Rubio: Reports of immigration deal 'premature'

FILE - In this March 12, 2013 file photo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Republican Party?s search for a way back to presidential success in 2016 is drawing a striking array of personalities and policy options. It?s shaping up as a wide-open self-reassessment by the GOP. Some factions are trying to tug the party left or right. Others argue over pragmatism versus defiance. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this March 12, 2013 file photo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Republican Party?s search for a way back to presidential success in 2016 is drawing a striking array of personalities and policy options. It?s shaping up as a wide-open self-reassessment by the GOP. Some factions are trying to tug the party left or right. Others argue over pragmatism versus defiance. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., makes a point as he is joined by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Sen. Michael Bennett, D-CO, during a news conference after their tour of the Mexico border with the United States on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in Nogales, Ariz. A group of influential U.S. senators shaping and negotiating details of an immigration reform package vowed Wednesday to make the legislation public when Congress reconvenes next month. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Even with one of the largest hurdles to an immigration overhaul overcome, lawmakers on Sunday cautioned much work remains and that no final deal has been reached.

The AFL-CIO and the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce reached a deal late Friday that would allow tens of thousands of low-skill workers into the country to fill jobs in construction, restaurants and hotels. Yet despite the unusual agreement between the two powerful lobbying groups, lawmakers from both parties tried to curb expectations that the negotiations were finished and an immigration bill was heading for a vote.

"Reports that the bipartisan group of eight senators have agreed on a legislative proposal are premature," said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is among the lawmakers working on legislation.

Rubio, a Cuban-American who is weighing a presidential bid in 2016, is a leading figure inside his party. Lawmakers will be closely watching any deal for his approval and his skepticism about the process did little to encourage optimism.

"Eight senators from seven states have worked on this bill to serve as a starting point for discussion about fixing our broken immigration system," Rubio said. "But arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people's consideration, through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren't part of this initial drafting process."

Fellow Republican, Rep. Peter King of New York, was skeptical about any prospects for a deal.

"Eight guys in a room saying the border is going to be secure is not enough," said King, who is not working on the bipartisan proposal.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., helped negotiate the deal between AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue during a late-Friday phone call. Under the compromise, the government would create a new "W'' visa for low-skill workers who would earn wages paid to Americans or the prevailing wages for the industry they're working in, whichever is higher. The Labor Department would determine prevailing wage based on customary rates in specific localities, so that it would vary from city to city.

The detente between the nation's leading labor federation and the powerful business lobbying group still needs senators' approval, including a nod from Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican whose previous efforts came up short.

The measure also under serious discussion would secure the border, crack down on employers, improve legal immigration and create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already here.

Schumer acknowledged on Sunday that the lawmakers themselves had not settled on a final deal and said the senators have not yet finished writing a bill to address the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States.

"Business and labor have an agreement," Schumer said. "This is a major, major obstacle that is overcome."

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., also warned the negotiations were not complete despite the truce between labor and business.

"That doesn't mean we've crossed every 'i' or dotted every 't,' or vice versa," said Flake, another lawmaker intimately involved in the talks.

Big labor and big business were at a standoff over wages for low-skill workers and which industries would be included. Those disputes had led talks to break down a week ago, throwing into doubt whether Schumer, Flake and other senators crafting a comprehensive immigration bill would be able to complete their work as planned.

It's a major second-term priority of President Barack Obama's and would usher in the most dramatic changes to the faltering U.S. immigration system in more than two decades.

"This is a legacy item for him. There is no doubt in my mind that he wants to pass comprehensive immigration reform," said David Axelrod, a longtime political confidant of Obama.

During the last week, an immigration deal seemed doomed. But the breakthrough late Friday restarted the talks.

Ultimately the new "W'' visa program would be capped at 200,000 workers a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by a new federal bureau being pushed by labor groups as an objective monitor of the market, according to an official involved with the talks who also spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

A "safety valve" would allow employers to exceed the cap, the official said, if they could show need and pay premium wages, but any additional workers brought in would be subtracted from the next year's cap.

The workers could move from employer to employer and would be able to petition for permanent residency and ultimately seek U.S. citizenship. Neither is possible for temporary workers now.

"As to the 11 million (illegal immigrants), they'll have a pathway to citizenship, but it will be earned, it will be long, and it will be hard, and I think it is fair," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The new program would fill needs employers say they have that are not currently met by U.S. immigration programs. Most industries don't have a good way to hire a steady supply of foreign workers because there's one temporary visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers but it's capped at 66,000 visas per year and is only supposed to be used for seasonal or temporary jobs.

Separately, the new immigration bill also is expected to offer many more visas for high-tech workers, new visas for agriculture workers, and provisions allowing some agriculture workers already in the U.S. a speedier path to citizenship than that provided to other illegal immigrants, in an effort to create a stable agricultural workforce.

King spoke with ABC's "This Week." Schumer, Flake and Axelrod appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Graham was interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union."

___

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-31-US-Immigration-2nd-Ld-Writethru/id-5272b61ed41d4d87b3ae0b10ddf725f3

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Sudanese rebel group releases 31 kidnapped Darfuris

CAIRO (Reuters) - Sudanese rebels have released 31 Darfuris who they had kidnapped a week ago on their way to a conference for people displaced by the region's decade-long war, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday.

Conflict has raged in Darfur since 2003 when mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the Arab-led government, accusing it of politically and economically marginalizing the region.

Violence has subsided from its peak in 2003 and 2004, but a surge has forced more than 130,000 people to flee their homes since the start of the year, according to the United Nations.

Last week, the international peacekeeping mission UNAMID said an armed group had kidnapped 31 Darfuris who the peacekeepers had been escorting in three buses. The abductors took them to an unknown location.

On Saturday, the ICRC said a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of the main Darfur rebel groups, had released the men and handed them over to the Red Cross, according to a statement.

The SLA was not available for comment, and no more details were available about the incident that happened in a border area between Central Darfur State and South Darfur State.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

Sudan refuses to recognize the court, which it says is biased against leaders who refuse to kowtow to Western powers.

In 2008, the United Nations said about 300,000 people may have died in Darfur's war, a figure some activists say is too low. The government has put the death toll at about 10,000.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing in Cairo and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sudanese-rebel-group-releases-31-kidnapped-darfuris-192154553.html

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Doctor Who: The Bells Of? Oh, I Give Up - Mindless Ones

I usually try to say something interesting about the episodes of New Doctor Who I review here. Even if I don?t like it, I try to find some reason to say *why* I don?t like it. I at least engage enough with it to try to see what it?s trying to do.

