রবিবার, ৩০ জুন, ২০১৩

Egypt group: 22 million signatures against Morsi

Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi armed by sticks and shields to protect from stone attack guard their protesting site at a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya mosque near the presidential palace in Cairo, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president held rival sit-ins in separate parts of Cairo Saturday on the eve of opposition-led mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from power. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi armed by sticks and shields to protect from stone attack guard their protesting site at a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya mosque near the presidential palace in Cairo, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president held rival sit-ins in separate parts of Cairo Saturday on the eve of opposition-led mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from power. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi wave his posters and national flags as they fill a public square outside of the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president are holding rival sit-ins on the eve of what are expected to be massive opposition-led protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi's ouster. The demonstrations early Saturday follow days of deadly clashes in a string of cities across the country that left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi camp outside the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Morsi rallied Friday in Cairo, and both sides fought each other in the second-largest city of Alexandria, where a few people were killed ? including an American ? and tens were injured while at least five offices of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood were torched, officials said. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi shout anti-opposition slogans at a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Saturday, June 29, 2013. Arabic on the headband reads, "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled Islamist president are holding rival sit-ins on the eve of what are expected to be massive opposition-led protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi's ouster. The demonstrations early Saturday follow days of deadly clashes in a string of cities across the country that left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A poster of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi with Arabic that reads, "The end of the reign of terror," hangs on the side of the street next to the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, June 29, 2013. As the streets once again fill with protesters eager to oust the president and Islamists determined to keep him in power, Egyptians are preparing for the worst: days or weeks of urban chaos that could turn a loved one into a victim. Households already beset by power cuts, fuel shortages and rising prices are stocking up on goods in case the demonstrations drag on. Businesses near protest sites are closing until crowds subside. Fences, barricades and walls are going up near homes and key buildings. And local communities are organizing citizen patrols in case security breaks down. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

(AP) ? More than 22 million Egyptians have signed a petition calling for the country's Islamist president to step down, the youth group leading the signature campaign said Saturday on the eve of mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from office.

The planned demonstrations, which could plunge Egypt once again into a dangerous round of civil unrest, reflect the growing polarization of the nation since Morsi took power, with the president and his Islamist allies in one camp and seculars, liberals, moderate Muslims and Christians on the other.

Already, clashes across a string of cities north of Cairo over the past week have left at least seven people dead, including an American, and hundreds injured, and there are deep-rooted fears in the country that Sunday's protests will turn violent and quickly spiral out of control.

On Saturday, an Associated Press reporter saw Morsi supporters at a Cairo sit-in doing military-style fitness drills, with some wearing homemade body armor and construction helmets and carrying sticks. They said they had no intention of attacking opposition protesters, and would only act in self-defense or to protect the presidential palace.

The Tamarod, or Rebel, youth movement says its petition is evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction with Morsi's administration, and has used the signature drive as the focal point of its call for millions of people to take to the streets Sunday to demand the president's ouster.

Mahmoud Badr, a Tamarod leader, told reporters Saturday a total of 22,134,460 Egyptians have signed the petition. He did not say whether there had been an independent audit of the signatures.

Morsi's supporters, who have long doubted the validity and authenticity of the collected signatures, expressed skepticism about the final count.

"How do we trust the petitions?" asked Brotherhood member Ahmed Seif Islam Hassan al-Banna. "Who guarantees that those who signed were not paid to sign?"

If authenticated, the collection of so many signatures would deal a symbolic blow to Morsi's mandate and put in stark terms the popular frustrations with an administration that critics say has failed to effectively deal with the country's pressing problems, including tenuous security, inflation, power cuts and high unemployment.

Tamarod, which began its campaign with the goal of collecting more signatures than the 13 million votes Morsi garnered in his 2012 election win, announced its final tally the day before protests that organizers vow will bring millions into the streets to push the president from power.

Morsi, meanwhile, sought to project a business-as-usual image Saturday, meeting with the defense and interior ministers to review preparations to protect the protesters and vital state facilities during Sunday's demonstrations.

Egypt has been roiled by political unrest in the two years since the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak, but the round of protests set to kick off Sunday promises to be the largest and holds the potential to be the bloodiest yet.

In the past week alone, at least seven people have been killed in clashes between the president's supporters and opponents in cities in the Nile Delta, while on Friday protesters ransacked and torched as least five Brotherhood offices across the country.

Adding to the tension, eight lawmakers from the country's interim legislature announced their resignation Saturday to protest Morsi's policies. The 270-seat chamber was elected early last year by less than 10 percent of Egypt's eligible voters, and is dominated by Islamists who support Morsi.

With a sense of doom hanging over the country, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi last Sunday gave the president and his opponents a week to reach a compromise and warned that the military would intervene to prevent the nation from entering a "dark tunnel." It was the strongest expression of the military's discontent with conditions in the nation since Morsi took office a year ago.

In South Africa, President Barack Obama said the U.S. supports freedom of speech in Egypt and the right of protesters to peacefully assemble, and called on called on both sides in Egypt to avoid violence.

"We would urge all parties to make sure they're not engaging in violence (and) police and military are showing appropriate restraint," he said.

The opposition, feeling that Morsi may be on the ropes and frustrated by past offers of dialogue that proved to be mostly symbolic, has shown no inclination to compromise, and Morsi offered no concessions to his opponents when he addressed the nation for 2 ? hours on Wednesday.

The focus of Sunday's protests is Morsi's Ittihadiya palace in Cairo. As a precaution, the president and his family are reported to have moved into the Cairo headquarters of the Republican Guard, the branch of the army tasked with protecting the president and presidential palaces.

As the country waits to see what transpires Sunday, thousands of supporters and opponents of the embattled president held rival sit-ins Saturday in separate parts of the capital.

With expectations of violence running high, the military has dispatched troops backed by armored personnel carriers to reinforce military bases on the outskirts of cities expected to be flashpoints.

In Cairo, the additional forces were deployed to military facilities in the suburbs and outlying districts. Army troops are also moving to reinforce police guarding the city's prisons to prevent a repeat of the nearly half dozen jail breaks during the chaos of the 2011 uprising.

The opposition is demanding Morsi's ouster, saying he has lost his legitimacy through a series of missteps and authoritarian policies. They say early presidential elections should be held within six months of his ouster.

Hard-line Islamists loyal to Morsi have repeatedly vowed to "smash" the protesters, arguing that they were a front for loyalists of Hosni Mubarak, the autocrat ousted in Egypt's 2011 revolt, determined to undermine Morsi's rule. They also say that Morsi is a freely elected president who must serve out his four-year term before he can be replaced in an election.

Many Egyptians fear the new round of unrest could trigger a collapse in law and order similar to the one that occurred during the 2011 revolt. Already, residents in some of the residential compounds and neighborhoods to the west of the city are reporting gunmen showing up to demand protection money or risk being robbed.

The police, who have yet to fully take back the streets after they disappeared in unclear circumstances in 2011, have stepped up patrols on the outskirts of the city, ostensibly to prevent weapons and ammunition from coming into the city to be used in the case of an outbreak of violence. The army is advertising hotlines for civilians to call if they run into trouble.

In the latest reminder of the near lawlessness that has plagued the Sinai Peninsula bordering Gaza and Israel since the 2011 revolt, a senior security official officer was assassinated Saturday in the coastal city of el-Arish as he arrived home from work. Police Brig. Mohammed Tolbah was instantly killed and his driver seriously injured.

