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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53866

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White House, GOP draw red lines in debt debate

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Struggling for the upper hand in the next round of debt talks, Republicans and Democrats this weekend drew lines in the sand they said they'd never cross when it comes to the U.S. debt limit.

The tough talk on the Sunday morning talk shows doesn't bode well for voters who are frustrated by the political gridlock.

"I believe we need to raise the debt ceiling, but if we don't raise it without a plan to get out of debt, all of us should be fired," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Last week's deal to avert the combination of end-of-year tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff" held income tax rates steady for 99 percent of Americans but left some other major pieces of business unresolved.

By late February or early March, the Treasury Department will run out of options to cover the nation's debts and could begin defaulting on government loans unless Congress raises the legal borrowing limit, or debt ceiling. Economists warn that a default could trigger a global recession.

Also looming are deep automatic spending cuts expected to take effect at the beginning of March that could further erase fragile gains in the U.S. economy. Then on March 27, the temporary measure that funds government activities expires, and congressional approval will be needed to keep the government running. That's one more chance to fight over spending.

Republicans say they are willing to raise the debt ceiling but insist any increase must be paired with significant savings from Medicare, Medicaid and other government benefit programs. President Barack Obama has said he's willing to consider spending cuts separately but won't bargain over the government's borrowing authority.

"One thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they've already racked up," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made a similar remark Sunday in insisting the two issues ? raising the debt ceiling and reducing spending ? shouldn't be coupled.

"Right now we have to pay the bills that have been incurred," Pelosi said. "And if you want to say cut spending for what we do next, fine, but don't tie it to the debt ceiling."

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said spending cuts would have to be part of the equation if the proposal was to get any kind of GOP support.

McConnell on Sunday suggested Republicans were prepared to see the nation default on its spending obligations.

"It's a shame we have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress to get the president to deal with the biggest problem confronting our future, and that's our excessive spending,"

Meanwhile, Democrats said further tax increases for the wealthiest Americans were still possible as Congress looks to close the gap between revenues and expenditures. They say Obama has already agreed to significant spending cuts, and that the latest deal only gets the nation to about half of the revenue it needs to resolve the red ink.

"Trust me, there are plenty of things within that tax code ? these loopholes where people can park their money in some island offshore and not pay taxes. These are things that need to be closed. We can do that and use the money to reduce the deficit," said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat.

But McConnell bluntly declared that the "tax issue is over" after last week's agreement.

"We don't have this problem because we tax too little; we have it because we spend too much," McConnell said.

McConnell spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Pelosi was on CBS' "Face the Nation." Durbin and Graham appeared on CNN's "State of the Union."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-gop-draw-red-lines-debt-debate-083707680--politics.html

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Qualcomm and TA&T team up to bring 'internet of things' devices to the mainstream

While we're accustomed to the buzzphrase "internet of things", AT&T and Qualcomm want to talk about the "internet of everything." In short, it's pairing up to offer a development platform that uses the latter's Gobi 3G modems and the former's wireless internet which will be used to test new applications. The duo are expecting developers to get their hands on the kit in the second quarter of the year, which probably means we'll be bombarded with intelligent refrigerators and cars at next year's CES.

Continue reading Qualcomm and TA&T team up to bring 'internet of things' devices to the mainstream

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, AT&T

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/qualcomm-att-internet-of-everything/

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FDA: New rules will make food safer

FILE - This Sept. 28, 2011 file photo shows the sign leading to the Jensen Farms near Holly, Colo. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

FILE - This Sept. 28, 2011 file photo shows the sign leading to the Jensen Farms near Holly, Colo. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

FILE - This Sept. 28, 2011 file photo shows cantaloupes rotting in the afternoon heat on a field on the Jensen Farms near Holly, Colo. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more vigilant in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe and leafy greens. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.

The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.

Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply ? meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.

The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.

In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."

The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-01-05-Food%20Safety/id-9a42f696287b44b0b67dc548beb54650

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Looking for 1X1 or Small Group of four!

Hey looking for a small group of three other RPers of 1 other person, two Role-play with, The RP would have elements of Crime, Gang, Bank Robbery, Prison, Dangerous Love, Love Triangles, Kids, exc... It would defintely be a more mature RP, don't really have a storyline yet.

I would be willing to play a female and male as long as you do the same!

Send me a PM if your interested in throwing up some ideas with me!

