Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/301824532?client_source=feed&format=rss
C7 Corvette tom brady denver post Scandal denver broncos new england patriots Zayn Malik
Saturday, April 27, 2013
The Gold, Silver Morning Smackdown Becomes A Smackup As ...
After recovering 50% of its record plunge last night, gold continues to rise this morning, topping $1450. Silver is even more exuberant this morning testing up to post-crash-low highs around $23.90. What is more interesting is that for three days in a row, instead of the seemingly ubiquitous morning smackdown of precious metals, we have seen a sudden desperate demand for silver and gold in the US morning.
?
?
Silver is lagging gold's recovery for now...
?
Charts: Bloomberg
(4 votes)
nike foamposite galaxy bill maher seabiscuit dingo nba all star weekend malin akerman jeff carter
Friday, April 26, 2013
FACT CHECK: Did FAA have to furlough controllers?
This photo taken April 23, 2013 shows a Southwest airlines jet waiting to depart in view of the air traffic control tower at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. With disgruntled passengers complaining about airline flight delays, Republican lawmakers and the airline industry pounced on the Obama administration. The glitch was invented by the White House for political reasons, they charged, and officials waited until the last minute to warn Congress and the airlines of the impending upheaval. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
This photo taken April 23, 2013 shows a Southwest airlines jet waiting to depart in view of the air traffic control tower at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. With disgruntled passengers complaining about airline flight delays, Republican lawmakers and the airline industry pounced on the Obama administration. The glitch was invented by the White House for political reasons, they charged, and officials waited until the last minute to warn Congress and the airlines of the impending upheaval. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? With disgruntled passengers complaining about airline flight delays, Republican lawmakers and the airline industry pounced on the Obama administration. The glitch was invented by the White House for political reasons, they charged, and officials waited until the last minute to warn Congress and the airlines of the impending upheaval.
They were wrong on the first count, and partly right on the second.
The FAA has no choice but to cut $637 million as its share of $85 billion in automatic, government-wide spending cuts that must be achieved by the end of the federal budget year on Sept. 30.
The cuts are required under a law enacted two years ago as the government was approaching its debt limit. Democrats were in favor of raising the debt limit without strings attached so as not to provoke an economic crisis, but Republicans insisted on substantial cuts in exchange. The compromise was to require that every government "program, project and activity" ? with some exceptions, like Medicare ? be cut equally.
"It was intentionally designed to provide no discretion whatsoever," said Stan Collender, a former House and Senate budget committee staffer, and author of "The Guide to the Federal Budget."
At the time, it was thought the prospects of the cuts would be so dreadful that it would force both sides to negotiate a more sensible plan to resolve the government's budget woes. But that didn't happen, and the first of the cuts kicked in on March 1.
As a result, the FAA has reduced the work schedules of nearly all of its 47,000 employees by one day every two weeks, including 15,000 air traffic controllers, as well as thousands of air traffic supervisors, managers and technicians who keep airport towers and radar facility equipment working. That's a 10 percent cut in hours and pay.
The House voted overwhelmingly Friday to allow the FAA to shift money among budget accounts to avoid controller furloughs, following quick approval Thursday in the Senate. The White House has said President Barack Obama would go along with the move.
Republicans and the airline industry insist the FAA could find other places to cut in its nearly $16 billion annual budget. Two airline trade associations have filed a lawsuit trying to halt the furloughs.
"They (the White House) want to cause the most pain to the American people out there so they will put pressure on Congress to back away from sequestration (spending cuts)," said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "This should be laid right at the president's feet."
But the budget law doesn't allow steeper cuts in one program in order to offset cuts in another. Air traffic control is part of the FAA's operations account, 70 percent of which goes toward employee salaries. The FAA plans to cut $485 million from operations, about $220 million of which will come from furloughs, said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.
Shuster points to contracts, consultants and travel as other expenditures that could be cut instead. But that's not as simple as it may sound.
Travel already has been reduced, mainly to trips to keep the air traffic system functioning, like sending a technician to a facility to resolve an equipment problem, Huerta said. Overtime is being preserved for emergencies.
The largest of the agency's operations contracts is to provide and maintain a communications system for air traffic operations. The second-largest contract is for provision of weather, information on flight restrictions and other services to pilots. And the third-largest pays companies to provide controllers for towers at small airports. The FAA's proposal to save money by shutting down 149 of the towers already has drawn complaints from lawmakers in both parties who don't want airports in their states and districts to lose towers.
"I would have to take the administration's position on this," said Bill Hoagland, a former Republican Senate Budget Committee aide who helped write a 1985 budget law that was the model for the current budget-cutting law. "They are administering the law as written."
