Dems: Fast & Furious just 1 of 4 misguided probes (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Democrats looking into Operation Fast and Furious say a yearlong investigation has turned up no evidence that the flawed gun smuggling probe was conceived or directed by high-level political appointees at Justice Department headquarters.

The probe, the Democrats say, was just one of four such operations that were part of a misguided five-year-long effort, during both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, in the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives against firearms trafficking along the Southwest border.

"Operation Fast and Furious was the latest in a series of fatally flawed operations run by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office," the report from Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says.

It is expected to differ sharply with the conclusions of Republicans, who will question Attorney General Eric Holder about Operation Fast and Furious at a hearing Thursday before the committee.

On Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the idea that "senior political appointees have clean hands in these gun-walking scandals doesn't pass the laugh test ... They ignored the warning signs and failed to put a stop to it or hold anyone accountable. Lanny Breuer (assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division) is a senior political appointee, and he admits to knowing about gun-walking as early as April 2010."

Beginning six years ago, according to the Democrats' report, ATF agents in Phoenix devised a strategy to forgo arrests against low-level straw purchasers of guns while attempting to build bigger cases against higher-level traffickers, a risky tactic known as gun-walking.

"The committee has obtained no evidence indicating that the attorney general authorized gun-walking or that he was aware of such allegations before they became public," said the Democrats' report, "Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gunwalking in Arizona." "None of the 22 witnesses interviewed by the committee claims to have spoken with the attorney general about the specific tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy."

Rather than halting operations after flaws became evident, the ATF's Phoenix division "launched several similarly reckless operations over the course of several years, also with tragic results," the report said. "Each investigation involved various incarnations of the same activity: Agents were contemporaneously aware of illegal firearms purchases, they did not typically interdict weapons or arrest straw purchasers, and firearms ended up in the hands of criminals on both sides of the border."

Operation Fast and Furious came to light following the December 2010 slaying of U.S. border agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Ariz. Two guns connected to suspects in the Fast and Furious investigation were found at the Terry murder scene.

Operation Fast and Furious was the fourth such ATF gun-walking probe, according to the Democrats' report, which was based on documents collected by the committee.

The first gun-walking probe, said the report, was Operation Wide Receiver, in which ATF agents, for over a year starting in 2006, watched traffickers buying guns from a gun dealer and driving them across the border into Mexico. According to a memo by William Newell, who was in charge of the Phoenix division at the time, one of the suspects told the gun dealer that the "firearms are going to his boss in Tijuana, Mexico, where some are given out as gifts." ATF officials believed they had sufficient evidence to arrest and charge the suspects, but as one agent said at the time, "we want it all," according to an email between two ATF supervisors in Arizona.

A year after Wide Receiver began, ATF initiated attempts to coordinate with Mexican officials. Numerous attempts at cross-border interdiction failed, according to the Democrats' report, with ATF agents expressing concern over the operation.

In a 2007 case, ATF agents targeted Fidel Hernandez and several alleged co-conspirators who purchased over 200 firearms and were believed to be transporting them into Mexico.

William Hoover, then ATF's assistant director of field operations, temporarily halted operations after being informed of several attempts at coordinating with Mexican law enforcement authorities.

The defendants were brought to trial in 2009, but acquitted after prosecutors were unable to obtain the cooperation of the Mexican law enforcement officials who had recovered firearms purchased by Hernandez.

In a 2008 case, ATF agents in Phoenix focused for a year on a network of illicit gun buyers who were purchasing weapons from the same gun dealer who had cooperated in Operation Wide Receiver.

Members of the network, led by Alejandro Medrano, were eventually sentenced to multiyear prison terms for trafficking more than 100 firearms to a Mexican drug cartel.

In Operation Fast and Furious, ATF agents in Phoenix late in 2009 identified a network of more than 20 straw purchasers believed to be trafficking military-grade assault weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Twenty people were charged in the case.

ATF Deputy Director William Hoover became concerned about the number of firearms involved in the case and ordered a strategy for the investigation to be brought to an end. Newell in Phoenix expressed frustration with ATF headquarters in Washington and "the operation continued to grow and expand rather than wind down over the months to follow," the Democrats' report said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_go_co/us_fast_and_furious

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Fla. highway open after chain crashes kill 10 (AP)

GAINESVILLE, Fla. ? Fog and brushfire smoke cleared enough Monday to reopen all lanes of a Florida interstate where 10 people died in a mass pileup that tossed wreckage across the asphalt and left rescuers to search for survivors in the dark by listening for their screams.

Another 18 people were hospitalized after a long line of cars and trucks collided early Sunday on a stretch of Interstate 75 south of Gainesville.

Steven R. Camps and some friends were driving home hours before dawn Sunday when they were drawn into the massive wreck.

"You could hear cars hitting each other. People were crying. People were screaming. It was crazy," the Gainesville man said hours later. "If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of the world."

The interstate had been closed for a time before the accidents because of a mixture of fog and heavy smoke from a brush fire that may have been intentionally set. The decision to reopen it early Sunday will certainly be a focus of investigators, as will the question of how the fire may have started.

The National Transportation Safety Board is among the agencies that have sent investigators to the scene. The NTSB said it is assessing whether it wants to formally join the probe, which is being led by the Florida Highway Patrol.

The pileups happened around 3:45 a.m. Sunday on both sides of I-75. When rescuers first arrived, they could only listen for screams and moans because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn for nearly a mile.

At least a dozen cars and six tractor-trailers were involved, and some burst into flames.

Hours later, twisted, burned-out vehicles were scattered across the pavement, with smoke still rising from the wreckage. Cars appeared to have smashed into the big rigs and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were crushed beneath the heavier trucks.

Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw bodies still inside a burned-out Grand Prix. One tractor-trailer was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. And the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

Before Camps hit the fog bank, a friend who was driving ahead of him in a separate vehicle called to warn of the road conditions. The friend said he had just seen an accident and urged Camps to be careful as he approached the Paynes Prairie area, just south of Gainesville.

A short time later, Camps said, traffic stopped along the northbound lanes.

"You couldn't see anything. People were pulling off the road," he said.

Camps said he began talking about the road conditions to a man in the car stopped next to him when another vehicle hit that man's car.

The man's vehicle was crushed under a semi-truck stopped in front of them. Camps said his car was hit twice, but he and another friend were able to jump out. They took cover in the grass on the shoulder of the road.

All around them, cars and trucks were on fire, and they could hear explosions as the vehicles burned.

"It was happening on both sides of the road, so there was nowhere to go. It blew my mind," he said, explaining that the scene "looked like someone was picking up cars and throwing them."

Authorities had not released the names of victims Sunday evening, but said one passenger car had four fatalities. A "tour bus-like" vehicle also was involved in the pileup, police said.

All six lanes of the interstate were closed most of Sunday as investigators surveyed the site and firefighters put out the last of the flames. Some traffic was being diverted onto U.S. 301 and State Road 27, said Lt. Patrick Riordan, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman. The northbound lanes were reopened at about 5:30 p.m.

At some point before the pileup, police briefly closed the highway because of fog and smoke. The road was reopened when visibility improved, police said. Riordan said he was not sure how much time passed between the reopening of the highway and the first crash.

On Monday, FHP released an accident report showing there was three-way crash at 11:55 p.m. Saturday, involving a tractor-trailer and two SUVs. One person was seriously injured in the crash. Trooper M.J. Todd noted in his report that "there was heavy smoke in the area, causing low visibility." The highway was closed to traffic a short time later.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Forest Service, Ludie Bond, said the fire began Saturday, and investigators were trying to determine whether the blaze had been intentionally set. She said there were no controlled burns in the area and no lightning.

Bond also said the fire had burned 62 acres and was contained but still burning Sunday. A similar fire nearby has been burning since mid-November because the dried vegetation is so thick and deep. No homes are threatened.