"True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one."
-Gandalf, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/mzDqgoSOrtU/viewtopic.php

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Fla couple charged after 300 animals found in home (Providence Journal)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/275189482?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Slump in the UK construction industry gets worse | Wilkins Kennedy

In our press release in August 2012 ? 1570 Construction businesses go bust in Q1 2012 -? we reported that 1570 construction companies went out of business in the first three months of 2012, up from 1547 the quarter before.

It looks as if this trend is set to continue in the first quarter of this year as the slump in the UK?construction industry worsened in December 2012.? According to data released yesterday by Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchase?&?Supply, the purchasing managers? index (PMI)?for the construction industry fell to a six-month low of 48.7 in December, from 49.3 in November. The index value has fallen further below the critical no change value of 50, and suggests that there are hard times ahead for the UK construction industry.

Tim Moore at Markit said,

?December rounded off a miserable year for the UK construction sector,?? ?with output declining at the steepest pace for six months.?? Moore further added that ?unlike many other industries, construction firms don?t expect much of a let-up in 2013, due to worries that client purse-strings could be tightened in the coming year.?

Many businesses experience cash flow or other financial difficulties at this time of year and go on to flourish as a result of taking professional insolvency advice early.? If you are concerned in any way and unsure of the options available to your business please contact us.? Our initial meeting is free with no obligation and completely confidential.

Anthony has extensive experience of turnaround and insolvency across a broad range of sectors following in the footsteps of previous generations of the Cork family. His experience includes secondments to two of the largest clearing banks in the UK. Anthony is well placed to advise banks, asset based lenders and other stakeholders on all aspects of turnaround and insolvency.

Source: http://news.wilkinskennedy.com/?p=202

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You Won?t Stay the Same, Study Finds

[unable to retrieve full-text content]According to research in the journal Science, people tend to underestimate how much their personalities and tastes will change in the future.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/science/study-in-science-shows-end-of-history-illusion.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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This Computer Is Cooled By a Wind Tunnel

We've seen plenty of extreme cooling systems in the past, but Mike Schropp has taken things to the limit: he's built a computer that's cooled by a wind tunnel. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/g2xehYuVcHM/this-computer-is-cooled-by-a-wind-tunnel

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Legislators: 'Spaceport America Could Become a Ghost Town'

As a physics professor once said, "Your thesis is not even wrong" - it's nonsense. Sorry, but you need to do some research. Because of the egregious nature of the present tort system, the liability is essentially unlimited, and would require insurance premiums many times larger than the total cost of the product.

Under present NM law, if a rocket causes a sonic boom then everyone in the state could sue Virgin, the Spaceport and every business that provides parts or fuel or services to them - whether they heard the boom or not! Settling at, say $100,000 per person times the 2 million people in NM is $200 billion - well outside the range of insurable amounts. Another example - "the exhaust of these infernal rockets caused my asthma to act up" - even though I live 200 miles away and upwind.

The above is not a joke - similarly ridiculous suits have been successful, and in fact such suits destroyed the US general aviation industry, where insurance premiums exceeded actual manufacturing costs, and were anticipated to exceed the actual sale price of parts. A similar legislative fix finally saved a small portion of the GA industry, after 90% of the makers had gone out of business or left the industry.

The whole rise of 'kit' airplanes was a response - if an airplane was over 50% manufactured by the hobbyist, all the liability rested with him/her. This meant that a kit manufacturer was mostly home free on liability, and the cost of the plane would be between 1/4 and 1/2 what a manufactured plane would cost.

(Recognize that at present, between up to 2/3 of your total medical bills are purely going to liability insurance, and that is a very predictable product liability-wise. A heart surgeon pays between 1/3 and 1/2 their gross income as insurance. Then there is the built-in cost of insurance on every facility, every part, every sterile package, etc.)

At present, my understanding is that every state with any significant space-related industry has some form of limitation on liability to force some sense into the system and prevent novel new interpretations of the law from biting the industry. If NM wants to become a space-related state, it will have to do the same.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/VWLXmsTa4h4/story01.htm

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The Communications Network ? 5 Tips for Live Tweeting ...

Guest Post:?Elizabeth R. Miller

Whether intended to expand the audience for a small discussion or curate content from a large conference, live-tweeting events is becoming the norm in philanthropy.

Too often people see it as an add-on, or even a hassle in the flurry of putting on an in-person event. Done right, though, live tweeting can be a core tool to spread information and engage people in issues important to your work. It?s also a unique opportunity for you to show the personality of your organization; people will respect you for being authentic and showing your true voice.

