Bill Clinton's Vision for a 'Smart Government and a Strong Economy' (Time.com)

Martin Schalk / Life Ball 2011 / Getty Images

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks during the 19th Life Ball show at the Town Hall on May 21, 2011 in Vienna, Austria.

Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, spoke with TIME?s Rick Stengel about his new book, Back to Work, and how to fix the economy. Excerpts from that conversation follow.

Why did you write this book?

I thought maybe it would be helpful just to have both an explanation of what?s happened over the last 30 years and what I believe we need to do now.

How did you write it?

I just sat down and wrote it. I literally saved hundreds of newspaper articles, blog sites, you know, op-ed pieces, magazine articles, marks in books. I?ve been doing this, and I didn?t do it with any intent to write a book. I just kind of collected all this stuff because it helped me to understand what was going on.

(PHOTOS: Bill Clinton?s Last Days in the White House)

So what has happened to the economy and the U.S. over the past 30 years?

First of all, we face more and more intense competition from around the world, and at the same time we have adopted??except in the eight years I served and the first two years President Obama was ?serving?this anti?government philosophy, which has mostly, as I point out, been an antitax and an anti?regulation philosophy, so that we have dramatically increased the national debt and our reliance on other countries to fund it. Now we are facing the retirement of the baby boomers and once again a dramatic increase in health care cost. So we have to figure out a way to put the country in the future business. We have to get ahold of the long-term debt problem, and we have to revitalize the private sector. And you can?t do it with an anti?government strategy. You have to have a smart government and a strong economy. That?s basically the argument of the book.

(VIDEO: Bill Clinton?s Economic Advice)

What is it that Democrats don?t understand about how to make the economy work again, and what is it that Republicans don?t understand?

Republicans believe that if you cut taxes, especially for upper-income people, that?s always going to work: no matter what it does to the deficit, no matter what it does to our investment in the future, it?s always the answer to every economic problem. Now with the Democrats, they?re going to be reluctant to make changes in the big programs that retirees depend on?Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. What the Democrats have to understand is, if they want to preserve a health care program for people who need it and the benefits of Medicare, we have to be willing to change the delivery system. We?re spending too much money on the way we finance health care, the overhead and the way we pay for it. The Republicans can?t be completely allergic to taxes. The Democrats can?t be completely allergic to changes in health care delivery. And both of them have got to look for specific opportunities to save money in a way that doesn?t hurt anything.

(MORE: Richard Stengel Interviews Hillary Clinton)

You were talking a lot about health care expenditure. What hasn?t been done?

We need a massive national focus now on improving delivery systems in a way that maintains quality and cuts costs. We know that it can be done, but we don?t have any systematic way of doing it. And to me, this is something ready-made for people to work on across party lines. But to say, ?Well, if you just repeal the health care bill, everything will be hunky-dory,? that?s not true. If you repeal the health care bill, you?ll get more of what you got in 2009. Health care insurance premiums will go through the roof. Employers will have to stop offering their employees health care coverage, or they?ll keep the health care coverage and their employees won?t get a raise for five years. And meanwhile, America will become less and less and less competitive. So this is not an ideological problem. This is a management problem.

(VIDEO: Bill Clinton on Unemployment and Occupy Wall Street)

Could you briefly talk about some ways to create jobs that we?re not using now and why banks and corporations are sitting on so much cash?

Well, the banks have about $2.2 trillion in cash uncommitted to loans. And they need to hold somewhere between $160 billion and $200 billion of that because they have their own mortgages that are still uncertain. But they could loan in theory, at conservative ratios of 10-to-1, $20 trillion. Obviously, if that happened, the recession would be over in 15 seconds. Pepperdine, a conservative university, did a study showing that 40% of the small businesses said they would expand their operations and hire more people if they could get credit, and they can?t get credit. We?ve got to clean these bank books up. Once that happens, it will dramatically boost confidence. Right now, everybody?s frozen in place. And by far the biggest thing we could do is to have a more aggressive move on the home-mortgage problem. All the various players are reluctant to do it, but we need to do it.

What will make banks start spending cash?

You?ve got a lot of cash being held overseas. The last time it was brought back, President Bush made a good-faith effort to get it reinvested in the economy in 2005, and he let corporations bring it back at a tax rate of 5.25%. So what I think we should do now is say, You bring this money back while we?re debating the corporate tax reform for free if you can prove you increase net employment. For everybody you increase net employment on, you get that much credit for free. If you want to spend it on whatever you want, pay the long-term capital gains rate, 15%.

(VIDEO: Bill Clinton Reflects on Steve Jobs)

Are corporate taxes too high?

I?d like to see the President offer the ?Congress an opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis on a reform of the corporate tax laws. Essentially, our tax rates are very high, but our tax take is the average or a little below the average of Europe. The rate is 35%; the take is 23%. And clearly what we need to do is to restrict a lot of the credits and deductions and lower the rate, because you got a lot of big corporations that are paying under 20%, less than the average American?s paying.

(MORE: Tax Reform and the Revenue Problem)

What can a President really do about the economy?