Four years ago, heavy fog and smoke were blamed for another serious crash.

In January 2008, four people were killed and 38 injured in a series of similar crashes on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa, about 125 miles south of Sunday's crash. More than 70 vehicles were involved in those crashes, including one pileup that involved 40 vehicles.

___

Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Miami contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_us/us_deadly_interstate_crash

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Random pics of 3 of my pets ? Mike and Olive and Audrey ? Gretawire

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Mike, the cat, is yawning.

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And the dog? That is Olive:

Olive is our sneakiest pet. ?She is adorable but sneaky.

And below is 80 pound Audrey on the (where else?) couch:

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• Look who had surgery today!
• Behind the scenes ? check out the pics of this diner exterior in Manchester, New Hampshire
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Source: http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2012/01/29/random-pics-of-two-of-my-pets-mike-and-olive/

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How To Put Chains On.....In A Bikini

Source: http://www.getoutdoors.com/goblog/index.php?/archives/4359-How-To-Put-Chains-On.....In-A-Bikini.html

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Wall St edges lower after GDP data (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks slipped on Friday as data showed the U.S. economy grew less than expected in the fourth quarter, while some disappointing earnings added pressure to the market.

Government data showed U.S. gross domestic product expanded at its fastest pace in 1-1/2 years in the fourth quarter of 2011 but fell shy of expectations. A strong rebuilding of inventories and weak spending by businesses pointed to slower growth early this year, denting recent optimism about an improving economy.

But losses were curbed as Federal Reserve statements this week and economic data kept investors alert for the possibility of another round of monetary stimulus known as quantitative easing, or QE3.

"Out of what the Fed said, you can expect some negative numbers because the Fed obviously saw what the GDP numbers are and they anticipate a slowdown," said Sean Kraus, chief investment officer at CitizensTrust in Pasadena, California.

If the Fed does resort to QE3 to stimulate growth, investors "don't want to be caught flat-footed and be out of risky assets," Kraus said.

Chevron Corp (CVX.N) fell 3.1 percent to $103.26 and was the biggest drag on the Dow after the No. 2 U.S. oil company posted lower earnings, missing Wall Street forecasts. The NYSEArca oil index (.XOI) lost 0.7 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) dropped 60.06 points, or 0.47 percent, to 12,674.57. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) dipped 2.69 points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,315.74. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) gained 7.46 points, or 0.27 percent, to 2,812.74.

Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) dipped 0.7 percent to $64.35 after said this year's profit would come in lower than previously expected due to the strong dollar.

Ford Motor Co (F.N) shares fell 1.7 percent to $12.52 after the carmaker reported a lower-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on higher commodity costs and losses in Europe and Asia.

Network equipment makers Juniper Networks Inc (JNPR.N) and Riverbed Technologies Inc (RVBD.O) gave first-quarter outlooks after the close Thursday that were below expectations. Juniper fell 3.9 percent to $21.50 while Riverbed plunged 22.4 percent to $23.22.

According to Thomson Reuters data, 58.7 percent of 184 S&P 500 companies reporting earnings through Friday have topped analysts' estimates, below the beat rate of about 70 percent seen at this stage of earnings season in recent quarters.

Utilities moved lower after results from American Electric Power (AEP.N), off 2.9 percent to $40.07, and Dominion Resources (D.N), down 0.8 percent to $50.44. The S&P utilities index (.GSPU) fell 1.1 percent.

Eastman Chemical Co (EMN.N) offered to buy specialty chemical maker Solutia Inc (SOA.N) for about $3.38 billion in cash and stock to extend its reach in emerging markets, particularly the Asia-Pacific region. Solutia shares rose 41 percent to $27.59.

Euro zone finance officials voiced optimism a deal to avert a disorderly Greek default was imminent. Renewed concern about the crisis has troubled markets this week.

(Reporting By Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

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Political Science: For a Moon Colony, Technology Is the Easy Part

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The smallest hurdle for establishing a moon colony is the technology, much of which already exists; the economics and politics would be far more difficult.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3d29fc09311144dbbf561d0265d7be64

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French police arrest PIP implant boss Mas (Reuters)

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) ? Jean-Claude Mas, whose breast implant firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) has sparked an international health scandal by using substandard silicone, was arrested on Thursday and could be charged with manslaughter, a French police source told Reuters.

He was arrested at around 7 a.m. (1 a.m. ET) at his home in southern France and police searched the premises. He will be held for 48 hours while investigators decide whether to charge him with involuntary manslaughter and causing injury.

A second PIP executive, former chief financial officer Claude Couty, was also arrested under an investigation that was opened in the southern port city of Marseille, close to PIP's former premises, on December 8.

The probe followed the death from cancer in 2010 of a woman with PIP implants, although health authorities in France and elsewhere have stressed the is no proven link to cancer from the PIP implants.

Lawyers for women who have filed complaints over their implants hailed the arrest as excellent news.

"This is a comfort for the victims," said Laurent Gaudon, whose clients accuse PIP and surgeons who used its implants of fraud. "It's the feeling that justice is advancing and they have not been forgotten. It's the assurance that the guilty are at last going to be held accountable."

Philippe Courtois, who represents a group of 1,300 people with PIP implants, said it was vital Mas was not allowed to flee justice. "A degree of provisionary detention is desirable," he said.

Mas, who sold some 300,000 implants around the world, has acknowledged that he had used unapproved silicone but dismissed fears that it constituted a health risk.

Earlier in January, leaks from a police document showing that Mas admitted to willfully lying about the poor quality of PIP's implants and said women filing complaints were just seeking money sparked a furious response in France.

PIP closed down in March 2010 after regulators discovered it was using a non-medical grade silicone, and in December 2011 the French government advised women with PIP implants to have them removed, sparking alarm around the world.

Around 2,700 women in France have filed complaints against Mas, and governments in several other countries such as Britain and Brazil have asked women to visit their doctors for checks.

France has called for tighter European Union regulations on medical devices in wake of the PIP health scare, saying suppliers should be made to carry the same sort of authorization as suppliers of prescription medicine.

Several PIP managers were already due to appear in court in Marseille in October this year following a prior investigation into fraud and deceptive business practices by the company, once the world's third-largest global seller of breast implants.

(Reporting by Jean-Francois Rosnoblet; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Edited by Richard Meares)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_france_implants

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"Artist" canine?headed for retirement (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Say it isn't so, Uggie! The trainer of "The Artist" pooch says Uggie is retiring after the biggest year in his big-screen career.

"I'm retiring him," Omar von Muller, Uggie's trainer, tells Life & Style magazine. "He may do a couple of little things here and there because he enjoys them, but I don't want to put him through long hours anymore. He's getting tired."

Uggie, who is nominated for two Golden Collar Awards, did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for a woof. His trainers also did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.

Uggie is a scene stealer in the Oscar-nominated "The Artist," and also starred in the 2011 Reese Witherspoon/Robert Pattinson drama "Water for Elephants." He earned Best Dog in a Theatrical Film nominations for both movies for the Golden Collar Awards.

Meanwhile, though Uggie is about to start living the life of doggie leisure, his trainer is keeping the family business going with Uggie's little brother, Dash. Dash has already worked as Uggie's stand-in.

"I think he will be fine with Dash stepping in," von Muller says. "Uggie is 10 years old and has done a lot of work; he wants to relax at home. If somebody wants to do a movie with Uggie, they'll just have to deal with Dash!"

Von Muller also says Uggie is hoping to close out his Hollywood days with an appearance at the Oscars.