Below are some tips and tricks that may help you use Twitter to accomplish a range of goals. Although designed for organizations, many of the tips below can also be used to help conference participants who want to up their Twitter game.

Prepare, prepare, prepare

• Have an up-to-date run of show or agenda. See if speakers or presenters are willing to share their remarks or speeches with you ahead of time so you know what you?ll be tweeting about (of course these things can often change up to the last minute).
• Gather Twitter handles in advance. Ask attendees when they register for their handle and consider creating a public list of them so others can find people who will be participating in advance.
• Pre-write tweets for the beginning of sessions ? it?s often when you?re busiest, so this can be a time saver. Make sure you?re linking to content online, like a livestream page if available, an agenda or speaker?s bio. It?s helpful to give people who are following virtually the right context.
• Create short links to content early using bit.ly or ow.ly so you aren?t frantically doing it at the last minute.
• Know that no matter what you?ll never account for everything that could happen. Last year during the MIT-Knight Civic Media conference a bird found its way into the lunchroom, the irony of tweeting about a bird was not lost on anyone! It?s OK, even necessary, to take part in these kinds of dialogues because Twitter is fun.

Use hashtags wisely

• Decide on a hashtag for your conference in advance and make sure all your promotional materials, both online and off, reference it. If you?re trying to find out which ones are popular to let others in the field know about your conference, use a free service like hashtracking.com or topsy.com.
• After you decide on a hashtag, track it consistently. Make a column in your Tweetdeck account so you see all mentions of it. This will also help you keep an eye out for things you may want to retweet.
• Don?t get too crazy with hashtags. Although research shows URLs and hashtags can increase engagement, it also shows that using too many can turn users off.

Make tweets accessible; engage others to participate

• In order to engage others in the room, consider publicly displaying a Twitter feed. Services like Twitterfall allow you to track hashtags over time and works well especially for larger conferences where the feed can be projected.
• UStream, a popular livestreaming service, makes it easy to embed tweets with a certain hashtag on your site. If you aren?t livestreaming, you can still embed a Twitter widget on you site to make it easy to syndicate content.
• Consider taking Twitter questions from people who are following remotely, it?s a good way to involve more people. Tweet photos to add visuals when people aren?t, or can?t, connect via livestream. (People love them and they add a human element.)
• Engage others. Know a staff member who is a great live tweeter or knows the content well? Ask if they?ll tweet from their personal account for a session or two and keep an eye on their feed. Know a colleague who has attended your conference for several years in a row? Tell them you?ll be keeping an eye on their feed. This will also bring more of a personal and friendly aspect to your tweets.

Capture a conversation?s essence

Don?t try to be a court reporter: concentrate on tweeting out top-level insights. Look for sound bites that really hit at the core of a session or speech.

• Make sure it?s clear to whom you?re attributing tweets. Make it obvious if it?s a quote, if you?re paraphrasing or if you?re adding additional commentary from your organization?s perspective. If you?re adding something, make sure it?s consistent with your own organization?s messaging and mission.
• Live tweeting requires you to think fast and on your feet so make sure you aren?t distracted. This can mean letting colleagues know in advance not to interrupt you (they?ll know it?s nothing personal!)

Be on high alert ? but have fun!

• There?s a heavy customer service component to live tweeting, so be on alert. If you?re livestreaming, folks following remotely may be the first to alert you of a problem. Others may want to know where they can find out more information about your organization or the conference. Try to respond timely to requests.
• Be gracious. Thank others who are tweeting the event and retweet them. No matter how efficient you are, you?ll never be able to tweet insights from every speaker or session, so the more you can share knowledge from others, the better.
• Never forget that you have a unique voice and perspective. Know who you are as an organization so you can tweet confidently with that voice.

An added bonus that shows why live tweeting is important and that you can actually learn from it happens after a conference ends. While you?re decompressing, take time to look back at your Twitter feed, notice what kinds of content got retweeted and which speakers or sessions set off sparks. Having this information can help you learn what to do better for the next time around.

---

Elizabeth R. Miller?is a?communications associate at Knight Foundation

?

Source: http://www.comnetwork.org/2013/01/5-tips-for-live-tweeting-conferences-and-events/

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Fed: Mortgage rates won't get much lower - The Term Sheet ...

FORTUNE -- If you are looking to refinance your mortgage, this is close to the best deal you're going to get. That's the message from two economists at the New York Federal Reserve.

