miss last night's speech? You can watch it all here, enhanced with stats and graphics to back up the President's words.

2012-01-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

George Carlin got it right: "The Owners don't want it to work for USa."

2012-01-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/embed/PYZpWTvre9c

CLICK HERE to hear George Calin's explaination for why our economic [and political] system does not work for us as citizens of the USA.

From George Orwell's "1984": "(...) From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. ... But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction - indeed, in some sense was the destruction - of a hierarchical society. ... the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would... already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. ... But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. ... Ignorance is Strength (...)"

Transcript of the NBC News/Facebook debate on Meet the Press

2012-01-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

http://presspass.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/08/10049650-read-the-nbc-news-facebook-debate-transcript

The following is a rush transcript of the NBC News/Facebook debate on Meet the Press featuring the six remaining Republican presidential candidates: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry. A final transcript will be available later.

DAVID GREGORY: This Sunday, a special edition of MEET THE PRESS live from New Hampshire, the last debate before the first in the nation Republican presidential primary. Voting here is just 48 hours away. We come to the Granite State where nearly one in five voters remains undecided despite seeing these candidates face-to-face in town halls, coffee shops and even in their living rooms, a small state that will have a big impact on the race. Their motto, "Live free or die." The issues: jobs and the economy, America's role in the world, and which of these candidates is best suited to take on President Obama. This morning, a debate in partnership with Facebook, the world's number one social platform, and the New Hampshire Union Leader. The candidates, the issues and your questions.

ANNNOUNCER: This is the NBC News/Facebook Republican Candidates Debate from the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, New Hampshire. Here now, the moderator of MEET THE PRESS, David Gregory.

DAVID GREGORY: And good morning and welcome to this special edition of MEET THE PRESS. The final debate before New Hampshire voting begins. All six candidates are here; and before we begin, you know the drill, we quickly go through the rules. Each candidate will have one minute, 60 seconds, to make their statement, to respond to questions and, at my discretion, 30 seconds for follow-ups or rebuttals. We're on a pretty tight schedule, so I will ask the candidates to stay within their allotted time, and we'll see how that goes.

We've partnered with Facebook, so some of the questions will come from me and some, of course, will come from you. We encourage you to weigh in on the debate in real time. Our online app at mtp.msnbc.com. You can monitor the conversation there and we'll see some of your feedback during that debate over the course of this debate.

Candidates, good morning.

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES: (In unison) Good morning.

DAVID GREGORY: I just want to say on behalf of all Americans that I thank you for being willing to debate each other every 10 hours, whether you feel you need it or not.

This is an important moment. Elections are about choices. They're about distinguishing one from the other. There is a political element to that, and of course it has to do with policy, as well. Governor Romney has won the Iowa caucuses, although narrowly. He's up in the polls here in New Hampshire, he's also up in the polls down in South Carolina.

Speaker Gingrich, why shouldn't Governor Romney be the nominee of this party? What about his record concerns you most or makes him-- disqualified to be the nominee?

NEWT GINGRICH: Look, I-- I think what Republicans have to ask is who's most likely in the long run-- to survive against the kind of billion dollar campaign the Obama team is gonna run. And I think that a bold Reagan conservative with a very strong economic plan is a lot more likely to succeed in that campaign than a relatively timid Massachusetts moderate who evenThe Wall Street Journal said had an economy plan so timid it resembled Obama.

So I think you've gotta look at, you know, Massachusetts was fourth from the bottom in job creation under Governor Romney. I-- we created 11 million jobs while I was Speaker and I worked with governor-- with President Reagan in the entire recover of the 1980s. That is they-- there's a huge difference between a Reagan conservative and somebody who comes out of the Massachusetts culture with an essentially moderate record who I think will have a very hard time in a debate with president.

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker Gingrich, bottom line, you believe that Governor Romney is unelectable?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, I don't believe he's unelectable but I think he has a much-- I-- look, against Obama's record, I think , you know, the fact is President Obama's gonna have a very hard reelection effort. But I do think the bigger the contrast, the bolder ideas, the clearer the choice, the harder it is for that billion dollar campaign to smear his way back into office.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker, this your flier that you're--

NEWT GINGRICH: Right.

DAVID GREGORY: --circulating here in New Hampshire. It says very clearly, "Romney is not electable."

NEWT GINGRICH: I think he will have a very hard time getting reelected. Getting elected?

DAVID GREGORY: Governor?

MITT ROMNEY: David-- I'm very proud of the record that I have and I think the one thing you can't fool the people about New Hampshire about is-- the record of a governor next door. And people have watched me over my term as governor and saw that I was a solid conservative and that I brought important change to Massachusetts.

They recognized that I cut taxes 19 times. Balanced the budget every one of the four years I was in governor. Put in place a $2 billion rainy day fund by the time I'd gone. We had-- we'd seen job losses-- in the month leading up to my-- becoming-- the governor and then we began to finally create jobs. And by the way, we created more jobs-- in Massachusetts than Barack Obama's created in the entire country.

We also got our state police to enforce illegal immigration law, put in place-- English immersion in our schools. I'm very proud of the conservative record I have and I think that's why some of the leading conservatives in today's-- world who are fighting the conservative battles of today that don't have any axe to grind have gotten behind my campaign.

Governor Nikki Haley of-- of South Carolina. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Right here, the great senator of-- of New Hampshire, Ken-- Kelly Ayotte. These are conservative who looked at my record, looked at my plan to get this economy going.

I happen to believe that if we want to replace a lifetime politician like Barack Obama, who had no experience leading anything, you have to choose someone who's not been a lifelong politician, who has not spent his tire-- en-- entire career in Washington, and instead has proven time and again he could lead in the private sector twice, in the Olympics and as a governor. We've got to nominate a leader if we're gonna replace someone who is not a leader.

DAVID GREGORY: Well, Senator Santorum, had you not lost a reelection in 2006 you would have been in Washington even longer than you were. It would have been 21 years. So you've got a long Washington record. How do you address this question? Why shouldn't Governor Romney be the nominee? What is disqualifying, in your judgment?

RICK SANTORUM: Well, if his record was so great as Governor of Massachusetts why didn't he run for reelection? I mean if you didn't wanna even stand before the people of Massachusetts and run on your record. If it was that great, why didn't you-- why did you bail out? I mean the bottom-- the bottom line is-- you know, I-- I go and fight the fight.

If it was that important to the people of Massachusetts that you were gonna go and fight for them, at least you can stand up and-- and make the battle that you did a good job. I did that. I ran for reelection a couple of times and I won a couple of times in-- in a 71% Democratic district. When I ran for reelection I was redistricted and I was in a 71% Democratic district. Had a 90% conservative voting record.

It was a hard thing to do. My district was more Democrat than the state of Massachusetts that I ran in. It was the Steel Valley of Pittsburgh. And I stood up and fought for the conservative principals. I didn't do what Governor Romney did in 1994. I was running the same year he ran in 1994. I ran in a tough state of Pennsylvania against an incumbent.

Governor Romney lost by almost 20 points. Why? Because at the end of that campaign he wouldn't stand up for conservative principles, he ran for Ronald Reagan and he said he was gonna be to the left just like Kennedy on gay rights and abortion, a whole host of other issues. We want someone when the time gets tough-- and it will in this election. We want someone who's gonna stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out and not run and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.

DAVID GREGORY: Oh, you did say when you endorsed him four years ago just those words. That he would stand up for conservative principles, Senator.

RICK SANTORUM: Vis-à-vis John McCain.

DAVID GREGORY: Vis-à-vis John McCain. Governor? Your response.

MITT ROMNEY: Well, a lot of things that were inaccurate in that and I'm not gonna go through 'em one by one. But I-- but I can tell you this. I-- I think it's unusual, and-- and perhaps-- understandable, that people who spend their life in politics imagine that if you get in politics that that's all you wanna do. That if you've been elected to something, well, you get-- wanna get reelected and reelected.

I-- I went to Massachusetts to make it different. I didn't go there to begin a political career, running time and time again. I-- I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do. I listed out the accomplishments we wanted to pursue in our administration. There were 100 things we wanted to do. Those things I pursued aggressively. Some we won. Some we didn't.

Run again? That would be about me. I was tryin' to help get the state in best shape as I possibly could. Left the-- the world of politics, went back into business. Now I have the opportunity, I believe, to use the experience I have-- you-- you got-- a surprised look on your face.

RICK SANTORUM: I thought--

(OVERTALK)

MITT ROMNEY: Hold-- hold-- wait. It's still my--

(OVERTALK)

MITT ROMNEY: --it's still my time.

RICK SANTORUM: --are you gonna-- are you gonna-- are you gonna tell people--

MITT ROMNEY: Rick.

RICK SANTORUM: --you're not gonna run for reelection--

MITT ROMNEY: Rick.

RICK SANTORUM: --for president--

MITT ROMNEY: Rick.

RICK SANTORUM: --if you win?

MITT ROMNEY: Rick. It's still my time.

RICK SANTORUM: I-- I'm just askin'.

MITT ROMNEY: Okay. Well-- (LAUGHTER)

DAVID GREGORY: Go ahead.

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Romney.

MITT ROMNEY: I had--

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Romney, take 30 seconds there.

MITT ROMNEY: Yeah, what I'm gonna tell you is I-- this-- this for me, politics, is not a career. For me my career was being in business and starting a business and making it success. My-- my life's passion has been my family, my faith and my country. I believe by virtue of the experiences I've had that I'm in a good position to make a contribution to Washington.

I long for a day where instead of having people to go to Washington for 20 and 30 years who get elected and then when they lose office they stay there and make money as lobbyists or connecting to businesses, I think it stinks. I think we oughta have people go to Washington and serve Washington. And-- and go-- serve as-- as their-- the people of their-- of their nation and go home. I'd like to see term limits in Washington.

MALE VOICE: So one-- so one term.

MITT ROMNEY: And so-- no--

DAVID GREGORY: Let me inter-- speak--

MITT ROMNEY: --as the president of the United States--

(OVERTALK)

MITT ROMNEY: --as the president of the United States, if I'm elected, of course I'll fight for a second term.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker Gingrich--

MITT ROMNEY: There's a lot of work do be done.

DAVID GREGORY: Take 30 seconds here.

NEWT GINGRICH: Oh yeah. I mean I-- I realize the red light doesn't mean anything to you because you're the front runner. (LAUGHTER) But-- but can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is you ran in '94 and lost. That's why you weren't serving in the Senate with-- Rick Santorum.

The fact is you had a very bad reelection rating. You dropped out of office. You had been out of state for something like 200 days preparing to run for president. You didn't have this interlude of (UNINTEL) citizenship while you thought about what to do. You were running for president while you were governor. You were gone all over the country. You were-- you were out of state consistently.

You then promptly reentered politics. You happened to lose to McCain as you had lost to Kennedy. Now you're back running. You've been running consistently for years and years and years. So this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind, just level with the American people. You've been running for-- so at least since the 1990s. (APPLAUSE)

DAVID GREGORY: Governor, please.

MITT ROMNEY: Mr. Speaker, citizenship has always been on my mind. And-- and I happened to see my dad-- run for governor when he was 54 years old. He had good advice to me. He said, "Mitt, never get involved in politics if you have to win an election to pay a mortgage. If you find yourself in a position when you can serve, why, you oughta have a responsibility to do so if you think you can make a difference." He said, "Also don't get involved in politics if your kids are still young 'cause it may turn their head."

I never thought I'd get involved in politics. When I saw Ted Kennedy running virtually unopposed in 1994, a man who I thought by virtue of the policies of the liberal welfare state had created a permanent under-class in America, I said, "Someone's gotta run against him."

And I happened to have been wise enough (CLEARS THROAT) to realize I didn't have a ghost of a chance of beat-- beating him. This-- this guy from Mass-- a Republican from Massachusetts was not gonna beat Ted Kennedy. And I told my partners in my firm, "I'll be back in six months. Don't take my chair."

And I-- I went in and gave it a real battle and went after it. It was-- I was happy that he had to take a mortgage out on his house to ultimately defeat me. And I'm-- I'm-- I'm very proud of the fact that I have stood up-- as a citizen to battle where I felt it was best--

DAVID GREGORY: Well, let--

MITT ROMNEY: --for the nation. And-- and we're talking about running for president. I am in this race 'cause I care about the country. I believe my background and experience--

DAVID GREGORY: All right. Let me--

MITT ROMNEY: --will happen to but--

DAVID GREGORY: --break--

MITT ROMNEY: --an advantage (UNINTEL).

DAVID GREGORY: --let me bring Dr. Paul into this, because there is a question about who is the true conservative in the race. And Governor Romney-- said, only nine years ago, during an interview with New England Cable News, he said the following. "I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican. That I'm someone who is moderate and my views are progressive." Do you believe Governor Romney now when he says that he is a man of constancy and that he'll stand up for conservative principles?

RON PAUL: You know, I think this whole discussion so far has been very superficial. And I think the question in a way that you ask is superficial in that you're talking about character, which is very important. But I think we should deal with the issues as well. And I don't see how we can do well against Obama if we have any candidate-- that-- you know, endorsed-- you know, single payer systems and TARP bailouts and don't challenge the Federal Reserve. $15 trillion of injection bailing out their friends.

I don't see how we can have anybody really compete-- with Obama who doesn't challenge this huge empire we have overseas and the overseas spending. I mean this is now nations come down. Is they extend themselves too far overseas. That's how the Soviets came down.

We-- we really have to talk about real cuts and we haven't gotten around to this yet. So if we want to change things, this is what we have to talk about. Character is important and motivation's important. Our history's important. But I really consider that in the debate format to be less significant than what we really believe in.

DAVID GREGORY: You read my mind, Dr. Paul, and we're gonna get to (APPLAUSE) some of the tough choices, not just on politics but on policy. First, Governor Perry, I do wanna ask you though, flat out, you're stakin' your campaign goin' down to South Carolina. Is Governor Romney unelectable, in your judgment?

RICK PERRY: Well, I think you have to ask the question of-- who is it that can beat Obama, who it is that can invigorate the-- the Tea Party-- who is it that can-- take the message of-- of smaller, outsider government that's truly gonna change at places. I look from here down to Rick Santorum, I see insiders. Individuals who have been the big spending Republicans in-- in Washington, D.C..

And let's be honest with ourselves. I mean the fact of the matter is that Obama has thrown gasoline on the fire, but the bonfire was burning well before Obama got there. It was policies and spending, both from Wall Street and from the insiders in Washington, D.C., that got us in this problem.

And we need a candidate that can not only draw that stark contrast between themselves and Barack Obama but also stand up and lead the Tea Party movement back-- 2010 was about the Tea Party standing up and understanding that Republicans, big spending Republicans, had caused the-- as much as of this problem as anything. And it was their power that brought together-- that brought Washington, D.C. and the House to Republican--

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

RICK PERRY: --control.

DAVID GREGORY: Well--

RICK PERRY: And that's the kind of individual that we gotta have to-- to—

DAVID GREGORY: Before I--

RICK PERRY: --lead this—

DAVID GREGORY: --get to Governor--

RICK PERRY: --election.

DAVID GREGORY: Huntsman, I'd be remiss, Governor Romney, if I did not allow you to respond to the quote that I read from you nine years ago. What would you say to conservatives so that they'll trust that you will stand up for conservative principles?

MITT ROMNEY: They've got my record as governor. That-- that's the great thing in people here in New Hampshire, is they see what I did as governor of Massachusetts. I also got-- had the occasion after my last-- failed attempt to run for president, a learning experience, to sit down and write a book. And I wrote a book and described my view for the country.

And people can describe it differing ways. But-- but my view is that-- the principles that I've learned in business and the principles as governor frankly have made me more conservative as time has gone on. I've seen a lot of government tryin' to solve problems and it didn't work. And-- and my view is the right course for America is to have someone who understands how the economy works, who will passionately get America back on track.

DAVID GREGORY: All right. We're gonna come back to the question of obstacles to the nomination, but let me get to policy, Governor Huntsman. This is, by all accounts, an age of austerity for this country. A jobs crisis. Also a spending crisis in Washington. I wonder what specifically you would do to say to Americans, "These are cuts I'm going to make in federal spending that cause pain, that will require sacrifice?"

JON HUNTSMAN: Let me say-- let me say, first of all, with respect to Governor Romney, you know, there are a lot of people who are tuning in this morning. And I'm sure they're terribly confused after watching all of this political spin up here. I was criticized last night by Governor Romney for putting my country first.

And I just wanna remind the people here in New Hampshire and throughout the United States that I think-- he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in China. Yes, under a Democrat. Like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy. They're not asking who-- what political affiliation the president is. I wanna be very clear with the people here in New Hampshire and this country. I will always put my country first. And I think that's important to them.

DAVID GREGORY: All right. Well, why don't you get a response, Governor Romney, and I'll come back to you on the austerity question.

MITT ROMNEY: I-- I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles and doing everything in our power to promote an agenda that does not include President Obama's agenda. I think the decision to go and work for President Obama is one which you took. I don't-- don't disrespect your decision to do that. I just think it's-- most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China.

JON HUNTSMAN: This nation is divided, David, because of attitudes like that. The American people are tired of the partisan division. They have had enough. There is no trust left among the American people in the institutions of power and among the American people and our elected officials.

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

JON HUNTSMAN: And I say we've had enough and we have to change our direction in terms of coming together as Americans first and foremost--

DAVID GREGORY: Dr. Paul--

JON HUNTSMAN: --and finding solutions--

DAVID GREGORY: --said let's not be--

JON HUNTSMAN: --to your problems.

DAVID GREGORY: --superficial. Let's talk substance. So Governor Huntsman, name three areas where Americans will feel real pain in order to balance the budget?

JON HUNTSMAN: Well, I would have to say that I agree with the Ryan plan. I think I'm the only one standing up here who has embraced the Ryan plan. It's a very aggressive approach to taking about 6.2-- $6.2 trillion out of the budget over 10 years. And it looks at everything. And what I like about it is it says there will be no sacred cows.

JON HUNTSMAN: Medicare won't be a sacred cow. Department of Defense won't be a sacred cow. As president of the United States I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna say, "We are where we are. 24% spending-- as a percentage of GDP. We've gotta move to 19%--

DAVID GREGORY: Three programs that will make Americans feel pain, sir?

JON HUNTSMAN: Well, let me just say on-- on-- on entitlements. Across the board, I will tell the upper income category in this country that there will be means testing. There are a lot of people in this nation--

DAVID GREGORY: Social Security--

JON HUNTSMAN: --who don't need some of the benefits?

DAVID GREGORY: --and Medicare?

JON HUNTSMAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. And also I'm not gonna tie Department of Defense spending some percentage of GDP. I'm gonna tie it to a strategy that protects the American people. And if we think that we can't find efficiencies and cuts in the Department of Defense budget, then we are crazy.

DAVID GREGORY: Senator Santorum, same question. Three programs that would make-- would have to be cut to make Americans feel pain, to sacrifice, if we're gonna balance the budget.

RICK SANTORUM: I’ve gotta agree with go-- Governor Huntsman, the means test. And I talked about that in Hollis yesterday. We had about 1,200 people there. And I walked through and talked about how we have to make sure that-- we're not gonna burden future generations with a Social Security program that's underfunded. It's underfunded right now.

And-- we have to take those who have-- that have been successful, who are seniors, who have a tremendous amount of wealth and we oughta reduce benefits. It-- it makes no sense for folks who are struggling right now to pay their payroll tax, which is the biggest tax, it's a tax on labor, it makes us uncompetitive, and the idea that someone to the left would (UNINTEL) to raise those taxes to make labor even more uncompetitive for those working people who are trying to get a job, to subsidize high income seniors, doesn't make any sense to me.

Foods stamps is another place. We gotta block grant and send it back to the states, just like I did on welfare reform. Do the same thing with Medicare. Those three programs. We gotta-- and-- and-- and including-- housing programs, block grant them, send it back to the states, require work and put a time limit. You do those three things, we will help-- take these programs, which are now dependency programs which people are continually dependent upon, and you take them into transitional programs to help people move out of poverty.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker Gingrich, on the issue of Medicare-- when you were on Meet The Press-- earlier in the year, you had talked about what-- Paul Ryan was talking about as a step too far, which is moving seniors onto a premium support, or a voucher program, depending on how you phrase it. As you know, Senator Santorum thinks that current seniors-- should be moved off of that program into premium support or a voucher program. Do you agree with doing it that quickly and making current seniors-- bear the brunt of that?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, the fact is that the-- Ryan Wyden bill, which was just introduced recently, actually incorporates allowing people to choose and allows them to stay in traditional Medicare with the premium support model, or go to new methods. And I think it's a substantial improvement. It allows for a transition in Medicare in a way that makes sense.

But David, you know, I-- I find it fascinating that very, very highly paid Washington commentators and Washington analysts love the idea of pain. What-- who's gonna be in pain? The duty of the president is to find a way to manage the federal government so the primary pain is on changing the bureaucracy.

On-- on theft alone we could save $100 billion a year in Medicaid and Medicare if the federal government were competent. That's a trillion dollars over 10 years and the only people in pain would be crooks. So I think a (APPLAUSE) sound approach is to actually improve the government, not punish the American people because of a failure of the political class to have any sense of cleverness.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Perry, from Facebook. A lot of questions, as we've mentioned, have been submitted. And this from Martin Montalvo, because we do have a spending crisis, but also a lot of people hurting, he writes this, "With more Americans on government assistance than ever before, is it un-American for Americans to feel relieved when the government helps them?"

RICK PERRY: Well, let me answer the question that you asked earlier. What are the three-- areas that you would make some reductions that people would feel some pain and I would tell you (LAUGHTER) it would be those-- bureaucrats at Department of Commerce and-- and Energy and-- Education-- (LAUGHTER) that we're gonna do away with. (APPLAUSE) So that's--

DAVID GREGORY: And that's your final answer? (LAUGHTER)

RICK PERRY: You know, the fact of the matter is that-- that Americans wanna have a job. That's-- that's the issue here. And the idea that-- that there are people clamoring for government to come and to give them assistance-- is-- is just wrong headed. And-- and that's what we need to be focusing on as a people.

Is how do we create the environment in this country where the entrepreneurs know that they can risk their capital, have a chance to have a return on the investment and create the-- the jobs out there so people can have the dignity to take care of their families. That's what Americans are lookin' for. I've done that for the last 11 years in the state of Texas and have the executive governing experience that no one else up here on this stage has.

DAVID GREGORY: All right. I'm gonna leave it there. We're gonna take a quick break.

DAVID GREGORY: We wanna get right back to-- the questions here with our candidates. And-- before the break-- we were talking about Medicare. Paul Ryan, Senator Santorum had a plan where he'd like to move-- seniors off, give them a voucher or premium support and then they would-- take care of their healthcare from there. There's a lot of debate about that. And I mentioned you said seniors should be affected right now. 55-plus-- have them affected right now, which has been somewhat controversial. You wanna respond to that?

RON PAUL: Well, you know, I hear this all the time when I was-- have been campaigning around-- the state. You know, we should have the same kind of healthcare the members of Congress have. Well, that's pretty much what Paul Ryan's plan is. That the-- the members of Congress have a premium support model. So does every other federal employee.

I mean it works very well. As-- you know, the-- the federal government has a liability. They put-- put money out there. And then if you want, you-- you have-- about this thick. If you're an employee in Washington, D.C. it-- got a-- whole bunch of different plans to choose from and you have all sorts of options available to you. You want a more expensive plan, you pay more of a co-insurance. If you want a less expensive plan, you don't.

But here's the fundamental difference between Barack Obama and-- and everybody up here. It's whether you believe people can be free to make choices or whether you have to make decisions for them. And I believe seniors, just like every other American, should be free to make the choices in their healthcare plan that's best for them.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Romney, there's a lot of (APPLAUSE) discussion-- a lot of discussion this morning on Facebook about taxes. And as we talk about taxes and spending, of course we talk about economic security and economic growth. There's been a debate in Washington and beyond, as you well known, between Warren Buffett and Grover Norquist. Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, says, "No tax increases under any circumstances."

Warren Buffett says, "Hey, the wealthier in this country can pay more and they should pay more. Indeed-- balancing the budget is a way for more economic growth down the line." Who knows more about the American economy, Grover Norquist or Warren Buffet?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, who knows more about tax policy? I'm not sure that we're gonna choose from the two of them, but I can tell you this. The right course for America is not to raise taxes on Americans. I understand that President Obama and people of his political persuasion would like to take more money from the American people. And they want to do that so they can continue to grow government.

The answer for America is not to grow government. It is to shrink dro-- government. We've been going-- over the last 20, 30, 40 years, government keeps growing at a faster rate relative to inflation. We have got to stop the extraordinary spending in this country. That's why I put-- a plan that (APPLAUSE) reduces government spending. I'd cut-- I'd cut programs, a whole series of programs. By-- by the way, the number one to cut is Obamacare. That saves $95 billion a year. (APPLAUSE)

Return-- this, as Rick indicated, return to states a whole series of programs, food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid and then set how much goes to them. And finally, with regards with entitlement, in the entitlement reform area, I do not wanna change Medicare and Social Security for current retirees. But for younger people coming up they have to recognize that in the future higher income people will receive less payments in the premium support program.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Huntsman, who knows more about the American economy? You-- you-- interested in that question. You seemed maybe a little bit uncomfortable with a moment from earlier in this debate cycle when everybody said that they would reject even a 10 to one ratio of cuts-- to new taxes.