There are lots of things you can do. And in this case, the President can do quite a bit just with his regulatory authorities, as he?s been doing in the last few weeks, but he could do a lot more if the Congress would work with him to dislodge this mortgage problem and to reform the corporate tax laws. You know, what you have to do is look at the pressure points of the economy and say, What could I do here that would generate real economic activity?

It seems almost impossible to get Congress to approve anything in any kind of bipartisan way. Does that mean the President has to do as much as he can on his own?

Yes. If he can?t get Congress to act, he?s got to do everything he can by Executive Order. I understand why he?s frustrated, because a lot of these proposals that he?s made are ideas that were first proposed by Republicans, who are all of a sudden now against them and seem to be against them just because [Democrats are] for them. But he ought to keep fighting for his ideas in Congress. No one knows for sure when we?ll reach that tipping point and we?ll really be out of this thing and going again. These kinds of financial/housing crises, if you go back hundreds of years, tend to take five to 10 years to get over. And what we?re trying to do is to beat that timetable. That?s all we?re trying to do.

How can Obama get re-elected with an unemployment rate hovering around 9%?

I think the President will be able to rely on the fact that he has tried to come up with a serious and very comprehensive plan. And if people don?t feel it yet, then [they will]. The question is, Will they behave the way voters typically behave in these circumstances? Or will they understand that this was a different sort of recession and then evaluate the competing candidates, depending on whom the Republicans nominate, in terms of whether their ideas are more or less likely to get us out of the fix we?re in? You know, I think people are pretty smart once they understand the deal. And that?s one of the reasons?you?ve read the book, so you know?that I wrote this: to give people kind of a short handbook, which would at least offer some explanation about the various elements of the economic crisis and some perspective on why these things take a long time to get over and how we can speed it up.

(MORE: President Obama and the Imperceptible Recovery)

Speaking of policies, you balanced the budget and cut the size of the government. How come you?re not a hero of the Tea Party?

I thought I should?ve been their favorite politician. I think because I didn?t do it according to the ideology. I raised taxes and cut spending. I did it with a mix of policies that also left us money to invest in our future and in our quality of life. I think that?s really important. There are some things that the government has to do because the private sector does not have the capacity to advance the public interest in that way.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/time_rss/rss_time_us/httpswamplandtimecom20111109qabillclintonsvisionforasmartgovernmentandastrongeconomyxidrssnationyahoo/43554473/SIG=140defip3/*http%3A//swampland.time.com/2011/11/09/qa-bill-clintons-vision-for-a-smart-government-and-a-strong-economy/?xid=rss-nation-yahoo

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Keen On? The Three Cardinal Rules for Startup Entrepreneurs (Learn These and You?ll Become a Billionaire)

As the co-founder of Priceline, serial entrepreneur Scott Case is a natural startup guy. Indeed, his fever for startups is so intense that he is now CEO of StartUp America Partnership, a ?movement of entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs? designed to inspire young companies with expertise, capital and talent. Case gave an inspirational keynote at last week?s Fast Company?s Innovation Uncensored event in San Francisco, where he revealed his three rules for startup entrepreneurs. And after his talk, he was generous enough to list these rules to me on camera, as well as show off his colorful footwear and explain how America can once again become a startup nation.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-Rf-TqyF5oo/

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Unlocked iPhone 4S now on sale in US from Apple (Digital Trends)

Apple is now selling unlocked version of the iPhone 4S through its online and retail locations in the United States. The carrier-free device sells for the full price of $649 and up. The iPhone 4S has been available to customers in other countries for some time, as most other countries do not lock people?s phones to a specific carrier.

It?s curious that Apple made the unlocked iPhone available today. Earlier, we reported that Sprint will apparently begin locking the SIM cards of every new iPhone 4S it activates, thus requiring users who wish to make calls while traveling internationally to use their over-priced Sprint Worldwide network. Both Verizon and AT&T also lock their SIM cards, though Verizon will reportedly allow customers to unlock their devices for international travel, but only after they?ve had their account in good standing for 60 days or more.

For those of you unfamiliar, an unlocked phone (iPhone 4S or otherwise) allows users to swap in SIM cards from other carriers. This is how the rest of the world works. And when you?re traveling overseas, it?s very easy to simply swap in a pre-paid SIM (which will give you a new, local phone number), and make calls within the country for much less than you?ll spend trying to use partner carriers of US wireless companies.

Unlike previous iPhones, the iPhone 4S is a true ?worldphone,? which means it has both GSM (AT&T and the rest of the world) and CDMA (Sprint, Verizon) radios. Carrier locked iPhone 4S handsets can do this, as well, but you?re going to have to give up your first born son to make any calls. According to Apple, however, the unlocked iPhone 4S will not work on CDMA carriers, like Verizon or Sprint.

To buy an unlocked iPhone 4S right now, go to this Apple Store link. Select you color you want. Below that, you have the option to choose which storage size model you desire ? but don?t click that. Instead, scroll down slightly to the ?Or get iPhone unlocked and contract-free? link, click that, and choose your model. Your order summary will appear on the right. Click ?continue? and your?e on your way.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111111/tc_digitaltrends/unlockediphone4snowonsaleinusfromapple

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Turkey: quake kills at least 7, dozens trapped (AP)

ANKARA, Turkey ? Rescue workers have pulled out 24 survivors from the rubble of three buildings, collapsed by an earthquake in eastern Turkey, authorities said Thursday. At least seven were killed and dozens of others trapped.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said Wednesday's quake toppled 25 buildings in the city of Van but only three of them were occupied since the others have been evacuated after suffering damages in last month's powerful temblor. The magnitude-5.7 quake was a grim replay of the previous magnitude-7.2 earthquake that hit Oct. 23, killing more than 600 people.