But if Steven Moffat won?t try, then why should I?

It?s a shame, because everyone else on the programme is clearly trying. Matt Smith is an astonishingly good actor. Jenna-Louise Coleman is perfectly capable of pulling the ?quirky? face that?s the sum total of what she?s asked to do in the story. The effects people are clearly working hard.

But Moffat? Moffat is someone who clearly *can* write. He?s not as good as his reputation suggests, mind, but he can pull together a script that makes some kind of sense. I?ve seen it.

Yet this?

They?re ?hacking? people and ?uploading? them. How? ?Wi-fi?.

Words have meanings. Writers, of all people, should be aware of this. If you make something up, say ?their minds are being controlled because of quartronic energy?, then OK, fine, we?ll go with that. We don?t know what quartronic energy is, so maybe it can do that.

We know what wi-fi is, though. Everyone knows it *doesn?t* do that ? even if you show a shot of someone typing *really* fast.

That?s not to say that I expect Doctor Who to be technologically accurate ? while I winced at the scene where the Doctor says ?I?ve hacked their base operating system, but I can?t find their geographic location?, that?s because I?m someone who just spent five years working as a software engineer and now works for a firm of computer security consultants. It?s annoying that they?d get that kind of thing wrong, but no more so than, say, when Robert Holmes used to confuse the terms ?galaxy?, ?solar system? and ?universe?. I just expect that the writers at least make a tiny bit of an effort to sound plausible. ?They?re uploading everyone?s mind (and also mind-controlling everyone in London, and also controlling all the power and the planes) because of wi-fi? just isn?t trying.

And this lack of trying is evident throughout the script, from Moffat?s reuse of his tired trope of having a character speaking out of a screen they?re trapped in, to the random sexist joke thrown in for no good reason at the beginning, to the fact that the villain of the story turns out to be the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence was a villain from two stories from the late 1960s, both of which have been wiped, so nobody under about the age of fifty has ever seen them. His modus operandi was also different in those stories (and much better ? he had robot Yeti that lived in the London Underground and shot webs), and the only reason I can see for having the Great Intelligence in the story at all is to make a couple of dozen nerds say ?Ah, I see what he?s done. The Great Intelligence was in The Web Of Fear, and this is a story about the World Wide Web. I am clever.?

The epitome of this comes in the scene where the Doctor suddenly reveals that his motorbike has antigravity, and drives it up the Shard (which is, for the 54,466,900 people in Britain who, like myself, don?t live in London and pay rapt attention to everything that goes on in that most omphaloskeptic of cities, a new building there and thus absolutely fascinating).

People have been referring to this sort of thing, wrongly, as a deus ex machina. I don?t think that?s quite the correct term. Rather, I think it?s sort of an inverse Chekov?s gun. Normally, if you?re an actual writer, one who?s bothered about such trifling things as coherence, if you wanted the Doctor to have an antigravity motorbike, you?d set it up in some way, perhaps by having a scene at the beginning where the Doctor is riding his antigravity motorbike.

Then, when at the end he uses an antigravity motorbike, it would seem like something that was a logical consequence of events leading up to that point, rather than, as it does, like something improvised by a six-year-old playing with action figures:

?My man says that the Doctor can?t come in and he?s bigger than the Doctor so he wins.?
?Oh yeah? Well? the Doctor?s got a flying spacebike, so he just flies up there and *he* wins!?

The worst thing about this is that there?s a scene earlier in the story where he?s talking to Clara and the dialogue goes something like:

?I fixed your quadricycle?
?What??
?All those quadricycle bits you had lying around. I put them back together.?
?We didn?t have any quadricycle bits.?
??I invented the quadricycle!?

Well, firstly, of course, quadricycles have existed for over a hundred years (we?re back to the words meaning things thing again, aren?t we?) but secondly, replace ?quadricycle? with ?anti-gravity bike? in that exchange, and what happens? The joke works ? possibly even better than it did. It certainly does the same job as a character exchange.

But it also then means that later when the Doctor starts riding up the Shard, instead of just being something Moffat pulled out of his arse that doesn?t make any sense, it becomes a clever call-back to something that we originally thought was just an offhand joke. The script becomes tighter, the plot becomes more coherent, and you?ve made a piece of dialogue do double-duty.

Now, I thought of that straight away. I am not a professional screenwriter. Steven Moffat has been writing TV shows for over twenty years. Had he bothered even to read over what he?d typed out without thinking, just to give it the same kind of basic checks I give one of these blog posts, before having a huge crew of technicians, directors, actors, musicians and so on work on this thing and broadcasting it to an audience of millions, he would have thought of that too.

Clearly, though, it doesn?t matter. The Hugo nominations were announced today. In the short-form dramatic category, three of the five nominations were Steven Moffat Doctor Who scripts.

Clearly this is what the people want. Clearly this is somehow considered ?good?.

At this point, I?m only watching this programme because I?ve agreed to write these posts for Mindless Ones. I think that once this series is over, I won?t ever watch it again.

It couldn?t get any worse, could it?

Oh, wait?

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Source: http://mindlessones.com/2013/03/31/doctor-who-the-bells-of-oh-i-give-up/

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Veterans fight changes to disability payments

In this March 24, 2013 photo, former Marine Corps Cpl. Marshall Archer, left, a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, speaks to a man on a street in Portland. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this March 24, 2013 photo, former Marine Corps Cpl. Marshall Archer, left, a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, speaks to a man on a street in Portland. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

In this March 24, 2013 photo, veterans' liaison Marshall Archer, a former Marine Corps corporal, poses for a photo in Portland, Maine. Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they've sacrificed already.

Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate.

Advocates for the nation's 22 million veterans fear that the alternative inflation measure would also apply to disability payments to nearly 4 million veterans as well as pension payments for an additional 500,000 low-income veterans and surviving families.

"I think veterans have already paid their fair share to support this nation," said the American Legion's Louis Celli. "They've paid it in lower wages while serving, they've paid it through their wounds and sacrifices on the battlefield and they're paying it now as they try to recover from those wounds."

Economists generally agree that projected long-term debt increases stemming largely from the growth in federal health care programs pose a threat to the country's economic competitiveness. Addressing the threat means difficult decisions for lawmakers and pain for many constituents in the decades ahead.

But the veterans' groups point out that their members bore the burden of a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past month, they've held news conferences on Capitol Hill and raised the issue in meetings with lawmakers and their staffs. They'll be closely watching the unveiling of the president's budget next month to see whether he continues to recommend the change.