___

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-29-Egypt/id-69131944bb0f4e3b950703013b6d5a1b

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শনিবার, ২৯ জুন, ২০১৩

Gay marriage: In states, a hodgepodge lies ahead

Alexander Hanna, left, and Yon Hudson are denied a marriage license by Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar at the County Clerk's Office, in Santa Fe, Thursday June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Albuquerque Journal, Eddie Moore)

Alexander Hanna, left, and Yon Hudson are denied a marriage license by Santa Fe County Clerk Geraldine Salazar at the County Clerk's Office, in Santa Fe, Thursday June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Albuquerque Journal, Eddie Moore)

Jayne Rowse, left, and her partner April Deboer, both of Hazel Park, Mich., hold hands during a news conference Wednesday, June 26, 2013 in Detroit. Rowse and Deboer filed a lawsuit to try to overturn restrictions on adoption by same-sex partners in Michigan. Michigan's ban on gay marriage remains intact after a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, though opponents may have picked up new arguments to challenge the state's voter-approved law, experts said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Detroit News, Todd McInturf) DETROIT FREE PRESS OUT; HUFFINGTON POST OUT

Community members and local leaders rallied in Terry Schrunk Plaza in Portland Oregon to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision concerning the Defense of Marriage Act. (AP Photo/The Oregonian, Allison Milligan)

Christian Olivera, of Newark, N.J., shouts toward the Statehouse Thursday, June 27, 2013, in Trenton, N.J., as he and other advocates for gay marriage in New Jersey gather, saying they'll press their case in the Legislature and the courts after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidates parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Gov. Chris Christie said he would again veto a same-sex marriage bill if it reaches his desk, and that Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a ban on federal benefits for same-sex married couples will have no effect on New Jersey, one of a handful of states that allows civil unions. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Across the country, this week's landmark Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage have energized activists and politicians on both sides of the debate. Efforts to impose bans ? and to repeal them ? have taken on new intensity, as have lawsuits by gays demanding the right to marry.

The high court, in two 5-4 decisions Wednesday, opened the way for California to become the 13th state to legalize gay marriage, and it directed the federal government to recognize legally married same-sex couples.

But the rulings, while hailed by gay-rights activists, did not declare a nationwide right for gays to marry. Instead, they set the stage for state-by-state battles over one of America's most contentious social issues. Already, some of those battles are heating up.

In Pennsylvania, the only Northeast state that doesn't legally recognize same-sex couples, gay state Rep. Brian Sims, a Philadelphia Democrat, says he will introduce a bill to allow same-sex marriages. The bill may flounder in the GOP-led Legislature, but the issue is likely to be volatile in next year's gubernatorial race, pitting GOP Gov. Tom Corbett, an opponent of gay marriage, against any of three Democrats who favor it.

In Arizona, gay-rights supporters have begun circulating petitions aimed at repealing the state's 2008 ban on same-sex marriage by way of a ballot measure next year. With California's ban in the process of being quashed, Arizona is now among 29 states with constitutional amendments that limit marriage to one-man, one-woman unions.

Gay-rights activists and Democratic politicians in several other states also hope to repeal the bans in their states ? in Oregon, Ohio and Arkansas with possible ballot measures next year, and in Nevada and Michigan with referendums in 2016.

Ohio activist Ian James of FreedomOhio said his group's resolve to collect signatures "has been doubled" as a result of the Supreme Court decisions. And Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who favors repealing his state's ban, said the court action "underscores the urgency of extending the freedom to marry to all our citizens."

"Oregon has not yet lived up to the ideal of equal rights for all," Kitzhaber said.

In Indiana and West Virginia, some Republican politicians want to move in the other direction, joining the ranks of states with constitutional bans. Both states have laws that bar gays from marrying, but constitutional amendments are viewed as more durable measures that resist being overturned by litigation.

The leaders of Indiana's Republican-controlled Legislature had deferred action on an amendment during this year's session, opting to wait for the Supreme Court rulings. Now, with the backing of GOP Gov. Mike Pence, they say the Legislature will consider the ban in the session starting in January, possibly putting the question to voters later next year.

Micah Clark, executive director of the conservative American Family Association of Indiana, was pleased by that prospect.

"The future of marriage matters," he said. "And it belongs in the hands of Hoosier voters, not the courts, not Hollywood, and not the activists seeking to change it from what it is and always has been."

West Virginia, like Indiana, has a state law prohibiting gay marriages. Until now, though, it has not joined the parade of states taking a further step with a constitutional amendment. After the Supreme Court rulings, the leader of the large Republican minority in the House of Delegates suggested there is now an urgent need for an amendment,

"We don't know when someone might file a lawsuit or have some other issue come up where a judge can review that," said Tim Armstead. "We need to go to the next step."

Democratic Delegate Stephen Skinner, West Virginia's first openly gay lawmaker, disagreed. "There's really not much reason for a constitutional amendment, except to promote discrimination and promote homophobia," he said.

National gay-rights leaders expect that lawsuits seeking to expand gay marriage rights will eventually bring the issue back to the Supreme Court in a quest for a ruling that would establish a 50-state policy.

Lawsuits already are pending in a number of states. Some of those involved were heartened by the past week's rulings.

"What this does is establish very, very powerful precedents that we will be able to use in our case," said Mark Lawrence of Restore Our Humanity, which is backing a legal challenge by three same-sex couples to a ban approved by Utah voters in 2004.

Michigan's constitutional ban, also approved in 2004, is the target of a pending lawsuit by Detroit-area nurses April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse seeking a right to jointly adopt each other's children. The federal judge hearing the case had been waiting for the Supreme Court before issuing a judgment.

In New Mexico, two gay men from Santa Fe asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to decide whether same-sex marriage is legal. The lawsuit contends that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the state constitution, including provisions prohibiting gender-based discrimination and guaranteeing equal protection under the law.

New Mexico is one of only five states ? along with West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Indiana ? that has neither extended legal recognition to gay couples nor enacted a ban-gay-marriage constitutional amendment. There also is litigation in three states offering civil unions to gay couples, providing the rights and responsibilities of marriage but not extending that title.

In New Jersey, one lawsuit contends that civil unions do not fulfill a state Supreme Court mandate from 2006 that gay couples receive equal treatment to married heterosexual couples. The plaintiffs say they will soon file a motion arguing that, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, the only thing that is keeping the couples from equal treatment is the state law.

New Jersey's Democratic-majority Legislature passed a bill last year to legalize gay marriage, but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Chris Christie. He says the matter should be decided in a referendum.

"There is no longer any excuse to delay," said Troy Stevenson of the gay-rights group Garden State Equality. "It is as immoral as it is impractical to force any New Jersey family to be stripped of critical economic and legal protections every time they cross the Hudson or Delaware Rivers."

Hawaii's civil union law, adopted in 2011, is being challenged in federal court by two women who want to marry rather than enter into a civil union. Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who supports a right to same-sex marriage, says the Supreme Court ruling on federal benefits for same-sex couples bolsters his argument.

Illinois also allowed civil unions in 2011, but efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in the recently ended legislative session fell short. The sponsor of the measure, Democratic Rep. Greg Harris, said the Supreme Court rulings should bolster efforts to revive the bill in the fall session.

Meanwhile, gay-rights lawyers are pressing ahead with a lawsuit on behalf of more than two dozen same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses in Cook County. The suit also challenges an Illinois law that defines marriage as between a man and woman.

Gay-rights activists in some conservative states say there is no near-term prospect for softening their states' gay-marriage bans, and they're looking toward a more incremental approach.

In states such as Georgia, Idaho and Louisiana, these efforts include lobbying for local and statewide anti-discrimination laws that would extend protections to gays and lesbians.