Rescue workers speeded up their search for survivors by daylight on Thursday and pulled out a man out of the wreckage of a pancaked hotel, live NTV television broadcast showed. He became the 24th people to be survived alive so far. The man appeared to be in his 60s, NTV said.

The workers had used the glare of high-powered lights to work throughout the night despite several aftershocks.

Atalay said Thursday that the rescue work was concentrating at the site of two collapsed hotels and one apartment building. The disaster management authority said 23 survivors were pulled out along with the bodies of seven people.

One of the collapsed buildings was the Bayram Hotel, Van's best-known hotel. It was at least 40 years old, and had been renovated last year.

Some of the guests were journalists who were covering the aftermath of the previous temblor, which left thousands homeless and led a number of countries to send tents, blankets and other supplies to assist Turkey in the aid effort.

Turkey's Dogan news agency said two of its reporters were missing.

Some foreign rescue workers who scrambled to help the survivors of the previous quake were also staying at the same hotel.

Japan's Association for Aid and Relief said one of its staff members, Miyuki Konnai, who rushed to Turkey to help the victims of the previous quake, was pulled out alive from the rubble of the Bayram Hotel but another staffer, Atsushi Miyazaki, was missing.

"We spoke with her briefly, she is in a hospital at the moment," Ikuko Natori told The Associated Press by telephone from Tokyo, Japan, in reference to the 32-year-old Konnai. "She had a slight injury but it is not life threatening."

Natori, however, said they were not able to reach Miyazaki, 41, yet.

"We tried calling him on his mobile, it rings but he is not answering," said Natori.

Ozgur Gunes, a cameraman for Turkey's Cihan news agency, told Haber Turk television that some trapped journalists had sent text messages to colleagues asking to be rescued.

He had left the hotel before the quake, but rushed back to collect his camera after it struck, only to find that the building toppled.

"There was dust everywhere and the hotel was flattened," he said. He told Sky Turk television that the building had some small cracks before the quake, but that he and other guests were told that there was no structural damage.

The exact number of people at the Bayram Hotel was not known but dozens are believed to be trapped, authorities said. CNN-Turk television said a number of people were also said to be waiting at an office of an inter-city bus firm under the hotel when the quake hit.

Hotel owner Aslan Bayram told NTV television that the hotel had 27 guests, about half of whom were inside when the quake hit. But he said he did not know how many customers may have been in a shop selling desserts at the entrance of the building.

Mustafa Bilici, a ruling party lawmaker, said one person died after throwing himself out of a building in panic.

Atalay said among the toppled buildings were a school and a number of mudbrick homes.

The government dispatched hundreds of rescue teams from across the country aboard military and civilian planes, NTV television said. Schools in the region are closed until Dec. 5. Authorities said schools and hospitals will be closely inspected for damage.

The Turkish Red Crescent immediately dispatched 15,000 tents as well as some 300 rescue workers, the state-run TRT television said. There was no damage in the town of Edremit, the quake's epicenter.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake measured 5.7 and that its epicenter was 16 kilometers (9 miles) south of Van. It struck at 9:23 p.m. (1923 GMT, 2:23 p.m. EST).

About 1,400 aftershocks have rocked the region since the massive earthquake on Oct. 23, which killed more than 600 and left thousands homeless. Many residents had been living in tents, despite the cold, too afraid to return to their homes. At least 2,000 buildings were destroyed in the stronger temblor and authorities declared another 3,700 buildings unfit for living.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111110/ap_on_re_eu/eu_turkey_quake

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Jaw Shrinks With Age, 40-Year Study Finds (HealthDay)

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 9 (HealthDay News) -- The human jaw shrinks with age and that can result in crowded front teeth among the elderly, a new study has found.

Swedish researchers looked at plaster molds made of the jaws of dental students in 1949 when the students were in their 20s, and follow-up jaw molds of the same people made in 1959 and 1989.

"We found that over these 40 years there was less and less room for teeth in the jaw," Lars Bondemark, a professor of orthodontics at Malmo University, said in a university news release.

This reduced amount of space for front teeth was the result of a few millimeters of shrinkage in both the length and width of the jaws, primarily the lower jaw.

The amount of jaw shrinkage varies between individuals and is influenced by hereditary and anatomical factors. In some cases, the changes are significant enough that people notice a change in their bite.

"In that case it's good to know that this is normal," Bondemark said.

Dentists need to consider the continuous shrinkage of jaws when they plan major work on a patient's bite.

"We're working against nature, and it's hard to construct something that is completely stable," Bondemark said.

And, he added, "We can also eliminate wisdom teeth as the cause, because even people who have no wisdom teeth have crowded front teeth."