Obama and others support changing the benefit calculations to a variation of the Consumer Price Index, a measure called "chained CPI." The conventional CPI measures changes in retail prices of a constant marketbasket of goods and services. Chained CPI considers changes in the quantity of goods purchased as well as the prices of those goods. If the price of steak goes up, for example, many consumers will buy more chicken, a cheaper alternative to steak, rather than buying less steak or going without meat.

Supporters argue that chained CPI is a truer indication of inflation because it measures changes in consumer behavior. It also tends to be less than the conventional CPI, which would impact how cost-of-living raises are computed.

Under the current inflation update, monthly disability and pension payments increased 1.7 percent this year. Under chained CPI, those payments would have increased 1.4 percent.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that moving to chained CPI would trim the deficit by nearly $340 billion over the next decade. About two-thirds of the deficit closing would come from less spending and the other third would come from additional revenue because of adjustments that tax brackets would undergo.

Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said she understands why veterans, senior citizens and others have come out against the change, but she believes it's necessary.

"We are in an era where benefits are going to be reduced and revenues are going to rise. There's just no way around that. We're on an unsustainable fiscal course," Sawhill said. "Dealing with it is going to be painful, and the American public has not yet accepted that. As long as every group keeps saying, 'I need a carve-out, I need an exception,' this is not going to work."

Sawhill argued that making changes now will actually make it easier for veterans in the long run.

"The longer we wait to make these changes, the worse the hole we'll be in and the more draconian the cuts will have to be," she said.

That's not the way Sen. Bernie Sanders sees it. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs said he recently warned Obama that every veterans group he knows of has come out strongly against changing the benefit calculations for disability benefits and pensions by using chained CPI.

"I don't believe the American people want to see our budget balanced on the backs of disabled veterans. It's especially absurd for the White House, which has been quite generous in terms of funding for the VA," said Sanders, I-Vt. "Why they now want to do this, I just don't understand."

Sanders succeeded in getting the Senate to approve an amendment last week against changing how the cost-of-living increases are calculated, but the vote was largely symbolic. Lawmakers would still have a decision to make if moving to chained CPI were to be included as part of a bargain on taxes and spending.

Sanders' counterpart on the House side, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, appears at least open to the idea of going to chained CPI.

"My first priority is ensuring that America's more than 20 million veterans receive the care and benefits they have earned, but with a national debt fast approaching $17 trillion, Washington's fiscal irresponsibility may threaten the very provision of veterans' benefits," Miller said. "Achieving a balanced budget and reducing our national debt will help us keep the promises America has made to those who have worn the uniform, and I am committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to do just that."

Marshall Archer, 30, a former Marine Corps corporal who served two stints in Iraq, has a unique perspective about the impact of slowing the growth of veterans' benefits. He collects disability payments to compensate him for damaged knees and shoulders as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He also works as a veterans' liaison for the city of Portland, Maine, helping some 200 low-income veterans find housing.

Archer notes that on a personal level, the reduction in future disability payments would also be accompanied down the road by a smaller Social Security check when he retires. That means he would take a double hit to his income.

"We all volunteered to serve, so we all volunteered to sacrifice," he said. "I don't believe that you should ever ask those who have already volunteered to sacrifice to then sacrifice again."

That said, Archer indicated he would be willing to "chip in" if he believes that everyone is required to give as well.

He said he's more worried about the veterans he's trying to help find a place to sleep. About a third of his clients rely on VA pension payments averaging just over $1,000 a month. He said their VA pension allows them to pay rent, heat their home and buy groceries, but that's about it.

"This policy, if it ever went into effect, would actually place those already in poverty in even more poverty," Archer said.

The changes that would occur by using the slower inflation calculation seem modest at first. For a veteran with no dependents who has a 60 percent disability rating, the use of chained CPI this year would have lowered the veteran's monthly payments by $3 a month. Instead of getting $1,026 a month, the veteran would have received $1,023.

Raymond Kelly, legislative director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, acknowledged that veterans would see little change in their income during the first few years of the change. But even a $36 hit over the course of a year is "huge" for many of the disabled veterans living on the edge, he said.

The amount lost over time becomes more substantial as the years go by. Sanders said that a veteran with a 100 percent disability rating who begins getting payments at age 30 would see their annual payments trimmed by more than $2,300 a year when they turn 55.

.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-30-Budget%20Battle-Veterans/id-b9c15cb1e32e4b0a8fbe3cc49bdeff51

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Here?s the Internet/cable TV ad they ought to run (video) (Americablog)

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After 55 years, Ohio's Easter Eggshelland comes to an end

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - After more than 50 years, loyal fans have one last chance to visit the Easter bunny and other Easter-themed mosaics made of thousands of brightly colored eggs on a lawn in an eastern suburb of Cleveland.

The displays have drawn thousands of visitors each year to the sprawling lawn of Betty and Ron Manolio in Lyndhurst, Ohio, but the 55th annual event this year will be the last.

Eggshelland was created by Ron Manolio, 80, who died in August. This final display is dominated by a 16-foot by 15-foot portrait of the man who each year spent months hollowing out and hand-painting anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 eggs. A message below the picture reads "thank you all, and goodbye."

This year, Manolio's children and grandchildren set up the 21,630 eggs in 24 colors in a display entitled "A Labor of Love" in tribute to their grandfather. The egg mosaics depict a 45-foot cross, an Easter bunny and an EGGSHELLAND sign propped up in front of the couple's house.

"Our children did this their entire lives. They thought everyone does this," Betty Manolio told Reuters. But the months it takes to design and two to three weekends for installation are too much for the family to keep up.

Egg mosaics in past years have depicted characters from Sesame Street, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Harry Potter and spring scenes.

Manolio said that because her husband was the creative force behind project, it would be too difficult to continue Eggshelland without him.

"Actually, I was amazed we were doing it for 55 years," she said. "If he (Ron) was still around I think we would do it until we both died. I'm going to miss it next year."

Others will miss Eggshelland too. On a typical day, cars line up on their street and around the corner to catch a glimpse the display that began with a mere 750 eggs saved over the course of a year in 1957. At Eggshelland's peak in the 1970s local police were called to direct traffic.

Local and national media have described Eggshelland as a childhood fantasy land but in truth the phenomena has quite an adult following including a website dedicated to its 55-year history and its creators (http://eggshellandeaster.tripod.com), and a 2004 award-winning documentary on their efforts.

Eggshelland will be up until April 5th. After that, Manolio hasn't yet decided what will happen to the eggs. Previously, they stored the eggs for the year and replaced those that had broken.