The budget law is specifically worded so that cuts are spread evenly across programs, making it difficult for the FAA to use money for contracts, for example, to make up for payroll cuts even through both are in the same budget "account," he said.
At a news conference Thursday, congressional Republicans said if the FAA had to furlough controllers, it should have furloughed more of them in places like Waterloo, Iowa, instead of at big hub airports.
The FAA decided against doing that because it would mean picking winners and losers among airlines and regions of the country, Huerta said. Also, the air traffic system is by its nature interconnected ? small airports are needed to feed passengers to the bigger hubs, he said.
Lawmakers also have complained that the FAA didn't warn them air traffic disruptions were coming.
"How come you didn't tell us about this beforehand, the sequester, impact on the layoffs, the furloughs? Not a word. Not a breath," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., angrily demanded of Huerta at a hearing this week.
Airline and airport officials say they didn't receive specific information from the FAA about how the furloughs might affect air travel until a meeting called by the agency on April 16, six days before the furloughs took effect. Airport officials said they weren't invited and had to push the FAA to allow them to come to the meeting.
In fact, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA officials have been warning Congress and airlines since February that the furloughs were coming and that they could cause major delays. LaHood even held a news conference at the White House. Administration officials also discussed the impending furloughs at congressional hearings in March and earlier this month.
But lawmakers and industry officials also have a point. In none of those hearings did FAA or Transportation Department officials go out of their way to disclose to Congress the extent of the anticipated flight delay mess, even though they had that information in hand at three hearings last week. Nor did they solicit help from Congress to avoid the furloughs. Rather, officials emphasized that safety would be maintained.
"We offered our apologies to them for the fact that we had not kept them informed about all of the things that we had been discussing," LaHood told reporters after a meeting Wednesday with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the senior Republican member of the committee, to discuss possible legislation to resolve the situation.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
Associated Presstony nominations 2012 facebook organ donor jessica simpson gives birth carrie underwood blown away chk ryan seacrest kentucky derby
Spanish unemployment rate at record 27.16% | Morocco World News
MADRID, April 25, 2013 (AFP)
Spain?s unemployment rate soared to a new record of 27.16 percent of the workforce in the first quarter of 2013 as the number of those without jobs surpassed six million, official data showed on Thursday.
The unemployment rate jumped from 26.02 percent in the previous quarter. The number of unemployed climbed by 237,400 people to 6.2 million, the National Statistics Institute said.
Spain, once the motor of job creation in the 17-nation eurozone, is in a double dip recession, having yet to recover from the collapse in 2008 of a labour-intensive property boom in 2008 which had allowed economic growth to outpace the European union?s for more than a decade.
The Spanish economy, the eurozone?s fourth biggest, contracted by 1.37 percent last year, the second worst yearly slump since 1970, and the government forecasts it will shrink again by between 1.0 percent and 1.5 percent this year.
Spain?s jobless rate fell to an almost 30-year low of 7.95 percent in the second quarter of 2007 at the peak of an economic boom that allowed the country to create more than half the new jobs in the euro zone between 2002 and 2005.
But the jobless rate has risen steadily every quarter since as the country?s housing market collapsed, throwing millions of people out of work.
In France, the second biggest eurozone economy, official data to be released later on Thursday are also expected to show a record number of jobless workers.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy?s conservative government, which took office in December 2011 after a landslide general election victory on the back of promises to create jobs, will Friday unveil a new package of reforms aimed at reviving economy activity.
Source: http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/04/88391/spanish-unemployment-rate-at-record-27-16/
Olympus Has Fallen Arnold Palmer Invitational 2013 arnold palmer invitational Chinua Achebe The Croods ashley greene marquette university
Computer scientists suggest new spin on origins of evolvability: Competition to survive not necessary?
Apr. 26, 2013 ? Scientists have long observed that species seem to have become increasingly capable of evolving in response to changes in the environment. But computer science researchers now say that the popular explanation of competition to survive in nature may not actually be necessary for evolvability to increase.
In a paper published this week in PLOS ONE, the researchers report that evolvability can increase over generations regardless of whether species are competing for food, habitat or other factors.
Using a simulated model they designed to mimic how organisms evolve, the researchers saw increasing evolvability even without competitive pressure.
"The explanation is that evolvable organisms separate themselves naturally from less evolvable organisms over time simply by becoming increasingly diverse," said Kenneth O. Stanley, an associate professor at the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. He co-wrote the paper about the study along with lead author Joel Lehman, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.
The finding could have implications for the origins of evolvability in many species.
"When new species appear in the future, they are most likely descendants of those that were evolvable in the past," Lehman said. "The result is that evolvable species accumulate over time even without selective pressure."