"I hope he gets to go. They should give him an envelope to bring to Billy Crystal."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/film_nm/us_uggie

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Mixed reviews for Obama speech among Davos mighty (Reuters)

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) ? The rich and powerful of the world were divided at their annual huddle on Wednesday over Barack Obama's threat to raise their taxes, with some saying policies that go after the wealthy will hurt growth, but others saying Obama was right to address capitalism's imbalances.

Obama's State of the Union address focused on channeling middle class anger at inequality, including a call for a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires that could make the wealth of Republican rival Mitt Romney a central election issue.

It was delivered on the eve of World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, which found many of the world's titans of industry and politics in reflective mood, focusing more than ever on the question of whether capitalism needs to be more fair if it is to be successful.

Many of the wealthy at Davos made clear they don't like being in the president's crosshairs.

"I don't think any presidential election in the history of America has been won on the politics of envy and I think if anything it divides the country more than unites it," said John Studzinski, senior managing director of investment and advisory firm Blackstone Group.

Roger Altman, chairman of investment advisory group Evercore, disagreed and said improvements in the U.S. economy and the Republican party's difficulties selecting a presidential candidate meant "the picture is brightening" for Obama's re-election chances in November.

"I liked the speech," said Altman. "I can understand why some people in the business community, particularly gauging the reaction to it, may not like it. But I thought it was a reasonable speech.

"It's actually a relatively moderate speech by historical standards. Has the president taken a move on the spectrum towards more populism? Yes. Is it an extreme move, or a big move by historical standards? I don't really think so," he said.

As for the 30 percent minimum millionaire's tax proposal - known as the "Buffett tax" because it is favored by billionaire Warren Buffett - Altman said: "Speaking for myself, I find that hard to argue with."

"TAX ON GROWTH"

Investment income from dividends and capital gains is taxed at a much lower top rate than wages in the United States, an issue that is likely to gain more notice now that Romney, a wealthy former businessman and one of the favorites to be Republican nominee, has released returns showing he paid less than 14 percent of his income in federal tax last year.

"I think this issue is going to become an important political issue. There has been a widening of wealth and income inequality both in the United States and across advanced economies," said economist Nouriel Roubini, once known as "Dr. Doom" for bearish views predicting the financial crisis.

"Having 15 percent tax on carried interest, or capital gains or dividends, is something that is creating a wedge in the country, so that's an issue that has to be addressed. So politically it's going to help Obama this year," Roubini said.

But Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff said the 30 percent rate could hurt the economy. "The solution I think is a flat tax or something like that. I think what's being proposed of making the tax system more superficially progressive is just going to be a growth-slower," he said.

Obama also turned his fire on banks, promising tough regulation and threatening to find and punish those responsible for the financial crash. Bankers in Davos were unsurprisingly wary.

"We should not throw the baby out with the washtub. When it comes to banks, there is no mechanism by which a modern economy can grow without strong banks and a strong financial sector," said Jacob Frenkel, chairman of JP Morgan Chase International.

HUMILITY

Whatever they think of Obama's plans, business chiefs praised his political acumen, and others said they expect inequality to remain at the top of the agenda this year.

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of communications giant WPP, said Obama's address "was a very good political campaign speech and I think probably heightens the probability that he will be re-elected in mid-November." Sorrell spoke on the CNBC network.

Rogoff said rhetoric such as Obama's is likely to continue from both the left and the right.

"There is so much anger out there, the Tea Party tap into in their way, President Obama is tapping into it in his way. And I'm afraid we're in for a lot of (that)."

With the Eurozone in crisis, U.S. economic growth dragging and protesters across much of the world demanding greater economic equality, there is an undercurrent of humility at this year's Davos meeting. One of the first sessions of the meeting was a debate on capitalism, sponsored by Time magazine.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said, "When you have the greatest inequity since just before the '30s depression, this is actually bad news for capitalism."

"If you look at taxation, this is a national sport everywhere, avoid taxation," Burrow said. "We need to say if capitalism is going to sustain itself, if it is going to provide secure jobs, it has to distribute wealth evenly and it has to make a contribution to the common good."

Sounding a humble note, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent told CNBC: "We all have to ensure that capitalism is better connected to society than it has been so far, and we all have to regenerate jobs.... We all have to find a better evolving model than what we have in our hands today."

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler, Emma Thomasson and Jon Boyle; Writing by Warren Strobel and Peter Graff; For full Reuters coverage from Davos, go to www.reuters.com/davos)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/pl_nm/us_davos_obama

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NEC NP-V260

The NP-V260 ($440 street) from NEC Display Solutions of America is a budget data projector best for use at one school or office, though it?s portable in a pinch. Its features and resolution are modest, but its data image quality is fine for running typical business presentations.

The DLP-based NP-V260 has a native SVGA (800 by 600) resolution?a 4:3 aspect ratio befitting a data projector?and its brightness is rated at 2,600 lumens. It?s one of several budget SVGA data projectors we?ve reviewed recently; others include the Epson PowerLite S9 Multimedia Projector ($499 direct, 3.5 stars), the Dell 1210S ($449 list, 3.5 stars) and Optoma Pro160S ($500 street, 3.5 stars).

Though fairly lightweight at 5.5 pounds, the V260?white with rounded corners?is large for a portable SVGA data projector, measuring 3.7 by 2.2 by 9.7 inches (HWD). It does not come with a carrying case, which is unusual these days even with budget projectors. These factors, and its lack of a port for a USB thumb drive (which lets you run standalone presentations without the need for a computer), largely limit the NP-V260 to fixed-location duties in a classroom or conference room, though you can travel with it in a pinch. (You could buy a carrying case for it for about $50, but most of the competition is throwing it in for free.)?

The NP-V260 has a modest collection of ports, including VGA-in with component video; S-Video; an RCA video jack; an audio-in jack; and an RS232 jack for PC control.

Data and Video Image Testing

The NP-V260?s 2,600 lumens proved adequate for throwing a 65-inch diameter image on our test screen that held up reasonably well, even with considerable ambient light. In data image testing using the DisplayMate test suite, image quality was suitable for a typical business presentation. There was some tinting (white areas sometimes looked slightly yellow or bluish, and yellows looked mustardy) and color fringing at the intersection of bright and dark areas. The smallest size of white-on-black type looked fuzzy, and some white letters showed traces of color.

All DLP projectors are potentially subject to the rainbow effect, in which light areas appear broken down into their component colors to form rainbow glints when either one?s head or the image moves. People vary in their sensitivity to this effect (I seem to be of average sensitivity). With the NP-V260, I saw occasional rainbow glints; they?d have the potential to distract someone more sensitive than I.

Video testing also revealed traces of the rainbow effect, as well as a motion artifact in which darker solid areas in changing scenes sometimes showed a structure of very fine striations. It happened infrequently enough, and was subtle enough, that it wasn?t too distracting.

Other Issues

The projector has a single 7-watt speaker that?s loud enough to fill a small conference room with sound, even if its audio isn?t of particularly good quality.

The NP-V260 is 3D ready, compatible with DLP Link, though you?ll need active shutter 3D glasses (about $50 a pair) to watch 3D content.

Other budget SVGA projectors, such as the Epson PowerLite S9, the Dell 1210X, and the Optoma Pro160S, have similar feature sets and data image quality. Those models have one thing the NP-V260 lacks: a carrying case.? If you plan for your projector to stay put, the NEC will do fine for basic business presentations. If you need something more, the Editors? Choice NEC NP-M260W ($850 street, 4 stars) throws in the case, provides higher (WXGA, 1,280 by 800) native resolution, adds a wealth of features, and has better image quality for both data and video.