"We haven't decided what to do with them. We've gotten some calls," Manolio said. "My grandchildren, of course, told me to put them on eBay."

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/55-years-ohios-easter-eggshelland-comes-end-154749492.html

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Cell reprogramming during liver regeneration

Friday, March 29, 2013

During embryonic development, animals generate many different types of cells, each with a distinct function and identity.

"Although the identities of these cells remain stable under normal conditions, some cells can be persuaded to take on new identities, through reprogramming," says Ben Stanger, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

Researchers have been able to reprogram cells experimentally, but few have shown that cells can change their identities under normal physiological conditions in the body, particularly in mammals.

In the cover article of this month's issue of Genes and Development, Stanger, PhD candidate Kilangsungla Yanger, Yiwei Zong, PhD, and their colleagues, did just that in the liver of a mouse. Stanger is also an investigator in the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

The adult liver contains two major cell types ? hepatocytes and biliary cells ? that differ dramatically in appearance and function. Hepatocytes are the main cell type in the liver, where they synthesize proteins and other macromolecules, and detoxify toxic substances. Biliary cells, on the other hand, line the bile ducts, which carry bile from the liver to the small intestine to help digest fats.

Using a sensitive method to tag and track how cells develop and differentiate, the researchers found that conditional expression of an activated Notch1 gene converted hepatocytes into biliary cells. Notch is an important receptor for relaying signals to tell cells how to develop.

What's more, after the researchers injured liver cells with a variety of toxins to stimulate wound healing, they found that over two to three weeks hepatocytes activated a biliary cell program on their own, acquiring the shape and function of biliary cells. These changes were dependent on the activation of endogenous Notch signaling.

"This is direct evidence that cells can be converted from one mature cell type to another in a live animal, as part of a normal response to injury," says Stanger. "We think that augmenting pre-existing cell reprogramming relationships may be another way to engineer cells for the treatment of diseases in which there are not enough bile ducts, such as cholestasis."

###

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127525/Cell_reprogramming_during_liver_regeneration

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DHS's controversial theory: private option $100s of millions cheaper ...

Two big headlines from the DHS release of actuarial findings on expansion options Wednesday. They project that 1) The "private option" saves $670 million to the state bottom line over ten years. 2) The "private option" not only doesn't cost the feds more than traditional Medicaid expansion, it's cheaper ? by almost $600 million over ten years.

That first one is not surprising. We've been explaining why expansion is revenue positive for the state for some time, and the "private option" doesn't change that (DHS projects that traditional expansion would save the state a little less?$610 million over ten years).

But #2 is a bit of a doozy. Most outside observers have speculated that the "private option" will be significantly more expensive. When Arkansas first got the go-ahead for the new framework, Arkansas Medicaid director Andy Allison wrote to Cynthia Mann, the director of the federal Center for Medicaid Services, "Cost effectiveness is the obvious hurdle for folks who didn't expect this" (e-mail acquired by the Times via FOIA request).

DHS challenged the consensus about cost last week with its release of general findings that it could be close to a wash; the fully enumerated projections this week suggest significant federal savings.

Of course we cannot know for sure, but predictions about federal costs matter a great deal. If the "private option" costs significantly more, it's hard to justify it over a traditional Medicaid expansion (outside of political necessity). It also might create a significant problem for the federal government if other states want to hop on board the "private option" bandwagon. Some started worrying about billions in additional costs.

DHS is swooping in now with an actuarial study that says not so fast. If they're right, then the case for the "private option" could be even stronger than the case for Medicaid expansion. But their arguments go against the general consensus about the costs of the government paying for health coverage through private companies instead of directly. They've been greeted with some skepticism outside the state so far.

I interviewed Allison yesterday to try and tease out where these numbers came from and why they think they're on to something that the consensus view has missed. After the jump, see a summary of DHS's key arguments, plus a response from a health economist who remains skeptical.

Let's look at the core components behind the theory of DHS and their actuaries. We'll start with the basics and then get to the core theory behind their findings which, if accurate, would be a game-changer.

1) Obviously, all of the numbers are only as good as the actuaries who compiled them. The Insurance Department contracted with Optum, an actuarial company in Arizona. "This firm has experience consulting both private firms engaged in the exchange as well as for a long period of time Medicaid programs and managed care programs," Allison said. "They're very used to developing these sorts of estimates. I have found them to be even conservative." In addition to standard actuarial methods and experience nationally in the public and private sectors, they also had the most recent three years of comprehensive claims data from DHS.

2) The baseline difference that Optum found between private rates and Medicaid rates was around 24 percent. They also projected that private rates would go down further under the "private option," by around five percent, because of competition and because of better health plan management. The competition is achieved not through lots of consumer choices in the marketplace, but through a competitive bidding process for the carriers. The rules haven't been set yet, but the plan will be something like this: consumers only get the premium paid for if they pick one of the two cheapest plans (the same competitive bidding structure will exist for the 138-400 population getting subsidies on the exchange). Since almost everyone will do that, there will be intense competition among the carriers to be one of the cheapest two. Again, this means not that many options for consumers if they want to be subsidized, but it's a mechanism to make them extremely price sensitive. As for plan management, Allison offered the example of the small cost sharing allowed by the law. It will be "tailored and focused" by private insurers in a way that's "just too awkward for the state to try to do," he said.

3) The biggest, and likely most controversial factor, is that they assume that under a traditional Medicaid expansion, Medicaid rates and private rates would be the same. That's why they apply a 24 percent up-charge to the Medicaid rates under a "traditional expansion" counter-factual: we know that Medicaid rates are cheaper than private rates, but Allison says that if we expanded Medicaid, that would cease to be true.

"Much more in reimbursement would need to be made available to providers and to the system to increase and secure access for this new population," he said. Not only higher than before, but higher even than Medicare ? all the way up to private rates. "We're suggesting that you can't continue to cross-subsidize in a world of full insurance."

Some of this may be specific to Arkansas ? which has a low differential between public and private rates now and also has extremely stingy Medicaid, so that there is "a missing market in the state." But Allison is also arguing that the trend of private and public rates moving toward each other is what we should expect to see if places move toward universal coverage. That trend is observable in other states who already cover this population, he said, as well as reports from private insurers developing bids for exchanges looking ahead to 2014. Whether private rates go down or public rates go up is "a bit of an open question" but "the point is that they need to be the same."

If you've been following the healthcare debate and the "private option" debate, you will recognize how radical ? or at least new ? this argument is. It a priori assumes that the gross cost of insuring the expansion via Medicaid or the "private option" is about the same (which means a "private option" is cheaper overall because of #2 above). That would change everything! As Allison said, "If it's the same number either way then this question of cost comparability ? cost effectiveness ? for the private option versus some kind of traditional Medicaid is moot."