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging offers advice about taking care of your teeth and mouth.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/seniors/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111110/hl_hsn/jawshrinkswithage40yearstudyfinds

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The Wrangler Is One Pretty Neat Rugged Case That Can Double Your iPhone's Battery Life [IPhone]

This is the SmartCase Quattro4 Wrangler, a rugged case that fully encloses your iPhone, even covering the screen with a transparent glass. It's a two piece solid design. The best part, however, is the 2000 mAh battery pack. More »

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Girls Gone Gadgets 01: Premiere [NSFW-L]

• Our podcast feed: Audio | Video
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Georgia and Ashley Esqueda talk Android Xoom 2, geek dating dos and don'ts, how to rock (and not rock) your BlackBerry, advice for celebrity sexters, iHelicopters and Whale Trail for iPhone and iPad, and the next creepy step towards robot apocalypse. This is Girls Gone Gadgets! [NSFW-L]

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/KjkgL2oykm8/story01.htm

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Survey: Sexual harassment pervasive in grades 7-12 (AP)

NEW YORK ? It can be a malicious rumor whispered in the hallway, a lewd photo arriving by cell phone, hands groping where they shouldn't. Added up, it's an epidemic ? student-on-student sexual harassment that is pervasive in America's middle schools and high schools.

During the 2010-11 school year, 48 percent of students in grades 7-12 experienced some form of sexual harassment in person or electronically via texting, email and social media, according to a major national survey being released Monday by the American Association of University Women.

The harassers often thought they were being funny, but the consequences for their targets can be wrenching, according to the survey. Nearly a third of the victims said the harassment made them feel sick to their stomach, affected their study habits or fueled reluctance to go to school at all.

"It's reached a level where it's almost a normal part of the school day," said one of the report's co-authors, AAUW director of research Catherine Hill. "It's somewhat of a vicious cycle. The kids who are harassers often have been harassed themselves."

The survey, conducted in May and June, asked 1,002 girls and 963 boys from public and private schools nationwide whether they had experienced any of various forms of sexual harassment. These included having someone make unwelcome sexual comments about them, being called gay or lesbian in a negative way, being touched in an unwelcome sexual way, being shown sexual pictures they didn't want to see, and being the subject of unwelcome sexual rumors.

The survey quoted one ninth-grade girl as saying she was called a whore "because I have many friends that are boys." A 12th-grade boy said schoolmates circulated an image showing his face attached to an animal having sex.

In all, 56 percent of the girls and 40 percent of the boys said they had experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment during the school year.

After being harassed, half of the targeted students did nothing about it. Of the rest, some talked to parents or friends, but only 9 percent reported the incident to a teacher, guidance counselor or other adult at school, according to the survey.

Reasons for not reporting included doubts it would have any impact, fears of making the situation worse, and concerns about the staff member's reaction.

The report comes at a time when the problem of bullying at schools is in the spotlight, in part because of several recent suicides of beleaguered students.

The AAUW report observes that sexual harassment and bullying can sometimes overlap, such as the taunting of youths who are perceived to be gay or lesbian, but it says there are important distinctions. For example, there are some state laws against bullying, but serious sexual harassment ? at a level which interferes with a student's education_ is prohibited under the federal gender-equality legislation known as Title IX.

"Too often, the more comfortable term bullying is used to describe sexual harassment, obscuring the role of gender and sex in these incidents," the report says. "Schools are likely to promote bullying prevention while ignoring or downplaying sexual harassment."

Fatima Goss Graves, a vice president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington, said the ultimate goal should be to deter hurtful student interactions however they are defined.

"Schools get too caught up in the label," she said. "If it's the sort of conduct that's interfering with a student's performance, it ought to be stopped."

The survey asked students for suggestions on how to reduce sexual harassment at their schools. More than half favored systematic punishments for harassers and said there should be a mechanism for reporting harassment anonymously.

The AAUW report said all schools should create a sexual-harassment policy and make sure it is publicized and enforced. It said schools must ensure that students are educated about what their rights are under Title IX, with special attention paid to encouraging girls to respond assertively to harassment since they are targeted more often than boys.

Niobe Way, a professor of applied psychology at New York University who has studied adolescent relationships, suggested that school anti-harassment policies might have only limited impact without broader cultural changes that break down gender stereotypes.

"You have a culture that doesn't value boys having close intimate relations and being emotional or empathetic," she said.

Bill Bond, a former high school principal who is a school safety expert for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said there had been in shift in the nature of sexual harassment among students over recent decades.

Overt attempts to exploit a fellow student sexually have become less common, while there's more use of sexual remarks to degrade or insult someone, he said.

"Words can cut a kid all the way to the heart," Bond said. "And when it's on the computers and cell phones, there's no escape. It's absolutely devastating and vicious to a kid."

The survey was conducted for AAUW by Knowledge Networks, and students answered the questions online, rather than to a person, to maximize the chances that they would answer sensitive questions candidly. Households were provided with equipment and Internet access if needed.

The AAUW said the margin of error for the full sample of the survey was plus or minus 2.2 percent, with a larger margin of error for subgroups.