JON HUNTSMAN: It was-- it was a silly format. I mean it was an important question and they asked us to raise our hands. I mean for heaven's sake, we didn't get a chance to talk about it. I put a tax reform-- proposal on the table endorsed by The Wall Street Journal that goes farther than anybody else's on this stage. It calls for what absolutely needs to be done and everybody knows about it.

We are so chuck full of loop holes and deductions it weighs down our tax code to tune of $1 trillion, 100 billion. You can't compete that way. It gives rise to lobbying on Capitol Hill that needs to clean up. We've gotta phase out loopholes and deductions in total and we've gotta say so long to corporate welfare and to subsidies, because this country could no longer afford it and we've gotta prepare for competition in the 21st century.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker Gingrich, if you become President Gingrich and the leader of the Democrats-- Harry Reid says he's gonna promise to make you a one term president, how would you propose to work with someone like that in order to achieve results in Washington?

NEWT GINGRICH: I think every president who works with the leader of every opposition knows they're working with somebody who wants to make them a one term president. I mean-- you know, that-- that's the American process. I worked with Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Tip O'Neill was speaker. He wanted to make Reagan a one term president. We had to get 1/3 of the Democrats to vote for the Reagan tax cuts. And we did.

As speaker I was negotiating with Bill Clinton. He knew I wanted him to be a one term president. And we got a lot of things done, including welfare reform, because you have to reach-- I go to what Governor Huntsman said earlier. You have to at some point say, "The country comes first. How are we gonna get things done? We'll fight later."

"Let's sit down in a room. Let's talk it through. I'll tell you what I need and I'll tell you what I can't do. You tell me what you need and you tell me what you can't do." And it sometimes takes 20 or 30 days. But if people of goodwill, even if they're partisans, come together, talk it out. You know, we got welfare reform, the first tax cut in 16 years, 4.2% unemployment and four straight years of a balanced budget with a Republican speaker and a Democratic president. So it can be done with real leadership.

DAVID GREGORY: Anybody else have a point of view about how you actually work with the other side when they've committed to working against you? Governor?

MITT ROMNEY: Yeah, I mean I was governor of a state that had-- a slightly Democratic-- leaning House and Senate. (LAUGHTER) My legislature was 85% Democrat. And-- and I went around at the very beginning of having been elected and met with the speaker of the House and the Senate president. The Senate president said something I won't forget. He said, "Mitt, the campaign is over. The people expect us to now govern for them."

And we did. We met every week. We rotated in offices. We got to know each other personally. We developed a relationship of respect and rapport, even though we disagreed on a lot of issues. And when crises arose, as they did time and again-- we had a severe budget crisis.

I went to them and said, "Will you give me unilateral power to cut spending without even a vote of the legislature?" They had enough confidence in me, they decided to do that. What-- and I was able to cut the spending on an emergency basis, not just slow down its rate of growth.

We can work together. Republicans and Democrats are able to go across the aisle because we have common-- we really do have areas of-- of common interest. Even though there're dramatically different perspectives on how the world works and what's right, we can find common ground. And I have proven in a state that is very Democrat that I'm able to work with people, 19 tax cuts. I protected charter schools. Drove our schools to be number one in the nation. Kept them there, rather. I-- I-- that-- that record could work with Republicans and Democrats who are willin' to work together.

DAVID GREGORY: Dr. Paul, there's this question of argument versus of accomplishment. The question again comes from Facebook. Heath Treet writes, "I-- I wanna--" Paul Treet, rather. "I want to know what Ron Paul's plan of action will be to achieve getting the House and Senate to help him do all he's promised." And here's the record, Dr. Paul. You have actually sponsored 620 measures. Only four made it to a vote on the House floor and only one has been signed into law.

RON PAUL: You know, that demonstrates how much out of touch the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress is with the American people, because I'm supporting things that help the American people. That's the disgust that people have because they keep-- growing government, whether it's Republicans in charge or the Democrats in-- in charge.

But-- as far as working with other groups, I think my record's about as good with anybody's because I work on the principle that freedom and the Constitution bring people together. For different reasons. People use freedom in different ways like it does. It invites-- variations in our religious beliefs. In-- in economic beliefs.

We tell people that there are a lot of-- you know-- spend their money as they choose. On civil liberties, that's a different segment, 'cause-- Republican conservatives aren't all that well known for protecting privacy and-- and personal liberty.

And when it comes to this spending overseas, I can work a coalition. Matter of fact, my trillion dollar proposal to cut spending doesn't immediately deal with Social Security. It's to try to work our way out of Social Security. I'm cutting a trillion dollars by attacking overseas spending and going back to '06 budgets. And I do not believe that you have to have pain-- people who have gotten special privileges and bailouts from the government, they may get the pain, but the American people that get their freedom back and get no income tax--

RON PAUL: --they don't suffer any pain.

DAVID GREGORY: Senator Santorum, here's the reality. Two previous presidents. President Bush talked about being the uniter and not a divider. President Obama talked about transforming Washington. And it hasn't worked. Washington is polarized. The country is polarized. And the American people are pretty sick of the fact that nothing gets done in Washington. Specifically how do you change that?

RICK SANTORUM: Well, let me first address Congressman Paul because the-- the serious issue with Congressman Paul here is, you're right, he's never really passed anything of any-- any importance. And-- and what-- one of the pep-- one of the reasons people like Congressman Paul is his economic plan. He's never been able to accomplish any of that. He has no track record of being able to work together. He's been out there on the-- on the margins and-- has really been unsuccessful in-- in working together with anybody to do anything.

The problem is that what Congressman Paul can do as commander-in-chief is he can on day one do what he says he wants to do, which is pull all our troops back out of seas-- overseas, put them-- here in America. Leave us in-- in-- in a situation where the world is now gonna be created huge amounts of vacuums all over the place. And-- and have folks like China and Iran and others-- look at the Strait of Hormuz as I said last night. We wouldn't even have the fifth fleet there.

The problem with Congressman Paul is all the things that Republicans like about him he can't accomplish and all the things they're worried about he'll do day one. And-- and that's the problem. And-- and so what we-- what-- what we need to do is have someone who has a plan and has experience to do all the things Republicans and conservatives would like to do.

DAVID GREGORY: Let me get--

RICK SANTORUM: And I--

DAVID GREGORY: --Dr. Paul to respond to--

RICK SANTORUM: --and then I'd like my opportunity--

RON PAUL: You know, he--

RICK SANTORUM: --to answer to go back and answer your question.

RON PAUL: --it's--

DAVID GREGORY: Well--

RON PAUL: --it's not exactly a simple task to repeal approximately 100 years of us sliding away from our republic and still running a foreign policy of Woodrow Wilson, trying to make the world safe for democracy. And, look, we have elections overseas and we don't even accept the elections. You know, change in foreign policy is significant, but that's where a nation will come down if they keep doing this. We can't say in 130 countries, get involved in nation building. We cannot have 900 bases overseas. We have to change policy.

What about change in monetary policy? Yes, we do. But we've had that for 100 years. And right now we're winning that battle. The American people now agree-- about 75% of the American people now say, "We ought to audit the Federal Reserve. Find out what they're doing and who are their friends that they're bailing out constantly.

DAVID GREGORY: Senator Santorum, come back to this point. It's easy to say, "Boy, I'm gonna change the culture in Washington." Hasn't worked for the past two presidents.

RICK SANTORUM: Well, it-- it worked in-- in my case. Look at-- welfare reform. And-- a federal entitlement that-- I remember standing next to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Ted Kennedy. We were out there just talking about how this was gonna be the end of civilization as we know it. There'd be break lines. The-- the-- the horrific consequences of removing federal income support-- from basically-- mothers with children.

And we stood up and said "No." That creating dependency and creating that dependency upon-- upon federal dollars is more harmful than-- and-- and-- in not believing in people and their ability to work is more harmful. And so we stood up and fought and went out to the American public. Bill Clinton vetoed this bill twice. We had-- hard opposition. But I was able to-- to work together and paint a vision.

We made compromises, but not on our core principle. The core principles were this was gonna end the federal program. We were gonna require work. We were gonna put time limits on welfare. I stuck to those principles and we were able to compromise on some things like transportation funding and some daycare funding. All voted to get a consensus that poverty is not a disability.

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

RICK SANTORUM: And that programs that we need to put in place should help transition people, not make them dependent. And we were able to get 70 votes in the United States Senate, including 17 Democrats.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor Huntsman, this question of if the leader of the Democrats promised to make you a one term president, how would you go about dealing with them in a more effective way than you think the man you served, President Obama, did?

JON HUNTSMAN: I think it comes down to one word, David, and I think the one word-- is trust. When the American people look at the political process play out, they hear all the spinning and all the doctrinaire language.

JON HUNTSMAN: And they still walk away with the belief that they're not being represented in Congress. That there's no trust in the executive branch. And the Simpson-Bowles bipartisan proposal lands right on the desk of Barack Obama and it lands in the garbage can.

The first press conference I had when I ran for governor in 2004 was on ethics in government service. I talked about term limits. I talked about campaign finance reform. I talked about the role of lobbyists and knew I would make a lot of friends.

I had one member of the legislature who supported me in that run. We won because we had the will of the people. And I believe the next president, and if that is to be me, I wanna roam around this country and I wanna generate the level of excitement and-- enthusiasm that I know exists among the American people to bring term limits to Congress. To close the revolving door on members going right on out and becoming a lobby. We've gotta start with the structural problems. There is no trust.

DAVID GREGORY: All right. Governor Perry, I wanna continue on the theme of leadership.

RICK PERRY: We need to.

DAVID GREGORY: This is-- as you well know, New Hampshire is an independent place. And I wonder where-- besides criticizing the previous administration for running up the debt, I wonder where you would buck your party? What would you say or do to make Republicans uncomfortable?

RICK PERRY: I hope I'm makin' Republicans uncomfortable right now by talkin' about the spending that they've done back in the 2000s when we had-- control of both (UNINTEL).

DAVID GREGORY: But aside from--

RICK PERRY: I mean--

DAVID GREGORY: --that I guess--

RICK PERRY: --that-- that is--

DAVID GREGORY: --I just-- I just (UNINTEL) that.

RICK PERRY: --well, listen. Dr. Paul says that the biggest problem facing this country is-- is our-- work overseas. I disagree with that. The biggest problem facing this country today is a Congress that is out of control with their spending. And we've gotta have someone, an outsider, that will walk in, not part of the insider group that you see here. People who have voted for raising the-- the debt limit. People who have been part of the problem that is facing America.

I will tell you two things that can occur. That a president can lead the charge on. And it will put term limits into place. One of those is a part-time Congress to tell those members of Congress, "We're gonna cut your pay. We're gonna cut the amount of time that you spend in Washington, D.C. Send you back to your district so you can have a job like everybody else in your district has and live under the laws of which you pass."

DAVID GREGORY: Well, Governor--

RICK PERRY: And then a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor, my question though--

RICK PERRY: You do those two things--

DAVID GREGORY: But my question, sir, was--

RICK PERRY: --and that will make 'em uncomfortable.

DAVID GREGORY: You think telling conservatives, "A balanced budget amendment is something I'm gonna do and I'm gonna cut spending," that's gonna make 'em uncomfortable?

RICK PERRY: You're darn right, because there's a bunch of people standin' up here that say they're conservatives but their records don't follow up on that.

DAVID GREGORY: All right. I gotta take another break here.

DAVID GREGORY: And we are back, in New Hampshire. I'm happy to be joined now by our local partners for the debate. For the-- from the New Hampshire Union Leader, senior political reporter, John Distaso is with us. Good to have you here, John. And from WHD-- WHDH-- we had this problem yesterday, TV-- in Boston, Channel 7 in Boston-- political editor, Andy Hiller. Welcome to you, as well. Glad to have you both. John, get us started.

JOHN DISTASO: All right, Governor Huntsman. It's winter in New Hampshire. It's a little mild, but it's still winter. Home heating oil is nearly $4 a gallon. Yet President Obama and Congress have cut by 25% the program that helps-- helps low income people heat their homes. About a million households that were helped last year, won't be helped this year. Is this an example of pain that must be suffered? Should this-- should this program funding be restored, should it be cut more? Should this program be eliminated, perhaps? Where does this fit in? This is a practical problem in this area of the country?

JON HUNTSMAN: No. (CLEARS THROAT) We have people in need. We have people suffering. And this is a challenge that we need to address. But I believe we're not going to be able to effectively-- confront it head on, until such time as this nation begins to move more toward greater energy diversity and energy independence. One of the first things I would do as president is I would take a look at that one product distribution bias, that always favors one product, and that's oil.

And I'd say if we're gonna do what this nation needs to be done, in terms of using a multiplicity of products that we have in such diversity and abundance, and get them to the customers, we're gonna have to break up that one product distribution monopoly. I want to do to that oil distribution monopoly what we did to broadcast communication in the-- (CLEARS THROAT) in the early 1970s. We blew it apart. We went to the Federal Trade Commission and said, "We need more. We need diverse sources to draw from. We need-- we need to service the consumers."

I believe if we're gonna do what needs to be done from an energy independence standpoint, all products, getting the products to the customer, we've got to disrupt that one product monopoly that does not serve this country well, nor its consumers.

JOHN DISTASO: Congressman Paul-- (APPLAUSE) Congressman Paul, how do you feel about-- how do you feel about subsidies in-- in general, for-- for a specific energy? And also, though, more-- more specifically right now, more immediately, this low income-- program, heating assistance program? Is this something that fits in un-- under your deal of-- of what government does do or should not do?

RON PAUL: Well, subsidies, per se, are-- it's bad economic policy, it's bad moral policy, because it's using government force to transfer money from one group to another. And economically, it does a lot of harm. But wh-- when it-- when it comes to energy, we should-- you know, deregulate it, like others talk about. But we need to talk-- you know, supply and demand, everybody knows about supply and demand. They talk about oil. And if we had-- more alternative sources that we-- we always hope the prices will go down.

But everybody forgets that there's an el-- 50% of a transaction in the monetary unit. And you don't deal-- very few people talk about the supply and demand of money. And-- when you create a lot of money, prices go up. So it goes up in the areas where government most gets involved, you know, in education and medical care, housing, and in energy. So prices go up much faster than in other place. So if you subsidize somebody and you print money to do it, you compound the problem. It's good politics, "Yeah, I'm gonna subsidize you and take care of you." But it's bad economic policy and-- it-- it's not a good way to s-- find any answers.

DAVID GREGORY: Gov-- Governor Romney, this is such an important topic, because beyond the-- the regional implication, there's also a larger question about the social safety net. You talk all the time about opportunity for Americans, but what about Americans left behind? In this age of austerity, what do Americans have to learn to live with less of?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, what-- what we don't need is to have-- a federal government saying, "We're gonna solve all the problems of poverty-- across the entire country." Because the-- what it means to be poor in Massachusetts is different than Montana, Mississippi and other places in the country. And that's why these programs, all these federal programs that are bundled to help people and make sure we have a safety net, need to be brought together and sent back to the state.

And let states that are closest to the needs of their own people craft the programs that are d-- able to deal with their-- the needs of those folks. So you-- you-- whether it's food stamps and housing vouchers, they're certainly on the list, but certainly Medicaid-- home-- home heating oil-- support. What-- what unfortunately happens is with all the multiplicity of federal programs, you have massive overhead, with government bureaucrats in Washington administering all these programs, very little of the money that's actually needed by those that really need help, those that can't care for themselves, actually reaches them.

These-- they-- government-- folks in Washington keep building program after program. It's time to say, "Enough of that." Let's get the money back to the states, the way the Constitution intended, and let states care for their own people, in the way they feel best.

DAVID GREGORY: Andy Hiller. (APPLAUSE)

ANDY HILLER: Governor Romney, I'd like to remind you of something you said in Bay Windows, which is a gay newspaper in Massachusetts in 1994, when you were running against Senator Kennedy. These are your words, "I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party, and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts." How have you stood up for gay rights and when have you used your voice to influence Republicans on this issue?

MITT ROMNEY: Andy, as you know-- I don't discriminate. And in the appointments that I made-- when I was governor of Massachusetts, a member of my cabinet-- was gay. I appointed people to the bench, regardless of their sexual orientation. Made it very clear that, in my view, we should not discriminate in hiring policies, in legal policies.

At the same time, from the very beginning, in 1994, I said to the gay community, "I do not favor same-sex marriage." I oppose same-sex marriage. And that has been my-- my view. But-- but if-- if people are looking for someone who-- who will discriminate against gays or will in any way-- try and suggest that people-- that-- that have different sexual orientation don't have full rights in this country, they won't find that in me.

ANDY HILLER: When's the last time you stood up and spoke out for increasing gay rights?

MITT ROMNEY: Right now. (LAUGH) (APPLAUSE)

ANDY HILLER: Senator Santorum, would you be a voice (LAUGH) for increasing gay rights in the party?

RICK SANTORUM: Surprised it's comin' to me. (LAUGH) What? What was your question?

ANDY HILLER: Would you be a voice for speaking out for gay rights in your party? And if not, why not?

RICK SANTORUM: I would be a voice in speaking out for making sure that every person in America, gay or straight, is treated with respect and dignity and has the equality of opportunity. That does not mean that I would agree with certain things that the gay community would like to do to change laws with respect to marriage, respect to adoption, and things like that. So you can be respectful-- this is the beautiful thing about this country. (CLEARS THROAT) James Madison called the first amendment, he called it the-- the-- the perfect remedy.

And that is people of all different backgrounds, diversity, opinions, faiths, can come into the public square and can be heard, and can be heard in a way that's respectful of everybody else. But just because you don't agree with someone's desire to change the law, doesn't mean you don't like them or you hate them or you want to discriminate against them. But you're trying to promote th-- (CLEARS THROAT) excuse me, promote things that you think are best for society.

And I do so. And I think if you-- if you watch the-- the town hall meetings that I've been doing all over New Hampshire, I do so in a respectful tone, I listen to the other side, I let them make their arguments, and then we do so on a very-- a very respectful way. And you know what? We may not agree. That's why we leave it open to the public to be able to elect members of Congress and the Senate and the president, who will support their idea.

ANDY HILLER: What if you had a son who came to you and said he was gay?

RICK SANTORUM: I would love him as much as I did the second before he said it. And I would try to do everything I can (APPLAUSE) to be as good a father to him as possible.

ANDY HILLER: Governor Perry, we're gonna move on. The right-- right to work, which outlaws mandatory union membership, as you know, continues to be a major issue in the State of New Hampshire. You-- you've spoken about the promoting-- having states pass state laws. What about on the federal level? Do you see this as a federal issue and one that you would promote as president? Or is it a state by state--

RICK PERRY: Act-- actually it is a federal issue. And it's a federal issue, because of the law that was passed that forces the states to make the decision about whether or not they're going to be-- right to work. So Jim DeMint's legislation-- I would support that, of repealing that-- legislation that forces states to make that-- decision, to be a right to work, rather than all of this country being right to work.

Listen, I'm not anti-union, I'm pro-job. And the way you're-- you promote this country's-- rehabilitation from the Obama Administration's attack on-- on-- on job creation is by taxes and regulation, particularly the regulatory side. And-- and pulling those regulations that have gone forward, over the course of the last, since '08, and test them all for, "Do they create jobs? Or do they kill jobs?" And if they kill jobs, you throw 'em out. That will make more difference in this country, from the standpoint-- I'm a right to work guy. I come from a right to work state. And I will tell you, if New Hampshire wants to become the magnet for job creation in the Northeast, you pass that right to work legislation in this state. (APPLAUSE)

ANDY HILLER: I'd like to ask both Governor Romney quickly and Senator Santorum quickly to-- what positive contributions to labor unions provide in this country at this-- this point in the 21st Century?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, the carpenter's u-- union, for instance, trains their workers to be more effective on the job. And when they compete against non-union workers, why, they do that on a fair basis. If that happens, that's a positive contribution. But let me just say this with regards to unions. I agree with Governor Perry. Right to work legislation makes a lot of sense for New Hampshire and for the nation.

But-- but also, let's not forget the government union and the impact they're having. If we're gonna finally pull back the extraordinary political power government unions are exerting in this country, we're gonna have to say that people who work for the government, government workers, should have their compensation tied to that which exists in the private sector. People who are pr-- who are government servants, p-- public servants should not be paid more than the taxpayers who are c-- paying for it.

DAVID GREGORY: Governor, can I just enter-- (CLAPPING) very quickly, Sen-- Senator, 'cause we're about to hit a hard break. A quick comment on this?

RICK SANTORUM: Yeah, I will. I-- signed-- a pledge that I would-- support a national right to work. And when I was in the-- it was mentioned this last night, when I was the Senator for Pennsylvania, I didn't vote for it, because Pennsylvania's not a right to work state, and I didn't want to vote for a law that would change the law in Pennsylvania, number one.

Number two, what can unions do? As-- as Mitt mentioned, they can do training. They also do a lot in the community. I work with a lot of labor unions-- in Philadelphia and other places to do a lot of community involvement work. And they-- they try to participate as good members of the community, like a business does.

DAVID GREGORY: I-- I gotta cut you off, I apologize. We have a mandatory break. We'll be back with more questions in just a moment.

DAVID GREGORY: And-- (APPLAUSE) we are back for our final half hour. So much discussion, Speaker Gingrich, on Facebook, in the course of this debate, about jobs. And you can understand why. And we've talked about spending. We've talked about economic growth. It was Governor Romney who-- made the point to a young person who approached him that-- if he were president-- when this person got out of college-- he or she'd have a job. If President Obama has a second term, he or she will not have a job. Isn't that the kind of thing that makes people angry with politicians? Easy answers like that?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, I don't think that's an easy answer. I think that's a statement of fact. (LAUGH) (APPLAUSE) You know? But let-- let me take-- let me go back to what John Distaso said, because it's exactly the same question. (CLEARS THROAT) The long-term answer to $4 heating oil is to open up offshore development of oil and gas, open up federal lands to oil and gas, flood the market as-- as Dr. Paul said, make supply and demand work for us, not against us. The price will come down.

Under Obama, 2011 was the highest price of gasoline in history. It is a direct result of his policies, which kill jobs, raise the price of heating oil and gasoline, weaken the United States, increase our dependence on foreign countries, and weaken our national security in the face of Iran trying to-- close the Straits of Hormuz. So the right president opening up in a Reagan tradition and using massive development of American energy-- there's 3.2% unemployment in North Dakota. There's a hint here. (LAUGH)

You can actually have jobs, lower price heating oil, which by the way, means less (UNINTEL) spending. So you get more revenue for the federal government from royalties, less spending on-- on (UNINTEL) subsidy, lower price. People are happier all the way around. That's what supply-side economics was originally all about in the 1970s.

DAVID GREGORY: But Governor Romney, on this economic question, you blame President Obama for the jobs crisis, but when you look at the data, and a positive trend line, he still only gets the blame and none of the credit. How come?

MITT ROMNEY: Actually, I don't blame him for the recession and for the decline, what I blame him for is having it go on so long and going so deep. And having a recovery that's been so tough it-- businesses I talk to all over the country that would normally be hiring people are not hiring. And I asked them why. And they say because they look at the policies of this administration and they feel they're under attack.

When you have an administration that tries to raise taxes and has on businesses. When it puts in place Obama Care that's gonna raise the cost of health care for businesses. When they stack the National Labor Relations Board with labor stooges, which means that the policies relating to-- to labor are now gonna change dramatically in a direction they find uncomfortable. When you have Obama Care-- that-- that-- places more mandates on them. When you-- when you have-- Dodd-Frank, which makes it harder for community banks to make loans.

All these things collectively create the-- a reality of a president who has been anti-investment, anti-jobs, anti-business. And people feel that. And if you want to get this country going again, you have to recognize that the role of government is not just to catch the bad guys, important as that is. It's also to encourage the good guys.

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

MITT ROMNEY: And to return America to a land of opportunity.

DAVID GREGORY: Back to John and Andy. (APPLAUSE) John, go ahead.

JOHN DISTASO: Great, for Governor Romney, I'm gonna stay with you for one moment here. On the-- talking about regulation. One of your prime, New Hampshire supports, Senator Kelly Ayotte, has said, quote, "New Hampshire should not be the tailpipe for pollutants from out of state power plants." Many Senate Republicans attacked an EPA rule limiting air pollution that affects downwind states. But she and others, including Scott Brown, joined with the president and Senate Democrats to block a repeal effort. Now is this an example, this cross-state air pollution rule, of fair regulation? Something that we in the Northeast are very concerned about, in terms of-- pollution? Or is this over-regulation, job-killing over-regulation?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, I'm not-- I'm not familiar with this specific regulation, as it-- as it applies to-- to New Hampshire, but I do believe that we have a responsibility to keep the air clean. And we have to find ways to assure that we don’t have the pollution of one state overwhelming the-- the-- ability of another state to have clean air. I know in my state of Massachusetts, we-- we receive a lot of air from the rest of the country, obviously, given the winds coming from the West of the country to the East.