In Wisconsin, a state that has tilted Democratic in national elections, Republicans now hold power at the Statehouse, and there's little discussion by gay-rights supporters of mounting an effort to repeal the gay-marriage ban approved by voters in 2006.

Instead, gay-rights activists there are trying to defeat a conservative group's lawsuit challenging a 2009 domestic partnership law that ended some legal rights to same-sex couples.

Wyoming has no constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but proposals to permit civil unions and to ban discrimination against gays died in the latest legislative session.

State Rep. Cathy Connolly, the openly lesbian Democrat who sponsored those bills, says Wyoming's strong libertarian streak might be conducive to a legalization of same-sex marriage at some point in the future.

___

Cristina Silva in Phoenix, Tom LoBianco in Indianapolis, Nigel Duara in Portland, Ore., Matt Moore in Philadelphia, Larry Messina in Charleston, W.Va., and other AP reporters nationwide contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-28-Gay%20Marriage-State%20Battlegrounds/id-e5960e656cdc4977bc85b0bee3d034d6

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IOC meets with success in co-processing non-edible vegetable oil in its refinery

IOC meets with success in co-processing non-edible vegetable oil in its refinery

The Research & Development Center of the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has good reasons to cheer about. For the first time in India, and possibly the first in the world, Jatropha oil has been successfully used for co-processing in a petroleum refinery. Based on a press statement, 'IOC has successfully developed and commercialised a technology to co-process non-edible vegetable oil in the existing Diesel Hydrotreating (DHDT) units of a petroleum refinery to make bio-diesel'.

The company termed this as a "major technological breakthrough that can be a game changer for advancing use of bio-diesel in the country and ensuring ready acceptance of the fuel by the automobile industry," reported The Hindu.

Highlights on this achievement are as follows :

- During the development of this process technology, IOC also develped a process for de-metallisation and de-gumming of vegetable oils.?

- During the trial, the diesel cetane number improved by 2 units, sulphur content reduced and the inlet temperature of the reactor could also be reduced by 100 degrees Celsius with resultant energy savings.?
- Conventionally, bio diesel is produced by the trans-esterification process which requires separate plant to be set up. Bio diesel thus produced by the trans-esterification process has inferior properties in terms of oxidation stability, lower energy content and results in more deposits in the engine due to which it is not very well accepted by the automobile industry. However, the novel innovative co-processing technology developed by IOC overcomes these disadvantages and produces bio-diesel with higher Cetane number, good oxidation stability and lower density - based on a press release. Let's hope farmers in India do benefit out of the above for improving their earning capability.
'; } google_adnum = google_adnum + google_ads.length; document.write(u); return; } google_ad_client = 'ca-pub-9372192619832074';google_ad_output = 'js';google_ad_type = 'text';google_feedback = 'on';google_language = 'en';google_encoding = 'utf8'; google_max_num_ads = '4'; google_ad_channel='9376826742';

Source: http://www.merinews.com/article/ioc-meets-with-success-in-co-processing-non-edible-vegetable-oil-in-its-refinery/15887358.shtml

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Huawei MediaPad 7 Youth tablet reaches the FCC

Huawei MediaPad 7 Youth reaches the FCC

Huawei must know that not everyone is keen to make phone calls on a tablet -- that would explain why an unannounced WiFi-only slate, the MediaPad 7 Youth, has appeared at the FCC. The filing doesn't reveal much by itself, although it shows that the Youth isn't just a rehash of the MediaPad 7 Lite or other recent models. Besides the different antenna window layout, there's no camera on the back; this is clearly a budget machine. We're not expecting miracles from the Youth's hardware, then, but those curious about Huawei's next low-cost tablet can get an early look at the source link.

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Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/28/huawei-mediapad-7-youth-tablet-reaches-the-fcc/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Startup Plans Constellation of Tiny Monitoring Satellites

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128838/Startup_Plans_Constellation_of_Tiny_Monitoring_Satellites

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শুক্রবার, ২৮ জুন, ২০১৩

Kickstarter Allowing Canada-Based Projects Beginning This Summer

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 10.58.46 AMKickstarter just announced via its Twitter account that it will be opening up its crowdfunding platform for Canada-based projects as of "later this summer." Thus far, that's as specific as the company is getting, but anyone interested in finding out more can sign up at Kickstarter's Canada launch page with their email and project category of interest to get an alert when things go live.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LL94SxO-QZk/

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Obama visits slave site of disputed importance

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (AP) ? Soon after being released from his 27-year incarceration in South Africa, apartheid icon Nelson Mandela made a pilgrimage to this small island off the Senegalese coast.

He came to pay homage to a salmon-colored house which locals claim was used to hold slaves before herding them onto ships bound for America. When the curator showed him a hole underneath the staircase used to punish disobedient slaves, who were left to die in the crawlspace, Mandela himself climbed in.

He re-emerged, his face wet with tears, says Eloi Coly, the museum's chief conservator, who recalled the impact the experience had on Mandela, just hours before showing the building to President Barack Obama, who visited the structure on Thursday. For Coly, Mandela's emotional response underscores the role that this building, known as the House of Slaves, has had on crystalizing the stain that slavery left on humanity.

The hole is one of the features Coly planned to show Obama. The other is the door facing the open water, the so-called Door of No Return through which the shackled men, women and children left Africa, inching across a plank to the hull of a waiting ship. Like with previous tour groups, the curator planned to ask Obama to stand before the open door and contemplate the view, the slaves' last glimpse of Africa, he claims.

The problem though is that historians say the door faced the ocean so that the inhabitants of the house could chuck their garbage into the water, the preferred means of waste disposal in preindustrial Senegal. No slaves ever boarded a ship through it, they say, because no vessel could have sailed through the rocky shoal that surrounds that edge of the island.

And while the house may have housed slaves, they were likely those belonging to the family who lived there, rather than slaves intended for the trans-Atlantic passage, according to numerous publications as well as three historians of the slave trade interviewed by The Associated Press.

Even though historians have debunked the memorial, calling it a local invention, and despite reams of scholarly articles, treatises and books discussing its dubious historical role, the pink building has become the de facto emblem of slavery. It's the place where world leaders go to acknowledge this dark chapter and in addition to Obama, the museum has hosted former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush and Pope John Paul II. Its guestbook is bursting with the emotional messages from African-Americans who made their own pilgrimage here in an effort to make peace with their ancestors' roots.

"There are literally no historians who believe the Slave House is what they're claiming it to be, or that believe Goree was statistically significant in terms of the slave trade," says historian Ralph Austen, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who is the author of several articles on the issue. "The debate for us is how loudly should we denounce it?"

From 1501 to 1866, an estimated 12 million slaves from Africa were sent to North America, according to a database created by scholars using shipping records and plantation registers. Of these, only 33,000 came from Goree Island, an insignificant portion of the overall total, the database shows.

Yet the plaques which grace the stone walls of the Slave House speak of the "millions" of slaves that passed through its halls.

In the 1990s, Philip Curtin, an emeritus professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and the author of two dozen books on the Atlantic slave trade, became one of the first scholars to question the authenticity of the Slave House. In a discussion on an online forum for historians, he said he believed the "hoax" was perpetrated by the charismatic Joseph Ndiaye, who preceded Coly as the museum's curator, and who ushered generations of visitors through the house, recounting the alleged horrors perpetrated there with theatrical pomp. Ndiaye initially claimed that 20 million had passed through the house, upping it to 40 million by the time Curtin visited in 1992, four times the total figure of slaves exported from Africa overall.

"A lot of people have been taken in by the Goree scam," Curtin wrote. "Though Goree is a picturesque place, it was marginal to the slave trade."