"It just didn't occur to folks," he said. "It didn't occur to me or anyone else. It's not a discussion we've had in the country because a pure buy-in like this really wasn't imagined until the last couple of months."

The key point here is that achieving the access mandated by law for the large expansion pool requires upping reimbursement rates (this is precisely why private insurance has better access now). Allison believes that previous estimates failed to take this into account. Allison wrote to CMS director Cynthia Mann on March 7 (email acquired by FOIA request): "CBO seems to have made some sort of naive assumption, apparently, that existing average provider reimbursement rate differentials (Medicaid FFS versus private carrier rates) would be the same with and without all the new coverage."

A rate increase in Medicaid would require legislative action but Allison suggested that a rate increase to meet access needs was easier to achieve politically than you might think ? and presumably access requirements mandated by federal law in order to get the match rates could force the legislature's hand.

The theory goes that in a competitive market with near-universal coverage, the price will move toward what is required to achieve the minimum required level of access. That could move Medicaid rates up or private rates down or a little bit of both.

"Look at this from the provider's point of view, from the healthcare system's point of view," Allison said. "Partly what is implied here is that the system itself is not quite big enough. There's two issues ? there's how many certified professionals and how many facilities." How they adjust to the new pool of consumers is "a market decision. And that market decision, from their point of view, we don't think is any different depending on who's paying them."

The key to making the "private option" work is that the medically needy people in that pool will go to Medicaid, so there will be a separate high-risk pool (and in fact, some healthy people currently in Medicaid will move to the exchange). "We are explicitly protecting the exchange from the highest risks among that group because the top high-risk 10 percent would likely be withheld," Allison said.

That leaves "a large, stable, and healthy population that could actually stabilize and significantly reduce adverse selection" in the exchange, Allison said. "What it takes to create a competitive insurance market like an exchange is to seed that large group?that marketplace?with a large, stable, and ideally relatively healthy population. That is precisely what the Arkansas option would do." Allison described it as a "perfect antidote" to the potential for higher private premiums suggested by a recent study from the Society of Actuaries. (This is an appealing frame for Republican lawmakers: private option protects us from Obamacare! Silly, but politically valuable.)

Boston University health economist Austin Frakt said that the DHS predictions were possible but should be greeted with healthy skepticism.

These numbers are really hard to know for sure. The probability that everything will work out just perfect that it's going to be a cost savings or cost neutral ? it's just hard to know. I think it's an interesting and innovative plan. It's got some great things in it for beneficiaries, great things in it for providers. It's obviously of tremendous political value and that can't be ignored. It definitely comes with some risk of increased costs to the federal government. ... I'm not fully swayed by the analysis that it will be cost neutral or cost savings.

You can (and should!) read more of Frakt elaborating on his questions about the Arkansas plan's costs here on the Incidental Economist blog.

That said, Frakt suggested that those risks of federal costs might be worth it "as long as it's understood that [increased costs] could happen." He also noted that other states might follow the lead of Arkansas and the numbers might work out differently. "It's hard to believe that every state would be able to save money with it," he said. The key is that we go in to this experiment with our eyes open about cost uncertainty. (Cue the joke that the sneaky reason for the "private option" is driving up the costs of Obamacare.)

In the end, I find the experimentation argument pretty convincing, and you have to think that's part of what is motivating HHS. The "private option" will be at least as good for beneficiaries, so if HHS is willing to take a little financial risk to try an approach that could plausibly turn out to be better, that seems like a good thing. As Allison wrote to me, "we could easily end up learning more about Medicaid in the next ten years than the previous 50 combined." That doesn't guarantee better policy but it's a start.

And we can't forget the political reality: right now, the "private option" is the only way forward to getting health coverage for more than 200,000 Arkansans.

Source: http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/03/29/dhss-controversial-theory-private-option-100s-of-millions-cheaper-than-medicaid-expansion

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Pat Riley to Danny Ainge: Shut up

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Miami Heat President Pat Riley has added another chapter to his rivalry with the Boston Celtics.

After LeBron James complained about calls and Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge chided him for it, Riley lashed back Friday night.

Riley's response: "Danny Ainge needs to shut the (expletive) up and manage his own team."

This saga started Wednesday after Miami's 27-game winning streak ended in Chicago. James told reporters that night that he does not believe some of the hard fouls he takes are "basketball plays." A day later, Ainge told Boston radio station WEEI that "it's almost embarrassing that LeBron would complain about officiating."

Riley was clearly irked, calling Ainge "the biggest whiner going when he was a player."

The Heat and Celtics play April 12 in Miami.

Miami beat New Orleans 108-89 on Friday night, with James leading the way with 36 points. When informed afterward of the statement, James said he appreciated Riley having his back.

"That's who we are," James said. "We ride together, all of us, from the top to the bottom. We all protect each other on and off the floor and it was big-time to see that."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pat-riley-danny-ainge-shut-010424469--spt.html

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Afghans warned: the taxman is coming after you

By Katharine Houreld

KABUL (Reuters) - One of Afghanistan's most surprising success stories lies tucked away on a potholed street notorious for suicide bombings and lined with rusting construction equipment.

The work of the country's top tax collector is more inspiring than the view from his office in Kabul. Taxes and customs raised $1.64 billion last financial year, a 14-fold increase on 10 years ago. That means, now, the government can pay just over half of its recurrent costs such as salaries.

Thanks to tougher enforcement procedures, Afghanistan's tax to GDP ratio today stands above 11 percent - ahead of neighboring Pakistan's dismal 9 percent.

Increasing revenues is vital as donors begin reducing aid ahead of the 2014 drawdown of NATO troops, who have provided the backbone for security since U.S. forces invaded after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

By the end of this year the United States alone will have spent $100 billion on Afghan reconstruction. But future pledges are a fraction of that.

"We are largely dependent on international aid. We would like to be independent," said Abdurrahman Mujahid, the new head of the revenue department. "I would like a sustainable Afghanistan for all the children."

Despite rising revenues, the government will rely heavily on donors for years to come. Taxes, customs and mining revenue will only meet $2.5 billion out of a $7 billion budget this year.

Most of the revenue comes from large corporate taxpayers, who complain their payments have not improved power cuts, potholed roads or security.

Corporations pay a flat tax of 20 percent - the same rate for an individual earning over $2,000 a month.

But unlike developed countries where personal income tax generates a sizeable chunk of revenue, most Afghans scoff at the idea of giving the government some of their meager earnings.