And so the responsibility in our state, was to get the cost-- get the-- the emissions from our power plants down. That's one of the reasons why we moved to natural gas. And-- and really, by the way, this-- this discussion about energy and security and getting the cost of gasoline down. The-- the big opportunity here is not just a new oil distribution system, but it's natural gas.

We have massive new natural gas reserves that have been found in Pennsylvania, in-- in North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas. Natural gas cheap, a fraction of the cost per BTU of-- of oil. If we want to help people in New England have-- not only homes and businesses that emit less pollutant into the air, and therefore would have cleaner air, and also have lower-cost energy, it's let's build out this natural gas system so that we can take advantage of that new enormous source of American economic strength.

JOHN DISTASO: Speaker Gingrich, what-- what exactly is an "Environmental Solutions Agency"? I don't-- I think a lot of people might not know or understand that-- why you wanted to disband the EPA and set up-- set up something that kind of looks like the EPA.

NEWT GINGRICH: If you look at the EPA's record, it is increasingly radical. It's increasingly imperious. It doesn't cooperate. It doesn't collaborate. And it doesn't take into account economics. The City of Nashville, recently, had a dump that was cited by EPA. They went out to find out what was it being cited for. And they told them, frankly, "We don't know. We can't find the records that led to this citation. And we're not exactly sure what to reference, but it must be bad or we wouldn't have sent it out." (LAUGH)

In-- in Iowa, they had a dust regulation underway, because they control particulate matter. And I do agree on clean air. There are things they should do (UNINTEL). But dust in Iowa is-- is an absurdity. And they were worried that the plowing of a cornfield would leave dust to go to another farmer's cornfield. And they were gonna-- they were plannin' (UNINTEL) regulation.

In Arizona, they went in on the dust regulation and suggested to them that maybe if they watered down the earth, they wouldn't have these dust storms in the middle of the year. And people said to 'em, "You know, the reason it's called a desert (LAUGH) is there's no water." Now this is an agency out of touch with reality, which I believe is incor-- corrigible, and you need a new agency that is practical, has common sense, uses economic factors, and in case of--

DAVID GREGORY: All right, Speaker.

NEWT GINGRICH: --of pollution, actually, incentivizes change, doesn't just punish it.

DAVID GREGORY: All right, Andy.

ANDY HILLER: Governor Perry, your party's last nominee, John McCain, wrote in theWashington Post in an Op-ed about a year ago, his words, "I disagree with many of the president's policies, but I believe he is a patriot sincerely intent on using his time in office to advance our country's cause. I reject accusations that his policies and belief make him unworthy to lead America or opposed to its founding ideals." Agree?

RICK PERRY: I make a very proud statement and of fact that-- we have a president that's a socialist. I don't think our founding fathers wanted America to be a socialist country. So I disagree with that-- premise that-- somehow or another that-- President Obama reflects our founding fathers. He doesn't. He talks about having a more powerful, more centralized, more consuming and costly federal government. I am a tenth amendment believing governor. I truly believe that we need a president that respects the tenth amendment, that pushes back to the states. Whether it's how to deliver-- education, how to deliver health care, how to do our-- environmental regulations. The states will considerably do a better job than a one-size-fits-all Washington, D.C., led by this president.

DAVID GREGORY: Can I just jump in on-- (APPLAUSE) Senator Santorum, Governor Perry, you-- you called the president a socialist. I wonder-- Senator Santorum, when you voted for a new prescription drug benefit that did not have a funding mechanism, were you advancing socialism?

RICK SANTORUM: Well, I-- I said repeatedly that-- we should have had a funding mechanism. And-- it's one of those things that I had a very tough vote, as you know. In that bill, we had health savings accounts, something I'd been fighting for 15 years, to transform the private sector health care system into a more consumer, bottom-up-- way of doing it. We also had Medicare Advantage to transform the entire Medicare system into-- Medicare Advantage is basically a premium support type model.

(OVERTALK)

DAVID GREGORY: So advancing socialism, though, that's the point.

RICK SANTORUM: Well, I-- I-- I think I'm just answering your question. Maybe-- maybe we're not communicating well. But I just talked about-- that-- medical-- health savings account is an anti-socialistic idea to try to build a bottom-up, consumer-based economy-- in health care. The same thing with Medicare Advantage. And we also structured the Medicare, part D benefit, to be a premium support model, as a way of trying to transition Medicare. So there were a lot of good things in that bill. There was one really bad thing. We didn't pay for it. We should have paid for it. And that was a mistake.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you have another follow up on that?

ANDY HILLER: No, I'm gonna switch to Congressman Paul. And I'm gonna say many Americans, particularly Democrats, believe that health care is a right. In your opinion, what services are all Americans entitled to expect to get from government?

RON PAUL: Entitlements are not rights. Rights mean you have a right-- (APPLAUSE) entitle-- rights mean you have a right to your life and you have a right to your-- your liberty, and you should have a right to keep the fruits of your labor. And this is quite a bit different, but earlier on-- there was a little discussion here about gay rights. I, in a way, don't like to use those terms, gay rights-- women's rights-- minority rights-- mon-- religious rights.

There's only one type of right. It's your right to your liberty. And I think it causes-- divisiveness, when we see people in groups. Because for too long we punished groups. So the answer then was-- let's-- let's relieve them by giving them affirmative action. So I think both are wrong. If you think in terms of individuals and protect every single individual, no, they're not entitled-- one group isn't entitled to take something from b-- somebody else.

And-- the basic problem here is there's a lot of good intention to help poor people. But guess who gets the entitlements in Washington? The big guys get-- the rich people. They run the entitlement system. The military industrial complex, the banking system. Those are the entitlements we should be dealing with.

DAVID GREGORY: Dr. Paul, thanks, (APPLAUSE) in our remaining moment here, back to you, John.

JOHN DISTASO: Well-- Governor Huntsman, Andy and I are about to wrap up our role in this debate. And-- as we do, I'd like to ask you, as someone who's-- been here in New Hampshire a while, what does our state motto, "Live Free or Die"-- mean to you personally, and how would it guide you-- in the White House?

JON HUNTSMAN: It is the fu-- fulfillment of a citizenry being able to live out the meaning of our founding documents. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And everywhere I've gone in this great state, and we've done 160-plus public events. (APPLAUSE) I feel it and I sense it, and people take that very seriously. You know what else they take seriously? They take seriously the idea of real leadership.

I've heard a lot of obfuscating up here, the blame game. Talkin' about gays, talkin' about unions. Everybody's got somethin' nasty to say. You know what the people of this country are waiting for, and the people in it, they want a leader who is going to unify, who's gonna bring us together. Because at the end of the day, that's what leadership is all about. It's not about taking on different groups and vilifying them for whatever reason. It's about projecting a vision for a more hopeful tomorrow.

That's why there is no trust in this country today. And that's why, as president, I'm gonna attack that trust deficit just as aggressively as I attack that economic deficit. Because with no trust, I can't think of anything more corrosive longer term for the people of this nation.

DAVID GREGORY: All right, we're gonna-- (APPLAUSE) we're gonna leave it there. Thank-- thank you, John, thank you, Andy, both. We're gonna take another quick break here. I'll be back with a final round of questions, including your questions from our Meet The Press Facebook page. We're back with our final moments in just a moment. (APPLAUSE)

DAVID GREGORY: We are back. Gentlemen, candidates-- we have just a few minutes left. And I'd like to try something, 'cause I do want to get to as much substance and pin you down on views as best I can. I know this could be hard for you, but you are spending a lot of money getting your message out in 30 second increments, based on what I've been watching in the hotel room, here in New Hampshire.

So I know you know how to do this. Let's try having 30-second answers to some of these questions, and we might have some response along the way. Senator Santorum, I want to ask you about Iran. It's been a big issue in the course of this campaign so far. I wonder why it is if America has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we have come to live with a nuclear North Korea. Why is it that we cannot live with a nuclear Iran? And if we can't, are you prepared to take the country to war to disarm that country?

RICK SANTORUM: They're-- they're a theocracy. They're a theocracy that has deeply-embedded beliefs that-- that the afterlife is better than this life. President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said the principle virtue of the Islamic Republic of Iran is martyrdom. So when your principle virtue is to die for your-- for Allah, then it's not a deterrent to have a nuclear threat, if they would use a nuclear weapon. It is, in fact, an encouragement for them to use their nuclear weapon. And that's why there's a difference between the Soviet Union and China and others and Iran.

DAVID GREGORY: What about Pakistan? They are an indifferent ally at best. They have nuclear weapons. Are you also prepared as president to say they must disarm or else?

RICK SANTORUM: They are not a theocracy. And we're very hopeful of-- of maintaining-- a more secular state-- than-- than is in place today. But there is a serious threat. And this administration has bungled it about as badly as they can in trying to con-- continue those positive relationships. We've had some real serious problems with the-- with the Pakistani military. Obviously-- with respect to-- Osama bin Laden, with respect to-- North Waziristan. But you have-- the reason is we have a president who's just very weak-- in-- in that region of the world and is not respected.

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

RICK SANTORUM: And therefore, he's not-- he has not been able-- to have that strong hand in working with Pakistan that they're used to.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker Gingrich, how about tone of this campaign? I was in Iowa. I heard you on the stump. You-- complained bitterly about the Super PAC, the outside groups that were lodging charges against you, bringing up-- some old issues against you. And now you have a former campaign spokesman, who is preparing attacks against Governor Romney, calling him quote "a predator" for his involvement at the investment company, Bain. You agreed with somebody who said that Governor Romney was a liar, when he didn't take account for those attacks against you. Are you consistent now, as you're preparing to launch against Governor Romney?

NEWT GINGRICH: Sure.

DAVID GREGORY: How so?

NEWT GINGRICH: I'm consistent, because I think you ought to have fact-based campaigns to talk about the records.

DAVID GREGORY: Calling him a predator is not over the line?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, I think you have to look at the film, which I haven't seen. But if you look at the New York Times article, and I think it was on Thursday-- you would certainly have to say that Bain, at times, engaged in behavior where they looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people.

That's the New York Times. That's not me. So I think-- I mean, one of the ads I complained about, you had four Pinocchios from the walst-- from the Washington Post. Now to-- to get four Pinocchios in a 30-second ad means there's virtually nothing accurate, in 30 seconds.

DAVID GREGORY: Speaker, you-- you-- you decry the Washington establishment. And you've just talked about the New York Times and the Washington Post. You have agreed with the characterization that Governor Romney is a liar. Look at him now. Do you stand by that claim?

NEWT GINGRICH: Sure, Governor, I wish you would calmly and directly state it is your former staff running the PAC. It is your millionaire friends giving to the PAC. And you know some of the ads are in-- are untrue. Just say that, straightforward.

MITT ROMNEY: Well, of course, they're-- former staff of mine. And of course they're people who support me. They wouldn't be putting money into a PAC that supports me if they weren't people who support me. And with regards to their ads, I haven't seen 'em. And as you know, under the law, I can't direct their ads. Well-- Speaker-- hold on a second, I-- I can't direct their ads. If there's anything in them that's wrong, I hope to take it out. I hope everything that's wrong is taken out.

But let me tell you this. The-- the ad I saw said that-- that you'd been forced out of the speakership. That was correct. It said that-- that you'd sat down with Nancy Pelosi and-- and argued for-- for a climate change bill. That was correct. It said that you'd called the-- the-- Ron Paul-- wrong Paul. Paul Ryan's plan to-- to provide-- Medicare reform-- a right-wing social engineering plan. It said that-- that as part of an investigation, an ethics investigation that you had to reimburse some $300,000. Those things are all true.

If there was something related to abortion that it said that was wrong, I hope they pull it out. Anything wrong, I'm opposed to. But, you know, this ain't-- this ain't a bean bag. We're gonna come into a campaign. We're gonna describe the differences--

DAVID GREGORY: All right.

MITT ROMNEY: --between us. But I-- but I do think.

DAVID GREGORY: Go ahead, Speaker.

MITT ROMNEY: But I do think the rhetoric, Mr. Speaker, I-- I think it was a little over the top.

NEWT GINGRICH: You think my rhetoric was over the top, but your ads were totally reasonable. I just want to understand--

NEWT GINGRICH: I've taken the governor's advice.

MITT ROMNEY: Mr. Speaker, the-- the Super PACs that are out there running ads, Ron Paul's, mine, yours, as you know, that is not my ad. I don't write that ad. I can't tell them not to.

DAVID GREGORY: Well, how about this-- would you both agree to take these super PAC ads down?

MITT ROMNEY: But Mr. Speaker, I-- I wouldn't call some of the things you-- you've called me (UNINTEL). That's just over the top.

DAVID GREGORY: Would you both agree that-- to-- to request that these Super PAC ads be taken down?

NEWT GINGRICH: David, wait a second. Come on, come on. I-- I'm glad, finally, on this stage, that weeks later, he has said, "Gee, if they're wrong, they should take them down." They would, of course-- we've sent a letter in South Carolina saying-- warning the stations to just fact check them before they start running 'em. But I'm taking his advice. You know-- we started to run his commercial from-- from 1994, attacking Teddy Kennedy for running negative ads. We thought, "No, that would be wrong."

So instead, I-- I agree with him. It takes broad shoulders to run. Can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. When the 27 and a half minute movie comes out, I hope it's accurate. I-- I-- I-- I can say, publicly, I hope that the Super PAC runs an accurate movie about Bain. It'll be based on establishment newspapers, like the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Barron's, Bloomberg News, and I hope it is totally accurate. And then people can watch the 27 and a half minutes of his career at Bain and decide for themselves.

DAVID GREGORY: Let me ask you, Senator Santorum, we've talked some about the role of government, but the presidency is often called "the bully pulpit." I wonder, as president, how you'd use the bully pulpit to try to shape American culture and values.

RICK SANTORUM: I haven't written a lot of books. I've written one. And it was in response to a book written by Hillary Clinton called It Takes A Village. I didn't agree with that. I believe it takes a family. And that's what I wrote. And I believe that there's one thing that is undermining this country and that is the break down of the American family. It's undermining our economy. You see-- the rates of poverty among single parent families, which are-- moms are doing heroic things, but it's harder.

It's five times higher, in the single parent family. We-- we know there's certain things that work in-- in-- in America. Brookings Institute came out with a study just a few year-- a couple of years ago that said if you graduate from high school and if you work and if you're a man, if you marry, if you're a woman if you marry before you have children, you have a 2% chance of being in poverty in America.

And to be above the median income, if you do those three things, 77% chance of being above the median income. Why isn't the president of the United States or why aren't leaders in this country talking about that and trying to formulate, not necessarily federal government policy, but local policy and state policy and community policy to help people do those things that we know work and we know are good for society? This president doesn't. In fact--

DAVID GREGORY: All right, let me--

RICK SANTORUM: --he has required programs not to talk about marriage, not to talk about abstinence if-- in order to get federal funds.

DAVID GREGORY: Dr. Paul--

RICK SANTORUM: He's working exactly against the things he knows works, because he has a secular ideology that is against the traditions of our country--

DAVID GREGORY: Dr. Paul--

RICK SANTORUM: --and what works.

DAVID GREGORY: --quickly, how would you use the bully pulpit? (CLAPPING)

RON PAUL: I would continue to do what I'm doing now, preaching the gospel of liberty. I think that the most important ingredients in this country that made us great was our founders understood what liberty meant. It-- and that is what we need. We have deserted that. We have drifted a long way. It involved our right to our life, right to our liberty. We ought to be able to keep the fruits of our labor. We ought to understand property rights. We ought to understand contract rights. We ought to understand what sound money is all about. And we ought to understand what national defense means. That means defending this country. That is the bully pulpit we need. We need to defend liberty--

DAVID GREGORY: All right. Defend liberty and? (LAUGH)

RON PAUL: And liberty. (LAUGH)

DAVID GREGORY: Thank you. We're gonna take another break. We'll be back for some closing moments, right after this.

DAVID GREGORY: I would like to thank the candidates for joining us. I'd also like to thank our debate partners, Facebook, the New Hampshire Union Leader, and our host here, of course, in Concord, the Capital Center for the Arts. Thank you, of course, for watching and participating in this debate online. Post-debate analysis will continue on MSNBC. Be sure to watch complete coverage of the New Hampshire primary returns, this Tuesday night on NBC News, MSNBC, and online at NBCPolitics.com. We'll be back next week from Washington. If it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press. (APPLAUSE)

* * *END OF TRANSCRIPT* * *

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" sets forth on its quest in December of next year

2011-12-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" sets forth on its quest in December of next year, bringing moviegoers their first dose of Middle-Earth big-screen goodness in almost a decade. It's just the first silo of a two-part "Lord of the Rings" prequel, too, so we'll have even more to look forward to when "There and Back Again" hits in December 2013.

We've long known that "The Hobbit" would be split into two movies, but the breaking point between the two films has remained unclear. How much of J.R.R. Tolkien's story would make it into the first "Hobbit" movie? What are we in store for?

Thanks to a plot synopsis unearthed by Bleeding Cool, we've got our answer.
Keep reading for the official "Unexpected" plot details.

Synopsis:
The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Press Release

From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of two films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The second film will be The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

Both films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar®-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey, the character he played in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Martin Freeman in the central role of Bilbo Baggins. Also reprising their roles from The Lord of the Rings movies are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; and Andy Serkis as Gollum.

The ensemble cast also includes (in alphabetical order) Richard Armitage, John Bell, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Barry Humphries, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Evangeline Lilly, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas, and Aidan Turner.

The screenplays for both The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. Jackson is also producing the films, together with Fran Walsh and Carolynne Cunningham. The executive producers are Alan Horn, Ken Kamins, Toby Emmerich and Zane Weiner, with Boyens serving as co-producer.

Under Jackson’s direction, both movies are being shot consecutively in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Filming is taking place at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.

Among the creative behind-the-scenes team returning to Jackson’s crew are director of photography Andrew Lesnie, production designer Dan Hennah, conceptual designers Alan Lee and John Howe, composer Howard Shore and make-up and hair designer Peter King. The costumes are designed by Ann Maskrey and Richard Taylor. The score is being composed by Howard Shore.

Taylor is also overseeing the design and production of weaponry, armour and prosthetics which are once again being made by the award winning Weta Workshop. Weta Digital take on the visual effects for both films, led by the film’s visual effects supervisor, Joe Letteri. Post production will take place at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again are productions of New Line Cinema and MGM, with New Line managing production. Warner Bros Pictures is handling worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television licensing, being handled by MGM.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be released beginning December 14, 2012. The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is slated for release the following year, beginning December 13, 2013.

Editorial: A campus far from exemplary — Field Elementary in Dallas | Dallas Morning News Editorials - Opinion and Commentary for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News

2011-11-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

Editorial: A campus far from exemplary — Field Elementary in Dallas Dallas Morning News Editorials - Opinion and Commentary for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News

In third grade, the world opens to children. They learn about magnets and volcanoes, frogs and ladybugs, the marvels of the solar system. They are introduced to biographies and to the lofty concept that people can, through their deeds, change communities. These essential lessons in science and social studies build on themselves, year after year.

It is only when you look at this rich curriculum that you can appreciate the injustice inflicted on the children at Tom W. Field Elementary School in northwest Dallas. For an entire year, third-graders were essentially denied science and social studies instruction in favor of math and reading, all so they could improve their scores on standardized tests and earn the school a high ranking.

The intense pressure to boost student performance has produced some bizarre results around the nation, but short of outright cheating, few examples rise to the level of what took place at Field. By fiat, the principal declared that the required curriculum simply did not apply. Science and social studies instructors instead were forced to focus on math and reading. Music and gym were sacrificed. To compound matters, false grades were entered for the subjects that were not taught.

Mario Tapped to Lead Italy Out of Debt Crisis

2011-11-13T15:19:00.001-08:00

ROME — A day after accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s president on Sunday asked Mario Monti, a former member of the European Commission, to form a government charged with helping defend Italy from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

The Hobbit will be in 3D!

2011-11-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

On exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Center... part of W's briefing papers, I believe.

2011-10-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ross Perot could not have done it better....

2011-10-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

We are maiming our Troops and their Familes in OUR WARS... END OUR WARS NOW.

2011-10-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Beyond the Battlefield is an ten-part series The Huffington Post is running on consecutive weekdays starting October 10, 2011. It is an exploration of the challenges, victories and problems that catastrophically wounded soldiers encounter after returning home from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The series, the result of several months of reporting and scores of interviews by the HuffPost's veteran military correspondent, David Wood, is a deeply-felt and wide-ranging exploration of what it means for a soldier to suffer extraordinary, disabling wounds -- and how their friends, families, and hometowns, as well as the military and medical communities, adjust and respond to the struggles these wounded warriors endure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/beyond-the-battlefield

Beyond the Battlefield is a 10-part series exploring the challenges that severely wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan face after they return home, as well as what those struggles mean for those close to them. Other stories in the series can be found here.

July 4, 2010, was a bad day for Tyler Southern. He dreamed he was with his older brothers, playing sandlot football, running and laughing, horsing around just like they used to when they were together as kids in Jacksonville, Fla.

In his dream, he was whole again.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/beyond-the-battlefield-part-1-tyler-southern_n_999329.html

Romney Calls for an ‘American Century’: “If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your president,”

2011-10-07T17:47:00.000-07:00

“If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your president”

Standing before an audience of crisply-clad, closely-shorn cadets, Mitt Romney delivered his foreign policy vision at The Citadel on Friday, calling for a strengthened military and economy to lead the country into what he called “an American Century,” while also accusing President Obama of weakening the nation’s image around the world.“This is America’s moment,” said Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. “We should embrace the challenge, not shrink from it, not crawl into an isolationist shell, not wave the white flag of surrender, nor give in to those who assert America’s time has passed.”

“An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender.”

“If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your president,” he said, as a murmur rippled through the applause-filled room. “You have that president today."

"This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

2011-10-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and b...eautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.
They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.
They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?
They would have no sex life and could not bear children.
Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.
And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.
We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.
Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

(The girl on the picture is French model Tara Lynn)

Quakers call this speaking Truth to Power.

2011-10-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Put the FEAR of our VOTE into CONGRESS and the SENATE!

2011-09-30T09:02:00.001-07:00

Put the FEAR of our VOTE into CONGRESS and the SENATE!

END the WARS!

END the TAXES!

END their REIGN of FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT!

Let them be AFRAID of USa!

Today Amazon re-introduced Unix as Amazon Fire with Amazon Silk Browser Connection to the Amazon Cloud..."a thread of silk"

2011-09-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

These are high-end products – the best Kindles we’ve ever made. Kindle and Kindle Touch have the most-advanced E Ink display technology available, and the 3G Kindle Touch adds free 3G wireless – no monthly fees and no annual contracts. Kindle Fire brings everything we’ve been working on at Amazon for 15 years together into a single, fully-integrated experience for customers – instant access to Amazon’s massive selection of digital content, a vibrant color IPS touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle, a 14.6 ounce design that’s easy to hold with one hand, a state-of-the-art dual core processor, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, and an ultra-fast mobile browser – Amazon Silk – available exclusively on Kindle Fire.

... Unix lives!

Today in New York, Amazon introduced Silk, an all-new web browser powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and available exclusively on the just announced Kindle Fire. You might be asking, “A browser? Do we really need another one?” As you’ll see in the video below, Silk isn’t just another browser. We sought from the start to tap into the power and capabilities of the AWS infrastructure to overcome the limitations of typical mobile browsers. Instead of a device-siloed software application, Amazon Silk deploys a split-architecture. All of the browser subsystems are present on your Kindle Fire as well as on the AWS cloud computing platform. Each time you load a web page, Silk makes a dynamic decision about which of these subsystems will run locally and which will execute remotely. In short, Amazon Silk extends the boundaries of the browser, coupling the capabilities and interactivity of your local device with the massive computing power, memory, and network connectivity of our cloud.

Tainted Fruit of the Month - Cantaloupe

2011-09-28T05:16:00.001-07:00

An outbreak of illness linked to consumption of tainted cantaloupes has been linked to 13 deaths and 72 illnesses in 18 states, a federal disease agency reported Wednesday.

The outbreak -- blamed on the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes -- was first reported September 12, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 15 people in four states had been infected. The illnesses were traced to consumption of Rocky Ford cantaloupes grown at Jensen Farms' fields in Granada, Colorado.

The deaths reported as of Tuesday morning occurred in Colorado (two), Kansas (one), Maryland (one), Missouri (one), Nebraska (one), New Mexico (four), Oklahoma (one), and Texas (two).