More Projector Reviews:

??? NEC NP-V260
??? NEC NP-V260X
??? Epson EX5210 Multimedia Projector
??? Optoma HD8300
??? Sony VPL-HW30ES
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Q4PgLxUGADM/0,2817,2399229,00.asp

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Protracted GOP Fight Helps Obama Win Re-Election (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Republicans have three winners in the first three primary states -- Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Reuters reports Rick Santorum won in Iowa, Mitt Romney was the clear front-runner in New Hampshire and Newt Gingrich won South Carolina with 40 percent of the vote. Romney is set to release his income tax returns in response to criticism that may have cost him a huge lead in South Carolina. A victory in the Palmetto State may have helped Romney win the overall GOP nomination.

The Democratic candidate is running unopposed. President Barack Obama hasn't had to spend money on expensive advertising. He hasn't had to take tours across entire states or even pay money for traveling. The Washington Post reported in early April that Obama declared his candidacy ahead of any of his rivals. He launched his re-election campaign on April 3.

Meanwhile, eight Republican candidates have been whittled down to four after nearly two months of non-stop campaigning. Debates have been aired since the late spring and GOP voters seem to be undecided as to who can best beat Obama.

In the end, once the nominee is selected for the Republicans, it may not even matter who is chosen. The Republican nomination process may continue into May or June. Super Tuesday isn't until early March, another six weeks from now. Some primary and caucuses run into June.

The longer the GOP nominating process goes, candidates will have to spend money against each other instead of someone in the opposing party in the general election. Meanwhile, Obama's war chest simply keeps getting bigger.

Republicans in 2008 at least had the benefit of the same process happening on the Democratic side. CNN reported Hillary Clinton and Obama, both Senators at the time, had back-and-forth primary victories through the whole spring.

Hampering the Republicans is that history isn't on their side. The last time someone won the White House without being involved in politics at the time was Ronald Reagan. He hadn't been in office since the mid-1970s in California when he ran for president on the Republican ticket in 1980. In the race now is a former governor, former Speaker of the House, former Senator and current Representative from Texas. Rep. Ron Paul is the only one of the four remaining mainstream candidates who hasn't won a state yet.

The only good news is that the 2012 election may be eerily similar to 1980. Reagan ran against incumbent Jimmy Carter when the economy wasn't the best, foreign policy was muddled by the Iran hostage crisis and Carter's policies weren't popular.

The only way the GOP will win back the White House is if the 1980 election happens all over again. Otherwise, four more years of Obama is guaranteed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120123/us_ac/10874729_protracted_gop_fight_helps_obama_win_reelection

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Obama to tout natural gas benefits in State of Union (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama will encourage the country's booming natural gas output in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, while defending his administration's energy record, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Obama was expected to devote a significant portion of his speech slated for 9 p.m. EST Tuesday calling for a "new era for American energy," which will include promoting domestic natural gas production, according to documents provided to Democratic party sources.

U.S. natural gas output has grown sharply in recent years thanks to advances in drilling techniques that have unlocked massive shale reserves.

Obama has repeatedly stressed the importance of domestic natural gas output, pointing to natural gas as a possible area of compromise for Democrats and Republicans.

But, the administration has also raised the ire of the oil and gas industry by moving forward with new regulations of the drilling that companies argue could hamper future development. He has also twice delayed the Canada-to-Texas Keystone oil sands pipeline.

Environmentalists and some landowners near shale gas wells argue that the recent shale boom is polluting air and water and needs greater federal oversight.

Obama administration officials have said that while natural gas production is important to the U.S. energy future, it must be done safely.

The White House is weighing including a natural gas production goal the speech, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

Obama's address will also focus on the importance of not sacrificing environmental protections and investments in clean energy during this time of budget constraints and concerns about job creation, said Elgie Holstein, senior director for strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund.

"We're anticipating that the president will make a pointed defense of the fact that taking care of our environment and building clean energy future is another form of investment in America's economic future," Holstein said.

Transforming the U.S. economy by investing in clean energy innovation has been a central theme for the administration since Obama took office in 2009.

Republicans have blasted Obama for focusing on clean energy sources, such as wind and solar, to the detriment of fossil fuels, which they argue are still needed to fuel the U.S. economy.

The high profile collapse of Solyndra, the solar panel maker, after receiving more than $500 million in loan aid from the Obama administration also provided ammunition to critics who say the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in the energy sector.

Still, Obama officials contend that the United States can not afford to fall behind developing nations such as China and India when it comes to green energy.

Facing an election in November, Obama will likely tout his commitment to energy independence.

"President Obama can tell a very positive story about his energy policies," said Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow at the liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.

Heather Zichal, a White House adviser on energy and climate change, released an editorial last week highlighting rising domestic oil and natural gas production, as well as falling oil imports under Obama.

Zichal highlighted proposed fuel economy standards that would push average fuel efficiency to 54.5 miles per gallon across U.S. fleets in the coming decade, cutting oil consumption by an estimated 2.2 million barrels a day by 2025.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/ts_nm/us_obama_energy_address

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Adult stem cells could improve angioplasy outcome; Study to explore usage

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2012) ? A Creighton University School of Medicine researcher has received a $3.3 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to study what role adult stem cells might play in repairing damaged coronary arteries, a complication that often occurs in patients after they undergo angioplasty and stenting.

"Restenosis, a re-narrowing of coronary arteries in the heart, after balloon angioplasty and the placement of stents, is a serious problem. Drug-eluting stents can help reduce the occurrence of restenosis. However, there is a serious tradeoff.

Drug-eluting stents can lead to thrombosis (platelet deposits in the endothelial lining around the blood vessels that destroy the lining), which then requires longer periods of anti-platelet therapy. This therapy, in turn, can produce serious side effects, including nosebleed, upset stomach, nausea and diarrhea," said Devendra Agrawal, Ph.D., principal investigator and a professor of biomedical sciences, internal medicine and medical microbiology and immunology.

For the study, Agrawal and his co-investigators, Creighton cardiologist Michael Del Core and pathologist William Hunter will deliver adult stem cells (autologous mesenchymal stem cells), together with a novel gene, at the site of an interventional procedure in the coronary arteries of a pig model.

The goal is to determine whether the administration of adult stem cells, along with the gene therapy, is superior to using drug-eluting stents following angioplasty, said Agrawal, holder of The Peekie Nash Carpenter Endowed Chair in Medicine. If successful, he added, the treatment could even eliminate the need for stents.

Recent research has shown that angioplasty and stenting -- commonly used to open narrowed coronary arteries -- are not as effective as once thought.

In fact, a study involving more than 15,000 patients and published Nov. 28 online by the Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that it can even do more harm than good in some patients. According to the study, nearly one in 10 patients undergoing coronary angioplasty was readmitted to a hospital within 30 days, and these patients were at higher risk of death within one year.

With angioplasty, a catheter-guided balloon is inserted to open a narrowed coronary artery. A wire mesh stent is typically implanted during the procedure to keep the artery open.

Eleven to18 percent of all patients experience restenosis or a re-narrowing of the artery within three-four years, said Agrawal.

This is the second grant Agrawal has received in recent months to explore alternatives to stenting. The first grant totaled $2.58 million over four years.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123133644.htm

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Tears, joy as woman sets Antarctic crossing record

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2011 file photo provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, Felicity Aston takes a picture of herself at Union Glacier days before she traveled to her starting point on the Ross Ice Shelf for a solo trek across Antarctica. Aston, 34, crossed Antarctica in 59 days, pulling two sledges for more than 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from the Leverett Glacier to the Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf. On Monday morning, Jan. 23, 2012, she tweeted that she has completed her journey. (AP Photo/Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition/Kaspersky Lab, File)

FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2011 file photo provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, Felicity Aston takes a picture of herself at Union Glacier days before she traveled to her starting point on the Ross Ice Shelf for a solo trek across Antarctica. Aston, 34, crossed Antarctica in 59 days, pulling two sledges for more than 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from the Leverett Glacier to the Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf. On Monday morning, Jan. 23, 2012, she tweeted that she has completed her journey. (AP Photo/Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition/Kaspersky Lab, File)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ? British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica on Monday, hauling two sledges around crevasses and over mountains into endless headwinds, pushing onward and onward for 59 days in near-total solitude.