The average annual income, in a country ranked one of the world's poorest, is just $470, according to the World Bank. Those making less than $100 a month don't have to pay tax.

"It's not a good government," said moneychanger Abdurrahman Arif, 28, as he held a wad of soiled notes and scanned for customers. "I don't pay tax. The rich people don't and the government should go to them before they come to me."

Afghanistan has a similar problem to neighboring Pakistan - the very wealthy don't pay their share, and weak institutions often have little way of forcing them.

Authorities admit that taxing the rich isn't easy in a country where the powerful often command militias. But Mujahid promises tax evaders will "be introduced to the law enforcement agencies".

SUBSTANTIAL ACHIEVEMENT

Much of Afghanistan's money is in an undocumented black economy. Corruption is endemic and the country produces 90 percent of the world's opium. Billions of dollars in cash leave the country every year in suitcases.

The security situation is discouraging. Taliban and other militias have made gains in many areas as foreign combat forces wind down their missions.

But some Afghans still manage to make money. Many businesses are fuelled by the aid dollars that have poured into the country over the last decade. Luxury supermarkets, travel agencies and stationery shops crowd the capital's streets.

A U.S. embassy official in Kabul commended Afghanistan's ability to raise tax revenues.

"It's a pretty substantial achievement," the official said, but noted the nation still faced a large funding gap, partly because of its huge security bill.

"It's going to continue being a problem until they can get revenues from the extractive industry, and that's going to take some time," the official said, referring to Afghanistan's rich but undeveloped mineral deposits.

Donors currently pay for just under half Afghanistan's operating costs - mostly government salaries - and more than three-quarters of all development projects like roads, dams and electricity equipment.

Rampant corruption means this money is often stolen, angering donors, fuelling anti-government rage and keeping aid from some of the world's neediest families.

Donors hope that if Afghans foot more of the bill for public services they may become less tolerant of graft from their leaders.

PUGNACIOUS PREDECESSOR

Mujahid, the new head of the revenue department, has large shoes to fill. His predecessor Ahmad Shah Zamanzai oversaw much of the department's growth and didn't shrink from confrontation.

When a vice-president refused to pay tax on income from renting out houses he owned, Zamanzai threatened to leak it to the press. Elections were approaching. The vice president paid up.

Under Zamanzai, the tax department jailed more than 20 tax evaders, froze bank accounts, slapped on travel bans and shuttered the premises of businesses that refused to pay.

In one showdown, he took on the glitzy wedding halls that have mushroomed up in the capital. When the 60 or so venues refused to pay their dues, he had police padlock a dozen of the biggest until the rest fell into line.

Zamanzai was appointed head of the state-run Pashtany Bank as part of a bureaucratic reshuffle this month. His first task, he said, would be to use skills honed in the tax department to extract overdue loan repayments from powerful Afghans.

But the tough tax enforcement has angered some businessmen.

Najib Ullah Latify's spotless factory, full of humming machinery and rows of workers in blue overalls and yellow hard hats, stands a few minutes drive from the tax office. High Standard Pipe employs 850 people and supplies pipes for projects providing clean water all over Afghanistan.

Latify said he'd expand but harassment from the tax man was hurting his business.

In recent years, he says, he's been repeatedly overcharged by the tax office and promised refunds have not been credited. Officials frequently offer to slash his tax bill in return for bribes, he added. When he refuses, he says, officials disrupt his imports and suspend his license.

"I don't know what to do, I have shouted everywhere that they are ruining my business," he said.

"I don't mind paying taxes. Even if 60 percent of it is spent on drinking and shopping and trips for (politicians') wives, maybe 40 percent will go to schools or hospitals. But they must tax me correctly."

The new tax chief, Mujahid, was not familiar with Vitaly's case, but promised to investigate. More than 10 tax collectors - whose basic salaries start at $180 a month - have been fired for corruption in the last two years.

"Corruption is a part of public life in Afghanistan," said Mujahid. "We have the aim to make this department corruption-free."

This year he's planning to finish computerizing tax records, usher through a law on Value Added Tax, and strengthen collection in the provinces - more than 90 percent of government taxes currently come from the capital.

"There's a lot of achievements, but for sure we have problems, and the biggest problem is corruption," he said.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghans-warned-taxman-coming-075922090.html

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My Purchases Shows You the Android Apps You've Bought (Because Google Won't)

Android (2.2+): For whatever reason, Google can't or won't filter the apps you've installed in your orders & settings to show just the paid-for apps. If you want to see what you've spent, for guilt or accounting purposes, the My Purchases app does the job.

My Purchases could definitely stand to improve in its next few updates. There only a few minimal options, to filter out canceled purchases or apps you have installed at that moment. And the only sorting is reverse chronological, though the app did catch everything I had bought from my primary account. For those simply looking to check up on their buying history, it's an app that does just what it should.

My Purchases' free version has advertising, while the $1.29 paid version removes the advertising.

Update: Whoops! Looks like we already posted this app yesterday. Sorry about the duplicate news, everyone!

My Purchases | Google Play

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/tyQR1qw1J-k/my-purchases-shows-you-the-android-apps-youve-bought-because-google-wont

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TV Show 'Wife Swap' Sets Up Tea Party Christian With Polyamorous ...

ABC?s ?Wife Swap? has a simple premise: Take two very, very different families, swap out the mothers (sometimes husbands), and watch what happens when cultures clash.

So while the show is good for a few chuckles, some think Thursday?s episode went out of its way to attack the Tea Party.

How so? Let?s set the stage.

Meet the Loudons:

Courtesy ABC

Mother Gina Loudon is a proud conservative Christian and card-carrying member of the Tea Party. Originally from the South, she and her husband, former Missouri State Senator John Loudon, dedicate much of their time to conservative activism.

?The toughest part is that politics can be consuming during an election cycle, but we do it as a family (knock doors, campaign, even speeches). We work hard to balance work and family, but I admit that in peak political season, I look forward to down time with my family when campaign time is over!? said Gina, who lives in deep blue California (San Diego, to be exact).

The Loudons have five children.

?As a family, we do like to keep moving and give back to our community, so when we are not in political season, we are still busy with charity work, civic involvement, writing books, creating media, etc.,? she adds.

Now let?s meet the Envy family:

Courtesy ABC.

Angela Envy has been married to Chris, a semi-professional wrestler, for eight years. They have four children.

They also have a 23-year-old girlfriend named Ashley.

No, not the kids. The parents. The parents share a live-in girlfriend.