The illnesses occurred in those states as well as in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

13 dead after eating cantaloupe

New E. coli contamination scare Listeriosis primarily affects older adults, pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems, according to the CDC website.

Jensen Farms, which is based in Holly, Colorado, is voluntarily recalling Rocky Ford whole cantaloupes that were shipped between July 29 and September 10 and distributed to Illinois, Wyoming, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

The cantaloupes bear a green-and-white sticker that reads: Product of USA- Frontera Produce-Colorado Fresh-Rocky Ford-Cantaloupe or a gray, yellow, and green sticker that says: Jensen Farms-Sweet Rocky Fords.

Unlabeled whole cantaloupe should be taken to the retailer for sourcing information, the FDA said.

Our 2012 Election is being to look like an episode of the West Wing... Gov. Chirs Christie looks like John Goodman to me...

2011-09-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

John Spencer as Leo McGarry, Martin Sheen as Josiah Bartlet and John Goodman as Temporary President Glenallen Walken
NBC Warner Bros. Photo

Writer: John Wells, Director: Christopher Misiano
READ MORE HERE: http://westwing.bewarne.com/fifth/502dogs.html
Takes Place: Starts 24 Hours after Zoey's kidnapping
Broadcast: October 1, 2003
Query: Could Ryan Pierce be descended from President Franklin Pierce?
Query: What is the source of the Martin Luther King quote about the weakness of violence?

The national crisis continues as Walken uses the might of the world's greatest arsenal to attack the people he thinks took Zoey. Bartlet helplessly watches from the residence where Leo goes to talk to him. After admitting that he is angry, Bartlet recites the following:

"'The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral. Returning violence with violence only multiplies violence adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.'"
"Dr. King."
"I'm part of that darkness now, Leo. When did that happen?"
"Dr. King wasn't wrong. He just didn't have your job."

Even Walken is feeling the darkness descend as he has to make phone calls to families of dead soldiers. He looks around the Oval Office and tells Debbie,
"This is a weird-looking room."
"Truman called it the crown jewel of the federal penal system."
"You a Truman fan?"
"Yes, sir."
"Me, too.... If Truman were alive today, he'd be a Republican."
"Oh, I doubt that very much."

Josh thinks the Republicans want to take over during this crisis --- they are having secret meetings and being quoted in the press about Walken. He approaches one of Walken's aides in the Men's room

"You're campaigning in the middle of a national tragedy...."
"You don't get it, do you? The Republicans are in awe of Bartlet. He recused himself in the only way he could. In the way envisioned by the Constitution.... The whole notion of the 25th Amendment is that the institution matters more than the man. Bartlet's decision was even more self-sacrificing because he willingly gave power to his opposition."
"The institution may matter more, but it's your guy protecting it, not ours."
"A truely self-sacrificing act usually involves some sacrifice."
"So, now you're going to nail us to the cross."
"No. You beat the terrorists at their own game. We're not stupid, Josh. We try to use this to our advantage, it will blow up in our faces. We'd seem callous and unfeeling. In contrast to Bartlet's extraordinary gesture of courage and patriotism. And anyone who thinks otherwise has a particularly craven way of looking at politics."

Martin Sheen as Josiah Bartlet --
NBC Warner Bros. Photo
Through a lucky circumstance, a State Trooper stumbles on the hide-out where Zoey was being held and the Bartlets, Charlie and Leo helicopter in and an agent there tells Leo what happened while the Bartlets re-unite with a dazed Zoey:
"We found her locked in a closet in a back bedroom."

Later Bartlet signs the paper taking back the Presidency.
"You going to run again? Bartlet asks Walken.
"I haven't decided."
"If you do, let me know. I'll come campaign for you."
"I'm not so sure that would be a plus in my district, Mr. President."
"You stick around for the Press conference?
"Thank you, sir, but I think the nation's best served by seeing only one President at a time."
"Glen," Bartlet calls out to him as Walken is leaving the Oval. "Thank you."

19 September 1955: Evidence of plant life on Mars?

2011-09-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 19 September 1955

The sudden appearance of a large dark spot on the surface of the planet Mars was announced yesterday by the National Geographic Society in Washington. It was also claimed that this discovery supported the conclusion "that Mars is not a dead world, that the darkening is due to the growth of plant life." The observation has been made by Dr E. C. Slipher, the director of the Lowell Observatory, in South Africa.

Dr Slipher has spent a large part of his long life (he is nearly 80) photographing the surface of Mars.

This event is certainly remarkable, but it is unlikely that scientists will accept the suggestion that the appearance of this spot is evidence of vegetable life on the planet. Professor Znedik Kopal of Manchester University said last night that the claim "must be taken with a pinch of salt." The difficulty is that there are at least two ways of accounting for the appearance of dark spots on the surface of the planet and simple photography of them cannot decide between the two theories.

It is, however, clear that the dark spots must be produced by some active mechanism. Most of the surface of the planet is covered with a thick layer of sandy dust (it is a desert), and it is known that winds with speeds of several miles a second blow in the thin Martian atmosphere. Any dark material on the surface would rapidly become covered with a thin layer of obscuring dust if there were not some way in which it was regenerated.

The assumption that the dark patches are areas of vegetation has been common, for several decades. The difficulty is to see how any vegetation could grow in the planet's strange atmosphere.

The most favoured of the alternative theories is that the dark spots are caused by volcanic activity. Each black area would be brought about by pumice dust from an active volcano falling on the sandy desert and concealing it from view. This supposes that the volcanoes remain active for a considerable length of time, but there is no direct way of proving or disproving this.

To distinguish between these theories experiments are now being carried out in several laboratories throughout the world. In the end the question will be decided by the colour of the light which the spots reflect. When accurate measurements of the proportions of red, blue, and yellow light from the spots are available, these will be compared with laboratory measurements of the light reflected from pumice, lava, and vegetation. The prize will go to that material which best simulates the behaviour of the spots.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Yep. The Democrats have a problem this year... and it is NOT just President Obama.

2011-09-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

It is perhaps in the area of personal style that the two men are most different.

Consider how they approached the rite of eating a corn dog when they visited the Iowa State Fair last month. When a fair vendor handed Romney a vegetarian corn dog, he politely took it, turned his back to the cameras following him, took a delicate bite from the side and hurried along so he wouldn’t be photographed sticking the deep-fried foot-long in his mouth.

Perry, meanwhile, took a big bite of his corn dog, top first, photographic evidence of which raced around the Internet.

“A guy gave me a corny dog and it looked beautiful,” Perry recalled a few days later in South Carolina. “I took a big ol’ bite out of it and I thought, it kind of has an odd taste. He said, ‘It’s a vegetarian one. How do you like it, sir?’ ”

Stirring his audience of apparent meat lovers, Perry continued his riff.

“Let’s see,” he said, “I think [I ate] boiled egg on a stick and finished up with pork chop on a stick. So I got my protein that day!”

READ MORE AT http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/front-runners-mitt-romney-rick-perry-define-two-wings-of-republican-party/2011/09/10/gIQAk5R1cK_story_2.html

It is amazing what your Facebook Friends can post for you to read and see with local news events like our Texas Wild Fires

2011-09-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Facebook

PHOTO FROM TEXAS STORM CHASERS OFF FACEBOOK FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

What is really sad is FAR Left and FAR Right have cut out the Middle Class Opprotunities that made US strong as a nation.

2011-09-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Should Egg Whites be used on Burns? No.

2011-09-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

A young man was sprinkling his lawn and bushes with pesticides and wanted to check the contents of the barrel to see how much pesticide remained in it. He raised the cover and lit his lighter; the vapors inflamed and engulfed him. He jump...ed from his truck, screaming. His neighbor came out of her house yelling, "Bring me some eggs!" Another neighbor came running with a dozen eggs. The first neighbor broke the eggs, separating the whites from the yolks, and applied the whites on the young man's face. When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs saw the young man and asked who had put the egg whites on his face. Everyone pointed to the neighbor lady in charge. They congratulated her and said, "You have saved his face." By the end of the summer, the young man’s face was like a baby’s skin. He took a bouquet of roses to his neighbor and thanked her for saving his face.

Keep in mind this treatment of burns which is included in teaching beginner fireman this method. First aid consists to spraying cold water on the affected area until the heat is reduced and stops burning the layers of skin. Then, spread egg whites on the affected area.

One woman burned a large part of her hand with boiling water. In spite of the pain, she ran cold faucet water on her hand, separated 2 egg white from the yolks, beat them slightly and dipped her hand in the solution. The whites then dried and formed a protective layer. She later learned that the egg white is a natural collagen and continued during at least one hour to apply layer upon layer of beaten egg white. By afternoon she no longer felt any pain and the next day there was hardly a trace of the burn. 10 days later, no trace was left at all and her skin had regained its normal color. The burned area was totally regenerated thanks to the collagen in the egg whites, a placenta full of vitamins.

This information could be helpful to someone. Please pass it on!

BUT WAIT!

POUR COLD WATER ON THE BURN
and on this email about EGG WHITES

The email also claimed that using egg whites as a treatment for skin burns is part of the first aid training of firemen. “First aid consists to spraying cold water on the affected area until the heat is reduced and stops burning the layers of skin. Then, spread egg whites on the affected are.”

I got curious and started scouring the web for more information.
First of all, there are degrees of skin burns. From Mayo Clinic:

First-degree burn
The least serious burns are those in which only the outer layer of skin is burned, but not all the way through. The skin is usually red, with swelling, and pain sometimes is present…

Second-degree burn
When the first layer of skin has been burned through and the second layer of skin (dermis) also is burned, the injury is called a second-degree burn. Blisters develop and the skin takes on an intensely reddened, splotchy appearance. Second-degree burns produce severe pain and swelling…

Third-degree burn
The most serious burns involve all layers of the skin and cause permanent tissue damage. Fat, muscle and even bone may be affected. Areas may be charred black or appear dry and white…

First aid may be applied to first degree burns and some second degree burns. But third degree burns require serious medical attention.

As for the email, there was no description of the severity of the man’s burns. According to Snopes:

Regarding the rest of the e-mail, fire fighters are not instructed as part of their training to treat burns with egg white. Instead, they learn at-the-scene first aid procedures, which mostly amount to keeping airways open, reducing the temperature of burned areas, then handing off burn victims to medical professionals.

However, that firefighters aren’t being taught to slather burn victims with albumen doesn’t mean that at one time providing exactly that treatment wasn’t a somewhat recommended practice. We happened upon sightings in turn-of-the-century medical journals that advocated the use of egg white on minor burns. Now, granted, most of those sightings promoted such use as a way of shielding injured areas from contamination (that is, using egg white to create a protective barrier between wound and air), but there was also suggestion that the application of this substance would take the pain out of the injury. (Mind you, those selfsame journals also offered up the information that a number of other wet, dense dressings, such as olive oil or a mixture of baking soda and water, would act just as effectively as a wound protectant and calmative for minor burns.)

In short, before believing everything that lands in your inbox, cross and cross-check whatever claims there are. After all, as with everything, the best first aid treatments start with actions based on informed decisions.

REAL First Aid For Burns

A burn involves the destruction of skin cells, and sometimes the underlying structures of muscle, fascia and bone. It occurs when these structures absorb more heat than they can dissipate. What you do for a burn in the first few minutes after it occurs CAN make a difference in the severity of the injury! Safety Tips:

1.STOP THE BURNING PROCESS. Remove the source of heat…if clothing catches fire, “STOP, DROP AND ROLL” to smother the flames.
2.REMOVE ALL BURNED CLOTHING. Clothing may keep in the heat and cause a deeper injury. If clothing sticks to the skin, cool the material or cut or tear around the area to preserve good skin tissue.
3.POUR COOL WATER OVER THE BURNED AREA. Keep pouring the cool water for at least 3-5 minutes. Never put ice or cold water on a burn as it lowers body temperature and can make the burn worse.
4.REMOVE ALL JEWELRY, BELTS, TIGHT CLOTHING, METAL, ETC. Remove from burned areas and around the victim’s neck – swelling of burned areas occurs immediately.
5.DO NOT APPLY OINTMENTS, CREAMS OR SALVES TO WOUNDS. These things may cause infection due to their oil base and can convert wounds to deeper injury; hold in heat and worsen the burn, and have to be washed off by a physician causing the patient additional discomfort.
6.COVER BURNS WITH A SOFT, CLEAN, DRY DRESSING, BANDAGE OR SHEET.
7.COVER VICTIM TO KEEP HIM/HER WARM.
8.SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
•Special considerations:
■FOR MINOR BURN INJURY: Keep clean, gently wash with a mild soap. Use an antiseptic spray or cream to help relieve pain and prevent infection before covering with a clean dry dressing. If wounds are not healing, appear weepy, or smell bad, seek medical help.
■ELECTRICAL INJURIES: DO NO TOUCH the person who is in contact with electricity. YOU WILL BE INJURED. Disconnect the source of power or call for assistance for the power company…then begin first aid. Primary concerns are clear airways, breathing, circulation and cervical spine immobilization…then look for other injuries.
■CHEMICAL INJURIES: Protect yourself from contact with the chemical. Read the container label information or consult with a Poison Control Center before administering first aid for specific chemical reactions. Dry chemicals: brush as much a of the dry chemical off as possible and remove it from the affected area from a minimum of 20-30 minutes or until a medical professional tells you to stop. Remove patient’s clothing, including shoes, before flushing with water. If chemical is near or is in the patient’s eye, check for contact lenses, which should be removed before irrigation of the eye. Don’t flush parts of body that are not contaminated.
Facts and Figures:
•A burn involves the destruction of skin cells, and sometimes the underlying structures of muscle, fascia and bone. It occurs when these structures absorb more heat than they can dissipate.
•Children and older adults, because they have thinner skin, get severe burns at lower temperatures and in less time than an adult.
■Exposure for thus three seconds to water, which is 140 degrees F., can result in a full thickness or third degree burn on a child or an older adult. This type of burn would require hospitalization and skin grafts.
■People with MINOR to MODERATE injury according to depth and percentage can be treated in a specialty Burn Center or Unit, a local community hospital with a surgeon who knows state-of-the-art burn care, or on an outpatient basis.
■Burns are considered MINOR, MODERATE or MAJOR according to the depth and percentage of burn, but also the area of the body burned.
■Burns covering more body surface area than an arm of the victim, or if burns are on the face, hands, neck, perineum or feet are considered MAJOR and should be cared for in a special Burn Unit or Center.
“Rule of Nines” Burn Size

Burns are judged by the size of the burn in relation to the whole body and by the depth of the burn injury. Different methods exist to calculate the extent or size of a burn injury. The most common method, which provides a quick estimate of burn size, uses the “Rule of Nines,” where the body is divided into areas equaling multiples of nine percent of the total body surface area. The palm of your hand, for example, is equal to about one percent of your body’s surface area. The head and arms are each equal to nine percent of the body surface. The chest and back are each 18 percent (two nine percent). Each leg is 18 percent (two X nine percent). This totals 11 nine, or 99 percent. The heads of infants and small children are in relatively larger proportion to the total body surface area, and the limbs are in smaller proportion than adults limbs. The total body surface area of a burn is referred to as TBSA. A patient might have the diagnosis of a 45 percent TBSA thermal burn, for example. The TBSA and burn depth analysis are recorded on a hospital chart known as a “burn diagram.” Determining the percent of body surface area burned is important for correct fluid replacement.

© Burn Institute. Legal Notices.

Burn Institute
San Diego
8825 Aero Drive #200
San Diego, CA 92123-2269
(858) 541-2277 phone
(858) 541-7179 fax
Burn Institute
Imperial Valley
612 "J" Street, Suite 3
Imperial, CA 92251
(760) 355-3175 phone
(760) 353-3005 fax
Burn Institute
Inland Empire
Arrowhead Reginal Medical Center – Burn Center
400 North Pepper Avenue
Colton, CA 92324-1801
(951) 246-9766 phone

Great White Sharks are endangered by over killing because people paddle out to video tape them... this guy is both foolish and lucky.

2011-09-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Krystal is hard on my cars... second one she has wrecked. The retail book value is $7,100 . Think she totalled it?

2011-08-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

New York Times Reports Intelligent Life on Mars... one hundred years ago.

2011-08-29T07:56:00.001-07:00

We've come a long way: one hundred years ago, on August 27 1911, the New York Times reported the confirmation of intelligent life on Mars:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E13FF3D5813738DDDAE0A94D0405B818DF1D3

Gov. Rick Perry is making a BIG Impression in Europe...

2011-08-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Can we agree that Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential run is an unfolding three ring disaster disaster for the GOP?

Perry barely graduated from a minor Texas state college with a degree in animal husbandry, he has no graduate or professional school degree, and now he has serious ambitions to rewrite the United States Constitution and lead this nation?

If you're comfortable with that thought then you're comfortable with hastening the decline of the American century. You have reached the point where your reason has utterly capitulated to your ideology. You've become so used to extremists running the GOP show you can no longer see them.

You've gone nuts, in other words. Pardon me if I don't join you.

A five minute Google search will confirm what Karl Rove has been shouting about Rick Perry all week: if George W.Bush and Rick Perry were brothers then people would refer to Bush as 'the smart one.'

This is a man who last week hosted a high profile prayer rally featuring some of the most bigoted pastors in America prior to announcing his candidacy. If you're not aware Perry's 'prayer rally' was funded and co-sponsored by the American Family Association, whose spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed last week that the Nazi Party was founded by homosexuals in a Munich gay bar.

I'm not kidding, I couldn't make this stuff up, click this link and see for yourself.

Tidy isn't it: first the gays created the most evil far right fascist organization in human history, then they targeted themselves for extermination. Or something. Who the hell knows. I haven't been having seizures or talking in tongues so I have no idea where Fischer is getting his information from.

Giving a big public endorsement to these unhinged God botherers was not wise. Because in announcing their candidacy most politicians want to create a welcoming platform to illustrate they're part of the mainstream - but not Rick Perry. He chose instead to exclusively court his white, mostly southern evangelical base. Everyone outside the circle could take a hike.

Like Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, for example. Last week Perry described him as 'treacherous' and 'treasonous' - and then he startled his hearers and the watching press corps by adding - 'I don't know what you all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.'

A treacherous, treasonous Jewish man who would come to harm if he ever visited Texas? Oh boy. Could we have that in the original German, Herr Perry? That's not colorful speaking, that's a despicable threat. It's also a measure of how far to the right the GOP has lunged in recent years that Perry's words were only middy challenged.

But it was Perry's ardent creationism that really made the headlines last week. During a campaign stop in South Carolina on Friday he told a young supporter: 'God is how we got here.'

'In Texas' he added, 'we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right.'

In fact Texas public schools do not teach creationism. Texas science standards do not call for teaching creationism in the classroom at all. How does the Governor of Texas not know the curriculum of the state's schools? Oh, right.

Another Perryesque eye-opener last week involved Bank of America Director of Public Policy James Mahoney. It was gratifying to see a beneficiary of bailout money assure Perry of his organizations financial support. Meanwhile Perry likes to talk up his job creation in Texas, which is largely due to stimulus money he said he wouldn't accept but did anyway.

But Texas actually leads the country in low-wage jobs. Texas has the highest percentage of people without health insurance. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured workers in the country at 27.4 percent. Texas leads America in dropouts.

Given these shocking findings, apparently Texas is doing a standup job messing with itself. For all his recent talk of secession from the Union, his state has done well by it.

But I think America can do without another Texas Governor in the White House for the time being. We've had one recently anyway and we all know how that worked out.

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/texas-creationist-rick-perry-and-gods-plan-for-america-128175608.html

What if our Congressmen and Voters had to sell their blood to pay the Interest n the National De, to pay for Our Wars, would they make better choices?

2011-08-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

Plasma Donation: How to sell your blood for $260 a month

Let me tell you right now: I think donating plasma is an amazingly great thing to do. It’s a safe and easy way for people to help others while making some extra money. I’ve known poor college students that might have been homeless college students without plasma donation. And one time at the plasma center I met a single dad who told me he’d been giving plasma so he could put gifts for his daughter under the Christmas tree.

Without plasma donors like this, hemophiliacs, burn victims, and many other people in need could die waiting for essential transfusions.

This is a great example of a Win-Win situation. But I’m sure you have questions about the plasma donation process before you roll up your sleeve and let a phlebotomist take your precious plasma away. READ MORE ABOVE

Gov. Rick Perry spoke and prayed at The Response in Houston, Texas

2011-08-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry, whose Saturday prayer rally drew some 30,000 attendees, lamented a "nation in crisis" and faced protests outside Houston’s Reliant Stadium by gay rights activists who blasted the Texas governor for his event’s ties to the virulently antigay American Family Association.

“Lord, you are the source of every good thing,” Perry said in his 13-minute speech, which included Scripture passages and a prayer request for President Barack Obama. “You are our only hope, and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins. Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness.”

GetEqual, which organized a Saturday protest, called the AFA-financed prayer rally "one more example of religion-based bigotry that helps ... send the message that discriminating against one particular group is okay."

“Our Governor invited, and therefore endorsed, groups to preach hate in our state,” said Michael Diviesti, GetEqual's Texas State Lead Organizer.

“The American Family Association and the Family Research Council empower the bullies that are driving our youth to suicide and the murderers who kill out of hatred and ignorance,” Diviesti said.

Read the Houston Chronicle report on The Response here.

It is complicated.....an Old Theory: Homo sapiens interbred with other hominins, has new supporting studies in science research.

2011-08-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

Not so simple (Image: Richard Wilkinson)
Other Artwork by Richard Wilkinson: http://www.richard-wilkinson.com/

Editorial: "Welcome to the complicated human family"

Welcome to the complicated human family
02 August 2011
New Scientist Magazine issue 2823. Subscribe and save

HOMO SAPIENS come in many shapes and sizes, yet we know one when we see one. If only classifying our extinct relatives were as simple.

With fossils in short supply, deciding where a species starts and ends is contentious. "Lumpers" tend to group fossils into relatively few species, while "splitters" see each morphological idiosyncrasy as potentially signifying a new species. Now the ability to sequence entire ancient genomes provides a new tool (see "Patchwork people: Our hybrid origins"). What will it reveal?

A previously unknown hominin has already been identified by its genes alone, and there could be more as further bones are probed. The result is likely to be a cornucopia of discoveries. We have already welcomed "hobbits" and Denisovans into our extended family. Who knows what other surprises lie in store.

Whether these are separate species is an open question, which the lumpers and splitters will continue to argue over. But instead of obsessing about how to chop up our family tree, ancient genomes may finally help us see human evolution for what it is: a dynamic process of constant interaction and change.

"Patchwork people: Our hybrid origins"
From issue 2823 of New Scientist magazine

In the past year, we've learned that early Homo sapiens interbred with other hominins – and it's forcing us to rethink our family tree

ONCE upon a time the human story seemed so simple. Between 5 and 7 million years ago, our ancestors split from those of chimpanzees. Since then, numerous human-like species have roamed the Earth, but we out-competed them all. Today we are the sole survivors.

Then came the news that these other hominins live on inside many of us. In a groundbreaking study of ancient DNA, a team led by Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, revealed that many people carry the genetic legacy of Neanderthals. Everyone of non-African descent can trace between 1 and 4 per cent of their genes directly back to our Homo cousins. These genes even turn up in people living in areas where no Neanderthal fossils have ever been found, such as China and Papua New Guinea.

The implication is clear: at some point in human history, populations that left Africa interbred with other ancient people. Homo sapiens is a hybrid (Science, vol 328, p 710).

That bombshell was dropped in May 2010. Seven months later, the team was at it again. This time they had sequenced DNA from a lone pinky finger bone, excavated from the Denisova cave in Siberia and dated to between 30,000 and 50,000 years old. Once again, they were able to unpick the full genome, revealing it to belong to a young woman from a previously unrecognised group of ancient hominins, which they named the Denisovans. And, once again, comparisons with modern humans showed that some of the ancient DNA lives on, comprising between 5 and 7 per cent of the genes of people from Melanesia, which includes Papua New Guinea, Fiji and nearby islands (Nature, vol 468, p 1053).

These two studies look set to spark a revolution. Pääbo and colleagues are the first to decipher entire genomes of ancient hominins. In doing so they bring a new approach to understanding human origins - one that has the potential to upend much of what we thought we knew about human evolution. Already, the results have settled a long-standing argument about whether early modern humans bred with other hominins as they spread around the world.

They also raise an intriguing possibility. The percentage of genes involved may be small, but with two positive results from two studies, it seems likely that further research will show genes from other extinct groups of hominins in modern humans too. In other words, it looks like we have a mosaic genome. Researchers are itching to get their hands on more hominin DNA to explore this possibility as well as other key questions about human origins. "Once, we just had fossils and we'd argue about what they really show," says John Hawks from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "With DNA, you know when things are the same. It changes everything."