The debate over the house's place in history has become emotionally charged and politically treacherous in Senegal, due to the high-profile role the museum plays in attracting tourists to the island, including celebrity visitors like Obama.

On the day before the president's planned tour, Coly, who was Ndiaye's assistant up until the curator's death in 2009, fielded calls from journalists, proudly retelling the anecdote regarding Mandela's emotional visit. In a glassed-in cabinet, he keeps the yellowing picture of Mandela, his expression drawn, even dark, after visiting the house. Next to it are portraits of Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, their faces pained as they are shown part of the exhibit. And there are framed certificates from UNESCO, which to the dismay of historians added Goree to its list of World Heritage Sites, claiming on its website that "from the 15th to the 19th century, it was the largest slave-trading center on the African coast." Austen and other historians say the listing was political, pointing out that Goree was added in the 1970s, when UNESCO was led by Amadou Mahtar Mbow, a Senegalese national.

Coly, the curator, reacted violently to the suggestion that the house's history may be trumped up, saying those who question it are akin to Holocaust deniers. "There are people who deny that there were concentration camps," he said. "What it shows is a lack of respect for blacks, for the memory of our people."

Ana Lucia Araujo, a history professor at Howard University whose work deals with the history and memory of the Atlantic slave trade, said that historians have never been able to confirm the claims made by the museum's curator. The very real need for a place where slavery can be remembered, she says, has overridden the objections of scholars.

"We have a number of tourists from the United States that go to Goree, because we have no place here to commemorate the Atlantic slave trade," she said. "But that does not make the site a real historical site. It's a site of memory. But it's not a real place from where real people left in the numbers they say."

The irony is that there are real places throughout Africa's Atlantic Coast from where tens of thousands, even millions, of slaves left. Unlike postcard-ready Goree Island, which still has its aging 17th and 18th century architecture, there isn't much to see at the slave depots that played a critical role. "One of them is the port of Luanda in Angola, where the real majority of Africans left ? nobody goes there," she said. "If there was an Auschwitz in Africa it was not on Goree. It was in Luanda."

While much of the criticism has come from historians abroad, Senegal's scholars are among the critics, even though they have faced a harsh backlash at home. Among them is a quiet man who, until recently, ran a museum on the other end of the island, about a 15-minute walk from the Slave House.

Abdoulaye Camara, the former curator of the Goree Island Historical Museum, answers the question about the Slave House by asking visitors to head to Exhibition Room No. 1, adorned with historical maps of Goree Island. One of them is from 1775, just before the Slave House was built. "Look at this map and draw your own conclusion," he says.

The map shows that at the time, the edge of the island on which the Slave House was built was surrounded not just by a natural barrier of rocks, which appear as a scribbled band, but also by a rampart, which would have blocked all access for a ship trying to approach the Door of No Return.

"If you contest the Slave House, they start throwing rocks at you. It's not a question of negating our history. ... But we need to understand that this is a symbol. It's not based on fact," he said.

That point was likely lost on Obama, who arrived Thursday with his wife and daughter. He peered out of the Door of No Return. Alone for a brief moment inside the doorway, he stared out across the water, as the waves crashing on the very rocks that would have prevented a ship from docking could be heard.

When he spoke to reporters waiting for him outside, he said visiting the site was a "very powerful moment," which has allowed him to "fully appreciate the magnitude of the slave trade."

___

Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report from Goree Island, Senegal.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-visits-slave-disputed-importance-184652857.html

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Toronto to become a yuan trading hub? | FP Street ... - Financial Post

A plan is afoot to turn Canada?s largest city into the next yuan trading centre.

According to Chinese media reports, authorities from the Department of Finance, the Bank of Canada and several big Canadian banks recently met with representatives of? major Chinese banks to discuss ways to promote Toronto as the first North American hub for offshore yuan trading.

A story in Shanghai Daily says the gathering, held on Friday, included Canada?s big five banks, HSBC, Industrial Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China.

As it stands, the major centres outside Mainland China where the currency is traded include Hong Kong, Singapore, London and Taiwan, with Hong Kong holding the biggest market share.

With its large and growing Chinese community, Toronto has long had close business ties to the world?s most populous country, so such a move would likely strengthen that relationship.

Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/26/toronto-to-become-a-yuan-trading-hub/

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Republican Battles Over Medicaid Turn To God, Morality

  • Healthcare In America Is Already 'The Best In The World'

    One of the more positive sounding admonitions from health care reform opponents was that the United States had "the best health care in the world," so why would you mess with it? Well, it's true that if you want the experience the pinnacle of medical care, you come to the United States. And if you want the pinnacle of haute cuisine, you go to Per Se. If you want the pinnacle of commercial air travel, you get a first class seat on British Airways. Now, naturally, you wouldn't let just anyone mess with someone's tasting menu or state-of-the-art air-beds. But like anything that's "the best," the best health care in the world isn't for everybody. The costs are prohibitively high, the access is prohibitively exclusive, and the resources are prohibitively scarce. What do the people in America who "fly coach" in the health care system get? Well, at the time of the health care reform debate, they were participating in a system that was, by all objective measurements, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/us-health-care-expensive_n_624248.html">overpriced and underperforming</a> -- if you were lucky enough to be participating in it. As anyone who's fortunate enough to have employer based health care or unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing condition can tell you, health care for ordinary people already involved all of those things that we were told would be a feature of the Affordable Care Act -- long waits, limited choice, and rationing. When the <a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2010/Jun/Mirror-Mirror-Update.aspx">Commonwealth Fund rated health care systems by nation</a>, the top marks in the surveyed categories went to the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Ezra Klein examined the study, and <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/us_health-care_system_still_ba.html">observed</a>: "The issue isn't just that we don't have universal health care. Our delivery system underperforms, too. 'Even when access and equity measures are not considered, the U.S. ranks behind most of the other countries on most measures. With the inclusion of primary care physician survey data in the analysis, it is apparent that the U.S. is lagging in adoption of national policies that promote primary care, quality improvement, and information technology.'"

  • Death Panels

    The only thing that perhaps matched the vastness of the spread or the depth of the traction of the "death panel" lie was the predictability that such a lie would come to be told in the first place. After all, this was a Democratic president trying to sell a new health care reform plan with the intention of opening access and reducing cost to millions of Americans who had gone without for so long. What's the best way to counter it? Tell everyone that millions of Americans would have increased access ... <i>to Death!</i> The best account of how the "death panel" myth was born into this world and spread like garbage across the landscape has been penned by Brendan Nyhan, who in 2010 wrote "Why the "Death Panel" Myth Wouldn't Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate." <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/health-care-misinformation.pdf">You should go read the whole thing</a>. But to summarize, the lie began where many lies about health care reform begin -- with serial liar Betsy McCaughey, who in 1994 <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/andrew-sullivans-mccaughe_n_313157.html">polluted the pages of the New Republic</a> with a staggering pile of deception in an effort to scuttle President Bill Clinton's health care reform. As Nyhan documents, she re-emerged in 2009 when "she invented the false claim that the health care legislation in Congress would result in seniors being directed to 'end their life sooner.'" Nyhan: "McCaughey's statement was a reference to a provision in the Democratic health care bill that would have provided funding for an advanced care planning for Medicare recipients once every five years or more frequently if they become seriously ill. As independent fact-checkers showed (PolitiFact.com 2009b; FactCheck.org 2009a), her statement that these consultations would be mandatory was simply false--they would be entirely voluntary. Similarly, there is no evidence that Medicare patients would be pressured during these consultations to "do what's in society's best interest...and cut your life short." But the match that lit the death panel flame was not McCaughey, it was Sarah Palin, who repeated McCaughey's claims in a Facebook posting and invented the term "death panel." As Nyhan reports, Palin's claims were met with condemnation from independent observers and factcheckers, but the virality of the term "death panel" far outstripped its own debunking. To this day, the shorthand for this outrageous falsehood remains more firmly planted in the discourse than the truth. One thing worth pointing out is that Palin, in creating the term "death panel," <i>intended</i> to deceive people with it. In an interview with the <em>National Review</em>, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228636/rogue-record/rich-lowry">Palin admitted</a>: "The term I used to describe the panel making these decisions should not be taken literally." Rather, it was "a lot like when President Reagan used to refer to the Soviet Union as the 'evil empire.' He got his point across." Of course, while Reagan was exaggerating for effect, he wasn't trying to prey on the goodwill of those who were listening to him.