?We consider ourselves to be a polyamorous family. Ashley came into our lives about one year ago, almost by accident, and she never left. And just like that, we became a triad. It was easy and natural and we have such a good time!? said Angela.

?With Ashley, there was twice the energy and convenience of a normal relationship and she fulfils the needs that Chris cannot. The three of us share a room and sleep in the same bed and I wouldn?t have it any other way. It?s going to be hard for me to be away from her for this experience,? she adds.

You get the picture.

So now that we have the stage set and we?ve been introduced to the two different clans, how do you suppose things played out? Well, let?s just put it this way: Gina Loudon is the first guest in the show?s nine year history to not stick it out the full two weeks.

Gina Loudon called it quits halfway though taping and decided that being swapped into a polyamorous family was just a bit too much for her.

But did the show really paint the Tea Party (via Gina Loudon) in an unfavorable light?

?The show definitely cut the polyamorous trio ? one dude living with his wife, his kids,?and his girlfriend ? to be the ?normal? ones. And the sympathetic ones,? writes conservative blogger Ace.

See for yourself:

And Ace isn?t alone when he writes that the disastrous episode?s purpose was to paint Tea Partiers in an unflattering light. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is right there with him.

?The Tea Partiers are painted as the Bible-thumping freaks, and the polyamorous family portrayed as the open-minded, full of love, and sympathetic bunch,? Limbaugh said Friday. The Loudons are ?painted as intolerant, Bible-thumping prudes.?

Listen [via Daily Rushbo]:

?

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

Featured image screen grab.

Source: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/29/tv-show-wife-swap-sets-up-tea-party-christian-with-polyamorous-family-guess-who-ends-up-looking-reasonable/

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Adoptable Pets of the Week | EllenTV.com

JULIA

Do you have a home for this brave mama cat? Poor Julia was left out on her own when she was pregnant and sick, but thank goodness, a nice woman realized what a friendly cat she is and took her in.

Once her kittens were old enough to be on their own, Julia came to Best Friends. Born in 2011, she is still pretty young herself. She is very sweet and will run up to you for attention. She also gets along well with other cats.

Julia's kittens have all found homes. May she have her turn?

?

OLIVIA

A friend waiting to happen

Born in January of 2012, Olivia just celebrated her first birthday and her arrival at Best Friends! She was a young mother and was found with a litter of pups on a ranch in Arizona before a rescue group from Nevada brought them to the Sanctuary.

Olivia is a Shepherd/Heeler mix and is very curious and friendly. She really likes spending one-on-one time with her favorite people, though she also does great with other dogs (and is even fine with cats)!

This super-sweet and loyal dog has excellent friend potential, and she would love to meet you!

Best Friends adopts to all of the United States and Canada. Please contact Best Friends Animal Society right here. See all the animals that need homes... at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.

Source: http://www.ellentv.com/2013/03/29/adoptable-pets-of-the-week/

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Backed By General Catalyst Partners & First Round Capital, Chloe & Isabel Offers A Modern, Tech-Savvy Take On Direct-Selling

When many people think of direct-selling, they envision Tupperware parties or pink-suited women lugging cases of cosmetics door-to-door. New direct-selling companies, however, are using social media to disrupt the industry. Chloe & Isabel is part of the new wave of startups currently re-defining direct selling, and giving people with an entrepreneurial bent--in particular young women--a way to leverage their social medial contacts into a business.

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

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Video: Florio breaks down Romo deal? |? King:?Tony wins

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/51376043#51376043

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China: Landslide buries 83 in Tibet gold mine area

BEIJING (AP) ? No signs of life have been detected at a gold mining site in a mountainous area of Tibet more than 24 hours after a massive landslide buried 83 workers, Chinese state media said Saturday.

The state-run China Central Television said more than 2,000 rescuers have been dispatched to Lhasa's Maizhokunggar county to search for the buried.

About 2 million cubic meters (2.6 million cubic yards) of mud, rock and debris swept through the area as the workers were resting and covered an area measuring around 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles), CCTV said.

The miners worked for a subsidiary of the China National Gold Group Corp., a state-owned enterprise and the country's largest gold producer. A woman who answered the call at its Beijing headquarters Saturday said she could not provide any information.

The disaster is likely to inflame critics of Chinese rule in Tibet who say Beijing's interests are driven by the region's mineral wealth and strategic position and come at the expense of the region's delicate ecosystem and Tibetans' Buddhist culture and traditional way of life.

The reports said at least two of the buried workers were Tibetan while most of the workers were believed to be ethnic Han Chinese, a reflection of how such large projects often create an influx of the majority ethnic group into the region.

The more than 2,000 police, firefighters, soldiers and medics deployed to the site, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of Lhasa, the regional capital, conducted searches armed with devices to detect signs of life and accompanied by sniffer dogs, reports said.

Around 30 excavators were also digging away at the site late Friday as temperatures fell to just below freezing.

The reports said the landslide was caused by a "natural disaster" but did not provide specifics. It was unclear why the first news reports of the landslide came out several hours after it occurred.

China's President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang ordered authorities to "spare no efforts" in their rescue work, Xinhua said.

Doctors at the local county hospital said they had been told to prepare to receive survivors but none had arrived. "We were ordered to make all efforts to receive the injured," said a doctor who gave only her surname, Ge, in the hospital's emergency section.

On Saturday morning, a hospital staff member who gave her surname of Wu said it had received no one from the landslide, dead or alive.

The Chinese government has been encouraging development of mining and other industries in long-isolated Tibet as a way to promote its economic growth and raise living standards. The region has abundant deposits of copper, chromium, bauxite and other precious minerals and metals and is one of fast-growing China's last frontiers.

Tibet remains among China's poorest regions despite producing a large share of its minerals. A key source of anti-Chinese anger is complaints by local residents that they get little of the wealth extracted by government companies, most of which flows to distant Beijing.

In 2008, unhappiness with Chinese rule spilled over into deadly riots that engulfed Lhasa and an anti-government uprising that swept many Tibetan communities. To quell the unrest, Beijing poured security forces into Tibetan areas and has kept them there since, giving the western China region the feel of a military garrison and further alienating many Tibetans.

In recent years, more than 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest the stifling security presence and call for greater religious freedom.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-landslide-buries-83-tibet-gold-mine-area-153622033.html

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Quantum Computers: Playing Dice With Your Investments - Blogcritics

The next big thing in Technology?
The Technology sector has been a star investment performer in the past decade, but finding the next big thing and investing early is a real challenge, even for seasoned investors. If you?re interested in a long term investment that could potentially generate enormous returns, then the crazy world of quantum computers needs to be on your radar.