For a start, DNA analysis gives us a new way to identify the various groups of early human. Before now, they have always been defined on the basis of their bones, but the Denisovans are the first to reveal themselves by their genes alone. Analysis of their genome places them as cousins of the Neanderthals - their common ancestor split from our own ancestral line around 800,000 years ago, before dividing again around 640,000 years ago. But the paths of these three would cross again. "As populations increased in size and came into contact with one another, they started to interbreed," says Milford Wolpoff at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

This interbreeding happened at least twice. DNA cannot show exactly when or where, but the most likely scenario is that when the ancestors of modern humans left Africa they bred with Neanderthals in the Middle East, around 60,000 years ago, picking up a small proportion of their genes before spreading throughout Europe and Asia. Then, in east Asia, they encountered Denisovans and repeated the same cycle of interbreeding and genetic acquisition, before colonising Melanesia 45,000 years ago. "Population mixture is not an exception in human evolution. It's perhaps the rule and it has been going on for a long period of human history," says geneticist David Reich at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who was involved in the studies.

These findings have catapulted geneticists into a controversial battle between two groups, each espousing a different story of human evolution. The first, supporters of the Out of Africa model, believe that all living humans trace their ancestry to a small African population that swept the world, replacing other species of early humans and consigning their genes to history. Their rivals, supporters of the so-called "multiregional model", see these prehistoric groups, scattered across Eurasia, as all part of a single evolving species that met and mated extensively over tens of thousands of years, ultimately giving rise to modern humans.

Neither fossils nor modern genomes could settle the debate, and for decades the same evidence would often be used to support both sides. "It was pretty polarised and personal at times," recalls Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London, who championed the then-dominant Out of Africa model.

Breeding controversy
The ancient genome studies have reopened the debate. "It's nice to be on the right side of this," says Wolpoff, multiregionalism's fiercest champion. "The DNA we have shows three lineages of humans in the Pleistocene that can interbreed with each other. It's very much what we interpreted the fossils to mean." Stringer disagrees. "The implication [from the multiregional model] was that we would see Neanderthals gradually changing into modern humans," he says. "Instead, we see Neanderthals going up to around 30,000 or 40,000 years ago and then disappearing. They've passed some DNA on but that didn't change their evolutionary history."

Stringer also points out that only the most extreme versions of the Out of Africa model ruled out the possibility of sex between different groups. "I've never said there couldn't be interbreeding but I argued that it was trivial." He could still be right - it doesn't necessarily take a lot of sex for genes from a resident population to infiltrate the genomes of colonisers. When an incoming group mates with an established one, the genes they pick up quickly rise to prominence as their population grows. The truth is, we still don't know whether interbreeding was the norm for ancient hominins or something of a fringe activity. Reich and Pääbo are actively pursuing the problem by studying the genomes of modern people who carry Neanderthal DNA, but for now we have no answers.

Meanwhile, the sequencing of ancient DNA has also triggered a new wave of excitement among fossil hunters. The Denisovans are a particular source of inspiration because so far they are known only by one finger bone and a tooth found in the Denisova cave. Yet as their genes turn up in modern Melanesians, they must have spread across Asia. "We're starting to find fossils in southern China and south-east Asia that could well be connected to Denisovans," says Alan Cooper from the University of Adelaide in South Australia. "Things are afoot, and the ancient DNA provoked that."

In fact, both Stringer and Wolpoff believe it is likely that Denisovan fossils have already been found. Several skulls unearthed in China, for example, don't look like Neanderthals or modern humans, and could be Denisovans hidden in plain sight. They include remains like the Dali man found in central China, and Jinniushan man from the country's north-east. Analysis of DNA from fossils like these could help us work out when and where the Denisovans lived, and how this overlapped with the habitat of early modern humans.

While others concentrate on learning more about the Denisovans, Pääbo and Cooper have their sights set on the so-called "hobbit", a small hominin that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores from about 90,000 years ago. Since its discovery in 2004, there has been heated debate about how Homo floresiensis, as it is officially known, fits into our family tree. What makes it particularly intriguing is that despite it having a brain just a third the size of ours, it made tools, controlled fire and lived in much the same way as our direct ancestors, from whom it was geographically isolated. The hobbit genome doubtless has some stories to tell, but ancient DNA is easily degraded and contaminated and, so far, Pääbo and Cooper have been unable to obtain any from the fossils available. "We didn't get at the samples until every physical anthropologist in south-east Asia had handled the things," says Cooper. But he remains hopeful.

"Given that the hobbits survived until 12,000 years ago, it's just a question of finding the right specimen, one that has been preserved in clay or something similar." A single tooth was found more recently, and Cooper is keen to get his hands on it.

Back to our roots
Others would dearly love to sequence DNA from ancient African hominins. As the continent where humans evolved, Africa has a long history of diverse populations with lots of regional differences. "I think anything found in Africa has a chance of making things a lot more complicated," says Hawks. Until now, the various groups have been distinguished from one another by the morphology of fossils alone, but DNA analysis offers a new and more probing way of sorting out the relationships between them. That will be easier said than done, though. The problem is Africa's largely hot and humid climate - the worst conditions for preserving DNA.

Luckily there is another approach. "DNA can be dug up in a 40,000-year-old cave but it can also be passed down from parent to child," says Reich. Even without ancient genomes to hand, geneticists can look for signatures of interbreeding in the DNA of living people. They can hunt for parts of the genome that travel down the generations as a unit even though they are far apart; these could be heirlooms from other ancient hominins. They can also search for regions of the genome that seem older than their neighbours, which would hint at an origin that pre-dates the rise of modern humans.

Another approach is to identify parts of the genome that are considerably more diverse in people living in one part of the world than another. Rasmus Nielson at the University of California, Berkeley, did exactly that, comparing the DNA of people living in Africa with those living elsewhere and, without any ancient DNA, identified 13 sections of DNA in humans of non-African descent that could have come from Neanderthals. Sequencing of the Neanderthal genome confirmed that 10 of these predictions were right.

"The trick is to sequence the genomes of a diverse range of people from all across the world," says Reich. This work is already under way. An international consortium called the 1000 Genomes Project is currently sequencing genomes from populations that have been ignored by previous studies, including some in Africa, the Americas and the Indian subcontinent. These diverse genomes could be a source of important details about our history.

The prospects look promising. Tantalising hints that other extinct hominins have left echoes in many of our genomes have already been found. For example, many European and Asian people have a version of a gene called microcephalin, involved in brain development, which was thought to be inherited from Neanderthals. However, none of the three female Neanderthals that Pääbo and Reich analysed carried this variant, so either it was rare among Neanderthals or we acquired it from another hominin. Then there is the study by Jeffrey Wall from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, which estimated that up to 14 per cent of Eurasian genomes could be heirlooms from ancient hominin groups. Neanderthals only contributed between 1 and 4 per cent, so who did the rest come from?

These approaches can tell us a lot about how much interbreeding early humans got up to, but they have limits. They rely on mathematical models that make several assumptions about how genes change over time. If these assumptions are wrong, the studies could detect phantom signs of mixed DNA, where none exists. "In this context, it is very useful to have an ancient genome to directly test these predictions," says Reich. The ancient DNA acts like a cheat-sheet, allowing scientists to run their models, check their "answers", and refine their methods. Ultimately, it was DNA that sealed the case that early humans interbred with other hominins, and we need more of it to really understand the mosaic nature of human evolution.

It must only be a matter of time. Fossil hunters are starting to handle their finds with the care of crime-scene analysts. "Everyone now treats new material as if it had DNA in it," says Wolpoff. "There are a lot of people who would like to have the next specimen that we get ancient DNA out of. Everybody knows the payoff is good. I think we're at the very beginning of the information explosion."

Rebuilding ancient genomes
The sequencing of ancient DNA has been a massive technical achievement. That's because DNA degrades with age, especially in hot and humid conditions. Even when it is present, it is usually swamped by genetic material from bacteria and fungi that have infiltrated the sample while it lay in the ground.

Working in a clean room to avoid contamination from their own DNA, researchers remove these unwanted sequences using enzymes. They then isolate the tiny fragments of ancient DNA, amplify them and use a computer to pinpoint overlapping segments so that they can stitch the genome back together. In this way, a team led by Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, was able to sequence 40,000-year-old DNA to get rough drafts of both the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes.

To find out whether these two early hominins interbred with early modern humans, their genomes were compared with those of modern humans. Because of our common ancestry we share the vast majority of our genes with these groups, but the differences are telling. Pääbo's team focused on "single nucleotide polymorphisms", or SNPs, which are sites on the genome that vary from person to person by a single DNA "letter". Neanderthals share as many SNPs with Europeans as they do with Asians, but they share fewer with Africans. That makes them genetically closer to those living outside of Africa than those living in the continent.

The team also found that Denisovans share the same number of SNPs with almost all non-Africans, but they share even more with Melanesians. These small differences showed that Neanderthal DNA entered the modern human genome after Homo sapiens left Africa, and that Denisovan DNA came in after the Melanesians split from the rest of Asia.

The next step is to discover what these ancient genes do. "It's possible that early modern humans could have used the Neanderthal or Denisovan genetic material to adapt to their environment," says David Reich from Harvard Medical School in Boston. Indeed, the most recent studies indicate that interbreeding allowed early humans to acquire genes that helped protect them against local diseases as they migrated across the globe (New Scientist, 18 June 2011, p 11).

Just another promiscuous primate?
The animal world is rife with examples of incoming migrants replacing resident populations. Mammoths, cave bears, bison and others all show a similar pattern of migration and replacement to the one that characterises the spread of early modern humans across Eurasia. Whether these other animals inbred with resident populations or simply out-competed them is another matter - one that will only be resolved when their genomes are scrutinised.

However, we do know that hybridisation is fairly common in the natural world. For example, the surprising lack of genetic diversity among Old World monkeys suggests that as they evolved, many subspecies and species mated with one another to produce a complex tangle of hybrid lineages. "When species meet, they do have sex with each other," says Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. So perhaps we should not be surprised to find that early humans mated with individuals from other hominin groups that they came across, including Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Nevertheless, studies of ancient genomes may still reveal that early humans were more inclined to hybridise than other species. One underlying reason might be that human behaviour is driven by culture as well as biology. "Most cultures require you to seek mates someplace else: get your mates from another village, get your mates from the guys across the river," says Milford Wolpoff at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "And that leads to a level of mixture that other species may not have. It remains to be seen whether we're one of many cases or whether we're special."

Ed Yong is a freelance writer based in London
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128231.500-patchwork-people-our-hybrid-origins.html?full=true

Eat the Weeds with Green Deane Jordan...

2011-08-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/EatTheWeeds
I subscribe to Deane's Youtube series and he has a website (new one coming later this year) : http://www.eattheweeds.com/
and http://www.eattheweeds.com/www.EatTheWeeds.com/EatTheWeeds.com/Archive.html and this one loads slow.

What is NASA planning to do next in terms of manned missions?

2011-07-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

End of an era: Atlantis and her crew were welcomed back as heroes on Thursday after landing at Kennedy Space Center and bringing Nasa's shuttle programme to a close.

Atlantis touched down almost invisibly on Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at 5:57 a.m. EDT and rolled to a stop moments later to conclude the history making 13 day flight to the International Space Station and back. During the STS-135 mission Atlantis orbited the Earth 200 times and journeyed 5,284,862 miles.

The all veteran crew of space flyers comprised of Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.The finality of it all was at once thoroughly unbelievable that the shuttles would never fly again but utterly definitive at ‘wheel stop’ that we had witnessed the end of a historic and magnificent Era in human spaceflight.

The asteroid Vesta, as photographed by the orbiting Dawn spacecraft on July 17. Nasa now aims to place astronauts on an asteroid within 15 years

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018477/Nasa-ordered-astronauts-asteroid-15-years.html#ixzz1T8AC8kTc

NASA’s Mission To Send Astronauts To Asteroid

- It will take a spacecraft six months to reach an asteroid
- Nasa yet to decide which space rock would be the best to visit
- Scientists believe civilisation on Earth may depend on mission's success
- Mission is a stepping stone to the dream of flying astronauts to Mars
- Jupiter and Mars probes to be launched in August and 2012 respectively

An asteroid is a giant space rock that orbits the sun, like Earth. And someday one might threaten the planet. Sending people to one won't be easy. You can't land on an asteroid because you'd bounce off - it has virtually no gravity. Astronauts couldn't even walk on it because they'd float away. Reaching it might require a Nasa spacecraft to harpoon it.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has its next big mission that will mark our history. This is about sending astronauts to an asteroid in less than 15 years. Many scientists in NASA were excited to realize its next big mission. However, some NASA scientists oppose the plan, contending that it is better to go back to the Moon, instead.

The Mission To AsteroidLike the Earth, an asteroid is a gigantic space rock that revolves around the sun. An asteroid may be a threat to Earth for it may crash into the Earth’s path in the solar system. According to studies, it is not easy to send a mission to an asteroid. The asteroid has no gravity so anyone cannot land on its surface without bouncing off. Astronauts would float on it if they attempt to walk on its surface. Because of this, the NASA would require a spacecraft which will harpoon it.

NASA Thinks Of Spacecraft For Asteroid MissionThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is thinking of a suitable spacecraft that could land on an asteroid. NASA is currently viewing the possibility of jetpacks, bungees, nets, spiderwebs, and tethers that will let the astronauts float on the surface of the asteroid. This will be done by having the astronauts attached to mini-spaceships.

“Star Trek” Shuttlecraft For The Asteroid MissionThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has envisioned a “Star Trek” like shuttle with a deep sea explorer and a pincer-like arms. These features would probably get within the working distance of the asteroid. The shuttle should be wide enough inside to accommodate the astronauts who will live inside the shuttle for two weeks at most.

The Time Plan In Reaching The AsteroidAccording to current estimates, an asteroid is reached for a period of half a year. However, the propulsion system in traveling such a distance in deep space is not perfected yet. A huge spaceship will be sent to cater football-field-sized solar panels. This will protect the astronauts from dangerous solar and cosmic ray bursts during their travel.

Which Asteroid To Visit?Up to this time, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has not yet chosen which asteroid will be the target for its mission. But this will be realized by a Presidential Order, hopefully in year 2025. The NASA scientists were anticipating and at the same time excited for the big mission. Chief Architect Kent Joosten of the Human Exploration Team at Johnson Space Center declared that the mission is the big step out into the universe, which is away from the Earth’s gravity completely. Although it is a risky mission, NASA scientists said that this is the kind of mission that they should be doing. A kind of mission that engineers will focus their attention to.

Challenges Ahead for NASA and the Asteroid Mission
It would take half a year to reach an asteroid, based on current possible targets.
The deep space propulsion system to fly such a distance isn't perfected yet. Football field-sized solar panels would help, meaning the entire mothership complex would be fairly large.

It would have to protect the space travellers from killer solar and cosmic ray bursts. And, they would need a crew capsule, maybe two, for travelling between the asteroid complex and Earth. And all those parts - mini-spaceship, habitat/living area, crew capsule, solar arrays and propulsion system - would have to be linked together in the middle of space, assembled in a way like the International Space Station but on a smaller scale.

Beyond all those obstacles, Nasa doesn't even know which asteroid would be the best place to visit.

All this has to be ready to launch by 2025 by presidential order.Kent Joosten, chief architect of the human exploration team at Johnson Space Center, said: 'This is the big step This is out into the universe, away from Earth's gravity completely... This is really where you are doing the Star Trek kind of thing.'
It has the dreamers of Nasa both excited and anxious.
Bobby Braun, Nasa chief technology officer, said: 'This is a risky mission. It's a challenging mission. It's the kind of mission that engineers will eat up.'
This is a matter of sending 'humans farther than ever before', said Nasa Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.

It is all a stepping stone to the dream of flying astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s.
'I think it is THE mission Nasa should embrace,' said University of Tennessee aerospace professor John Muratore. 'To be successful at this mission, you've got to embrace all of the technologies that you need for Mars.'
Critics, including former Apollo astronauts and flight directors, have blasted President Barack Obama for cancelling George W Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon. They dismiss talk of asteroid visits.
But that's because Nasa has not done a good job of outlining the fascinating details and explaining why it is important, said astronomer and former astronaut John Grunsfeld.

'Nasa doesn't have a story right now,' said Mr Grunsfeld, deputy director at the Space Telescope Science Institute. 'Exploration is nothing if not the articulation of a great story.'
The story begins with why Nasa would want to go to an asteroid. The agency has sent small spacecraft off to study asteroids over the years and even landed on one in 2001. Just last week, a space probe began orbiting a huge asteroid called Vesta, which lies beyond Mars. Scientifically, an asteroid is a remnant from the birth of the solar system, offering clues about how our planetary system began.
Logistically, Nasa wants to go to Mars, but that is distant and more difficult. So the argument is that going to an asteroid is a better testing ground than returning to the moon.

The reason Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden and others give is that this mission could save civilisation. Every 100million years or so an asteroid six-miles wide - the type that killed off the dinosaurs - smacks Earth, said Nasa Near Earth Object program manager Donald Yeomans.

If Nasa can get astronauts to an asteroid, they can figure out a way of changing a potential killer's orbit. They'll experiment with the safe one they land on, Mr Braun said.Getting to an asteroid will be tough - huge powerful rockets are needed to launch spacecraft and parts out of Earth orbit.Nasa promises to announce its design idea for these rockets by the end of the summer and Congress has ordered that they be built by 2016.It will take two or three or maybe even more launches of these unnamed rockets to get all the needed parts into space.

The crew capsule is the farthest along - with $5billion already spent - because Nasa is using the Orion crew ship it was already designing for the now dead moon mission and repurposing it for deep space.

Once in space, the ship needs a propulsion system to get it to the asteroid. One way is to use traditional chemical propulsion, but that would require carrying lots of hard-to-store fuel and creation of a new storage system, Mr Joosten said.
Another way is to use ion propulsion, which is efficient and requires less fuel, but it is enormously slow to rev up and gain speed. It would also require an electrical ignition source, thus the giant solar power wings.
If Nasa goes to ion propulsion, the best bet would be to start the bulk of the ship on a trip to and around the moon without astronauts. That would take a while, but if no one is on it, it doesn't matter, Mr Joosten said.

Why is this guy smiling?

2011-07-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/in-texas-legislature-winners-losers-abound-after-170-1573899.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

POLITICOS

• WINNER: Gov. Rick Perry, who walks away from the legislative session with a list of victories on most of the issues he identified as important. Those wins could help Perry if he decides later this year to seek the Republican presidential nomination - or re-election in 2014.

• LOSER: Democrats, who had almost no say on the budget that was the session's defining issue and redistricting that is designed to keep the state Capitol and the state's congressional delegation in Republican hands.

• WINNER: Fiscal conservatives who stood firm on their position that Texas should close its multibillion-dollar budget gap without raising taxes or tapping the state's rainy day reserve fund.

• LOSER: The next Legislature, which will convene in 2013 to fix an array of budget and revenue problems that were not fixed this session and is expected to have to tap the rainy day fund.

• WINNER: Texas senators, who were unyielding in their position that public schools could not absorb more than $4 billion in cuts.

• LOSER: Public schools, college students, state workers and people who rely on Medicaid, who will face cuts in an assortment of programs as a result of an overall 8 percent reduction in state spending.

• WINNER: Federal airport checkpoint screeners, who will not face the prospect of criminal charges for inappropriate touching during security pat-downs, after a bill criminalizing the touching died in the House.

• WINNER: Taxpayers, who will see the first prison in state history shuttered this fall, for an estimated savings of $24 million over two years, as prison officials consolidate programs to deal with budget cuts.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

• WINNER: Community-based juvenile justice programs, which are expected to blossom with additional funding and a de-emphasis on remote lockups as part of a merger of all state juvenile justice agencies into one.

• WINNER: Teachers, who are required to be informed if one of their students has a criminal history, under a bill sparked by attacks in Austin and other cities.

• LOSER: The Windham School District, one of the state's largest and located inside prison walls, saw its funding whacked significantly, and layoffs already have begun.

• LOSER: Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income families, was underfunded by an estimated $4.8 billion, a debt that will come due next legislative session.

HUMAN SERVICES

• LOSER: Family planning programs that were cut by $74 million, probably eliminating services to 284,000 low-income women and resulting in 20,500 additional births.

• LOSER: Planned Parenthood, which could lose up to $72 million in family planning money over the next two years as GOP legislators targeted the abortion provider, although the money could not have been spent on abortions.

• WINNER: Abortion opponents, who won passage of new rules that require a pre-abortion sonogram and a waiting period, and will cut state funding if the Travis County hospital district, Central Health, continues to pay for abortions.

• LOSER: Home health companies, which face rate cuts that could threaten care that allows people to live at home and avoid more expensive nursing homes.

• WINNER: Parents who oppose school spanking, who won passage of a bill that allows them to opt out of a school district's corporal punishment policy.

IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

• LOSER: Mexican drug cartels, which have been smuggling money, guns and other contraband south from Texas. Under a bill expected to be signed into law, state police can operate new southbound checkpoints to curb the illicit trade.

• WINNER: Undocumented immigrants, who won't have to deal with dozens of bills targeting them, including the so-called sanctuary cities legislation and bills that would have required cities to report costs associated with providing services to undocumented immigrants and would increase the surcharge for wiring money to countries south of the Texas border.

• LOSER: Texas voters who have no photo identification. Under a new law designed to curb voter fraud, most voters will have to show a photo ID to cast a ballot.

• LOSER: Texas drivers will now have to prove they have citizenship or are in the country legally to get a driver's license.

LEGAL

• WINNER: Legal aid programs that will benefit from the late addition of $17 million to preserve civil court access for 25,000 low-income Texans.

• WINNER: Defendants in lawsuits, who should benefit from a new law that could cut frivolous lawsuits with a "loser pays" provision.

ENVIRONMENT

• WINNER: Texas Campaign for the Environment, which got a television recycling program established by the state.

• WINNER: State Rep. Jim Keffer, chairman of the House Energy Resources Committee, who held together a coalition of natural gas and environmental groups on a measure that forces companies to tell the state which fluids they pump underground to recover natural gas in a process called fracking.

• LOSER: Emissions-reduction programs that suffered in budget cuts, as did initiatives to cut pollution.

• WINNER: Texans who continue to use incandescent light bulbs. Under a new state law, the state attorney general is required to defend Texans if the federal government tries to prosecute them for alleged violations of federal law encouraging the use of alternative light bulbs.

EDUCATION

• LOSER: Teachers, who emerged from the regular legislative session feeling good that they had defeated efforts to weaken contract rights and reduce teacher pay, only to find that victory quashed in the special session.

• LOSER: The University of Texas, which saw its state funding cut 16 percent. A provision that could have provided $100 million in bonds for a new engineering building failed.

• WINNER: Texas A&M University System regents, who were granted two appointments to the nine-member board of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., which oversees billions in UT and A&M endowments.

• LOSER: Students from low-income families, tens of thousands of whom won't get state financial aid grants in the next two years.

• WINNER: Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students with fellowships, who can now get health insurance through their universities.

• LOSER: Perry appointees to public university boards, which will get new scrutiny by a House-Senate committee established to review policymaking by public university governing boards - all of whom were appointed by Perry.

• LOSER: Perry administration, which failed to win passage of legislation hinging 10 percent of base funding for colleges and universities to graduation rates and other performance measures.

• WINNER: Public colleges and universities, which saw numerous redundant reporting requirements eliminated, potentially saving them millions of dollars.

BUSINESS

• WINNER: About 28,000 small-business owners who are exempted from paying margins tax, if their business has less than $1 million in gross receipts.

• LOSER: Gambling proponents saw legislation die that would have let the voters decide whether they want to allow slot machines at race tracks and bingo halls, and permit the building and operation of full-scale casinos.

• LOSER: Coastal residents in 14 counties insured by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. Lawmakers tried to overhaul the quasi-public insurer of last resort. But the House and Senate didn't fully address how to fund the association, and instead reduced the amount of money that policyholders could sue for.

• WINNER: Texas builders, who won't be penalized for hiring undocumented workers.

• LOSER: Homeowners associations, which, under a new law, are prohibited from penalizing residents with solar panels.

• LOSER: Online retailers such as Amazon.com that will have to collect sales tax if they do business in Texas. Perry vetoed an earlier bill making this change, and both sides are waiting to see what he does this time - though the provision is included in a key budget bill.

Who would have thought that Gas Well production required mining ... of fracking sand.

2011-06-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

When they say fracking goes miles deep and miles wide, they aren’t kidding.

Where do you think the fracking sand comes from?

Recently I learned that EOG, aka Enron Oil and Gas, is planning to start a frack sand mining and processing plant in Cooke County near the beautiful Saint Jo. The planned 1,400-acre facility will handle all stages of production and transportation. Although EOG has only applied for and has not yet been granted the permit by TCEQ, they have already done a lot of construction and water well drilling at the proposed site. You can see aerial photographs acquired through the efforts of local citizens at the Save The Trinity Aquifer blog spot.

FRACKING SUCKS WATER.

This type of fracking facility will use 3,700 gallons of water per minute, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, year round and we do not know the longevity of the mine other than the “permanent” box was checked on the permit application.