That contradicts what some have been saying for a while. In fact, observers have been flummoxed about a split between home loans rates and mortgage bonds. While the latter has continued to drop, mortgage rates have been stuck in the mid-3% range. Based on prices for mortgage-backed securities, home loan rates should have hit 2.6% by now.

The two Fed researchers, Andreas Fuster and David Lucca, though, say in a blog post?that their research suggests it's unlikely mortgage rates will ever get that low. They say there is a possibility that rates may make it down to 3%, but that would require some pretty significant policy changes, and even those changes aren't guaranteed to produce a 3%, or lower, mortgage rate.

MORE: Byron Wien's 2013 Surprises

So why haven't mortgage rates fallen further? The New York Fed has been trying to figure that out. And Fuster and Lucca's blog post is based on a conference the NY Fed held last month on the topic. Unfortunately, most of what came out of the conference, and therefore Fuster and Lucca's recap, is unsatisfying. The economists do a good job of dispelling some myths, namely that increased regulation from Dodd-Frank or the Basel III reforms from international bank regulators are pushing up mortgage rates. Higher capital requirements have depressed the value of mortgage servicing rights, one of the ways banks book profits from home loans, but not enough to cause rates to go up.

Instead, the researchers' main conclusion is that there are fewer mortgage brokers than there were before the housing bust and financial crisis, and that more competition would bring down rates. But it's not clear even that is the answer.

The mortgage market has consolidated since the financial crisis. And, like everything else in the banking business, it's now more than ever in the hands of a few large players. The situation is perhaps more extreme in the mortgage market: Wells Fargo (WFC) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) collectively do about one out of every two mortgage refis in the U.S.

MORE: Wall Street's last gravy train is running out of steam

Yet, it doesn't appear that Wells Fargo's and JPMorgan's dominance of the mortgage market is driving up rates. I asked the owners of MortgageMarvel, an online mortgage shopping site, to compare rates among banks. What they found is that the average mortgage rate charged by Wells Fargo and JPMorgan wasn't any higher than other banks. In fact, Wells Fargo's rate was a little lower than the average community bank. That doesn't mean that the large banks aren't influencing the rate in some other way, or having some follow-the-leader role in the marketplace. But I think it makes it hard to come to the conclusion that a lack of competition alone is the reason that rates haven't fallen more.

For rates to really go down more, Washington would have to get serious about reforming the mortgage market, and replacing Fannie and Freddie with something that lawmakers support, instead of two entities that dominate the market and yet are in a permanent limbo. No one wants them to survive, and no one wants them to die. As a result, a bunch of mortgage finance REITs that have no real incentive to lower rates either have entered the void. If anything, those companies benefit from keeping borrowers in their old overpriced mortgages.

The problem is that the basic plumbing of the mortgage market is broken. More mortgage brokers and lenders won't solve that. That's going to take time and probably a better economy. And by that time bond rates will probably have moved up, taking mortgage rates with them.

Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/01/03/mortgage-rates-federal-reserve/

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New law points to Philippine church's waning sway

An anti-abortion sign flashes on an electric signboard outside the Roman Catholic Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in downtown Manila, Philippines on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Roman Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

An anti-abortion sign flashes on an electric signboard outside the Roman Catholic Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in downtown Manila, Philippines on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Roman Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

A picture of Pope Benedict XVI is shown on an electric signboard outside the Roman Catholic Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in downtown Manila, Philippines on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Roman Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

A "Pro-Life" sign flashes on an electric signboard outside the Roman Catholic Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in downtown Manila, Philippines on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Roman Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

A "No to Abortion" sign flashes on an electric signboard outside the Roman Catholic Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in downtown Manila, Philippines on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Roman Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? Twenty-six years after Roman Catholic leaders helped his mother marshal millions of Filipinos in an uprising that ousted a dictator, President Benigno Aquino III picked a fight with the church over contraceptives and won a victory that bared the bishops' worst nightmare: They no longer sway the masses.

Aquino last month signed the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 quietly and without customary handshakes and photographs to avoid controversy. The law that provides state funding for contraceptives for the poor pitted the dominant Catholic Church in an epic battle against the popular Aquino and his followers.

A couple with links to the church filed a motion Wednesday to stop implementation of the law, and more petitions are expected. Still, there is no denying that Aquino's approval of the legislation has chipped away at the clout the church has held over Filipinos, and marked the passing of an era in which it was taboo to defy the church and priests.