She made it to her destination ahead of schedule, using nothing but her own strength to cover 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometers) from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25 to Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf.

The most surprising thing about her journey, she said, was how emotional it proved to be, from the moment she was dropped off alone, through every victory and defeat along the way.

"I'm not a particularly weepy person, and yet anyone who has been following my tweets can see me bursting into tears," she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday while waiting for a plane to pick her up.

"When I saw the coastal mountains that marked my end point for the first time, I literally just stopped in my tracks and bawled my eyes out," she added. "All these days I thought there was no chance I was going to make it in time to make that last flight off Antarctica, and yet here I am with three days to spare."

Aston also set another record: the first human to ski solo, across Antarctica, using only her own muscles. A male-female team earlier skied across Antarctica without kites or machines, but Aston is the first to do this alone.

Aston, 34, grew up in Kent, England, and studied physics and meteorology. A veteran of expeditions in subzero environments, she worked for the British weather service at a base in Antarctica and has led teams on ski trips in the Antarctic, the Arctic and Greenland.

But this was the first time she traveled so far, so alone, and she said the solitude posed her biggest challenge. In such an extreme environment, the smallest mistakes can prove treacherous. Alone with one's thoughts, the mind can play tricks. Polar adventurers usually take care to watch their teammates for signs of hypothermia, which is easier to diagnose in others than yourself, she said.

She thought she was done for when her two butane lighters failed high in the Transantarctic Mountains, where it got "really very cold."

"Suddenly I realized that without a lighter working, I can't light my stove, I can't melt snow to make water, and I won't have any water to drink, and that becomes a very serious problem," she said. "It's quite stressful. It was just a matter of every single day, looking at my kit, and thinking what could go wrong here and what can I do to prevent it?"

She did have a small box of safety matches, and counted and re-counted every one until the lighters started working again at lower altitude, she said.

This Antarctic summer has seen the centennial of Roald Amundsen's conquest of the South Pole, where Britons still lament that R.F. Scott's team arrived for England days later, demoralized to see Norway's flag. Scott and his entire team then died on their way out, and some of their bodies weren't found for eight months.

Aston had modern technology in her favor: She kept family and supporters updated and received their responses via Twitter and Facebook, and broadcast daily phone reports online. She carried two satellite phones to communicate with a support team, and a GPS device that reported her location throughout. She also had two supply drops ? one at the pole and one partway to her finish line ? so that she could travel with a lighter load. Otherwise, her feat was unassisted.

While others have traveled farther using kites, sails, machinery or dogs (now banned for fear of infecting wildlife with canine diseases), she did it on her own strength.

She had to fight near-constant headwinds across the vast central plateau to the South Pole. Then she turned toward Hercules Inlet, pushing through thick, fresh snow, until she reached her goal, a spot within a small plane's reach of a base camp on Union Glacier where the Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions company provides logistical support to each summer's expeditions.

With skies clearing Monday, Aston tweeted that she's been promised red wine and a hot shower after she gets picked up. "A very long, very hot shower," she emphasized. "It's something I haven't had in quite a long time now!"

From there, she'll join dozens of other Antarctic adventurers on the last flight out, a huge Russian cargo plane that will take her to Chile. Then she will fly home next week to Kent, in southeast England.

There, after two months of little but freeze-dried food, she can look forward to chicken pie, her mother said.

"I think there will be lots of cuddles, lots of hugs, it will be quite emotional," said Jackie Aston, 61.

Felicity Aston, pondering her last hours of solitude Monday, told the AP she felt both joy and overwhelming sadness at finishing.

"I'm still reeling from the shock of it that I've made it this far. I honestly didn't think I'd be getting here," she said.

What remains, she hopes, will be a message about perseverance.

"If you can just find a way to keep going, either metaphorically or literally, whether you're running a marathon or facing financial problems or have bad news to deliver or it's tough at work or whatever, if you can just find a way to keep going, then you will discover that you have potential within yourself that you never never realized," she said.

"Keeping going is the important thing, persevering, no matter how messy that gets. I mean, for me, sometimes I'll be sitting in my tent in the morning bawling my eyes out, having tantrums. It's not been pretty. But I've kept going, and that is the important thing because at some point in the future you'll look back and just be amazed at how far you've come."

___

Associated Press writers Ed Donahue in Washington, D.C., and Meera Selva in London contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Aston's expedition site: www.kasperskyonetransantarcticexpedition.com

Aston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/felicity(underscore)aston

Aston on ipadio: http://www.ipadio.com/broadcasts/TransantarcticExpedition/2012/1/22/Transantarctic-Expedition--63rd-phonecast

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-23-AA-Antarctica-Solo-Crossing/id-48a42c246fed4ff2a3d28f9ebb3d4103

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Tech stocks boost the market

Strong earnings reports from IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday. The Dow rose 96 points to close at 12720.

IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday after the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts expected.

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Microsoft said sales of Xbox games and Office software helped push revenue up in the last quarter of 2011. IBM credited better sales of software and services and raised its earnings outlook for the year. Microsoft rose 6 percent and IBM rose 4 percent.

The Dow rose 96.50 points to close at 12,720.48. That's a gain of 0.8 percent. Without the huge gains in IBM and Microsoft, the Dow would have risen just 24 points.

The S&P 500 index inched up 0.88 to 1,315.38. Both the Dow and S&P ended the week with gains of more than 2 percent.

Plenty of things are going right, said Frank Fantozzi, CEO of Planned Financial Services, an independent wealth manager in Cleveland. Applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in nearly four years. Housing sales are steadily rising. And most companies are reporting better profits.

"Overall, we're moving in the right direction and it's bolstered the market," Fantozzi said. "The S&P getting over 1,300 this week is a nice sign."

Google lost 8.4 percent after its earnings per share fell a dollar short of analysts' estimates. The misfire stemmed from an 8 percent drop in prices that the Internet search giant charges advertisers for each click.

Google's drop tugged the Nasdaq composite index lower. It fell 1.63 points to 2,786.70.

Even though high-profile companies such as Google and JPMorgan Chase have posted disappointing earnings results in the past week, the trend is moving in the opposite direction. Of the 60 companies in the S&P index that have reported earnings so far, 62 percent have beaten estimates, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet Research.

In another sign that traders were becoming more willing to take on risk, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note crossed above 2 percent for the first time in two weeks. The yield, a widely used benchmark for corporate and consumer borrowing, had inched lower since early December as traders parked money in the safest of assets.

The National Association of Realtors said that home sales rose 5 percent in December, the third straight monthly increase.

Among other companies in the news:

? Capital One Financial lost 5.6 percent. The bank and credit-card company's earnings sank 41 percent as expenses for marketing, salaries and legal fees jumped compared with the year before.

? Schlumberger rose 1.3 percent. The oil-field services company's quarterly profit surged 36 percent, helped by exploration work in the Middle East and Africa. The company also raised its quarterly dividend to 27.5 cents.

- Intel rose 2.9 percent. The world's largest chip maker reported stronger profits after the market closed Thursday. Intel's results got a boost from sales to China and other developing countries, where many people are buying PCs for the first time.