___

Online:

AAUW: http://www.aauw.org/

___

David Crary can be reached at http://twitter.com/CraryAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111107/ap_on_re_us/us_sex_harassment_in_school

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Iraqi PM says nation still faces threats

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraq's prime minister is urging his security forces to step up their vigilance against violence, saying the country "remains in the circle of danger."

Nouri al-Maliki's comments Sunday come as the last 33,000 U.S. troops in Iraq prepare to leave by the end of the year as required by a 2008 security agreement.

Al-Maliki said the continued threat shows that insurgents still want to prevent Iraq from becoming a stable nation. He did not elaborate.

But over the last several weeks his government has detained 615 people that al-Maliki says are members of Iraq's former ruling Baath Party that was ousted from power in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Sunnis have accused al-Maliki, who is Shiite, of cracking down on Baathists as an excuse to exert political pressure on them.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-06-ML-Iraq/id-b3fa302fedae43cdb567c5dc9dd82f06

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Trade war looms over Europe's aircraft carbon tax

THE world could be on the brink of a trade war over European Union efforts to impose carbon charges on the emissions of all planes landing or taking off within the EU. The scheme, if implemented, would be the first global financial sanction on greenhouse gas emitters.

From 1 January, the EU intends to make international airlines join its Emissions Trading System (ETS). They will have to buy carbon permits for emissions made by flights into and out of European airports. China, Russia, the US, India, Brazil and Japan all oppose the plan, which they say flouts international law, and last week, the US House of Representatives voted to make it illegal for US airlines to comply, though President Barack Obama is unlikely to pass this into law. But the European Court of Justice provisionally ruled last month that the plan is legal. The impasse arose from the failure of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization to control carbon dioxide emissions from aviation, despite its 1997 pledge do to so.

A World Bank report entitled "Mobilizing Climate Finance", prepared for this week's G20 meeting of world leaders in Cannes, France, argues that global carbon taxes on aviation would be a largely painless way of raising revenue and cutting CO₂ emissions.

A draft of the paper says that a charge of $25 per tonne on aviation emissions of CO₂ "might raise air ticket prices by around 2-4 per cent", while reducing CO₂ and other emissions on routes covered by the charges by 5 to 10 per cent. This would happen partly through fewer people flying, but mostly by encouraging the retirement of older, more polluting aircraft, as well as a switch to routes and speeds that economise on fuel, it says. The precise charge for carbon credits to fly into and out of Europe will depend on prices within the ETS, which have recently been around $15 per tonne.

Aviation emissions currently make up 3 per cent of global CO₂ emissions. But their contribution to climate change is doubled by the greenhouse effect of other emissions from aircraft engines, such as water vapour and nitrogen oxides.

Airlines say the EU's move will damage their profits and reduce investment in clean technology. But the World Bank says that, far from it being an unfair burden, it would "reflect a scaling back of unusually favourable fuel tax treatment". Aviation fuel is currently untaxed worldwide.

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Bad weather strands 1,200 Mount Everest trekkers (AP)

KATMANDU, Nepal ? More than 1,000 foreign trekkers are stranded in the foothills of Mount Everest because bad weather has not allowed planes to take off or land at the area's only airport.

Police official Ramesh Khakda says about 1,200 foreign trekkers are stranded at and around Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla, Nepal. There are several Nepalese guides and porters with the foreigners.

Small helicopters ferried some of the trekkers Friday, but bad weather was hampering the efforts. Thick fog has canceled flights at the airport, which sits at an altitude of 9,200 feet (2,800 meters), for the past four days. The stranded trekkers have been sleeping at the airport and in tents and dining halls at Lukla hotels.

Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, peaks at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters).

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111104/ap_on_re_as/as_nepal_trekkers_stranded

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Video: Ohio governor fumbles

No. 1 LSU gets its kicks out of OT win over No. 2 'Bama

No. 1 LSU gained the inside track to the BCS title game, beating No. 2 Alabama 9-6 on Drew Alleman's 25-yard field goal in overtime after a fierce defensive struggle in which neither team reached the end zone Saturday night.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45169851#45169851

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A 2-dimensional electron liquid solidifies in a magnetic field

Friday, November 4, 2011
Electron densities for the ground state of N=7 electrons in a magntic field, at: (a) fractional filling ? =1/3, corresponding to the angular momentum L2 = 63, shown in red on the left hand side (? = 0, ? = 1). The total wave function is ?= ?63 whose density is seen to exhibit a uniform circular amplitude characteristic of a liquid state, and (b) a mixed state in the neighborhood of ? =1/3, obtained by disorder-induced coupling between the ground state ?63 and the adjacent excited state with L1 = 57. The density of the broken-symmetry mixed state ?= ? ?57 + ? ?63 (with ? = 1/ 2, ? =1/ 2) , shown in blue on the right, exhibits a non-uniform crystalline pattern, portraying formation of a disorder-pinned wigner crystallite. The results were obtained through exact diagonalization of the hamiltonian, with the parameters corresponding to GaAs, i.e. a dielectric constant ? = 13.1 and an effective mass m* =0.0067 me, and a confining potential of 3.6 meV. Lengths are given in units of the magnetic length lB, and the units of the vertical axes are 10?2lB-2. The electron density is normalized to the number of particles, N. Credit: Uzi Landman, Georgia Institute of Technology

Physicists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a theory that describes, in a unified manner, the coexistence of liquid and pinned solid phases of electrons in two dimensions under the influence of a magnetic field. The theory also describes the transition between these phases as the field is varied. The theoretical predictions by Constantine Yannouleas and Uzi Landman, from Georgia Tech's School of Physics, aim to explain and provide insights into the origins of experimental findings published last year by a team of researchers from Princeton, Florida State and Purdue universities. The research appears in the October 27 edition of the journal Physical Review B.