  • The Affordable Care Act Is A "Jobs-Killer"

    Naturally, the GOP greeted anything that the Obama White House did -- from regulating pollution to flossing after meals -- as something that would "kill jobs." The Affordable Care Act was no different. As you might recall, Republicans' first attempt at repeal came in the form of an inartfully named law called the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." But did the health reform plan threaten jobs? Not by any honest measure. <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/17/106950/is-health-care-law-really-a-job.html">Per McClatchy Newspapers</a>: <blockquote>"The claim has no justification," said Micah Weinberg, a senior research fellow at the centrist New America Foundation's Health Policy Program. Since the law contains dual mandates that most individuals must obtain health insurance coverage and most employers must offer it by 2014, "the effect on employment is probably zero or close to it," said Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at Harvard University.</blockquote> As McClatchy reported, the "job-killing" claim creatively used the "lie of omission" -- relying on "out of date" data or omitting "offsetting information that would weaken the argument." The Congressional Budget Office, playing it straight, deemed it essentially too premature to measure what the effect the bill would have on the labor market. At the time, Speaker John Boehner dismissed the CBO, saying, "CBO is entitled to their opinion." Perhaps, but lately, job growth in the health care industry has <a href="https://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2012/03/07/Jobs-report-preview" target="_hplink">bucked the economic downturn and health care has remained a robust sector of employment</a>. And it stands to reason that enrolling another 30 million Americans into health insurance will increase the demand for health care services and products, which in turn should trigger the creation of more jobs. Is there a downside? Sure. More demand, and greater labor costs, could push health care prices upward even as other effects of health reform push them down. But it's more likely that repealing the bill will have a negative impact on jobs than retaining it.

  • The Affordable Care Act Would Add To The Deficit

    The only thing more important than painting the Affordable Care Act as a certain killer of jobs was to paint it as a certain murderer of America's fiscal future. Surely this big government program was going to push indebtedness to such a height that our servitude to our future Chinese overlords was a <i>fait accompli</i>. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/cbo-score-on-health-care_n_502543.html">As Ryan Grim reported in May of 2010</a>, the CBO disagreed: <blockquote>Comprehensive health care reform will cost the federal government $940 billion over a ten-year period, but will increase revenue and cut other costs by a greater amount, leading to a reduction of $138 billion in the federal deficit over the same period, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a Democratic source tells HuffPost. It will cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the second ten year period. The source said it also extends Medicare's solvency by at least nine years and reduces the rate of its growth by 1.4 percent, while closing the doughnut hole for seniors, meaning there will no longer be a gap in coverage of medication.</blockquote> Recently, the CBO updated its ten-year estimate by dropping off the first two years of the law (where there was little to no implementation) and adding two years at the back end (during which time there would be full implementation). As you might imagine, replacing two years of low numbers with two years of higher numbers increased the ten-year estimate. But opponents of the bill immediately freaked out and declared the costs to have skyrocketed. <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/obamacare-haters-angered-by-facts.html">As Jonathan Chait reported</a>: <blockquote>The outcry was so widespread that the CBO took the unusual step of releasing a second update to explain to outraged conservatives that they were completely misreading the whole thing: "Some of the commentary on those reports has suggested that CBO and JCT have changed their estimates of the effects of the ACA to a significant degree. That's not our perspective. ... Although the latest projections extend the original ones by three years (corresponding to the shift in the regular ten-year projection period since the ACA was first being developed), the projections for each given year have changed little, on net, since March 2010." That is CBO-speak for: "Go home. You people are all crazy."</blockquote> As Chait goes on to note, the CBO now projects that "the law would reduce the deficit by slightly more than it had originally forecast."

  • The Affordable Care Act $500 Billion Cut From Medicare

    Normally, if you tell Republicans that you're going to cut $500 billion from Medicare, they will respond by saying, "Hooray, but could we make it <i>$700 billion</i>?" But the moment they got it into their heads that the Affordable Care Act would make that cut from Medicare, suddenly everyone from the party of ending Medicare As We Know It, Forever got all hot with concern about what would happen to these longstanding recipients of government health care. In fairness, <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/a-final-weekend-of-whoppers/">as Factcheck pointed out</a>, the GOP opponents of Obama's plan were simply picking up a cudgel that had recently been wielded by the president himself: <blockquote>Whether these are "cuts" or much-needed "savings" depends on the political expedience of the moment, it seems. When Republican Sen. John McCain, then a presidential candidate, proposed similar reductions to pay for his health care plan, it was the Obama camp that attacked the Republican for cutting benefits.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/a-final-weekend-of-whoppers/">Nevertheless</a>! <blockquote>Whatever you want to call them, it's a $500 billion reduction in the growth of future spending over 10 years, not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or benefits. It's true that those who get their coverage through Medicare Advantage's private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) would see fewer add-on benefits; the bill aims to reduce the heftier payments made by the government to Medicare Advantage plans, compared with regular fee-for-service Medicare.</blockquote> The <i>New England Journal of Medicine</i> <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp1005588">concurred</a>: <blockquote>A phased elimination of the substantial overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans, which now enroll nearly 25% of Medicare beneficiaries, will produce an estimated $132 billion in savings over 10 years. [...] The ACA also produces nearly $200 billion in savings by assuming that providers can improve their productivity as firms in other industries have done. On the basis of this presumed improvement, the law reduces Medicare's annual "market basket" updates for most types of providers - a provision that has generated controversy.</blockquote> The law doesn't cut any customer benefits, just the amount that providers get paid. Hospitals and drug companies agreed to these cuts based on the calculation that more people with insurance meant more people consuming what they sell and, more importantly for the hospitals, fewer people getting treated and simply not paying for it.

  • The Affordable Care Act Provides Free Health Care For Undocumented Immigrants

    This lie was launched to prominence with the help of a false accuser, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who famously heckled President Barack Obama during an address to a Joint Session of Congress by yelling "You lie!" after the president had mentioned that undocumented immigrants would not be eligible for the credits for the bill's proposed health care exchanges. As Time's Michael Scherer pointed out, this was not much of a challenge for factcheckers: <blockquote>In the Senate Finance Committee's working framework for a health plan, which Obama's speech seemed most to mimic, there is the line, "No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits." Similarly, the major health-care-reform bill to pass out of committee in the House, H.R. 3200, contains Section 246, which is called "NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS."</blockquote> In fact, <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/why_immigrants_get_short_shrif.html">as Ezra Klein pointed out</a>, the Affordable Care Act "goes out of its way to exclude" undocumented immigrants: <blockquote>As the AP points out...there are about 7 million unauthorized immigrants who will be prohibited from buying insurance on the newly created exchanges, even if they pay out of their own pocket. And the exclusion of this group from health reform -- along with other restrictions that affect fully legal immigrants as well -- could create a massive coverage gap that puts a strain on the rest of the health system as well.</blockquote> Klein goes on to add that "immigrants-rights advocates tried to prevent this scenario from happening," but they ended up losing to the politics of the day. The concession they won was a promise from the president that he would shepherd a comprehensive immigration reform package through the legislature. They lost that round, too.