Stocks have been on a slow and steady climb to start 2012. The S&P 500 has closed higher on 11 of 13 days and is now up 4.6 percent for the year.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zpzcvYU6dgY/Tech-stocks-boost-the-market

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Peter Jackson Explains 'Hobbit'/'Lord Of The Rings' Link

Director tells MTV News at Sundance how he plans to keep his latest journey to Middle-earth consistent with the 'Rings' trilogy.
By Josh Wigler, with reporting by Joshua Horowitz

Peter Jackson at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday
Photo: MTV News

The first trailer for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" made it quite clear that Middle-earth hasn't changed much in the years since Peter Jackson concluded his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. That's not a complaint, mind you — fans have come to know and love Jackson's interpretation of the J. R. R. Tolkien fantasy epic with the same passion they have for the source material. When it comes to "The Hobbit," in other words, change is not necessarily welcome.

Speaking with MTV News at the Sundance Film Festival, Jackson explained that it was always his intention to keep "The Hobbit" tonally and visually consistent with the "Lord of the Rings" films.

"We wanted it to be a part of the five-film series," he explained. "Fortunately, Tolkien wrote a lot of extra material in the appendices of 'The Lord of the Rings,' where he himself kind of tied the two stories together, 20 or 30 years after the publication of 'The Hobbit.' So we've been able to use some of that material."

But even though Jackson's "Hobbit" isn't "as much of a children's story as the original book was," he's worked hard to make sure the films still "have some humor" to them. For example, Jackson promised that "some of the songs [from the novel] have made their way in there." Fans can get their first taste of those tunes in the "Hobbit" trailer, when the dwarves gather in Bilbo Baggins' humble abode to sing a somber song.

Finding that balance between staying true to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy while allowing the "Hobbit" films to stand on their own has been an enjoyable challenge for Jackson, who is more than thrilled to once again be dabbling in dwarves and dragons.

"I'm enjoying the movie [as much as the fans], which is the thing that I'm really excited about," he said. "I love going to work every day. I love shooting it. In February, we start another 100 days of shooting, so by about July, we're done. We will have shot both movies by that stage."

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" storms into theaters December 14.

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival is officially under way, and the MTV Movies team is on the ground reporting on the hottest stars and the movies everyone will be talking about in the year to come. Keep it locked with MTV Movies for everything there is to know about Sundance.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677640/sundance-peter-jackson-hobbit-lord-rings.jhtml

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Gingrich wins South Carolina GOP primary

By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com

?

Updated 8:46 p.m. ET

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, capping off a remarkable comeback for his presidential bid that reshapes the trajectory of the battle for the GOP nomination.

Based on exit polls and early returns, NBC News projects Gingrich as the winner of the primary, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will finish second.

The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.

The results upset the conventional wisdom in the race, which had set expectations for Romney to score a knockout blow against his competitors with a win in the Palmetto State. Gingrich?s victory reshapes the race, at a minimum extending the primary contest through the Jan. 31 primary in Florida, which appears set to feature a pitched battle between Romney and Gingrich.

VIEW full South Carolina primary results

"We're now three contests into a long primary season ... We've still got a long way to go, and a lot of work to do," Romney said in remarks shortly after 8 p.m., in which he previewed the line of attacks he'll use against Gingrich in Florida.

Gingrich, Romney said, had joined President Obama in launching a "frontal assault on free enterprise," referencing the ex-speaker's attack on Romney's record at Bain Capital.

"Those who pick up the weapons of the left today will find them turned against us tomorrow," Romney said. "If Republican leaders want to join this president in demonizing success...then they're not going to be fit to be our nominee."

After finishing second in the South Carolina primary, Mitt Romney says the race is "getting even more interesting," and tells the crowd, "there is so much worth fighting."

Gingrich's performance in South Carolina was driven in thanks to late deciders, who broke decisively in his direction in the last few days of the campaign. That stretch saw two debate performances by Gingrich, on Monday and Thursday nights. Almost two-thirds of voters said the debates were an important factor in their decision, and Gingrich won about half of them.

More broadly, core elements of the GOP base in South Carolina ? conservatives, Tea Party supporters and evangelical Christians ? broke for Gingrich. And the former speaker even edged Romney in two important constituencies for the former Massachusetts governor: voters who said electability in November was their most important concern in a nominee, and voters who said the economy was their top issue.

?The South Carolina results underscore Romney?s lingering inability to overcome skepticism from conservatives about electing him as their standard-bearer against Obama this fall.

RELATED: Conservatives, evangelical Christians rebuff Romney in South Carolina

Gingrich had erased Romney?s lead by abandoning his previous pledge to wage a ?relentlessly positive? campaign. The former speaker eventually embraced a strategy of drawing strong contrasts with Romney and benefited from the negative advertising run on his behalf by a super PAC ? a practice Gingrich loudly denounced in Iowa, where he saw his poll numbers collapse amid attacks by a pro-Romney super PAC.

?I hope to win S.C.? Gingrich said Friday night in Orangeburg, ?God willing we'll win, and tomorrow night will be very interesting and then Florida will be even more interesting and I'm sure you'll want to come with us.?

His victory provides, if nothing else, a symbolic imprimatur; the winner of the South Carolina primary has gone on to win the nomination in each Republican primary since the contest?s inception in 1980.

Voters headed to the polls in stormy conditions throughout most of the Palmetto State that could hold down turnout in some areas. County election officials reported light turnout in some areas, and heavier than expected voter rolls in other areas.

The South Carolina results capped one of the most tumultuous weeks in the presidential campaign thus far, a week that saw the veneer of inevitability the Romney campaign had built for itself erode by the end.

Recertified results in the Iowa caucuses found that he had actually lost the contest by a handful of votes to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. And Romney has fought to withstand some of the most intense scrutiny he?s faced during the campaign; critics have assailed his private equity career and demanded Romney release his tax returns ? demands which only reached a fever pitch after Romney estimated he pays an effective rate of 15 percent of his income in taxes.

Moreover, Romney?s performance in South Carolina will speak volumes about his fractious relationship with movement conservatives. He?s struggled at times to break through a ceiling on his support from those voters, who are skeptical of Romney?s past conversion on abortion rights and his embrace of authorship of a health care law as governor that closely resembles Obama?s 2010 reform law.

Romney had largely stuck to message in South Carolina, where he?s campaigned since winning Jan. 10?s New Hampshire primary, by keeping his focus on Obama and posturing himself more as a presumptive nominee.

But in an acknowledgement of Gingrich?s late push, the Romney campaign has also revived the attacks on the former speaker they used to great effect in Iowa to tamp down Gingrich?s December surge.

?Let's have him describe his relationships in Washington,? Romney said Saturday in Greenville, turning up the heat on Gingrich and highlighting the ex-speaker?s work on behalf of troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac. ?If people think Washington is the answer, if people think someone who spent the great majority of their life in Washington, I'll be surprised."

Romney?s campaign appears poised to make that argument even more sharply in Florida. They circulated a ?flashback? video on Saturday reminding voters of the ethics investigation Gingrich had faced during his speakership.

Nonetheless, the fact that Gingrich has arrived at the precipice of political resurrection ? again ? this cycle is itself remarkable.

Political observers had questioned when, not if, he would drop out after suffering missteps at the outset of his campaign that led to the defection of virtually all of his top staff last June. But Gingrich stuck with it and climbed to the top of the polls in Iowa, only to see his numbers implode again after weathering attacks from super PACs and Texas Rep. Ron Paul?s campaign.

In South Carolina, the former speaker has been aided by a variety of factors contributing to his potential comeback. He?s scored major points with voters with a couple of strong debate performances this week, particularly by way of launching acerbic attacks on the media. His angry refusal to answer allegations made by an ex-wife topped headlines coming out of a debate on Thursday ? the same day that saw Texas Gov. Rick Perry drop his own campaign and endorse Gingrich.

GOP candidate Rick Santorum talks about the state of the race and reaffirms that he wants to be the voice for those people in America that don't have one in government

The winnowed field (Jon Huntsman also ended his campaign and endorsed Romney), only reduced the number of candidates threatening to divide the anti-Romney vote in South Carolina.