The experimental discovery in 1982 of a new Hall conductance step at a fraction ?=1/m with m=3, that is at (1/3)e2/h (with more conductance steps, at other m, found later) ? where h is the Planck constant and e is the electron charge ? was made for two-dimensional electrons at low temperatures and strong magnetic fields and was greeted with great surprise. The theoretical explanation of this finding a year later by Robert Laughlin in terms of a new form of a quantum fluid, earned him and the experimentalists Horst St?rmer and Daniel Tsui the 1998 Nobel Prize with the citation "for the discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations." These discoveries represent conceptual breakthroughs in the understanding of matter, and the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) liquid states, originating from the highly correlated nature of the electrons in these systems, have been termed as new states of matter.

"The quantum fluid state at the 1/3 primary fraction is the hallmark of the FQHE, whose theoretical understanding has been formulated around the antithesis between a new form of quantum fluid and the pinned Wigner crystal," said Landman, Regents' and Institute Professor in the School of Physics, F.E. Callaway Chair and director of the Center for Computational Materials Science (CCMS) at Georgia Tech. "Therefore, the discovery of pinned crystalline signatures in the neighborhood of the 1/3 FQHE fraction, measured as resonances in the microwave spectrum of the two-dimensional electron gas and reported in the Physical Review Letters in September 2010 by a group of researchers headed by Daniel Tsui, was rather surprising," he added.

Indeed, formation of a hexagonally ordered two-dimensional electron solid phase, a so called Wigner crystal (WC) named after the Nobel laureate physicist Eugene Wigner who predicted its existence in 1934, has been anticipated for smaller quantum Hall fractional fillings, ?, of the lowest Landau level populated by the electrons at high magnetic fields, for example ? = 1/9, 1/7 and even 1/5. However, the electrons in the ?=1/3 fraction were believed to resist crystallization and remain liquid.

The Georgia Tech physicists developed a theoretical formalism that, in conjunction with exact numerical solutions, provides a unified microscopic approach to the interplay between FQHE liquid and Wigner solid states in the neighborhood of the 1/3 fractional filling. A major advantage of their approach is the use of a single class of variational wave functions for description of both the quantum liquid and solid phases.

"Liquid characteristics of the fractional quantum Hall effect states are associated with symmetry-conserving vibrations and rotations of the strongly interacting electrons and they coexist with intrinsic correlations that are crystalline in nature," Yannouleas and Landman wrote in the opening section of their paper. "While the electron densities of the fractional quantum Hall effect liquid state do not exhibit crystalline patterns, the intrinsic crystalline correlations which they possess are reflected in the emergence of a sequence of liquid states of enhanced stability, called cusp states, that correspond in the thermodynamic limit to the fractional quantum Hall effect filling fractions observed in Hall conductance measurements," they added.

The key to their explanation of the recent experimental observations pertaining to the appearance of solid characteristics for magnetic fields in the neighborhood of the 1/3 filling fraction is their finding that "away from the exact fractional fillings, for example near ?=1/3, weak pinning perturbations, due to weak disorder, may overcome the energy gaps between adjacent good angular momentum symmetry-conserving states. The coupling between these states generates broken-symmetry ground states whose densities exhibit spatial crystalline patterns. At the same time, however, the energy gap between the ground state at ?=1/3 and adjacent states is found to be sufficiently large to prevent disorder-induced mixing, thus preserving its quantum fluid nature."

Furthermore, the work shows that the emergence of the crystalline features, via the pinning perturbations, is a consequence of the aforementioned presence of crystalline correlations in the symmetry-conserving states. Consequently, mixing rules that govern the nature of the disorder-pinned crystalline states have been formulated and tested. Extrapolation of the calculated results to the thermodynamic limit shows development of a hexagonal Wigner crystal with enhanced stability due to quantum correlations.

"In closing, the nature of electrons in the fractional quantum Hall regime continues now for close to three decades to be a subject of great fascination, a research field that raises questions whose investigations can lead to deeper conceptual understanding of matter and many-body phenomena, and a rich source of surprise and discovery," said Landman.

###

Georgia Institute of Technology: http://www.gatech.edu

Thanks to Georgia Institute of Technology for this article.

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Jury begins considering fate of Jackson doctor (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? After six weeks of listening, jurors in the involuntary manslaughter case of Michael Jackson's doctor began deliberations Friday morning.

Their discussions behind closed doors in a downtown Los Angeles courthouse could lead to the conviction or acquittal of Dr. Conrad Murray, whom the panel has heard described alternately as an inept and opportunistic physician or a naive outsider granted access into Jackson's inner realm.