To put that water use into perspective: according to the US Geological Survey, the average person uses 80 to 100 gallons of water per day. So EOG will use more water in one minute than you use in a month. They will use 1,944,720,000 gallons of water a year, which is enough water for 53,280 people for a year.

EOG has already drilled 10 water wells, 7 of which were dry and the shallowest was 600'. That means they are drilling into the Trinity Aquifer. They plan to drill 40 water wells to meet their water needs. In order to avoid regulation by the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, EOG moved the facility across the Montague County line to the Cooke County side. The Cooke GCD will be in place on January 1st so EOG is hustling to get their water wells completed before that date.

An unspecified amount of water will be recycled but it's important to note this recycled water will not be returned to the aquifer. Mountain Creek runs right by the facility and the Red River, at a point that is a major spawning area for striped bass.

Frack sand mining blows!

The TCEQ air permit from starts with the sand mine processing and does not take the impacts from mining into consideration. It starts when the sand is wet so we do not have any idea about the air impacts from mining the sand and processing it before it is wet.

Impacts on the permit include:
NOx 26.3 tpy
Carbon Monoxide 13.7 tpy
VOCs .876 tpy
Sulfur Dioxide 2.32 tpy
Particulate Matter (PM) (total) 34.7 tpy
PM (10 microns) 29.9 tpy
PM (2.5 microns) 27.9 tpy

It blows so hard in Montague County that Denton gets 40% of their energy from the wind farm there. The silica sand can blow and create impacts 20 miles away. Breathing silica sand is a health hazard. According to Halliburton’s MSDS sheet, breathing silica sand can cause lung cancer.

Oil and gas extraction and particularly EOG has been hard on Montague County. Last year the industry used almost 91% of the water used in Montague County. EOG’s practice of burying reserve/waste pits in Montague County has already tainted water.

For more information, see the following:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/22/987806/-Frack-sand-mining-doesnt-just-suck,-it-blows

and the Daily Kos Texas Community News:

http://www.dailykos.com/blog/TexKos

2011-06-03T06:42:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Deb! And many More!

2011-06-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

suggests life on Earth may have been seeded by meteorites

2011-05-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

The microbes on-board Endeavour include the Tardigrades (nicknamed Water Bears) which are large extremophiles that can withstand temperatures as biting as absolute zero, and as hot as 150 degrees Celsius. They're joined by the Deinococcus radiodurans (which Nasa dubbed " Conan the Bacterium") which can survive upwards of 15,000 gy of radiation -- 10 gy is more than enough to kill an average human.

Following days of delays and numerous technical issues, Endeavour is finally ready to ferry six astronauts to the International Space Station. During their 16 day trip the Nasa researchers will drop off a $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which has been designed to study the formation of the Universe and search for evidence of dark matter and antimatter.

But there are also some other passengers on the shuttle, who might not receive the same media attention, sew-on patches and victory parades. Alongside the all-male crew of mission STS-134, six types of microorganism and a bobtail squid will strap in their seat-belts and head into space.

The five microorganisms will blast off on behalf of The Planetary Society's Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment (LIFE), which will see if living organisms can make the trip into space, handle some zero-G exposure and take in a little low Earth orbit radiation.

The experiment would investigate the transpermia hypothesis -- which suggests life on Earth may have been seeded by meteorites ripped off the surface of other planets like Venus or Mars. Whether or not the microbes can survive the ordeal would go a long way towards proving or debunking the controversial theory.

The microbes on-board Endeavour include the Tardigrades (nicknamed Water Bears) which are large extremophiles that can withstand temperatures as biting as absolute zero, and as hot as 150 degrees Celsius. They're joined by the Deinococcus radiodurans (which Nasa dubbed " Conan the Bacterium") which can survive upwards of 15,000 gy of radiation -- 10 gy is more than enough to kill an average human.

Haloarcula marismortui (Old Salty) loves salt, and lives in levels of high salinity that would kill other organisms. Pyrococcus furiosus (Fire eater) is all about heat, and thrives in temperatures over 100 degrees Celsius. Cupriavidus metallidurans (which doesn't have a nickname, unfortunately) plays a vital role in the formation of gold nuggets, thanks to its love of gold tetrachloride: a compound which is toxic to most other microorganisms.

Finally there's Bacillus subtilis (The Average Joe), which is a model organism used in hundreds of biological experiments. It's been into space many times before, so it'll be a good comparison point for other studies.

This group of differently-skilled organisms is actually just a dress rehearsal for the real deal. LIFE's next mission will be sending microorganisms to Phobos, the dusty innermost moon of Mars, to really put the transpermia hypothesis to the test. A second batch of microbes will take flight on Russia's Fobos-Grunt lander, which will jet off towards the red planet in November 2011, and return to Earth with samples in the summer of 2014.

Space-faring microorganisms are so Apollo-era, though. So, here's something new: the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes will be the first cephalopod in space.

The experiment is less about the squid and more about the beneficial bacteria that skitter about in the sea creature's body. Handy Vibrio fischeri microbes live in the squid's organs, and the animal uses the bacteria to generate light which is cast downwards to blot out its own shadow.

Considering the way that some bad bacteria turn even nastier when subjected to the extreme temperatures and radiation of outer space (in 2007, Salmonella bacteria were three times more likely to kill their host mice after returning on a shuttle), Nasa wants to see what happens to mutually beneficial microbes when they're in space. Will good bacteria turn bad?

The baby squid on board Endeavour will be colonised with bacteria, and then it will be killed and fixed solid for examination back on Earth.

Once Endeavour's payload is delivered, there is only one shuttle flight left in the program. The shuttle Atlantis will blast off on mission STS-135 on 28 June. After that, Nasa will look to privately funded firms like SpaceX to carry out future missions.

High gasoline prices might be here to stay... Top 10 ways to save at the pump

2011-05-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Motorists can lower their gasoline expenses by paying attention to how they drive and how they treat their car. The Auto Club’s Automotive Research Center has investigated this by comparing the mileage motorists got on a specific route driving the way they normally do (or in several cases driving more aggressively and faster than normal) to the mileage of the same motorists on the same routes employing many of the following techniques. Mileage improvements ranged from a low of 25 percent to as much as 100 percent (from 10 mpg to 20 mpg) in the case of one who drove very aggressively for the “baseline.”

How do you accomplish these savings? By using the combination of a few simple, correctly-employed techniques (which might also just help ensure you get to your destination safely too.)

1) Avoid “jack-rabbit” starts;
Accelerate gently—Accelerating the mass of a car uses more fuel than any other facet of driving; imagine there’s a raw egg between your right foot and the accelerator pedal which you don’t want to break.

2)Slow down—
Not necessarily a lot, but how about actually following the speed limit? Typically, the faster you go, the higher the aerodynamic and drivetrain friction losses, so it takes more fuel to maintain a higher speed. Remember however, that traveling slower than the flow of traffic can cause a safety hazard. You may want to even consider driving in one of the “slower” lanes on the freeway, and let more-aggressive drivers waste their own fuel in the “fast” lane.

3)Anticipate slow or stopped traffic ahead—
When you see stopped or slow traffic, or a red light at an intersection ahead, take your foot off of the accelerator early and coast to a stop. There is no time savings attained by zooming up to the light and then having to slam on the brakes. Cars use very little fuel when coasting, and if you are driving a hybrid, they will generally recharge the battery to further improve mileage. You may actually find that if you coast up to a red street light, it will turn green by the time you get there and you won’t need to stop at all.

4)No warm up needed—
There is no need to let a modern car (vintage 1980s and newer) warm up, or to race the engine upon start up. Follow the starting instructions specified in your vehicle owner’s manual. Generally, it will instruct you to start the car, put it in gear, and go without having to wait and waste fuel warming up the engine.

5)Use the air conditioner sparingly—and only when necessary.
Air conditioning reduces fuel economy by placing an extra load on the engine. This is more critical for older cars (1970s vintage and older) since newer models generally have higher-efficiency air conditioning systems. However, we would not want you to be too uncomfortable, so here is our recommendation: the rule of thumb on hot days is to open your windows when you are driving slowly (under about 45 mph), but close them and turn on the air conditioner at higher speeds. Driving with the windows open can increase the aerodynamic drag, and this effect increases proportionately with speed.

6)Vehicle maintenance—
Keep your vehicle maintained according to the manufacturer’s service schedule (that can be found in the owner’s manual). Regular oil and filter changes, plus other services will keep everything running smoothly, prolong the life of your vehicle, and save you gas in the process. The manufacturer will also recommend other, more comprehensive services at certain intervals. Spark plugs can now last as long as 100,000 miles on many new vehicles. Simple things like keeping your tires properly inflated and your vehicle aligned will not only save you up to two percent on gas for every pound they were under-inflated, but also prolong the life of your tires and improve safety, ride, and handling. Track your fuel economy; if it drops suddenly, have the cause determined and corrected.

7)Vehicle selection—
Many families have more than one vehicle, so select the one that meets the task at hand and don’t automatically jump into your “battle cruiser” when the more fuel-efficient sedan will do. Consider renting a fuel-efficient model for vacations and long trips to save on fuel costs. Conversely, consider renting that full-size truck instead of buying it if you only need its capabilities occasionally. Put the wear and tear on the rental and save your daily driver.

8)“Get the junk out of your trunk”—
Reducing the extra weight you carry can save up to two percent fuel economy for every 100 lbs. you remove, depending on the weight of the vehicle. Also lose the roof rack, since carrying things on a roof rack increases aerodynamic drag and reduces fuel economy year–round (no matter how cool the ski rack looks.)

9)Plan your route and combine trips—
Simply combining shopping trips and avoiding excessive idling (by parking and going into the fast food place or bank instead of using the drive through) will save gas, and the walking may improve your health. Choose a shopping center where you can park and walk to most of the stores you need. Also look at your work schedule; can you shift your working hours to avoid bumper to bumper traffic? Is carpooling an option? Both can save you gas and reduce vehicle wear.

10)Gasoline—
See your owner’s manual for the recommended grade of fuel for your vehicle. If it says “regular unleaded gasoline” is recommended, using anything else is a waste of money; if it says “premium required” you should use it for proper vehicle operation. However, when your manual says mid-grade or premium “recommended,” read carefully; sometimes it indicates you can use regular unleaded to save money, but you may experience reduced power and/or a small reduction in fuel economy. Keep your eye open for low fuel prices, but don’t waste gas driving to a distant filling station to save a few cents per gallon.

Hypermiling—During the summer of 2008 when gas prices set record highs, a subculture phenomenon called “hypermiling” appeared.

This practice uses extreme and often unsafe methods (above and beyond those described here) of obtaining extremely high mpg. These methods include: drafting heavy-duty trucks by following them very closely (this is very dangerous—don’t do this), allowing vehicle speed to drop to near zero as you approach the crest of an upgrade or hill, and then shutting off the engine and coasting down the hill (this is also not safe, since you have no power steering and limited, if any power brakes), ignoring red lights/stop signs (which is illegal and very dangerous), or driving through residential neighborhoods to avoid having to stop (which is unsafe as well as annoying for the residents of the neighborhoods.) AAA recommends strongly against utilizing any of these unsafe hypermiling procedures.

Taken together, all of these strategies will save you gas and likely extend the life of your vehicle. Finally, carefully consider your requirements for the future when selecting a new vehicle, and purchase one that you can afford that fulfills your needs and not the needs of a manufacturer trying to sell their latest “Uber Wagon.”

2011-05-13T13:08:00.000-07:00

From the WSJ:
OMG! My Grandparents R My BFF!
Forget the Sunday night phone call. Grandparents and grandkids are connecting— and connected—as never before.

READ THE COMPLETE STORY:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703280904576247152267875970.html

Certainly, it's nothing new that kids are plugging in and staying connected. But what is new is that it may be a grandparent on the other end of that virtual tin can—and that technology is bridging the vast age and distance gap that has long divided the generations. "A group of us was having dinner, and one woman had to tell her husband to put his iPod Touch away. He was emailing his grandchildren," says Mary Henderer, a Wilmington, Del., grandmother of four.

It's a perfect storm of demographics and technology.

As a group, grandparents and grandchildren have plenty in common. They have free time, disposable income for gadgets and gizmos, and a keen interest in staying in touch with people.

As for technology, smartphones, tablet computers and digital cameras have made sharing fun instead of frustrating. And the affordability and speed of broadband Internet have made possible activities like video-chatting and streaming home movies.

The new era is in stark contrast to what took place in recent decades.

"When the baby boomers went to college and moved away, we lost an entire generation of connection between grandparents and grandchildren. They saw each other once or twice a year, and there was a real disconnect," says Andrew Carle, professor and director of the Program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

"Now with technology, we are regenerating those bonds. People say technology is so impersonal, but we are watching it being used to reconnect one of the most personal and important relationships of the species."

Prof. Carle adds, "I watch my own kids talking to their grandparents 1,000 miles away, and I love it," he says. "They may take it for granted, but I only saw my grandfather once a year. Nothing will replace a hug, but this is as close as it gets."

Good Customer Service Advice - Don't Feed the Trolls.

2011-05-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

When someone asks me what to do about a bad review posted online, I usually tell them that it depends on the situation. The #1 rule in online reputation, however, is to avoid feeding the trolls

http://debmcalister.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/please-dont-feed-the-trolls/

Well it proves that President Obama is not all talk -- He got the job done with action this weekend.

2011-05-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

First Thoughts: A game-changer
From NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg

FIRST THOUGHTS.
*** A game-changer: The 9/11 terrorist attacks fundamentally transformed American politics. They ensured that the 2004 presidential election would be fought over national security; they resulted in Democrats picking John Kerry as their nominee and Republicans picking New York City as their convention site; and they ultimately led to Bush's re-election, albeit in a closely contested race. While it's doubtful that Osama bin Laden's death will have as long of a political impact -- especially in this fast-changing, short-term memory media landscape -- it will surely shape the contours of next year's presidential race. For starters, it will hover over the first Republican debate set for this Thursday, even if it's not a direct question. It also will highlight the GOP field's foreign-policy and national-security credentials, or their lack thereof. And it amounts to Barack Obama's top achievement as president. Last night changes everything (for now), but we also know how quickly it can dissipate.

*** Does it change the nation's psyche? Indeed, the size of the impact is unknown, and it will play out in the weeks and months ahead, especially with an unemployment rate near 9% and with gasoline prices hitting $4 a gallon. But it could serve to change the nation's psyche. Put simply, the United States has been in a national funk over the past four years. Obama's presidential victory in 2008 boosted spirits (particularly Democratic ones), despite the sinking economy. And the GOP's midterm wins in 2010 boosted Republican and Tea Party spirits. Yet nothing has united Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone else -- until now. As President Obama remarked last night, "Let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people." There was never going to be a V-E Day after 9/11, but this is as close as the country will get to one.

*** Does it change the nation's policy in Afghanistan? Yet there is something we do know for sure: Bin Laden's death will impact the debate about the war in Afghanistan. "This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda," Obama said when he announced the U.S. troop increase to Afghanistan. "It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak." The beginning of the troop withdrawal is already set for this summer, but calls for a more intense and rapid draw-down will only increase. Of course, there will be a serious -- and political -- debate about what the future U.S. policy toward Afghanistan (and Pakistan, too) should be, especially given that it's hard to believe Pakistan somehow overlooked bin Laden living in an affluent military veteran suburb of Islamabad. In fact, because of Pakistan's questionable reliability as an ally, it complicates the picture with Afghanistan and doesn't make "declaring victory and coming home" such a cut and dried decision. Still, make no mistake: Last night's news changes things.

*** It does make everything else seem so small: Bin Laden's death also makes the past two week's worth of political conversation look so small by comparison. Donald Trump. The president's birth certificate. Friday's GOP cattle call in New Hampshire. Even the upcoming battle to raise the nation's debt ceiling. As for Trump, if he wasn't already embarrassed by the jokes at his expense on Saturday night, he has to be embarrassed about all of his recent charges ("Where is Obama's birth certificate?" "Where are his college grades?" "Who wrote his book?") And as for the more substantive debate over the debt ceiling, last night's news will have an impact as well. Everything looks so small by comparison, at least for now. One last point: This probably guarantees that Mitt Romney -- who has been on the fence about attending -- doesn't show up at Thursday's GOP presidential debate.

*** Naïve? Ironically, Bin Laden's death -- in Pakistan -- recalls one of Obama's supposed "lowest" moments during the '08 presidential campaign, in Aug. 2007. In an Aug. 1 speech, per NBC's John Bailey, Obama delivered these words: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistan] President Musharraf will not act, we will." At a debate two weeks later, Obama's Democratic rivals used those remarks to paint Obama as either naïve or inexperienced. Said Hillary Clinton: "Pakistan is on a knife's edge. It is easily, unfortunately, a target for the jihadists. And, therefore, you've got to be very careful about what it is you say with respect to Pakistan." Said Chris Dodd: "The only person that separates us from a jihadist government in Pakistan with nuclear weapons is President Musharraf. And, therefore, I thought it was irresponsible to engage in that kind of a suggestion here. That's dangerous. Words mean something in campaigns." And said Edwards: "Musharraf is not a wonderful leader, but he provides some stability in Pakistan. And there is a great risk, if he's overthrown, about a radical government taking over."

*** "If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and we've exhausted all other options, we should take him out": Here was Obama's answer to the criticism: "Well, you know, to prepare for this debate, I rode in the bumper cars at the [Iowa] state fair." He went on to say, "If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and we've exhausted all other options, we should take him out before he plans to kill another 3,000 Americans. I think that's common sense." Indeed, Bin Laden's death is a tacit rebuke of all those who questioned Obama's toughness on foreign policy and bats down the criticism from the right that Obama's rhetoric is too soft (he doesn't say "Global War on Terror!"). Obama supporters will say it proves it's not tough talk that matters -- but rather action.

Mission Finally Accomplished by President Obama... so, let's bring our troops home!

2011-05-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that murdered thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday.

A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight Sunday at a compound in Pakistan, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House.

A jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House as word spread of bin Laden's death after a global manhunt that lasted nearly a decade.

"Justice has been done," the president said.

Former President George W. Bush, who was in office on the day of the attacks, issued a written statement hailing bin Laden's death as a momentous achievement.

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Bush said.

Few details were immediately available of the operation that resulted in bin Laden's death, although the president said none of the Americans involved was harmed.

The development came just months before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, that killed more than 3,000 people.

The attacks set off a chain of events that led the United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

Al-Qaida was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.

A senior administration official says Obama gave the final order for U.S. officials to go after bin Laden on Friday.

Obama spoke with Bush and former President Bill Clinton Sunday night to inform them of the developments.

The attacks a decade ago seemed to come out of nowhere, even though al-Qaida had previously damaged American targets overseas.

The terrorists hijacked planes, flew one of them into one of New York City's Twin Towers - and, minutes later, into the other one. Both buildings collapsed, trapping thousands inside and claiming the lives of firefighters and others who had rushed to help them.

A third plane slammed into the Pentagon, defacing the symbol of America's military night. A fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania after passengers overpowered the hijackers and forced it down - before it could hit its intended target in Washington.

Obama struck a less than boastful tone in his brief announcement, although he said the death of bin Laden was "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al-Qaida.

"His death does not mark the end of our effort. There's no doubt that al-Qaida will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant," he added.

Moments after he spoke, American officials cautioned that the events could lead to heightened threats against the United States.

LIVE nesting eagle cam - KLTV 7 News Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville |

2011-04-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

LIVE nesting eagle cam - KLTV 7 News Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville Stay tuned along with millions of viewers — more than 30 million views as of this weekend — watching as a bald eagle family emerges in a northeast Iowa nest under the watchful eye of a web cam that's capturing the activity live at the Decorah Fish Hatchery. From the smorgsbord of food items… fish, bunnies, ducks … the adult eagles tend to feed the most food to the most aggressive chicks — a bit of survival of the fittest at work. The oldest eaglet often crawls over the top of the weaker eaglet to get its fill, and has been observed picking on the little one. On Sunday the youngest chick was hanging in there. I watched a feeding at 11:15 a.m. and it looked like the littlest chick was getting its fill! The family will do fine with just two eaglets, but the chat indicates that viewers are hopeful and anxious.

Medicare for a New Century

2011-04-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Paul Ryan's plan would modernize a program stuck in 1965..Liberals seem delighted that Paul Ryan and the GOP have decided to charge the fixed bayonets of Medicare reform, denouncing the new House budget as a crime against seniors, humanity, and so on. Republicans are taking a huge political risk, but they are now setting the reform agenda, and their honesty may even oblige a national debate about the future of an entitlement state that can't survive in its current form.

Mr. Ryan's core insight is that Medicare needs to be modernized if it is to survive. The federal insurance program for the elderly has barely changed since 1965, several health-care revolutions and trillions of misspent tax dollars ago. The GOP plan—known as premium support—would rationalize Medicare's burden on taxpayers, while introducing market competition to control costs.

***
As Democrats build their re-election bids around Mediscare demagoguery, they're pretending that the choice is between "privatization" and a free lunch. Mr. Ryan has done a service in exposing this illusion. Nothing will sooner finish off "Medicare as we know it" than to continue its present march into insolvency. His is the first credible plan endorsed by either party for preserving the safety net.

Today traditional Medicare is the largest buyer of health care in America. It is also the worst buyer. The government sets prices for thousands of services, then pays nearly any doctor or hospital that a patient visits. The same arbitrary fee schedule applies to the best hospital and the worst hospital, regardless of the quality or value of the care delivered, and the bills are sent to taxpayers.

This deliberate suppression of the price mechanism has helped to turbocharge U.S. health costs. Providers who find ways to deliver better medicine at a lower cost aren't rewarded, as they would be in any other industry. Medicare spending is growing at a 7.2% annual clip, far faster than the economy. Spending is due to double over the next decade, feeding on more and more of the federal fisc and national wealth. (See the nearby chart.)

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The 45 million Medicare beneficiaries enjoy the security of "free" health care and its no-questions-asked payments. Still, the entitlement is stuck in a Great Society time warp. It offers no protection against catastrophic expenses, the most basic function of insurance. Coverage doesn't keep up with medical progress; prescription drugs weren't added until 2003. Seniors are docked a $1,000 deductible for a single hospital stay, though nine of 10 buy medigap coverage to backfill these and other holes. Where else do people buy insurance for their insurance?

Under the Ryan premium support model, seniors would instead choose from a menu of guaranteed private insurance options of the kind younger, private-sector workers have come to expect. These plans would be subsidized by a "defined contribution," roughly equal to what the government now spends per person. This subsidy, about $15,000, would grow over time with consumer prices, but seniors who wanted more expensive plans would pay the difference out of pocket.

Premium support would create a market reward for the services that consumers value. Because seniors would be chipping in at the margin, only above the fixed-dollar subsidy, most would favor lower premiums. Insurers would compete to supply them, and providers in turn would have a reason to innovate in health-care delivery and improve what has been their negative productivity rate.

Premium support would not cure all of America's health ailments, and missing in action in the House budget is a comparable reform for the rest of the market. But Medicare is so big that if it doesn't change, nothing else can. Simply unwinding Medicare's price controls would be an historic achievement.

That said, Granny will not be turned loose unsupervised into the market wilds. The subsidies will flow through Medicare, only to regulated insurers and government-approved plans. It does not go as far as Mr. Ryan's previous "roadmap," which offered direct cash vouchers for individuals who preferred to buy insurance themselves. The subsidies are means-tested, so the poor would receive more support, as will sicker and chronically ill patients. They wouldn't kick in until 2022, more than enough time for people to adapt and exempting everyone older than 55 if they wished.

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.Mr. Ryan moderated his ambitions not merely because the fiscal crisis is so urgent, but because reforms of this order are so unusual. Seniors and other voters may be unnerved, especially when AARP and politicians beat the Mediscare drums. As they inspect the details, however, seniors may be surprised to learn that premium support is not an untested idea. It is even routine in parts of Medicare itself.

Traditional Medicare would look a lot like Medicare Advantage, which gives almost one of four seniors today private alternatives. Premium support forms the architecture of the Medicare drug benefit too, and as a result it has cost 30% less than almost anyone predicted.

The same concept governs the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which insures everyone from postal workers to Members of Congress. The same is true for several large university systems and Calpers, the benefits program for public workers in California. None are known as incubators for the pitiless ideology that Democrats impute to Mr. Ryan.

Despite this experience, one common criticism is that the subsidies wouldn't keep pace with the rising health costs that Medicare now promotes. But medicine has always proven adept at reorganizing itself when the incentives change, and costs would fall over time if more patients were demanding their money's worth.

Health care's lack of accountability to consumers helps explain why Medicare's unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years are about $31 trillion. That number is beyond human comprehension and among the reasons that creating one more new entitlement in ObamaCare was so reckless. Keeping Medicare's generational promise—that children assent to be taxed to pay for their grandparents' health care so that their grandkids can one day pay for theirs—would mean under current trends that every income tax rate, in every bracket, would need to more than double.