  • Republicans, And Their Ideas, Were Left Out Of The Bill And The Process

    Were health care policies dear to Republicans left out of the health care reform bill? Totally! <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2009/10/29/171026/top-10-reasons-why-republicans-should-support-the-house-health-bill/">Unless we're counting the following</a>: --Deficit-neutral bill --Longterm cost reduction --Interstate competition that allows consumers to purchase insurance across state lines --Medical malpractice reform --High-risk pools --An extension of the time young people were allowed to remain on their parents' policies --No public money for abortion --Small business exemptions/tax credits --Job wellness programs --Delivery system reform In fact, the Democrats were eager to get GOP input and enthusiastic about including many of their desired components in the bill. Oh, and did we mention that the Affordable Care Act was modeled on a reform designed and implemented by a former Republican governor and presidential candidate, whose innovation was widely celebrated by the GOP while said former governor was running for president? And did we mention that the individual mandate that was used in Romneycare to ensure "no free riders" was originally dreamed up by the Heritage Foundation? And did we add that additional DNA of the Affordable Care Act was borrowed from the Senate GOP alternative to the Clinton plan in the 1990s and the <a href="http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/news/press-releases/2009/08/bipartisan-policy-center-releases-report-improving-health-care-quality-a" target="_hplink">2009 Bipartisan Policy Committee plan</a>, which was endorsed by Tom Daschle, Howard Baker, and Bob Dole? As for the process, you might recall that the White House very patiently waited for the bipartisan Gang Of Six to weigh in with its own solution, and openly courted one Republican gang member, Sen. Chuck Grassley, long after it was clear to every reporter inside the Beltway that Grassley was intentionally acting in bad faith. And perhaps you don't recall the bipartisan health care summit that was held in March of 2009? if so, don't feel bad about it -- RNC Chairman Michael Steele couldn't remember it either, <a href="http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201002250005">when he yelled at the president for not having one</a>.

  • The Demonization Of 'Deem And Pass'

    So, here's a fun little story about obscure parliamentary procedures. In May of 2010, as the health care reform michegas was steaming toward its endgame, it looked like the measure might fall. The Senate had passed a bill, but the House was stuck in a bit of a jam. It had no other choice but to take a vote on the Senate's bill, because if the House bill ended up in a conference committee to be reconciled with the Senate's, the whole resulting she-bang was assured of a filibuster, as the Democrats had, in the intervening period, lost their Senate supermajority. But the House had a problem. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/16/health-care-opponents-dem_n_501353.html">As I wrote at the time</a>: <blockquote>House members are averse to doing anything that looks like they approve of the various side-deals that were made in the Senate -- like the so-called "Cornhusker Kickback." The House intends to remove those unpopular features in budget reconciliation, but if they pursue budget reconciliation on a standard legislative timeline -- where they pass the Senate bill outright first and then go back to pass a reconciliation package of fixes -- they'd still appear to be endorsing the sketchy side deals, and then the GOP would jump up and down on their heads. Enter "deem and pass." Under this process, the House will simply skip to approving the reconciliation fixes, and "deem" the Senate bill to be passed. By doing it this way, the Democrats get the Senate bill passed while simultaneously coming out against the unpopular features of the same.</blockquote> "Deem and pass" is the aforementioned obscure parliamentary procedure. And here's the thing about obscure parliamentary procedures -- everyone <i>loves</i> them when their side is doing them, but when they're being <i>done to you</i>, then they are basically evil schemes from the blasted plains of Hell. So if you're guessing that the Republicans declared the Democrats' use of "deem and pass" -- which also carried the moniker "the Slaughter Rule," after Rep. Louise Slaughter, who proposed its use in this instance -- to be a monstrous and unprecedented abuse of power, then give yourself a prize! And give yourself a bonus if you guessed that in reality, the GOP had used "deem and pass" <i>lots of times</i>. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/16/house-has-long-history-of_n_500623.html">As Ryan Grim reported</a>, "deeming resolutions" had been in use dating back to 1933, and in 2005 and 2006, Republicans employed them 36 times. Other Republicans complained that Slaughter was supporting a tactic that she once vigorously opposed. <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_arms_race_of_rules.html">That's true</a>! She fought the "deem and pass" during the Bush administration and lost. Which is precisely when she learned how effective it could be!

  • The Affordable Care Act Would Create A Mad Army of IRS Agents

    Lots of people wouldn't mind having better access to more affordable health care. But what if it came with thousands of IRS agents, picking through your stool sample? That sounds pretty bad. It also sounds pretty implausible! But that was no impediment to multiple health care reform opponents making claims that the tax man was COMMINAGETCHA! In this case, the individual mandate -- which requires people to purchase insurance or incur a tax penalty -- provided the fertile soil for this deception to spread. A March 2010 floor speech from a panicked Sen. John Ensign was typical of the genre: <blockquote>My amendment goes to the heart of one of the problems with this bill. There is an individual mandate that puts fines on people that can also attach civil penalties. And 16,500 new IRS agents are going to be required to be hired because of the health care reform bill.</blockquote> March of 2010 was a pretty great time for this particular lie. In one five day period, Ensign was joined by Reps. Paul Ryan ("There is an individual mandate. It mandates individuals purchase government-approved health insurance or face a fine to be collected by the IRS which will need $10 billion additional and 16,500 new IRS agents to police and enforce this mandate."), Pete Sessions ("16,000 new IRS agents will be hired simply to make sure that this health care bill is enforced.") and Cliff Stearns ("There is $10 billion to hire about 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce the individual mandate on every American"). All wrong! <a href="http://factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/">Per Factcheck</a>: <blockquote>This wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new IRS employees might be required to administer the new law. That devolved quickly into a claim, made by some Republican lawmakers, that 16,500 IRS "agents" would be required. Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. None of those claims is true. The IRS' main job under the new law isn't to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them -- starting this year -- which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer's contribution toward their workers' health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies -- in the form of refundable tax credits -- to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance. The law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee March 25 that the IRS won't be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance.</blockquote> As Factcheck goes on to note, <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr3590enr/pdf/BILLS-111hr3590enr.pdf">on page 131 of the bill that was passed</a>, the IRS is explicitly prohibited from "from using the liens and levies commonly used to collect money owed by delinquent taxpayers, and rules out any criminal penalties for individuals who refuse to pay the tax or those who don't obtain coverage."

  • Affordable Care Act Bill Is Way Too Long And Impossible To Read!