The seven-man, five-woman panel listened intently Thursday as prosecutors and defense attorneys argued over whether Murray should be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for Jackson's death in June 2009. The physician's attorneys attacked prosecutors and their witnesses, saying they had over time developed stories and theories that placed the blame for Jackson's death squarely on Murray.

Media were camped outside the courthouse and in the courtroom where the jury's decision will eventually be read. There was no sign of Murray or attorneys handling the case, but they will receive a two-hour notice when a verdict is reached. Murray waived the need for his presence if the panel asks any questions, but must be present when a verdict is reached.

Jackson died from a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol; Murray has acknowledged giving Jackson propofol to help him sleep.

The real reason Jackson died, defense attorney Ed Chernoff argued, was because he craved the powerful anesthetic so much that he gave himself a fatal injection when Murray left his bedside.

"They want you to convict Dr. Murray for the actions of Michael Jackson," Chernoff said.

"Poor Conrad Murray," prosecutor David Walgren replied in his final speech to jurors. "Michael Jackson is dead. And we have to hear about poor Conrad Murray and no doctor knows what it's like to be in his shoes."

Walgren noted that several doctors who testified ? including two who were called by Murray's attorneys ? said they would have never given the singer anesthesia in his bedroom.

Murray is solely to blame for Jackson's death, Walgren argued, saying Murray had purchased more than four gallons of propofol to administer to Jackson and had been giving him nightly doses to help him sleep.

Walgren repeatedly described Murray's treatments on Jackson as unusual and called his actions on the day of the singer's death ? including not calling 911 and not mentioning his propofol doses to paramedics or other doctors ? "bizarre."

Murray was essentially experimenting on Jackson, Walgren said. Murray should have known Jackson might die from the treatments, yet he lacked the proper life-saving and monitoring equipment.

"What is unusual and unpredictable is that Michael Jackson lived as long as he did under the care of Conrad Murray in this situation," Walgren said.

The prosecutor repeatedly invoked the singer's children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, and said Murray's actions left them without a father. The children, who range in ages from 9 to 14, were not present, but Jackson's parents and several of his siblings attended closing arguments.

The Houston-based cardiologist's culpability will be decided by jurors, who heard from 49 witnesses and have more than 300 pieces of evidence to consider. They were given lengthy instructions about how to deliberate and interpret the case.

If Murray is convicted, he faces a sentence that ranges from probation to four years behind bars, and he would lose his medical license. The sentence will be decided by Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor and not the jury; the judge will receive input from attorneys for both sides and probation officials if necessary. A recent change in California law means that Murray, 58, might serve any incarceration in a county jail rather than a state prison.

If acquitted, Murray would be free from criminal prosecution, but will likely be pursued by medical licensing authorities in the states of California, Nevada and Texas.

In order to convict Murray, jurors will have to determine the cardiologist was substantially responsible for Jackson's death.

Despite days of scientific testimony about what likely happened in Jackson's bedroom from experts for Murray and the prosecution, Walgren acknowledged that some things about the events in the King of Pop's bedroom that led to his death will never be known.

"The people won't prove exactly what happened behind those closed doors," he said. "Michael Jackson could give answers, but he is dead."

___

AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.

___

McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111104/ap_on_en_mu/us_michael_jackson_doctor

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Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of private property

HAVANA (AP) ? Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro.

The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, applies to citizens and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday's Communist Party daily Granma.

The brief article said details of the new law would be published imminently in the government's Official Gazette. Authorities have said previously that sales will be subject to taxes and the rules will not allow anyone to accumulate great property holdings.

The change follows October's legalization of buying and selling cars, though with restrictions that still make it hard for ordinary Cubans to buy new vehicles.

Castro has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs ? everything from party clowns to food vendors to accountants ? and has pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating half a million government workers.

Cuba's government employs over 80 percent of the workers in the island's command economy, paying wages of just $20 a month in return for free education and health care, and nearly free housing, transportation and basic foods. Castro has said repeatedly that the system is not working since taking over from his brother Fidel in 2008, but he has vowed that Cuba will remain a Socialist state.

Cubans have long bemoaned the ban on property sales, which took effect in stages over the first years after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. In an effort to fight absentee ownership by wealthy landlords, Fidel enacted a reform that gave title to whomever lived in a home. Most who left the island forfeited their properties to the state.

Since no property market was allowed, the rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals where thousands of dollars change hands under the table, with no legal recourse if transactions go bad.

Some Cubans enter into sham marriages to make deed transfers easier. Others make deals to move into homes ostensibly to care for an elderly person living there, only to inherit the property when the person dies.

The island's crumbling housing stock has meant that many are forced to live in overcrowded apartments with multiple generations crammed into a few rooms. Even divorce hasn't necessarily meant separation in Cuba, where estranged couples are often forced to live together for years while they work out alternative housing.

The new law will eliminate a state agency that regulated the exchange-by-barter of homes, meaning that from now on sales will only need the seal of a notary, according to Granma.

The government has also dropped hints in recent months about the new property law, saying it will allow family members to inherit homes even if they are not living in the property.

Cubans who can afford it will be allowed to own one home in the city and one in the countryside.