The brutal arithmetic is that total federal health spending is about 10% of GDP today and on pace to hit 15% in 20 years. The liberal response is more central planning and eventually the political rationing of care, even as taxes continue to climb. The alternative that Mr. Ryan has offered, including an ObamaCare repeal and a conversion of Medicaid into block grants to states, would bring that share down to 6% as premium support began to limit Medicare's open-ended spending.

***
The reality that Mr. Ryan has recognized is that Medicare can't be fixed with nips and tucks. Premium support is easily as important an advance as the shift from defined-benefit pensions to 401(k)s, and the transition could be as smooth. Major changes to the social compact must be grounded in some rough public consensus, and Republicans now have an obligation to persuade the country that their reform is the only one with a chance of saving Medicare for future generations.

Gas-saving tips to fuel money savings

2011-04-07T07:55:00.001-07:00

BY
Gregory Karp
Four-buck gasoline is a reality again for some American motorists. Only this time, unlike 2008, the price spike follows years of deep national recession and its aftermath, including rampant job loss and home foreclosures.

That means many households' battered budgets are less able to absorb gas price hikes, especially when the costs of such necessities as food and clothing are rising fast too.

Paying $4 per gallon would mean a household spends $4,800 on gasoline in a year, assuming two vehicles getting 25 miles to the gallon and traveling 15,000 miles. There's a one-in-four chance that the average price of gas nationwide this summer will exceed $4 per gallon, according to a forecast by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For consumers, a long-term solution to higher gas prices is to drive less or drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle. But in the short term it matters more "how" you drive than "what" you drive.

Here are suggestions for saving money on gasoline, with help from the U.S. Department of Energy, Consumer Reports, Alliance to Save Energy and Edmunds.com.

Don't spill the coffee. The biggest savings will come from avoiding aggressive driving. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town.

Not sure what less-aggressive driving is? Imagine a lidless cup of coffee in your car's cupholder. Drive like you don't want to spill it. That means gradual acceleration and gentle braking.

Potential savings vary widely but are significant when you curb aggressive driving. At $4 per gallon, gas savings could range from 20 cents to $1.32 per gallon, based on Energy Department figures. That's a savings of $240 to $1,584 per year for that two-car household described earlier.

Speed kills. Each 5 mph you drive above 60 mph is like paying an additional 27 cents per gallon for gas. Consumer Reports found that slowing from 75 to 55 mph boosted gas mileage 33 percent in testing performed on a family sedan and a large SUV.

American idle. Idling yields zero mpg. Don't bother warming up your car or keeping it running while waiting for passengers. The rule of thumb is to turn off your car if you know you'll be stopped for more than 30 seconds, Consumer Reports says. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas idling than those with small engines.

Trunk junk. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your gas mileage by up to 2 percent, or about 8 cents per gallon. Roof junk — carrying large items on the roof of the vehicle — creates drag that can cut gas mileage 5 percent.

Use cruise. Cruise control is steadier on the accelerator pedal than you are. You might try it on lower-speed suburban roads. Edmunds.com called it a "surprisingly effective way to save gas."

Find cheaper gas. Compare gasoline prices at gasbuddy.com, gaspricewatch.com and gasprices.mapquest.com. Of course, you don't want to drive far out of your way to save a few pennies. Savings will be lost traveling to a distant service station.

Billshrink.com will send you an email alerting you to the lowest-price gas on your commute. Gas price information also is available via smart phone apps, such as Gas Buddy and AAA's TripTik Mobile.

Use GPS. Computerized travel directions from GPS devices or smart phones can help find efficient routes, even among multiple destinations. That can save time, hassle and gas. If you don't have a device, use a computer site, such as mapquest.com/routeplanner.

Of course, plotting a route by hand works, too, using a folding map or road atlas. Several devices and websites also alert you to traffic jams, a gas-mileage killer.

Seek discounts. Be on the lookout for promotions and sales that allow you to acquire gasoline station gift cards for free or at a discount. For example, you might be able to redeem credit card rewards points for a gas card. And Choice Hotels, which owns such properties as Comfort Inn and Clarion, is offering a $50 gas card when you book two stays before May 4.

Make radical changes. Change your work hours to avoid rush-hour traffic, use carpools and ride-sharing programs, take public transportation, walk or bike to work, or work from home.

Shop online. If you spend evenings or weekends running errands to various stores, consider ordering products online and let someone else pay for the gas. That's doable if you can find free shipping online or lower product prices to compensate for shipping fees. Free shipping often comes in the form of a coupon code used at online checkout. Use a search engine with keywords "coupon code" and the retailer's name.

Do the math. Make gas mileage a criterion as you select your next vehicle. The difference between choosing a vehicle that gets 20 mpg and 30 mpg is huge. Assuming $4-per-gallon gas, you would save $1,000 a year per car. Over the typical five years of ownership, that's $10,000 saved for a two-car family.

Stay cool: Don't sweat the argument over staying cool with air conditioning versus lowering the windows. Edmunds.com testing found neither made a huge difference to gas mileage.

Inflate tires: The U.S. Energy Department says underinflated tires can increase fuel consumption more than 3 percent. However, a test by Edmunds.com couldn't find much effect on gas mileage, although properly inflated tires are important for safety and to reduce tire wear. Find the proper inflation level on the driver's side door jamb or in the owner's manual, not the maximum pressure embossed on the tire sidewall. Similar is the usual advice to replace air filters to save gas. On modern cars, replacing a filter will improve acceleration performance but not gas mileage.

Gas additives: Advertisements for gasoline additives that supposedly deliver better mileage are exaggerations or outright lies, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has tested more than 100 of them. Consumer Reports' tests of some gas-saving products that promise better fuel economy showed none worked, including Fuel Doctor and Fuel Genie. "Simply put: Don't waste your money," Consumer Reports says. Some "gas-saving" products may damage a car's engine or cause substantial increases in exhaust emissions, according to the EPA.

Here's how to calculate gas mileage:

Fill your gas tank and reset the trip odometer.

Next time you need gas, fill the tank again. Note the number of gallons you bought.

Divide the number of miles showing on the odometer by the number of gallons showing on the pump. The result is miles per gallon. Most mobile phones have a calculator function that can help with the math.

Rep. Paul D. Ryan presents USa with his budget or the GOP Path to Prosperity...

2011-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

The GOP Path to Prosperity

Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt.

By PAUL D. RYAN

Congress is currently embroiled in a funding fight over how much to spend on less than one-fifth of the federal budget for the next six months. Whether we cut $33 billion or $61 billion—that is, whether we shave 2% or 4% off of this year's deficit—is important. It's a sign that the election did in fact change the debate in Washington from how much we should spend to how much spending we should cut. But this morning the new House Republican majority will introduce a budget that moves the debate from billions in spending cuts to trillions. America is facing a defining moment. The threat posed by our monumental debt will damage our country in profound ways, unless we act.

No one person or party is responsible for the looming crisis.

Yet the facts are clear: Since President Obama took office, our problems have gotten worse. Major spending increases have failed to deliver promised jobs. The safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams. Government health and retirement programs are growing at unsustainable rates. The new health-care law is a fiscal train wreck. And a complex, inefficient tax code is holding back American families and businesses. The president's recent budget proposal would accelerate America's descent into a debt crisis. It doubles debt held by the public by the end of his first term and triples it by 2021. It imposes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, with spending that never falls below 23% of the economy. His budget permanently enlarges the size of government. It offers no reforms to save government health and retirement programs, and no leadership.

Our budget, which we call The Path to Prosperity, is very different.

For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion. A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage's analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Here are its major components:

• Reducing spending: This budget proposes to bring spending on domestic government agencies to below 2008 levels, and it freezes this category of spending for five years. The savings proposals are numerous, and include reforming agricultural subsidies, shrinking the federal work force through a sensible attrition policy, and accepting Defense Secretary Robert Gates's plan to target inefficiencies at the Pentagon.

• Welfare reform: This budget will build upon the historic welfare reforms of the late 1990s by converting the federal share of Medicaid spending into a block grant that lets states create a range of options and gives Medicaid patients access to better care. It proposes similar reforms to the food-stamp program, ending the flawed incentive structure that rewards states for adding to the rolls. Finally, this budget recognizes that the best welfare program is one that ends with a job—it consolidates dozens of duplicative job-training programs into more accessible, accountable career scholarships that will better serve people looking for work. As we strengthen and improve welfare programs for those who need them, we eliminate welfare for those who don't.

Our budget targets corporate welfare, starting by ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. It gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year. And it rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.

• Health and retirement security: This budget's reforms will protect health and retirement security. This starts with saving Medicare. The open-ended, blank-check nature of the Medicare subsidy threatens the solvency of this critical program and creates inexcusable levels of waste. This budget takes action where others have ducked. But because government should not force people to reorganize their lives, its reforms will not affect those in or near retirement in any way. Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose a plan that works best for them from a list of guaranteed coverage options. This is not a voucher program but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost. In addition, Medicare will provide increased assistance for lower- income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks. Reform that empowers individuals—with more help for the poor and the sick—will guarantee that Medicare can fulfill the promise of health security for America's seniors.

We must also reform Social Security to prevent severe cuts to future benefits. This budget forces policy makers to work together to enact common-sense reforms. The goal of this proposal is to save Social Security for current retirees and strengthen it for future generations by building upon ideas offered by the president's bipartisan fiscal commission.

• Budget enforcement: This budget recognizes that it is not enough to change how much government spends. We must also change how government spends. It proposes budget-process reforms—including real, enforceable caps on spending—to make sure government spends and taxes only as much as it needs to fulfill its constitutionally prescribed roles.

• Tax reform: This budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%. It maintains a revenue-neutral approach by clearing out a burdensome tangle of deductions and loopholes that distort economic activity and leave some corporations paying no income taxes at all.

This is America's moment to advance a plan for prosperity.

Our budget offers the nation a model of government that is guided by the timeless principles of the American idea: free-market democracy, open competition, a robust private sector bound by rules of honesty and fairness, a secure safety net, and equal opportunity for all under a limited constitutional government of popular consent. We can reform government so that people don't have to reorient their lives for less. We can grow our economy, promote opportunity, and encourage upward mobility.

This budget is the new House majority's answer to history's call. It is now up to all of us to keep America exceptional.

Mr. Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's first congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Go-Daddy CEO kills an Elephant and puts the video on his blog...

2011-04-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Some animal rights activists and animal lovers are outraged at GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons after he posted online a video of himself hunting and killing an elephant, MyFoxPhoenix.com reports. The “vacation video” shows Parsons in Zimbabwe criticizing the “damage” elephants cause to farmers’ crops, a common complaint in the region. “Unless elephants are stopped entire crop may be lost,” reads a video caption. “When crops are lost subsistence farmers risk starvation.”

Elephant Hunt Controversy Surrounds GoDaddy.com CEO: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

Deb got tired to telling me what not to do, so she wrote it down for me... and you.

2011-04-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

How to Invite a Lawsuit over YOUR Blog Posted on April 1, 2011 by debmcalister As the number of blogs has exploded, and more and more businesses add blogs to their corporate communications toolkit, a number of “experts” in social media and search engine optimization have sprung up to advise clients about the best blogging techniques. Unfortunately, few of them are lawyers, and even fewer have bothered to do their own original research on the legal issues that are unique to blogs – or even the legal issues common to journalists and writers in all fields. I’d not a lawyer, either — but I’ve paid for some of the best legal advice available over many years. One thing that’s become clear to me is that much of what bloggers think they know about their rights and responsibilities is quite simply wrong. Already, law firms are springing up to take advantage of this new revenue stream, and bloggers are finding themselves targeted increasingly for copyright infringement, privacy infringement, defamation, and the release of confidential information . Bloggers have lost their jobs, been subjected to arrest, had their computers seized, and been harassed and even physically assaulted by those who disagree with their point of view. Here are the five primary areas where myths are causing legal problems for bloggers: READ MORE ON THE LINK BELOW: https://debmcalister.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/how-to-invite-a-lawsuit-over-your-blog/

Great IBM profile of my Uncle Robert H. Dennard!

2011-03-30T18:07:00.000-07:00

What do you think they are discussing?

2011-03-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

You remember them?

Happy Birthday, Affordable Healthcare Law! Want to blow out the candle... or blow out the law?

2011-03-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Today is the first anniversity or birthday of the so-called Obama-Care Law... NBC was kind enough to send me a news summary, but it was filled with lots of ????? in it that at first I was more confused by the typos than by the content.

Instead of removing the typos, I have decided to live them in and let it re-enforce the confusion that the Affordable Healthcare Act Law has created in it's (it?s) first year on the books as the Law of the Land:

A nation still divided?:

Back to the health-care anniversary? the needle hasn?t moved all that much on the health-care bill?s popularity. In the most recent monthly tracking poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 42% of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the bill compared to 46% who saw it unfavorably. In April 2010, just after the bill was signed, the numbers were a similar -- but more favorable -- at 46%-40%. In November 2010, when the midterm elections put the politics of health care front and center, those numbers were 42%-40%.

The 2010 exit polls, which reflected an electorate that voted to sweep Democrats out of power in the House, showed an equally split country -- with 47% saying it should either be expanded or left as is and 48% saying it should be repealed. Kaiser?s numbers are similar to the ones shown by our NBC/WSJ poll. In March 2010, right before the legislation passed, 46% said they supported passage, 45% opposed. That?s exactly the same breakdown as NBC/WSJ found 10 months later in January 2011 on a DIFFERENT question -- on whether they supported or opposed its repeal.

*** And still equally confused:

Polling indicates Americans continue to be confused about how the bill will impact them, what's actually in it, what's been implemented, and whether it's been repealed.

Kaiser shows that, as of March, 53% say they are ?confused? about their feelings on the law. In April 2010, 55% said they were confused. That dipped to 42% by June, but then spiked back up to 53% by September, dipped again to 43% by December and ticked back up at the beginning of this year; 52% say that they don?t know enough about the legislation to understand how it will affect their lives. That?s about the same as April 2010, when 56% said so. Incredibly, almost half in February of this year said INCORRECTLY either the bill had been repealed (22%) or weren?t sure (26%).

*** Congress -- who?s left:

Of the 219 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill, 171 remain. The four House Democrats who voted for the health-care bill and ran for Senate all lost. Of the 34 House Democrats who voted no, 14 remain. One, Charlie Melancon (LA-3) ran for the Senate and lost. Of the 56 Senate Democrats who voted for it, 46 remain, 11 of whom won re-election in 2010. Of the three Senate Democrats who voted against it, two remain. Only one -- Blanche Lincoln (AR) -- was up for re-election last year. And she lost.

*** Where it stands in the courts:

Nearly two dozen legal challenges have been filed in federal court over the law, NBC?s Pete Williams reports. And while most have been dismissed on technical grounds, five resulted in decisions on the central issue -- whether the law?s requirement that nearly all Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional. The five cases are pending before federal appeals courts, and one may reach the U.S. Supreme court during its next term.

In three of those cases, filed in Virginia, Michigan, and Washington, D.C., judges said the law is constitutional. In the other two, brought by the states of Virginia and Florida, judges said Congress exceeded its powers in passing the law. The lawsuit filed by Florida was backed by 25 other states. Adding Virginia, that brings to 27 the number of states challenging the law?s constitutionality. Six more cases are pending in the lower courts.

*** How is the law affecting you RIGHT NOW?

There were cries of, ?Have you read the bill?? and ?What?s in the bill?? which led to a lot of the confusion. Well, here?s some of what?s ACTUALLY in the bill that?s taken effect already or will this year,

According to NBC and others:

- Children allowed to stay on their parents? health insurance plans until their 26th birthday.
- A 10% tax on indoor tanning services. (Sorry, Snooki.)
- Seniors receive a $250 rebate to help cover the so-called ?donut hole? in Medicare drug coverage
- Free preventative care covered by Medicare and private plans. (So, when your company says, ?Good news, you now get free health-care screenings, child well visits, physicals and other preventative care,? that comes from the health-care bill.)
- Nursing mothers to be allowed lactation breaks
- Insurance companies no longer allowed to discriminate against children with pre-existing conditions
- Government-run insurance plan set up for adults with preexisting conditions who are denied coverage
- Government-run long-term care program set up. For those who participate, people pay premiums for five years and then will receive benefits if they need them -- ?whether they are 20-somethings in snowboard accidents or 80-somethings with Parkinson?s disease,? the New York Times wrote.
- Insurance companies barred from placing lifetime caps on benefits
- Insurance companies barred from dropping patients? coverage when they get sick
- Insurance companies must prove they spend 80% to 85% of premium revenue on medical services.
- Insurance companies required to disclose rate increases (and the reason) of 10% or more
- Small businesses (with fewer than 50 employees) begin receiving tax credits covering 35% of premiums to help them buy coverage. (This credit jumps to 50% in 2014.)
- States receive billions in funding for community health centers
- Drug companies face $2.5 billion in fees (rises in later years)
- Creation of a government research institute created in to examine the effectiveness of medical treatments
- Establishment of a Medicare Independent Advisory Board, which will be tasked with trying to keep Medicare spending down and submitting legislative proposals to do so. It will first submit recommendations in 2016.

*** How will it affect you IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS? I

f most of that sounds good (that is, unless you?re Snooki), Republicans will rightly argue the law was front-loaded with many of the positive parts. In 2013, new taxes and fees go into effect for individuals making more than $200,000 a year (and families making more than $250,000 a year), on dividends and interest, and on sales of medical devices. By 2014, the individual mandate goes into effect -- if you don?t have insurance, you have to buy it or face a fee. By 2016, that fee will be 2.5% of your income or $695 a year, whichever is more. (Kaiser has a helpful interactive timeline here.)

*** Bet you didn?t know?:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell?s office yesterday passed around a quote from Starbucks? CEO, who said, ?I think as the bill is currently written and if it was going to land in 2014 under the current guidelines, the pressure on small businesses, because of the mandate, is too great.?

It?s true that by 2014, businesses with more than 100 employees will have to contribute to buying health insurance for their employees or face hefty fines (if at least one of their employees qualifies for tax credits, but not Medicaid).

But, we bet you didn?t know that businesses with fewer than 50 employees NEVER have to buy health insurance for their employees, per the White House.

*** By the numbers:

For all your quick facts needs, here's a health care, by numbers (gathered from published reports, the Kaiser Family Foundation, government health-care Web sites, the Department of Health and Human Services, and White House fact sheets):

- $2.8 billion: Dollars distributed so far to states to implement the law.
- $241 million: Dollars given so far to six states and a ?coalition of states? in ?Early Innovator? grants
- $50 million: Dollars to go out this year for five-year medical malpractice grants to go out this year to states to ?develop, implement, and evaluate alternatives to current tort litigations?
- $50 million: Dollars in grants sent to states to establish exchanges
- $46 million: Dollars in grants so far to states to address insurance rate increases
- 4 million: People received $250 because they hit the Medicare ?donut hole? since the law passed
- 12,000: People who were denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions since the law was passed and were added to the government-run Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan
- 1,040: Waivers granted that allow companies to cap annual payouts at lower levels than the original law orders
- 219: House Democrats voted for the health-care bill
- 171: House Democrats remain in Congress
- 63: House seats Democrats lost in the 2010 midterms
- 56: Senate Democrats voted for the bill
- 53: Percent who say they?re still confused by the law
- 48: Percent who say they think the law has either been repealed (22%) or aren?t sure (26%)
- 46: Democrats who voted for the bill remain in the Senate
- 38: States whose legislatures have proposed measures opposing elements of health reform
- 27: States have challenged the constitutionality of the law
- 26: Percent who say they?re not sure if the health-care law has been repealed
- 22: Percent who say incorrectly that the health-care law has been repealed
- 6: States -- Nevada, Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, and Iowa -- all have applied for waivers and are being reviewed
- 6: Cases pending in lower courts challenging the health-care law
- 5: Health-care lawsuits taken up by the courts out of the dozens of cases that were filed -- most centered on the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to buy health insurance
- 3: Steps the Small Business Administration created for small businesses to apply for or see if they qualify for government subsidies. The SBA claims, ?Four million of the nation?s six million small businesses that employ workers could be eligible for these credits.?
- 3: Court decisions in court in favor of the administration
- 2: Court decisions against the administration.

- ONLY ONE State -- Maine has undergone the full process to get approval for a waiver on the 80%-85% provision of the health-care law. It got the provision adjusted to 65% through 2012. The reason for approval, per HHS: The main insurance company that provides coverage for about one-third of the 37,000 people on the individual market said they may leave the market if they are required to meet the higher standard.

- 1: Other state -- New Hampshire -- is farthest along in its waiver process and has a hearing set for Thursday.

My Cousin Salen has past me her Handbook for 2011... so I pass it along to you.

2011-03-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

"People need to see that, far from being an obstacle, the world's diversity of languages, religions and traditions is a great treasure, affording us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others." ~Youssou N'Dour, musician

HANDBOOK 2011

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games with your spouse and friend and kids and grandkids.
7. Read more books than you did in 2010 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes' walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts of things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't overdo. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past.

Don't remind your partner of his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.
Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...

Society:

25. Call your family often. And be thankful that they are still around.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything. You don't need to personally seek them out, just forgive them in your heart. Forgiveness isn't about their peace of mind and well being, it's about yours.
28. Spend time w/people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32. Do the right thing! No matter what others think or do. It's about how you feel about it.
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful, joyful or brings back good memories.
34. Your GOD heals everything. Don't worry about their GOD... or their DOG.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. Believe that the best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner Self most is always happy. So, be happy.

Last but not the least:

40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did.

Thinking of how Japan ALWAYS comes back from distruction

2011-03-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

japan nuclear crisis,japan nuclear update,japan radiationjapan tsunami,japan earthquake

THANKS to NPR's 360 for these clips and others: http://www.studio360.org/2011/mar/18/japan-imagination-disaster/

japan nuclear crisis,japan nuclear update,japan radiationjapan tsunami,japan earthquake

2011-03-19T11:02:00.001-07:00

Does your Dog understand you?

2011-03-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

TIPS ON PUMPING GAS

2011-03-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are paying up to $3.75 to $4.10 per gallon. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon:

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)...and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If It goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would it take?

CPAP is considered the gold standard treatment for OSA.

2011-03-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

CPAP is a machine that pushes air into a person while they are sleeping to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a medical condition where a person stops breathing multiple times throughout the night leading to all sorts of medical problems including increased risk of hypertension, stroke, peripheral vascular disease, heart attack, etc.

In order for this device to work, a mask must be worn while sleeping in order for the air to get pushed into the lungs.

It is considered the gold standard treatment for OSA.

Costs of the Wars: Sacrifices by the Few

2011-03-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

A soldier with the US Army's Task Force Mustang "Dust Off" Company based out of Fort Hood, Texas, cleans snow with a broom off his Blackhawk medevec helicopter in Kunduz, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011.

AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus

Costs of the Wars: Sacrifices by the Few
The U.S. is engaged in one of the longest periods of combat in its history. But only a small percentage of the population carries that burden. Diane and guests explore the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military's...

The U.S. is engaged in one of the longest periods of combat in its history. But only a small percentage of the population carries that burden. Diane and guests explore the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military's growing sense of isolation in its sacrifices.

Guests
James Kitfield senior correspondent, National Journal magazine.

Michelle Joyner Director, Communications at The National Military Family Association.

Joseph Collins Professor at the National War College, retired Army colonel, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations from 2001 to 2004, author of the upcoming book "Understanding War in Afghanistan."

Matt Pottinger Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, former Wall Street Journal reporter, and a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-07/costs-wars-sacrifices-few

The Southern Encounter Aquarium and Kiwi House in Cathedral Square will close.

2011-03-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zealand/4723951/Wildlife-centre-releases-its-beasts

The Southern Encounter Aquarium and Kiwi House in Cathedral Square will be closed indefinitely after the Canterbury earthquake damaged their building beyond repair.

Orana Wildlife Trust, owner of the aquarium, reported that all staff and visitors were evacuated safety after the quake, but the building has been declared unsafe.

Chief executive Lynn Anderson said she was full of admiration for her team who had "poured their heart and soul" into the attraction.

"Over the past week they have worked incredibly hard, going beyond the call of duty and risking personal safety, to rescue and release many of the animals."

Although the building had been redstickered, staff were able to gain access to the site every eight hours to refuel generators keeping animals inside the aquarium alive.

Many of the land-based animals, such as kiwi, tuatara and geckos, have been transferred to other wildlife centres including Orana Park.

Many fish, including eels and over 100 nationally endangered Canterbury mudfish, were released into the wild.

Anderson said some fish died as a result of the earthquake and the remaining fish that could not be rescued were euthanised humanely on Monday. Some of those fish were too large for staff to rescue safely, while others would not have survived a transfer.

"Whilst it is very upsetting that Southern Encounter has not survived the event, we remain so grateful for the good fortune that all staff and visitors were safely evacuated," Lynn Anderson said.

The aquarium gave visitors a glimpse at some of New Zealand’s unique native animals and was a valuable educational facility, she said.

“We take this opportunity to thank the public for their support of Southern Encounter over the years.”

Anderson said Orana Park will be doing all they can to look after the facility's seven full time staff.