Catholic leaders consider the law an attack on the church's core values ? the sanctity of life ? saying that contraceptives promote promiscuity and destroy life. Aquino and his allies see the legislation as a way to address how the poor ? roughly a third of the country's 94 million people ? manage the number of children they have and provide for them. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the Philippines are unwanted, according to the U.N. Population Fund, and a third of those end up aborted in a country where abortion remains illegal.

Rampant poverty, overcrowded slums, and rising homelessness and crime are main concerns that neither the church nor Aquino's predecessors have successfully tackled.

"If the church can provide milk, diapers and rice, then go ahead, let's make more babies," said Giselle Labadan, a 30-year-old roadside vendor. "But there are just too many people now, too many homeless people, and the church doesn't help to feed them."

Labadan said she grew up in a God-fearing family but has defied the church's position against contraceptives for more than a decade because her five children, ages 2 to 12, were already far too many for her meager income. Her husband, a former army soldier, is jobless.

She said that even though she has used most types of contraceptives, she still considers herself among the faithful. "I still go to church and pray. It's a part of my life," Labadan said.

"I have prayed before not to have another child, but the condom worked better," she said.

The law now faces a legal challenge in the Supreme Court after the couple filed the motion, which seems to cover more ideological than legal grounds. One of the authors of the law, Rep. Edcel Lagman, said Thursday that he was not worried by the petition and expected more to follow.

"We are prepared for this," he said. "We are certain that the law is completely constitutional and will surmount any attack on or test of its constitutionality."

Over the decades, moral and political authority of the church in the Philippines is perceived to have waned with the passing of one its icons, Cardinal Jaime Sin. He shaped the role of the church during the country's darkest hours after dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law starting in 1972 by championing the cause of civil advocacy, human rights and freedoms. Sin's action mirrored that of his strong backer, Pope John Paul II, who himself challenged communist rulers in Eastern Europe.

Three years after Aquino's father, Benigno Aquino Sr., a senator opposing Marcos, was gunned down on the Manila airport tarmac in 1983, Sin persuaded Aquino's widow, Corazon, to run for president. When massive election cheating by Marcos was exposed, Sin went on Catholic-run Radio Veritas in February 1986 to summon millions of people to support military defectors and the Aquino-led opposition. Marcos fled and Aquino, a deeply religious woman, was sworn in as president.

Democracy was restored, but the country remained chaotic and mired in nearly a dozen coup attempts. The economy stalled, poverty persisted and the jobless were leaving in droves for better-paying jobs abroad as maids, teachers, nurses and engineers. After Aquino stepped down, the country elected its first and only Protestant president, Fidel Ramos. He, too, opposed the church on contraceptives and released state funds for family planning methods.

Catholic bishops pulled out all the stops in campaigning against Ramos' successor, popular movie actor Joseph Estrada, a hero of the impoverished masses who made little attempt to keep down his reputation for womanizing, drinking and gambling.

But few heeded the church's advice. Estrada was elected with the largest victory margin in Philippine history. Halfway through his six-year presidency, in January 2001, he was confronted with another "people power" revolt, backed by political opponents and the military, and was forced to resign.

His successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, styled herself as a devout Catholic and sought to placate the church by abolishing the death penalty and putting brakes on the contraceptives law, which languished in Congress during her nine years in power.

It mattered little. Arroyo's mismanagement and corruption scandals set the stage for Aquino's election on a promise to rid the Philippines of graft, fix the economy and lift millions out of poverty. The scion of the country's democracy icon took power several years after Sin's death, but it was a different era in which the church was battered by scandals of sexual misconduct of priests and declining family values.

The latest defeat of the church "can further weaken its moral authority at a time when this is most badly needed in many areas, including defense of a whole range of family values," said the Rev. John J. Carroll, founding chairman of the Jesuit-run John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues. He said he wondered how many Catholics have been "turned off" by incessant sermons and prayers led by the church against the contraceptives law, and how much it contributed to rising anticlericalism and the erosion of church authority.

"People today are more practical," said Labadan, the street vendor. "In the old days, people feared that if you defy the church, it will be the end of the world."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez and Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-01-03-Philippines-Contraceptives/id-be5f2ed0a15f48c68eab0c2ac1b455c9

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Biologists unlock 'black box' to underground world: How tiny microbes make life easier for humans

Jan. 2, 2013 ? A BYU biologist is part of a team of researchers that has unlocked the "black box" to the underground world home to billions of microscopic creatures.