    Oh, Congresscritters, the poor dears! So many bills to read and so little time -- between raising campaign cash at lush fundraisers and receiving marching orders from powerful corporate interests -- to actually read them all. <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019629.php">And this Affordable Care Act was a real humdinger of a long bill</a>. And long bills are bad because length implies complication and complication requires study and study implies some form of "work." So the proper thing to do is to mulch the entire print run of the bill and use it to power the boiler that heats the "sex dungeon" in the Longworth Office Building, the end! Actually, reading the bill is not that hard, despite the complaints. As the folks at <a href="http://computationallegalstudies.com/2009/11/08/facts-about-the-length-of-h-r-3962/">Computational Legal Studies were able to divine</a>: <blockquote>Those versed in the typesetting practices of the United States Congress know that the printed version of a bill contains a significant amount of whitespace including non-trivial space between lines, large headers and margins, an embedded table of contents, and large font. For example, consider page 12 of the printed version of H.R. 3962. This page contains fewer than 150 substantive words. We believe a simple page count vastly overstates the actual length of bill. Rather than use page counts, we counted the number of words contained in the bill and compared these counts to the number of words in the existing United States Code. In addition, we consider the number of text blocks in the bill -- where a text block is a unit of text under a section, subsection, clause, or sub-clause.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/09/house-health-care-bill-ac_n_350810.html">As HuffPost noted in March of 2010</a>, "the total number of words in the House Health Reform Bill are 363,086," and when you throw out the words in the titles and tables of contents and whatnot, leaving only words that "impact substantive law," the word count drops to 234,812. "Harry Potter And the Order Of The Phoenix," a popular book read by small children, is 257,000 words long. (Although in fairness to Congress, the Affordable Care Act contains very few exciting accounts of Quidditch matches.)

  • The 2012ers Join The Fun

    We couldn't have a list of Affordable Care Act distortions without noting the ways some of your 2012ers have added to the canon. Herman Cain said that if the ACA had been implemented, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/politics-elections/177511-video-cain-if-obamacare-had-been-implemented-already-id-be-dead-">he'd be dead</a>. Not likely! The new law expands coverage so that uninsured individuals who face what Cain faced (cancer) have a better chance of getting coverage, and it restricts insurers from tossing cancer patients off the rolls based on their "pre-existing condition." But more to the point, Cain would have always been the wealthy guy who could afford to choose his doctor and pick the care he wanted. The Affordable Care Act doesn't prohibit wealthy people from spending money. Rick Santorum says that his daughter, who is diagnosed with a genetic disorder called trisomy 18 and who required special needs care, <a href="http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/04/25/santorum-more-disabled-people-will-be-denied-care-under-obamacare/">would be "denied care" under the Affordable Care Act</a>. Nope! Again, the law restricts insurers from throwing people with pre-existing conditions off their rolls. And for individuals under 19, that went into effect in September of 2010. Michele Bachmann believes that the Affordable Care Act would open "sex clinics" in public schools. This is Michele Bachmann we're talking about. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/bachmann-sex-clinics-will_n_306292.html">Do you even need to ask</a>? And finally, Mitt Romney has said, as recently as March 5, that he never intended his CommonwealthCare reform to serve as a "model for the nation." "Very early on," he insisted, "we were asked -- is what you've done in Massachusetts something you would have the entire government do, the federal government do? I said no, from the very beginning." Unless "very early on" and "from the very beginning" mean something different from the conventional definition of those phrases, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/05/438044/romney-mandate-model-video/">Romney should augment his daily pharmaceutical intake with some memory-enhancing gingko biloba</a>.

  • So Many More To Choose From!

    Obviously, we did what we could to include as many of these lies and distortions as possible, but there's no way to include them all. If you're a completist, however, be sure to check out the <a href="http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-03-14/fact-or-fiction-obamacare%E2%80%99s-1-dollar-abortions/">Impossible Tale Of The One-Dollar Abortion</a>, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/09/AR2011020905682.html">Story of the State-Based Inflexibility That Wasn't</a>, <a href="http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101210006">The Curious Case of the Politically Connected Waivers</a> and <a href="http://www.minnpost.com/dc-dispatches/2011/03/michele-bachmanns-health-care-cover-charges-hard-fathom">Nancy Drew And The Hidden $105 Billion Expenditure</a>.

  • Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/republicans-medicaid_n_3500515.html

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    বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ জুন, ২০১৩

    A look inside children's minds

    June 27, 2013 ? When young children gaze intently at something or furrow their brows in concentration, you know their minds are busily at work. But you're never entirely sure what they're thinking.

    Now you can get an inside look. Psychologists led by the University of Iowa for the first time have peered inside the brain with optical neuroimaging to quantify how much 3- and 4-year-old children are grasping when they survey what's around them and to learn what areas of the brain are in play. The study looks at "visual working memory," a core cognitive function in which we stitch together what we see at any given point in time to help focus attention. In a series of object-matching tests, the researchers found that 3-year-olds can hold a maximum of 1.3 objects in visual working memory, while 4-year-olds reach capacity at 1.8 objects. By comparison, adults max out at 3 to 4 objects, according to prior studies.

    "This is literally the first look into a 3 and 4-year-old's brain in action in this particular working memory task," says John Spencer, psychology professor at the UI and corresponding author of the paper, which appears in the journal NeuroImage.

    The research is important, because visual working memory performance has been linked to a variety of childhood disorders, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, developmental coordination disorder as well as affecting children born prematurely. The goal is to use the new brain imaging technique to detect these disorders before they manifest themselves in children's behavior later on.

    "At a young age, children may behave the same," notes Spencer, who's also affiliated with the Delta Center and whose department is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, "but if you can distinguish these problems in the brain, then it's possible to intervene early and get children on a more standard trajectory."

    Plenty of research has gone into better understanding visual working memory in children and adults. Those prior studies divined neural networks in action using function magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). That worked great for adults, but not so much with children,? especially young ones, whose jerky movements threw the machine's readings off kilter. So, Spencer and his team turned to functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which has been around since the 1960s but has never been used to look at working memory in children as young as three years of age.

    "It's not a scary environment," says Spencer of the fNIRS. "No tube, no loud noises. You just have to wear a cap."

    Like fMRI, fNIRS records neural activity by measuring the difference in oxygenated blood concentrations anywhere in the brain. You've likely seen similar technology when a nurse puts your finger in a clip to check your circulation. In the brain, when a region is activated, neurons fire like mad, gobbling up oxygen provided in the blood. Those neurons need another shipment of oxygen-rich blood to arrive to keep going. The fNIRS measures the contrast between oxygen-rich and oxygen-deprived blood to gauge which area of the brain is going full tilt at a point in time.

    The researchers outfitted the youngsters with colorful, comfortable ski hats in which fiber optic wires had been woven. The children played a computer game in which they were shown a card with one to three objects of different shapes for two seconds. After a pause of a second, the children were shown a card with either the same or different shapes. They responded whether they had seen a match.

    The tests revealed novel insights. First, neural activity in the right frontal cortex was an important barometer of higher visual working memory capacity in both age groups. This could help clinicians evaluate children's visual working memory at a younger age than before, and work with those whose capacity falls below the norm, the researchers say.

    Secondly, 4-year olds showed a greater use than 3-year olds of the parietal cortex, located in both hemispheres below the crown of the head and which is believed to guide spatial attention.

    "This suggests that improvements in performance are accompanied by increases in the neural response," adds Aaron Buss, a UI graduate student in psychology and the first author on the paper. "Further work will be needed to explain exactly how the neural response increases -- either through changes in local tuning, or through changes in long range connectivity, or some combination."

    Contributing authors include David Boas from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Nicholas Fox, research assistant at the UI.

    The National Institutes of Health (grant number: P41 14075) funded the research through a grant to Boas. Other funding came from the UI's funding of the Delta Center's Child Imaging Laboratory in Development Science (CHILDS) facility. This is the first study from data collected from the CHILDS facility.

    Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/JmB5WkIa8P4/130627131837.htm

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    21-Year-Old Thiel Fellow Raises Three-Point-Eight Million Dollars For Figma

    Dylan Field FigmaChildren are our future, and VCs are giving them the cash to make it happen. Dylan Field, one of Peter Thiel's 20-Under-20 fellows, just raised $3.8 million for his startup Figma according to an SEC filing. Field declined to talk with me about Figma, but the Thiel Fellowship site says "Dylan is building a browser based photo editing tool."

    Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/CBkHnpbAbrg/

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    Voices: Experts & Analysts Weigh in on Obama's Climate Change Plan

    President Barack Obama announced a sweeping plan to tackle climate change today (June 25), outlining measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of clean energy technologies.

    The new strategy, which was revealed before an audience at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., identifies three key objectives: cut the amount of carbon pollution in the United States, prepare the country for the effects of a warming planet and lead global efforts to combat climate change.

    The measures "should send a strong signal to the world that America intends to take bold action to reduce carbon pollution," Obama said in his address. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]

    LiveScience asked several experts, analysts and industry members about their thoughts on the president's new climate change plan. Here are their responses and official statements:

    Christine McEntee, executive director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union

    "We are pleased to see that President Obama?s commitment to addressing the growing impacts of climate change is coming to fruition. When it comes to climate change, its causes and its impacts, the science is clear and the scientific community is in agreement. We cannot continue to delay action. The costs are too high.

    Addressing this critical challenge requires a global commitment from all stakeholders, including the business community, the energy industry, and national, regional, and local governments, and a willingness to embrace both mitigation and adaptation strategies. Difficult decisions will have to be made at all levels. However, we know that those decisions have the potential to open up new avenues for economic growth and development?both now and in the future.

    The scientific community, including AGU and its members, are committed to providing the scientific facts that will enable well informed decision-making for addressing the growing challenge of climate change. We look forward to working with all stakeholders to begin building a foundation for a more sustainable future."

    Bill Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity

    "We?re happy to see the president finally addressing climate change, but the plain truth is that what he?s proposing isn't big enough, and doesn?t move fast enough, to match the terrifying magnitude of the climate crisis. [Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats]

    The president, like all of us, needs to be able to look across the dinner table at his children and know he?s doing all he can to ensure they inherit a planet that?s healthy and livable. This plan is a small step in the right direction, but certainly begs for something bigger and bolder."

    Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member

    "The president is absolutely right to act now. We have a moral imperative to protect the environment for our children and future generations. We are at a crossroads. Every year we delay, the impacts will worsen and the costs will rise. But if we act now, we can lead the world in developing the clean energy technologies of the future."

    Lou Leonard, U.S. Vice President for Climate Change at the World Wildlife Fund

    "Recognizing that the U.S. needs to meet its international commitments and strongly support robust international action is also crucial as the world works to forge a new global climate pact by 2015.?

    What we need next is a strategy that identifies our destination and how fast we will move to get there.? We have the technology and the business case to meet science-based climate goals by the end of this decade, get off dirty fuels and move to 100 percent renewable energy today.?As President Obama fills in the details of his plan, the best science should serve as his compass if we are to find the way to safer shores." [Top 10 Emerging Environmental Technologies]

    Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association

    "This is a watershed moment in our nation?s history. Today, climate change is a real and growing threat to America and the rest of the world. It?s indisputable. Climate change threatens our economy, our future progress, our health and safety and even our way of life. Every day, the Earth suffers a little more from human neglect. We can?t wish this problem away, and pointing fingers won?t solve it, either.

    This is our moment in time. America?s solar energy industry stands ready to do our part to help fight climate change and usher in a new era of clean energy in America and around the world. Despite what some critics say, this isn?t a choice between clean energy and a robust economy. We can have both, and solar is showing how to make that possible."

    Mark Tercek, president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy

    "There are simply some effects of climate change that, sadly, we are already seeing today, such as sea level rise and more severe and erratic weather patterns that result in increased storms, heat waves, floods and droughts. We need to adapt to make our farms, forests and coasts more resilient. Whenever and wherever possible, we should invest in natural defenses such as the protection of natural floodplains, healthy forests and the restoration of coastal features like oyster reefs, marshes, sand dunes and wetlands that help reduce risks by acting as buffers to waves and higher tides. These natural defenses are often more durable and cost-effective than traditional infrastructure, and is a smart investment that will save government money in the long run.

    We recommend some important next steps in the challenge to deal with climate change, such as putting a price on carbon; conserving forests and keeping the carbon they store out of the atmosphere by reducing deforestation; investing in research and development that can lead to discoveries applicable in other countries like China and India; and coping with the impacts of climate change by promoting the use of natural defenses."

    Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

    "Science tells us that climate change is real and it is among the biggest global threats facing us today. It is not only an environmental issue ? it is a public health issue, an economic issue, a national security issue. I applaud President Obama?s decisive action on this critical challenge.

    Clean air is good for the economy, as we have seen in Maryland, where our strong clean air rules have resulted in job creation and economic growth. Investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency will not only result in cleaner, healthier communities, it will also create jobs and a more resilient economy. We know the results of inaction: deadlier storms, rising sea levels, and crippling droughts and wildfires, with taxpayers shouldering the skyrocketing costs of disaster recovery. As a nation, we must act now to avert the worst effects of climate change."

    David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society

    "It's high time for bold action on climate pollution. In fact, we're making up for lost time. The good news is this isn't a blue, red or purple state issue. It's a core value, particularly for young people, and it's a promise to our kids and their future. If we take advantage of this moment, it's a chance for America to come out of the climate closet and to lead the way America is supposed to do. Whether you're talking about birds, wildlife or people, this is the most significant threat we all face, and addressing it is the most important thing we can do."

    Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy

    "Targeting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants is a game changer that shows the United States is serious about addressing climate change. But it is important that EPA be flexible about how utilities can comply. Combined heat and power technologies that produce electricity along with useful heat are promising and should be encouraged by the regulations. Another hopeful direction is increased reliance on abundant natural gas. By recommending a flexible approach, EPA's rules can reduce carbon pollution cost effectively and produce jobs that revitalize America's manufacturing sector. In fact, states in the industrial Midwest stand to benefit greatly despite what critics are saying. President Obama's announcement should be seized upon by the states as an opportunity to increase economic growth, not stifle it."

    Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers

    "Fighting climate change is not only our moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren, it is an opportunity to harness our country?s unique strengths to create a stronger economy, healthier environment, and a better world. President Obama is taking action because Congress has failed to do so. We applaud President Obama for his leadership on climate change and for outlining a bold vision to put our country on a better path to the future.

    The president?s commitment to cut carbon pollution, help communities deal with the increasingly apparent impacts of climate change, and to position America as the global leader in clean energy technology will have a positive impact on America?s rivers and the people who depend upon them.? All of us at American Rivers look forward to working with the Obama Administration to implement the president?s vision outlined today."

    Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)

    "For too long, the barricade of special interests in Washington has stopped Congress from acting against carbon pollution. President Obama knows that we can?t wait to address this issue. We?re already paying the costs of climate change. Our oceans are warmer, more acidic, and rising; our seasons are shifting; and the dice are loaded for more frequent and more severe extreme weather events. I applaud President Obama for taking action today to protect the planet for future generations."

    Alden Meyer, strategy and policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists

    "President Obama has a little more than three years to cement a lasting legacy on climate change, and he'll need every last second. Americans are already dealing with worse droughts, wildfires and coastal floods, and the practical realities of climate change are forcing political leaders to make this a priority.

    The president is absolutely right to emphasize preparedness. Mayors and governors are becoming climate change first responders and they need all the help they can get. The federal government needs to more effectively deliver the scientific information and planning support that communities need to cope with a changing climate.

    Of course, we need to do more than help our communities prepare for climate change. We need to address its cause."

    Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/voices-experts-analysts-weigh-obamas-climate-change-plan-124418265.html

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