Quantum computers ? crazy but true

A quantum computer sounds like something you might find on Star Trek, but they are real and have the potential to transform the world in the coming decades. Einstein famously once said, ?I cannot believe that God plays dice with the universe.? But it turns out that Einstein was wrong, because at a subatomic level, the world obeys the laws of quantum mechanics, and randomness is an intrinsic property of all quantum systems. Unpredictability might not sound like a promising basis for a computer, but it?s the secret behind how quantum computers work.

What is a quantum computer?
In a conventional computer, the basic unit of storage is the binary bit, which can be either 0 or 1. In a quantum computer, the basic storage unit is called a qubit (quantum bit) and it has the sanity-threatening property of being both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This kind of weirdness is commonplace in quantum mechanics, and it?s why Einstein hated it. You might think it sounds like nonsense, but quantum mechanics has proved itself in experiment after experiment and there is no doubt in the scientific community about its correctness.

Anyway, back to the quantum computer. In a conventional computer it?s often necessary to loop over all the possible values of some variable and repeat a mathematical or logical operation for each possible value of that variable. A quantum computer on the other hand, because its qubits hold all possible values of a variable simultaneously, can perform the entire loop in a single operation. Complex problems that would require billions of operations collapse to an almost trivial calculation, making quantum computers capable of performing tasks that would be simply impossible in any conventional computer.

Source: http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/quantum-computers-playing-dice-with-your/

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EPA Finds Sweet Spot to Release Contentious Gasoline Rule

After facing election-year delays, the Obama administration on Friday announced a controversial rule that requires cleaner gasoline.

The environmental regulation, which seeks to reduce toxic air pollution by requiring lower levels of sulfur in gasoline, had all but disappeared from the regulatory process for the better part of last year as President Obama was seeking reelection and didn?t want to be perceived as imposing regulations that could raise prices at the pump -- one of the most potent political risks a campaign can face.

The administration finally found a political sweet spot to release the rule. It?s the Friday before Easter weekend, a time when few people are paying attention to the news. Gasoline prices have actually fallen over the last few weeks. A month ago the average was $3.79 per gallon, according to AAA. Today it is $3.64. And perhaps most important, the administration is releasing the rule before the political silly season of the 2014 midterm elections (where 20 Democratic seats are up) gets into full motion.

Congressional Republicans and industry groups are blasting Obama for the rule nonetheless.

?With $4 dollar a gallon gas the norm in many parts of the country, we cannot afford policies that knowingly raises gas prices,? House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement.

Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute have charged that the rule could increase gas prices about 25 cents per gallon. The Environmental Protection Agency maintains that the increase will be no more than one cent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/epa-finds-sweet-spot-release-contentious-gasoline-rule-115910266--politics.html

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UK-Odd Summary

Tokyo bar offers cocktail of booze and Buddhism

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshinobu Fujioka enjoys bringing his congregation together, one cocktail at a time. Fujioka owns the 23-seat "Vowz Bar" in central Tokyo, where Buddhist chants replace karaoke songs and the shaven-headed bartenders serve up sermons and homilies along with the drinks.

Restaurant meals for kids fail nutrition test - U.S. consumer group

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The menus offered to children by most U.S. restaurant chains have too many calories, too much salt or fat, and often not a hint of vegetables or fruit, according to a study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group, which has agitated for everything from healthier popcorn at the movies to calorie labelling in supermarkets, found that among almost 3,500 combinations surveyed, kids' meals failed to meet nutritional standards 97 percent of the time.

Pennsylvania stadium aims to please fans with urinal video games

(Reuters) - Play doesn't need to stop for sports fans taking a bathroom break at a Pennsylvania minor-league baseball stadium that has installed video games in men's room urinals. The "hands-free" video game is played by directing oneself right or left in the urinals at the Lehigh Valley IronPigs' Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The game is aimed at increasing prostate health awareness.

Going, going, gone - dodo bone up for sale in London

LONDON (Reuters) - A rare four-inch fragment of a dodo bone will go on sale in Britain in April, around 300 years after the flightless bird and icon of obsolescence was hunted to extinction. Auctioneers Christie's said on Wednesday it was hoping to raise as much as 15,000 pounds ($22,600) for the piece of a bird's femur.

New York cop who toured with band charged with disability fraud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York police officer was charged on Tuesday with mail fraud for allegedly claiming disability benefits for two years while at the same time performing and touring with his heavy metal band, "Cousin Sleaze," according to court documents. Christopher Inserra, an officer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was the lead singer with the Brooklyn band, whose "Sick Maniacs" album features such songs as "Infection" and "Walk of Shame," according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

Battle rages over bones of England's Richard III

LONDON (Reuters) - King Richard III is at the centre of a new fight over the location of his final resting place, just weeks after the remains of the last English king to die in battle were found underneath a council car park. Archaeologists announced one of the most remarkable finds in recent English history last month when they confirmed the discovery of the body of Richard, who was slain at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, during excavations in Leicester.

"Shameful" sexist Ford car ads spark outrage in India

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A series of car ads, including one showing women bound and gagged in the trunk of a Ford driven by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has prompted Internet outrage in India and prompted an apology from Ford India. The ads came just days after India approved a tougher new law to punish sex crimes, following the fatal gang rape of a student in December. That attack sparked unprecedented protests over the treatment of women in the country.

"Panda-monium" as giant pandas arrive in Canada from China

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada got a taste of international panda diplomacy on Monday with the arrival of two "Very Important Pandas" at the start of a 10-year loan to two Canadian zoos. Speaking as the two giant pandas arrived in Toronto from China, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Junsai - who gave the animals the VIP designation - noted that when he started his posting in Canada two years ago, he was greeted only by the Canadian director of protocol.

Punxsutawney Phil charged with fraud for early spring forecast

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - With a snow storm expected to batter the Plains, Midwest and East Coast this weekend, a spring-deprived Ohio prosecutor is taking out his frustration with the long winter on a famous prognosticating groundhog. "I decided it was about time we indicted Punxsutawney Phil afor fraud," said Mike Gmoser, prosecutor in Ohio's Butler County, in an interview Friday.

Harvard stripped of quiz tournament titles

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Harvard University will be stripped of four national quiz championship titles after organizers found a competitor from the Ivy League school inappropriately accessed information about questions used in the tournament. The National Academic Quiz Tournaments said that a security review found that Harvard competitor Andy Watkins accessed pages on its administrative Website just before the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Intercollegiate Championship Tournaments or "Quiz Bowls".

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-odd-summary-045638821.html

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