During the simulations, the team's simulated organisms became more evolvable without any pressure from other organisms out-competing them. The simulations were based on a conceptual algorithm.
"The algorithms used for the simulations are abstractly based on how organisms are evolved, but not on any particular real-life organism," explained Lehman.
The team's hypothesis is unique and is in contrast to most popular theories for why evolvability increases.
"An important implication of this result is that traditional selective and adaptive explanations for phenomena such as increasing evolvability deserve more scrutiny and may turn out unnecessary in some cases," Stanley said.
Stanley is an associate professor at UCF. He has a bachelor's of science in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He has over 70 publications in competitive venues and has secured grants worth more than $1 million. His works in artificial intelligence and evolutionary computation have been cited more than 4,000 times.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Central Florida.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Joel Lehman, Kenneth O. Stanley. Evolvability Is Inevitable: Increasing Evolvability without the Pressure to Adapt. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (4): e62186 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062186
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/top_news/top_science/~3/yFudqCEhgpw/130426115612.htm
howard johnson levon helm firelight world peace elbow kevin love think like a man world peace
Poor parenting -- including overprotection -- increases bullying risk
Apr. 25, 2013 ? Children who are exposed to negative parenting -- including abuse, neglect but also overprotection -- are more likely to experience childhood bullying by their peers, according to a meta-analysis of 70 studies of more than 200,000 children.
The research, led by the University of Warwick and published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, found the effects of poor parenting were stronger for children who are both a victim and perpetrator of bulling (bully-victims) than children who were solely victims.
It found that negative or harsh parenting was linked to a moderate increase in the risk of being a 'bully-victim' and a small increase in the risk of being a victim of bullying. In contrast, warm but firm parenting reduced the risk of being bullied by peers.
The study authors, Professor Dieter Wolke, Dr Suzet Lereya and Dr Muthanna Samara, called for anti-bullying intervention programmes to extend their focus beyond schools to focus on positive parenting within families and to start before children enter school.
Professor Wolke said: "The long shadow of bullying falls well beyond the school playground -- it has lasting and profound effects into adulthood.
"We know that victims and bully-victims are more likely to develop physical health problems, suffer from anxiety and depression and are also at increased risk of self-harm and suicide.
"It is vital we understand more about the factors linked to bullying in order to reduce the burden it places on the affected children and society.
"People often assume bullying is a problem for schools alone but it's clear from this study that parents also have a very important role to play.
"We should therefore target intervention programmes not just in schools but also in families to encourage positive parenting practices such as warmth, affection, communication and support."
The study categorised behaviours such as abuse/neglect, maladaptive parenting and overprotection as negative parenting behaviour.
It categorised authoritative parenting, parent-child communication, parental involvement and support, supervision and warmth and affection as positive parenting behaviours.
Professor Wolke highlighted the finding that overprotection was linked to an increased risk of bullying.
"Although parental involvement, support and high supervision decrease the chances of children being involved in bullying, for victims overprotection increased this risk.
"Children need support but some parents try to buffer their children from all negative experiences.
"In the process, they prevent their children from learning ways of dealing with bullies and make them more vulnerable.
"It could be that children with overprotective parents may not develop qualities such as autonomy and assertion and therefore may be easy targets for bullies.
"But it could also be that parents of victims become overprotective of their children.
"In either case, parents cannot sit on the school bench with their children.
"Parenting that includes clear rules about behaviour while being supportive and emotionally warm is most likely to prevent victimisation.
"These parents allow children to have some conflicts with peers to learn how to solve them rather than intervene at the smallest argument."
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Warwick, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- \ Suzet Tanya Lereya, Muthanna Samara, Dieter Wolke. Parenting behavior and the risk of becoming a victim and a bully/victim: A meta-analysis study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.03.001
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/-9amG3HR3LE/130425214005.htm
words with friends phlebotomy dog show best in show bret michaels bret michaels pekingese
Instant View: Amazon sustains growth, revenue up 22 percent
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc kept up a strong pace of growth in core retail and newer businesses like digital media, posting a 22 percent jump in revenue to $16.1 billion in the first quarter, while its earnings beat expectations.
Commentary:
KERRY RICE, ANALYST, NEEDHAM & CO
"Gross margin is definitely better than expected. That is something that investors are certainly keen on.
"Guidance was light, both top- and bottom-line. That certainly won't help the stock perform, although they have over the last several quarters exceeded expectations on the operating income side. So for the guidance, people are more concerned about revenue than operating income."
(Reporting By Malathi Nayak and Poornima Gupta)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/instant-view-amazon-sustains-growth-revenue-22-percent-202758794--finance.html
sinkhole justin bieber Real Madrid Vs Manchester United Duck Dynasty sequestration Van Cliburn Sequester
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)