Santorum, crowned the winner of the Iowa caucuses upon further review of the vote totals, had doggedly criticized both Romney and Gingrich in hopes of rallying conservatives behind his unflashy, if consistent, record.

"Three states, three winners -- what a great country," he said in remarks Saturday evening, vowing to continue his campaign through Florida and subsequent nominating contests.

The Romney campaign is hoping that contest, which awards all of the delegates to its winner, features a primary closed to registered Republicans in a large swing state, will be its firewall. It?s a more expensive campaign to wage because of its multiple, expensive media markets, and is seen as a test of organizational strength.

Romney?s advantage there is one of the reasons the Paul campaign, which is polling third in South Carolina, at 16 percent, in a NBC News-Marist poll earlier this week, has elected to skip the next battle in Florida in favor of focusing on caucuses.

NBC?s Garrett Haake, Alex Moe and Andrew Rafferty contributed.

Source: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/21/10207281-gingrich-looks-to-cement-comeback-while-romney-fights-to-hold-on-in-sc

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Apple: 20,000 Education iPad Apps Developed; 1.5 Million Devices In Use At Schools

At Apple's education event today, the company revealed a number of compelling stats regarding iPad use in the education and learning space. Apple's SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller announced that there are currently 20,000 education and learning applications that have been built for the iPad. He added that 1.5 million iPads are currently in use in educational institutions and schools. Obviously, Apple is looking to increase this number, which is why the company is partnering with publishing houses and innovating on iBooks to offer more a more student-focused and education-friendly experience.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BtjTKG_X_34/

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Google shares slide but analysts stay upbeat (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Shares of Google Inc fell 8 percent after the Internet giant posted a rare quarterly earnings miss and said money paid by marketers for its search ads decreased for the first time in two years.

The search giant underperformed on both revenue and earnings, despite record U.S. online commerce during the holiday season, prompting several brokerages to cut their price targets on the stock.

Google shares were down $50.77 at $588.80 in late morning trade on Friday on the Nasdaq. They had touched a low of $584.81. It was the stock's biggest percentage fall in 9 months.

About 5.2 million shares changes hands by 1120 ET, more than their daily average volume.

The broader Nasdaq composite index was down 0.25 percent.

Google executives blamed the decline in search ad rates on forex fluctuations and ad format changes but analysts wondered whether mobile advertising -- which has lower rates -- played a more important role than the company admitted.

The fall in cost per click (CPC) had led to a barrage of questions from analysts during the post-earnings conference call on Thursday.

The market needs to shift expectations to paid click growth and lower its estimates for CPC, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note.

Google's heavy investments in mobile and social network initiatives -- to stave off competition from rivals Apple Inc and Facebook -- and its planned $12.5 billion acquisition of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings have also raised investors' concerns.

Larry Page, who took over as CEO in April, said in July that the company was moving to put "more wood behind fewer arrows."

Analysts said the company has seen growth in display advertising, its Android mobile platform and Google+.

Google+ -- its recently-launched social network -- has 90 million users now, up from 40 million three months ago.

SOLID CORE

Wall Street analysts called the selloff an overreaction; Barclays said it presents a buying opportunity.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Goldman Sachs titled its research note on Google.

The company's core results were solid as paid click growth accelerated by more than a third, margins improved, and display and mobile businesses performed well, analysts said.

The acceleration in paid clicks suggests that underlying demand for Google ads is quite healthy across devices, JP Morgan said, adding Google is best-positioned for the shift to new media.

Goldman Sachs analysts said, "We expect the growth in mobile to be 146 percent in 2012 and represent 15 percent of gross sales as we exit fourth-quarter of 2012."

The company still has strong earnings power that will reappear during 2012, Canaccord Genuity said, reiterating its "buy" rating.

Barclays, Baird, Jefferies and JP Morgan also maintained their top ratings on the stock.

(Reporting by Aditi Sharma and Soham Chatterjee in Bangalore; Editing by Tenzin Pema, Don Sebastian, Unnikrishnan Nair)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/wr_nm/us_google_research

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Republicans say Obama wrong to cut military funds

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? Republicans looking to challenge President Barack Obama say the president is wrong to cut military spending and charge that he's putting the United States at risk.

Front-runner Mitt Romney says the United States needs to maintain its military at any cost so that no one would ever think of testing its might.

GOP rival Rick Santorum says Obama is trying to balance the budget at the expense of those serving in uniform. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says military spending not only protects the country but educates its veterans.

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas alone says he would cut spending, an unpopular position in South Carolina, home to 413,000 veterans and eight military bases.

Santorum calls such cuts "disgusting" and Romney calls them "doomsday."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-19-GOP-Debate-Military/id-d04d83397f9643afbb4831e42314a5c3

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Austrian panel removes balls from culture list (AP)

VIENNA ? A committee reporting to the U.N.'s culture organization struck Vienna's many balls from its list of Austria's noteworthy traditions on Thursday amid an uproar over one of the annual champagne-laced galas that critics say attracts neo-Nazis from across Europe.

The decision by the Austrian UNESCO Commission was welcomed by those who oppose the one often-criticized ball, staged in part by dueling fraternities including far-right alumni who display saber scars on their cheeks as badges of honor. But the committee also outraged supporters who reject labeling that event as a magnet for backers of Nazi ideology.

Martin Graf, a leading member of the rightist Freedom Party, said critics of the WKR-Ball are trying to "publicly pillory and vilify ... all those who do not share their ideologically distorted opinion." Party chief Heinz-Christian Strache called the committee's decision a result of "mobbing from the extreme-left."

Like others worldwide, The Austrian committee is a bridge between the government and the Paris-based U.N. Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization but is not part of it.

The decision is symbolic and has no bearing on whether future balls can be held. But the fact that the committee's decision was due in part to public pressure reflected a path being traveled by Austria, which has moved from a postwar portrayal of being Nazi Germany's first victim to acknowledging that it was Hitler's willing partner. Anti-Semitism remains among some members of the older generation today, but most young Austrians reject Nazi ideology and condemn the part their parents might have played in the Holocaust.

The committee spoke of a "serious mistake" in listing the fraternity WKR-Ball as one of the nearly two dozen balls comprising an aspect of "Intangible Cultural Heritage in Austria." Noting that the inclusion of the many balls was approved by a panel including representatives of five government ministries, the committee said it decided to strike the whole category of Vienna Ball from its register.

"In connection with the WKR-Ball, we can tell you that we have removed the tradition 'Vienna Ball' from our list," said an email to The Associated Press, using the event's German acronym.

While some of the more opulent Vienna balls are criticized as a showcase of the rich, most are devoid of direct political controversy. For centuries, the city's high society has waltzed blissfully through wars, recessions and occasional firebomb-throwing anarchists opposed to the moneyed decadence they think such events represent.

But the fraternity ball started drawing flack as Austrians began to come to grips decades ago with the fact that their country was one of Nazi Germany's most willing allies instead of its first victim through its 1938 annexation by Hitler. Over recent years criticism of the WKR-Ball's staging has grown ? and protests outside its venue, the ornate Hofburg palace, have occasionally turned violent.

Bowing to the pressure, the Hofburg announced late last year that the ball will have to move elsewhere as of 2013. Tensions this year were exacerbated by its date ? Friday, Jan. 27, will be the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the most notorious of the Nazi death camps.

Organizers said that was coincidence, with the event always held on the last Friday of January. But opponents were incensed.

Ariel Muzicant, head of Vienna's Jewish community, spoke of "a mockery" of the Holocaust, asking sarcastically: "Are they kind of celebrating the 2 million dead in Auschwitz, or what? Are they dancing, kind of, on 6 million Jews, or what are they thinking of?"