___

Paul Haven can be reached at www.twitter.com/paulhaven

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-03-CB-Cuba-Private-Property/id-c648f75bedc24842b9ad507899b7c238

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Novatel celebrates sale of 3 millionth MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot with an intelligent rager

Today marks a momentous occasion for Novatel Wireless, because shipments of its MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot have now surpassed the 3 million mark. The company confirmed the milestone in an announcement yesterday, and took a moment to look back on how far their router has come since it was first introduced in 2009. Since then, Novatel has launched its family of MiFi devices with 25 operators across the world and is looking to build upon its record. For now, though, just grab a bottle of bubbly and join the PR party, after the break.

Continue reading Novatel celebrates sale of 3 millionth MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot with an intelligent rager

Novatel celebrates sale of 3 millionth MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot with an intelligent rager originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Nov 2011 07:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix, Amazon sign content deals with Disney (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Netflix and Amazon.com Inc unveiled content deals with Walt Disney Co on Monday, a sign of increased competition between the two companies in the video streaming business.

Netflix said it extended its license agreement with ABC Television Group, a division of Disney, to continue to stream TV shows over the Internet.

With the extension of the existing license agreement, Netflix will also add new TV show episodes from ABC Studios, Disney Channel and the ABC Family to its existing library, it said in a statement.

Netflix will now also carry episodes of ABC's "Switched at Birth", "Alias" and prior-season episodes of Disney Channel's animated series "Kick Buttowski".

Netflix will continue to carry every episode of ABC shows such as "Lost", "Ugly Betty", "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives", and a number of programs from the Disney Channel.

Amazon announced a new licensing agreement with Disney-ABC Television Group that will allow Amazon Prime members to instantly stream a broad selection of library content from ABC Studios, Disney Channel, ABC Family and Marvel.

Amazon Prime costs $79 a year in the United States and gives members free 2-day shipping along with free access to almost 13,000 TV shows and movies from the company's Internet streaming service.

(Reporting by Maneesha Tiwari in Bangalore and Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Matt Driskill and Richard Chang)

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Flesh-Tearing Piranhas Communicate With Sound

60-Second Science | More Science

Red-bellied piranhas make three distinctive sounds when communicating about how much they will mess each other up. Cynthia Graber reports.

October 31, 2011?|

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Like a pit bull, piranhas will tear the flesh from your bones. Also like a pit bull, they bark. [Piranha audio type 1] Kind of.

Scientists had known that piranha barked when you pick them up ? carefully, of course. But they hadn?t known what these sounds were for. So researchers examined how the vocalizations might correspond with behavior.

They dropped a microphone into a piranha tank that, at different times, held three groups of 10 fish. They then placed a mussel in to see how the fish competed for food.

When the fish faced off, they produced that percussive bark. [Piranha audio type 1]

When they circled one another, they made a softer thud sound. [Piranha audio type 2]

A teeth gnashing [Piranha audio type 3] indicated that a piranha was getting pretty ticked off as it chased a competitor.

The first two sounds are produced by muscles contracting around the fish?s swim bladder. The findings are in the Journal of Experimental Biology. [Sandie Millot, Pierre Vandewalle and Eric Parmentier, Sound production in red-bellied piranhas (Pygocentrus nattereri, Kner): an acoustical, behavioural and morphofunctional study. Piranha audio courtesy of Sandie Millot]

The researchers are now interested in whether piranhas vocalize during mating. But they?ll have to travel to Brazil to study this in the wild ? turns out that when it comes to mating in captivity, piranhas say no tanks.

?Cynthia Graber

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

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Obama to take executive action on drug shortages (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? U.S. President Barack Obama will sign an executive order on Monday aimed at easing shortages of prescription drugs, according to a White House House official.

The official said the order would direct the Food and Drug Administration "to take action to help further reduce and prevent drug shortages, protect consumers and prevent price gouging."

The signing of the order is scheduled for 12:20 p.m. EDT. Obama is also expected to give his support to legislation pending in the House of Representatives and Senate that would give the FDA new tools to prevent drug shortages.

The prescription drug order is the latest in a series of actions Obama is taking that do not require congressional approval. Obama, who is trying to pressure Republicans to drop their resistance to his $447 billion jobs package, has promised to take new executive actions on the economy each week.

Struggling with weak poll numbers of around 44 percent that could jeopardize his hopes for re-election in 2012, Obama wants to show U.S. voters he is acting to help the economy even if he is having difficulty passing legislation.

(Writing by Caren Bohan; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Recovery expected for injured Oakland protester (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? The roommate of an Iraq War veteran seriously injured in a clash with police during an anti-Wall Street protest says Scott Olsen is doing well and doctors say he'll make a full recovery.

Keith Shannon served with the 24-year-old former Marine in Iraq.

He tells The Associated Press that he visited Olsen at a medical facility Sunday and he "seems to be doing well."

Shannon says Olsen still can't talk but doctors expect him to make a full recovery.

Olsen suffered a fractured skull and other head injuries during the clash Tuesday.

Police are investigating how Olsen was struck by a projectile.

Wall Street protesters around the country have rallied around Olsen's plight. That includes a march by hundreds Saturday night in Oakland.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_re_us/us_occupy_california

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