The $5.5 million aquarium was opened in 1997, originally focusing on freshwater sportsfish.

It grew to showcase more of the South Island's marine and native freshwater species, as well as native land-dwelling animals including kiwi, tuatara and geckos.

The facility hosted more than one million visitors over its 13-year life.

We live in a Wired World Today... we can experience the news for ourselves at a personal level ... any where in the world today.

2011-02-26T02:55:00.000-08:00

Fairwell, Discovery! Here is the last scene from Space Cowboys... Fly me to the Moon!

2011-02-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, my beloved Christchurch!

2011-02-22T03:57:00.000-08:00

At least 100 people remain trapped in the ruins of Christchurch tonight following a devastating earthquake which claimed at least 65 lives.

Construction workers and search and rescue specialists are toiling under floodlights on a cold and wet night to dig out survivors and the dead from buildings flattened by the earthquake that ripped the city apart today.

Prime Minister John Key announced tonight that "at least 65 people have lost their lives" and noted the rescuers were still scrabbling through the ruins of collapsed buildings looking for injured and trapped survivors - and bodies.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker tonight said more than 100 people were trapped in about six sites - but it was possible more were trapped in individual houses.

TV3 has had unconfirmed reports that the death toll could reach between 200 and 300.

The Government is holding a press conference at 5.30am this morning where more details will be revealed.

This is likely to include an updated death toll.

Police have launched a hotline, 0800 779997, that people can call to report missing people.

The death toll is already the second highest in a New Zealand earthquake - outranked only by the 256 people who died in the violent 7.9 1931 Hawke's Bay quake, whose 70th anniversary was marked earlier this month.

Police have reported "multiple fatalities" at several locations in the downtown area, including where two buses were crushed by falling buildings.

Today's shake, measured at magnitude 6.3, followed the massive 7.1 tremor last September 4. That one struck in the early hours of the morning and no one was killed.

Today's earthquake jolted the city at 12.51pm, the worst possible time with the central city packed with lunch-hour shoppers, office workers and many school children.

Victims were crushed to death as buildings collapsed, many of them weakened in last year's event.

The quake was not as powerful as the September 4 shake but was much shallower, leading to greater damage.

Scientists put the epicentre at 10km southeast of the city - apparently in the middle of the harbour at Lyttelton, the city's coastal port - at a depth of only 5km.

About 30 people were thought to be trapped in the Pyne Gould Guinness building, its several floors pancaked on each other and tilted at a crazy angle.

In the ruined CTV television building a number of Japanese students, newly arrived in Japan, were believed to be in the rubble.

One injured man rescued from the building was quoted as saying he could hear other people talking.

The famous cathedral in the city's downtown square which stood undamaged last September lost its spire today and suffered heavy damage.

Reports that people were in the spire when it tumbled into the church itself and the square outside could not be verified immediately.

Police superintendent Dave Cliff said one police staff member was unaccounted for.

"We are doing everything possible to free people who are trapped," he aid.

Mr Key flew to Christchurch this afternoon and after a quick tour of the city described it as "utterly wrecked", adding "this is an absolute tragedy for Christchurch".

"We may well be witnessing New Zealand's darkest day," he said.

Graphic photographs on television showed blood-splattered survivors scrambling from downed buildings or crawling from under shattered shop verandahs that had fallen on to city footpaths.

Crushed cars lined parking spaces, masonry scattered across roads.

Mr Parker, lauded for his behaviour and slick civic control in the wake of last year's quake, said the damage today was much more severe.

"The city centre is like a war zone and damage is immense. Everybody needs to understand that this is going to be a day of very black news," he said.

He declared a state of emergency, adding Christchurch and Canterbury would need help from the rest of the country.

Christchurch Airport closed after today's earthquake and was to remain shut down overnight, open only to emergency flights and aircraft carrying rescuers and medical helpers.

Extra police, armed forces troops and search and rescue teams were heading for Christchurch tonight and the inter-island ferry heading for the South island from Wellington carried a group of 40 police, among them victim-identification specialists.

A 73-strong New South Wales search and rescue team arrived in Christchurch tonight and will go to work at first light tomorrow.

The road tunnel under the Port Hills linking Christchurch and Lyttelton was closed for some hours but was reopened tonight for emergency vehicles.

The earthquake ruptured sewer and water lines, still under repair after last September, and LPG gas lines were shut off after consumers reported leaking gas.

One third of the city was without electricity tonight after the quake brought down lines and poles.

Water, sewer and gas lines were ruptured by the quake and power lines and poles crashed, cutting electricity to one third of the city.

Citizens were asked not to flush toilets and warned to boil all water for drinking.

Telephone services were cut as anxious callers overloaded circuits.

Mr Parker urged people to put out pots and pans to collect rain water tonight, and said they should not shower, bath or use the toilet.

People should also stay off the roads and stay well away from the central city.

Heavy aftershocks continued to roll across Christchurch tonight, further frightening shocked residents. A 5.0 magnitude jolt hit at 7.43pm.

Some reports said most damage was confined to Christchurch and nearby areas and that rural property had not suffered greatly.

But radio and television reported damage in the town of Lyttelton was severe.

Its historic "Time Ball" tower building was torn apart.

The famous cathedral in the city's downtown square which escaped virtually unscathed September lost its spire today and suffered heavy damage.

Reports that people were in the spire when it tumbled into the church itself and onto the square outside could not be verified.

On the West Coast, the face of the immense Tasman Glacier collapsed in enormous chunks into its lake following the earthquake.

- NZPA, NZ Herald staff

What a novel idea!

2011-02-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

As the U.S. government continues to heap billions in subsidies to the world's wealthiest coal and oil companies, the solar industry has been struggling to make it in the States. This is sad for many reasons, not the least of which is that we're missing out on one of the biggest growth industries in the world.

Currently there are 16 gigawatts of installed solar power globally. That number will grow to about 1,800 gigawatts in the next 20 years, making it one of the best job creators. U.S. engineers invented the solar panel, and the U.S. should be dominating that market. Instead, foreign manufacturers (particularly in China) have taken our IP and run with it, as we become increasingly dependent on foreign oil and dirty coal operations to meet our power needs.

Fortunately HyperSolar, a new U.S. company, offers a ray of sunny hope on the clean energy frontier.

The company does not manufacture solar panels. It makes them ultra-efficient using a field of science called photonics. Similar to a microchip that moves individual bits of data around at hyperspeed, HyperSolar's thin magnifying film routes and separates specific light spectrums, delivering them exactly where they're needed to make an array of PV solar cells ultra-efficient.

I saw an early prototype for such a magnifying optical layer a few years back, but the company was "dark" at the time, so I couldn't write about the innovation. But I'm as excited now as I was then for good reason — HyperSolar's optical layer can increase PV efficiency by up to 300 percent!

Theoretically that means cutting the installation cost of a solar array in half. Instead of a home solar system costing $30,000 (or more) it would only cost $15,000 (or less), making the upfront investment much lower and payback periods much quicker.

This is the way W thought it was going to work... it works when the Liberation is from Within and NOT from Without Freedom....we can hope.

2011-02-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

A day after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military on Saturday banned top officials from travelling outside the country to ensure that former presidential loyalists don’t flee.

The ban comes into force immediately, an official announcement from the new regime said as Army removed barricades and barbed wires from around the Tahrir Square and the Egyptian capital limped back to normalcy after 18-days of turmoil.

An official statement said that officials could only travel with permission from State Prosecutor or the Armed Forces.

The new move to put restrictions on movements of Mubarak loyalists came as mystery continued to surround the whereabouts of the deposed president and his family.

While officially it is stated that Mr. Mubarak has shifted to his Sharm-al-Sheikh resort on the Red sea, other reports in the Arab media said he may have moved to Europe or the Gulf.

There was no word or mention of the ex-president from the new regime.

The Supreme Military Command Council, which has taken over the reins after Mr. Mubarak fled to his Sharm-al Sheikh resort retreat, announced that night curfew would be now in force only post-midnight.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article1447555.ece?homepage=true

The story of the insurance of fine Texas Cigars...

2011-02-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive Texas cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires.' The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued - and WON! (Stay with me.)

Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable 'fire' and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that perished in the 'fires'.

NOW FOR THE BEST PART...

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This true story won First Place in last year's Criminal Lawyers Award contest.

ONLY IN AMERICA ......
NO WONDER THE REST OF THE WORLD THINKS WE'RE NUTS

Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State!

2011-02-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

This is a must read for all Texans, used-to-be Texans, adopted Texans or wanna-be Texans:

GOTTA READ!

Just Texas
Pep, Texas 79353
Smiley, Texas 78159
Paradise, Texas 76073
Rainbow, Texas 76077
Sweet Home, Texas 77987
Comfort , Texas 78013
Friendship, Texas 76530

Love the sun?
Sun City, Texas 78628
Sunrise, Texas 76661
Sunset, Texas 76270
Sundown, Texas 79372
Sunray, Texas 79086
Sunny Side, Texas 77423

Want something to eat?
Bacon, Texas 76301
Noodle, Texas 79536
Oatmeal, Texas 78605
Turkey, Texas 79261
Trout, Texas 75789
Sugar Land, Texas 77479
Salty, Texas 76567
Rice, Texas 75155
Pearland, Texas 77581
Orange, Texas 77630
And top it off with:
Sweetwater , Texas 79556

Why travel to other cities? Texas has them all!
Detroit, Texas 75436
Cleveland, Texas 75436
Colorado City, Texas 79512
Denver City, Texas 79323
Klondike, Texas 75448

Pittsburg, Texas 75686

Newark, Texas 76071
Nevada, Texas 75173
Memphis, Texas 79245
Miami, Texas 79059
Boston, Texas 75570
Santa Fe, Texas 77517
Tennessee Colony, Texas 75861
Reno, Texas 75462
Pasadena, Texas 77506
Columbus, Texas 78934

Feel like traveling outside the country?
Athens, Texas 75751
Canadian, Texas 79014
China , Texas 77613

Dublin, Texas 76446
Egypt, Texas 77436
Ireland, Texas 76538
Italy, Texas 76538
Turkey, Texas 79261
London, Texas 76854
New London, Texas 75682
Paris, Texas 75460
Palestine, Texas 75801

No need to travel to Washington D.C.
Whitehouse, Texas 75791

We even have a city named after our planet!
Earth, Texas 79031

We have a city named after our state:
Texas City, Texas 77590

Exhausted?
Energy, Texas 76452

Cold?
Blanket, Texas 76432
Winters, Texas 79567

Like to read about History?
Santa Anna, Texas 76878
Goliad, Texas 77963
Alamo, Texas 78516
Gun Barrel City, Texas 75156
Robert Lee , Texas 76945

Need Office Supplies?
Staples, Texas 78670

Want to go into outer space?
Venus , Texas 76084
Mars , Texas 79062

You guessed it. It's on the state line.
Texline , Texas 79087

For the kids...
Kermit, Texas 79745
Elmo, Texas 75118
Nemo, Texas 76070
Tarzan, Texas 79783
Winnie, Texas 77665
Sylvester, Texas 79560

Other city names in Texas , to make you smile......
Frognot, Texas 75424
Bigfoot, Texas 78005
Hogeye, Texas 75423
Cactus, Texas 79013
Notrees, Texas 79759
Best, Texas 76932
Veribest, Texas 76886
Kickapoo, Texas 75763
Dime Box, Texas 77853
Old Dime Box, Texas 77853
Telephone, Texas 75488
Telegraph, Texas 76883
Whiteface, Texas 79379
Twitty, Texas 79079

And last but not least, the Anti-Al Gore City
Kilgore, Texas 75662

And our favorites...
Cut and Shoot, Texas 77303
Gun Barrel City , Texas 75147
Ding Dong, Texas

West, Texas (it's in Central Texas )

and, of course,
Muleshoe, Texas 79347

Here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about folks from Texas

If someone in a Lowe's store offers you assistance and they don't work
there, you may live in Texas ;

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Texas ;

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a
wrong number, you may live in Texas ;

If 'Vacation' means going anywhere south of Dallas for the weekend, you may
live in Texas ;

If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Texas ;

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may live
in Texas ;

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both
unlocked, you may live in Texas ;

If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use them,
you may live in Texas ;

If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph --you're going 80 and
everybody's passing you, you may live in Texas ;

If you find 60 degrees 'a little chilly,' you may live in Texas ;

If you actually understand these jokes, and share them with all your Texas
friends, you definitely live in Texas ..

Here are some little known, very interesting facts about Texas .
1. Beaumont to El Paso : 742miles

2. Beaumont to Chicago : 770 miles

3. El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

4. World's first rodeo was in Pecos , July 4, 1883.

5. The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America
built over water. Destroyed by Hurricane Ike - 2008!

6. The Heisman Trophy was named after John William Heisman who was the first
full-time coach at Rice University in Houston .

7. Brazoria County has more species of birds than any other area in North
America .

8. Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America's only
remaining flock of whooping cranes.

9. Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson in 1978.

10. The worst natural disaster in U.S. history was in 1900, caused by a
hurricane in which over 8,000 lives were lost on Galveston Island .

11. The first word spoken from the moon, July 20, 1969, was " Houston ," but
the Space Center was actually in Clear Lake City at the time.

12. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island .

13. Tropical Storm Claudette brought a U.S. rainfall record of 43" in 24
hours in and around Alvin in July of 1979.

14. Texas is the only state to enter the U.S. by TREATY, (known as the
Constitution of 1845 by the Republic of Texas to enter the Union )
instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas Flag to fly at the same
height as the U.S. Flag, and may divide into 5 states.

15. A Live Oak tree near Fulton is estimated to be 1500 years old.

16. Caddo Lake is the only natural lake in the state.

17. Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr
Pepper.

18. Texas has had six capital cities:
Washington-on-the Brazos, Harrisburg , Galveston, Velasco, West Columbia
and now: Austin

19. The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S., which is
taller than the Capitol building in Washington, DC (by 7 feet).

20. The San Jacinto (pronounced y'ceento) Monument is the tallest free standing monument in the
world and it is taller than the Washington Monument .

21. The name ' Texas ' comes from the Hasini Indian word 'tejas' meaning
friends. Tejas is not Spanish for Texas .

22. The State Mascot is the Armadillo. An interesting bit of trivia about
the armadillo is they always have four babies. They have one egg, which
splits into four, and they either have four males or four females.
(Armadillo is what Aggies have on the half-shell)

23. The first domed stadium in the U.S. was the Astrodome in Houston .

Cowboy's Ten Commandments posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Fairlie, Texas

(1) Just one God.
(2) Honor yer Ma & Pa.
(3) No telling tales or gossipin'.
(4) Git yourself to Sunday meeting.
(5) Put nothin' before God
(6) No foolin' around with another fellow's gal.
(7) No killin'.
(8) Watch yer mouth.
(9) Don't take what ain't yers.
(10) Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.

All y'all git all that?

Best thing to come out of the Super Bowl this year... VW Darth Vader

2011-02-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

* Full moon calendar 2011 *

2011-02-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

* Full moon calendar 2011 *: "The full moon calendar 2011"

New Zealand wins the Sevens and come to USA next week.

2011-02-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

Is it cold where you are today?

2011-02-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

Tree Octopus Caught on Tape ... have you seen one?

2011-02-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

For more information: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Tree octopus species, including the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, are some of the most elusive creatures known to Man. Not many researchers have managed to photograph them in the wild and those few in captivity tend to hide in inaccessable corners of their cages, as if purposefully avoiding the prying of humans.

Any Tree Octopus sighting should be sent to lyle@zapatopi.net. If it adds significantly to Tree Octopus research it may end up on this page.

What the NFL and the Chamber of Commerce does not promote about the Super Bowl Game...

2011-02-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Super Bowl Host Committee & National Football League,

My name is A.H. and I’m a survivor of sex trafficking. I’m not a big football fan, but I’ll never forget my first trip to Dallas/Fort Worth several years ago. It was 2006 when I was dragged there against my will by a pimp. I was forced to dance, strip and sell sex (along with five other young girls) for over a month while he pocketed the cash ($1,000-$3,000/night from each girl) and planned our next gig. I was trapped in a life I never wanted without any hope of escape.

You might be shocked to know that I come from an upstanding, supportive and loving family. I’ve been an excellent student my whole life, earning a scholarship to college. I had dreams, ambitions and the courage to make them happen. Everything changed the day I met the man who would later become my pimp. He was intelligent, attractive and seemed to genuinely care about me. When I lost my scholarship due to an injury, he offered to help me and I believed he would. As soon as I realized what he had in mind, I tried to leave. He grabbed me by the neck, threw me down and almost choked the life out of me. When he threatened to hurt my family if I didn’t cooperate, I knew I was trapped.

This nightmare was my life for over a year. During that time, we traveled to several states where I was sold at nightclubs, bars, and parties -- fulfilling a demand for sex nationwide. He was always there, always watching. If I refused to work, I was beaten and tortured.
We spent an entire month in Dallas/Fort Worth, where my pimp said the “real money” was. We were all young (some as young as 14-years-old) and that’s what the men wanted. No one asked if we were being forced to work, or if we enjoyed it. No one cared. While we were being sold for sex every night, our pimp was recruiting other local girls – from the Galleria, the clubs, concerts, and even McDonald’s.

I lived in fear every day, hoping I’d survive to see the next. It wasn’t until I heard him loading his gun to kill me that I finally mustered the courage to escape. Today, I’m a survivor. I share my story with you in the hopes that you’ll realize sex trafficking is real. It happens to young girls across America every day – girls as young as 13. With the Super Bowl quickly approaching, you have a choice to help stop it. Dallas/Fort Worth will soon become the nation’s biggest party – and every pimp’s center for business.

Please join me, Dallas Cowboy Jay Ratliff, and 70,000+ fans who’ve signed the Change.org petition in taking a stand against the exploitation of women and children during the Super Bowl. Every victim deserves the chance to become a survivor. And every young girl deserves to be protected and live a life free from slavery and exploitation.

I’m asking you to endorse the I’m Not Buying It campaign. By placing posters and billboards in and around the stadium you can deter men from engaging in the commercial sex market and save the lives of countless victims. You can make a difference – please, what would you do if it was your daughter?

Thank you,
A.H., Survivor of Sex Trafficking

2011-01-28T14:14:00.001-08:00

text of the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union

2011-01-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

The text of the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address from Rep. Paul Ryan, as prepared for delivery.

Good evening. I'm Congressman Paul Ryan from Janesville, Wisconsin — and Chairman here at the House Budget Committee.

President Obama just addressed a Congressional chamber filled with many new faces. One face we did not see tonight was that of our friend and colleague, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. We all miss Gabby and her cheerful spirit; and we are praying for her return to the House Chamber.

Earlier this month, President Obama spoke movingly at a memorial event for the six people who died on that violent morning in Tucson. Still, there are no words that can lift the sorrow that now engulfs the families and friends of the fallen.

What we can do is assure them that the nation is praying for them; that, in the words of the Psalmist, the Lord heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds; and that over time grace will replace grief.

As Gabby continues to make encouraging progress, we must keep her and the others in our thoughts as we attend to the work now before us.

Tonight, the President focused a lot of attention on our economy in general — and on our deficit and debt in particular.

He was right to do so, and some of his words were reassuring. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, I assure you that we want to work with the President to restrain federal spending.

In one of our first acts in the new majority, House Republicans voted to cut Congress's own budget. And just today, the House voted to restore the spending discipline that Washington sorely needs.

The reason is simple.

A few years ago, reducing spending was important. Today, it's imperative. Here's why.

We face a crushing burden of debt. The debt will soon eclipse our entire economy, and grow to catastrophic levels in the years ahead.

On this current path, when my three children — who are now 6, 7, and 8 years old — are raising their own children, the federal government will double in size, and so will the taxes they pay.

No economy can sustain such high levels of debt and taxation. The next generation will inherit a stagnant economy and a diminished country.

Frankly, it's one of my greatest concerns as a parent — and I know many of you feel the same way.

Our debt is the product of acts by many presidents and many Congresses over many years. No one person or party is responsible for it.

There is no doubt the President came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation.

Unfortunately, instead of restoring the fundamentals of economic growth, he engaged in a stimulus spending spree that not only failed to deliver on its promise to create jobs, but also plunged us even deeper into debt.

The facts are clear: Since taking office, President Obama has signed into law spending increases of nearly 25 percent for domestic government agencies — an 84 percent increase when you include the failed stimulus.

All of this new government spending was sold as "investment." Yet after two years, the unemployment rate remains above 9% and government has added over $3 trillion to our debt.

Then the President and his party made matters even worse, by creating a new open-ended health care entitlement.

What we already know about the President's health care law is this: Costs are going up, premiums are rising, and millions of people will lose the coverage they currently have. Job creation is being stifled by all of its taxes, penalties, mandates and fees.

Businesses and unions from around the country are asking the Obama Administration for waivers from the mandates. Washington should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. The President mentioned the need for regulatory reform to ease the burden on American businesses. We agree — and we think his health care law would be a great place to start.

Last week, House Republicans voted for a full repeal of this law, as we pledged to do, and we will work to replace it with fiscally responsible, patient-centered reforms that actually reduce costs and expand coverage.

Health care spending is driving the explosive growth of our debt. And the President's law is accelerating our country toward bankruptcy.

Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis.

We cannot deny it; instead we must, as Americans, confront it responsibly.

And that is exactly what Republicans pledge to do.

Americans are skeptical of both political parties, and that skepticism is justified — especially when it comes to spending. So hold all of us accountable.

In this very room, the House will produce, debate, and advance a budget. Last year — in an unprecedented failure — Congress chose not to pass, or even propose a budget. The spending spree continued unchecked.

We owe you a better choice and a different vision.

Our forthcoming budget is our obligation to you — to show you how we intend to do things differently … how we will cut spending to get the debt down… help create jobs and prosperity … and reform government programs. If we act soon, and if we act responsibly, people in and near retirement will be protected.

These budget debates are not just about the programs of government; they're also about the purpose of government.

So I'd like to share with you the principles that guide us. They are anchored in the wisdom of the founders; in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence; and in the words of the American Constitution.

They have to do with the importance of limited government; and with the blessing of self-government.

We believe government's role is both vital and limited — to defend the nation from attack and provide for the common defense ... to secure our borders ... to protect innocent life ... to uphold our laws and Constitutional rights ... to ensure domestic tranquility and equal opportunity ... and to help provide a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves.

We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship, upward mobility, and individual responsibility.

We believe, as our founders did, that "the pursuit of happiness" depends upon individual liberty; and individual liberty requires limited government.

Limited government also means effective government. When government takes on too many tasks, it usually doesn't do any of them very well. It's no coincidence that trust in government is at an all-time low now that the size of government is at an all-time high.

The President and the Democratic Leadership have shown, by their actions, that they believe government needs to increase its size and its reach, its price tag and its power.

Whether sold as "stimulus" or repackaged as "investment," their actions show they want a federal government that controls too much; taxes too much; and spends too much in order to do too much.

And during the last two years, that is exactly what we have gotten — along with record deficits and debt — to the point where the President is now urging Congress to increase the debt limit.

We believe the days of business as usual must come to an end. We hold to a couple of simple convictions: Endless borrowing is not a strategy; spending cuts have to come first.

Our nation is approaching a tipping point.

We are at a moment, where if government's growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America's best century will be considered our past century. This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.

Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices has never worked — and it won't work now.

We need to chart a new course.

Speaking candidly, as one citizen to another: We still have time ... but not much time. If we continue down our current path, we know what our future will be.

Just take a look at what's happening to Greece, Ireland, the United Kingdom and other nations in Europe. They didn't act soon enough; and now their governments have been forced to impose painful austerity measures: large benefit cuts to seniors and huge tax increases on everybody.

Their day of reckoning has arrived. Ours is around the corner. That is why we must act now.

Some people will back away from this challenge. But I see this challenge as an opportunity to rebuild what Lincoln called the "central ideas" of the Republic.

We believe a renewed commitment to limited government will unshackle our economy and create millions of new jobs and opportunities for all people, of every background, to succeed and prosper. Under this approach, the spirit of initiative — not political clout — determines who succeeds.

Millions of families have fallen on hard times not because of our ideals of free enterprise — but because our leaders failed to live up to those ideals; because of poor decisions made in Washington and Wall Street that caused a financial crisis, squandered our savings, broke our trust, and crippled our economy.

Today, a similar kind of irresponsibility threatens not only our livelihoods but our way of life.

We need to reclaim our American system of limited government, low taxes, reasonable regulations, and sound money, which has blessed us with unprecedented prosperity. And it has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed. That's the real secret to job creation — not borrowing and spending more money in Washington.

Limited government and free enterprise have helped make America the greatest nation on earth.

These are not easy times, but America is an exceptional nation. In all the chapters of human history, there has never been anything quite like America. The American story has been cherished, advanced, and defended over the centuries.

And it now falls to this generation to pass on to our children a nation that is stronger, more vibrant, more decent, and better than the one we inherited.

Thank you and good night.