The issue made it to the floor of parliament Thursday, with members of the opposition Green party demanding that the ball be observed by government intelligence agencies and saying past attendees included prominent members of the extreme right and neo-Nazis.

Defense Minister Norbert Darabos described the WKR-Ball as an event "where year after year, internationally known right extremists pass the door handle to each other" ? and forbade members of the military to wear their uniforms if attending.

Defending the ball ? and its place among others on the UNESCO Committee list ? is the Freedom Party, which has coupled populism to lurking Islamophobia and latent anti-Semitism to become Austria's second strongest political force.

Party official Heidemarie Unterreiner urged the committee "not to be impressed by the excited politically motivated babble of some groups which use the media megaphone to create a completely false impression of one of the most significant society events of Austria."

___

George Jahn can be reached at http://twitter.com/georgejahn

__

AP video reporter Philipp Jenne contributed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_eu/eu_austria_rightist_ball

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Money Ball for Medicine ? Business Models for Healthcare ...

Editor?s note:?This guest post was written by?Dave Chase, the CEO of?Avado.com, a patient portal & relationship management company that was a?TechCrunch Disrupt finalist. Previously he was a management consultant for Accenture?s healthcare practice and founder of Microsoft?s Health platform business. You can follow him on Twitter@chasedave.

Entrepreneurial epiphanies surface in random places. For Eric Page, it was watching Brad Pitt?s latest movie, Moneyball. The epiphany caused him to shift Amplify Health?s business model from a provider of technology to a heavy user of technology. While there is a wave of disruptive technology in healthtech, as interesting is the wave of disruptive innovation on the care delivery side of healthcare. These companies aren?t technology companies, however technology plays a pivotal role.

Previously, Page had been the Founder & President of REM Medical, a clinic for sufferers of sleep apnea. A key part of any sleep clinic?s service is prescribing CPAP machines. The problem is that the percentage of people who actually follow-through is quite low (40%) even though the results can dramatically improve one?s life. A series of behavioral insights, often applied through the use of technology allowed REM Medical to double the industry average adherence to 79%. As healthcare shifts from a ?do more, bill more? model of reimbursement to a value and outcomes-based model, these kinds of results will separate the winners from the losers. Amplify Health?s original vision was to package the behavioral insights in software and sell them to providers.

With the success of his previous company, Page thought it would be easy to sell this vision to healthcare providers. Unfortunately, many healthcare providers are making the same mistakes that newspaper companies made in the late 90?s. That is, they aren?t moving as quickly as circumstances dictate. The problem is that urgency is sometimes only evident in hindsight. This is what led to the Moneyball epiphany.

For those who haven?t seen the movie or read the book, Moneyball tells the story of how Major League Baseball?s Oakland A?s Billy Beane (the team?s General Manager) was faced with a payroll that was one-third the size of their competition. Beane realized he needed to come up with a different way of picking players or he?d lose bidding wars against richer teams. For over 20 years, baseball statistician Bill James had proffered theories of baseball statistics that flew in the face of conventional wisdom on what statistics best represented a player?s value to a team. James was ignored until Billy Beane came along. He applied James? theories with great success regularly fielding playoff teams that had one-third to one-half the payroll of the teams they competed against.

While watching Moneyball, Page had the realization that he had been acting like Bill James evangelizing his theories. Even with a successful track record, he wasn?t getting the traction he desired. Instead, he decided he should become Billy Beane and apply his knowledge to his own company. Rather than monetize via a software licensing model, Amplify Health will be in the onsite clinic segment delivering primary care and managing chronic conditions. [See DIY Health Reform: Employers Solving Healthcare Crisis One Onsite Clinic At A Time for more on onsite clinics.]

Amplify Health isn?t alone in this trend. Other examples include MedLion, One Medical Group, Qliance and White Glove Health [Disclosure: MedLion is a customer of Avado's]. These are healthcare providers who?ve applied technology to enhance their competitive advantage. Traditional healthcare providers should be on notice about these types of disruptive innovators. After all, in the late 90?s the newspaper companies were worried about other media competitors and big players such as Microsoft. What devastated their business models was an array of niche competitors who bit by bit hollowed out chunks of their business. Companies such as Monster.com, eBay, Cars.com, Zillow, Craigslist and many others. Like newspapers that were oligopolies or monopolies, many large health systems haven?t been faced with the level of competition that is emerging. As William Gibson has stated, ?the future is here, it?s just unevenly distributed.?

By definition, the legacy HealthIT vendors have optimized their solutions around the legacy reimbursement and delivery models that have created the hyperinflation in healthcare crushing family, business and government budgets. The exciting aspect of this for the healthtech startup community is entire new categories of software are emerging to support disruptive innovation taking place on the care delivery side. Even more promising is that many providers, payers and pharmaceutical companies have set up innovation groups. I wrote about one earlier ? Healthcare Field of Dreams In Idaho: Health System Opens Innovation Center. An array of new models are being tested at organizations such as Horizon Health Innovations, Catholic Health West, Trinity Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Catholic Health Partners, Blue Shield of California and many others.

Often what has passed for innovation in healthcare is a clever way to maximize the latest reimbursement code or government incentive. For example, a large swath of providers are chasing after Meaningful Use incentives. Meanwhile, there are others building a sustainable competitive advantage in rethinking delivery models from the ground up. Not long ago, CareMore was acquired for $800 Million by WellPoint because they?d developed a creative new delivery model. VCs are taking notice. For example, Dirk Lammerts, MD is a VC with the Burrill Venture Capital Group who has stated he will avoid investing in businesses dependent on Medicare reimbursement. Rather, he wants true disruptive innovation.

Taking place this week is the Health Innovation Summit being put on by RockHealth. I?m moderating a panel on business models for health-related startups ? panel members include Linda Avey, Ron Gutman and Jennifer Wong. I will speak to some of the aforementioned business models and the accompanying business models for companies that support those entities. Collectively, we?ll discuss models ranging from monetizing mobile apps to how value can be derived as a byproduct of customer use (e.g., PracticeFusion) to media models and more. What creative business models in healthcare should we be aware of? Please add your comments below.

Linda Avey has over 20 years of sales and business development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry in San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Prior to starting 23andMe, she developed translational research collaborations with academic and pharmaceutical partners for Affymetrix and Perlegen Sciences. Linda also spent time at Spotfire helping scientists understand the power of data visualization and at Applied Biosystems during the early days of the human genome project. The advent of high density genome-wide scanning technologies...

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Ron is HealthTap?s Founder and CEO. He?s responsible for the company?s innovation, vision, and product. Prior to founding HealthTap, Ron was the founder and CEO of Wellsphere, a leading online consumer health 2.0 company that developed the world?s largest community of independent health writers and became one of the largest health sites on the Internet, serving more than 100 million users to date (acquired in early 2009). Prior to creating Wellsphere, as a graduate student at Stanford University, Ron...

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One Medical Group is a member-supported primary care medical practice that is redefining modern medical care by leveraging technology and innovative best practices to provide patients with affordable, high-quality care. One Medical offers patients comprehensive primary care services ??? delivered conveniently from modern, professional offices and via online technology. Services include same-day appointments, longer visits that start on time, on-site specialty services including gynecology and dermatology, and an integrative approach that emphasizes prevention and nutrition. With a focus of delivering...

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Qliance Medical Management, Inc. is a ?direct primary care? provider founded in 2006 and provides operating and management services to Qliance Medical Group of Washington PC, which operates clinics under the Qliance® brand. Qliance offers people of all ages and incomes unrestricted access to all types of primary, preventive and chronic illness care for one monthly membership fee, ranging between $49 and $89, depending on age, for its core service level. Qliance does not exclude anyone for pre-existing conditions...

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/17/money-ball-for-medicine-business-models-for-healthcare/

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