That first peek inside, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may well explain how the number of species in an ecosystem changes the way it functions.

"The organisms that live in soil do all kinds of important things for us -- they decompose and decontaminate our waste and toxic chemicals, purify our water, prevent erosion, renew fertility," said BYU biology professor Byron Adams, a study coauthor. "But we know very little about how they do this. What species need to be present? What are the different jobs that we need them to do?"

For their analysis, Adams and his colleagues took 16 soil samples from all reaches of the globe, from Antarctica to tropical forest locations, extracted the DNA out of all the organisms in each sample, and sequenced it.

With information about the genome (the complete set of its DNA and all of its genes) of each microbe in the soil, the researchers were able to see which organisms do what, and whether or not their functional roles are redundant or unique.

"People think you're going to pick up a handful of dirt anywhere in the world and you'll pretty much have the same bunch of microbes doing pretty much the same things," Adams said. "That's simply not true. They function very differently based on their environment. And when you have more species, you get more, and different functions."

Having several different species that do the same job might mean that if one species goes extinct then the others can pick up the slack. On the other hand, in ecosystems like deserts, where there are few species and even fewer jobs, removing some species could result in collapse, or failure of the ecosystem to provide the services we need.

Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and the different jobs that soil microbes do is a first step towards understanding how to better harness these organisms in order to prevent the collapse of the very systems that provide critical ecosystem services, such as fertile soil and clean water.

"The most obvious applications of this understanding will probably be in agricultural ecosystems," Adams said.

A better understanding of below-ground ecosystems can help humans predict how those systems will respond to things such as climate change or perturbations to the soil from mining, drilling or waste. And, hopefully, that understanding can help prevent agricultural or environmental catastrophes.

"We've been walking around on soil since the beginning of time and never really knew what was going on underneath us," Adams said. "Now we will be able to make predictions of how ecosystems function, what causes them to collapse, and perhaps even predict, where collapses will take place and how we can prevent them."

The lead author on the study was Noah Fierer, an associate professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The researchers' data also may have something to say about how new species form. For centuries it was thought that geographic barriers (like mountains, peninsulas, rivers and deserts) were the primary engines of speciation. However, it could be that interactions with other species are just as important.

The authors believe this study will open up significant additional research addressing speciation and the evolution of microbial communities.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brigham Young University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. N. Fierer, J. W. Leff, B. J. Adams, U. N. Nielsen, S. T. Bates, C. L. Lauber, S. Owens, J. A. Gilbert, D. H. Wall, J. G. Caporaso. Cross-biome metagenomic analyses of soil microbial communities and their functional attributes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; 109 (52): 21390 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215210110

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/PAUyzNgdffc/130103092030.htm

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Samsung's NX300 mirrorless camera shoots HD video ... in 3-D

7 hrs.

Rosa Golijan , NBC News

3-D video can be fun to shoot under the right circumstances???especially when the ability to do so comes built into a rather nifty mirrorless camera system. Enter Samsung's new?NX300 camera and the 3-D-capable?45mm F1.8 lens.

Yes, the magic is all in the lens. According to authoritative camera site DPReview, this is how it works:The camera can take 3-D stills and shoot high-definition 1080p 3-D video, provided you buy the $600 45mm lens.?

The 3D version can be used as a conventional lens but also has two LCD screens that scissor down into the optical path when you engage 3-D mode. These two screens take turns to black-out their respective sides of the lens, meaning a slightly different image is projected onto the camera's sensor. The NX300 can capture and combine these alternating frames to create either 3D movies or stills.

The NX300 has a 20.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, a new hybrid auto-focus system, and Samsung's?proprietary?DRIMe IV imaging engine. It offers rather wide ISO range (ISO100 - 25600), a 1/6000 shutter speed, and can shoot 8.6 frames per second?in?continuous?shooting mode. (You can check out the camera's full specs on Samsung's CES 2013 website.)

Connectivity also?plays a huge role with the NX300, thanks to Samsung's Smart Camera app, which is available on Android (and soon on iOS). ?With the app, you can use a smartphone as a remote view finder, beam photos straight to your mobile device and more. (There's also a way to backup photos to your PC or Mac as well, of course.)

The NX300 will be available in March,?will cost $750 and come with a?20-50mm kit lens.

Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/samsungs-nx300-mirrorless-camera-can-shoot-hd-video-3-d-1B7812455

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