Romney to attend 3 debates before Thanksgiving

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at the Defending the American Dream Summit, Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at the Defending the American Dream Summit, Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pockets his notes after speaking at the Defending the American Dream Summit, Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at the Defending the American Dream Summit, Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

(AP) ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney plans to attend three debates before the Thanksgiving holidays.

Romney's campaign said Friday that he will participate in a Nov. 22 debate in Washington hosted by the Heritage Foundation. He's also set to attend a debate in South Carolina on Nov. 12, as well as next week's debate in Michigan Nov. 9.

Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho says the campaign is still deciding about future debates, including one scheduled in Arizona for Nov. 30. The campaign has also not decided whether to attend a Nov. 19 forum hosted by a socially conservative group in Iowa.

Romney was in Washington Friday speaking to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a tea party-allied group.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-11-04-Romney-Debates/id-8d095e8b799749dbafd2650032d8387e

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Obama rail initiative a 'train to nowhere'?

President Barack Obama's high-speed rail initiative is in danger of turning into the Big Engine That Couldn't.

As part of the economic stimulus plan of 2009, Obama pushed through more than $8 billion in initial funding to extend high-speed intercity rail service to 10 major U.S. rail corridors by 2034. The idea is to create superfast rail service ? like Japan's futuristic bullet trains ? that would be available to 80 percent of the U.S. population.

A quarter of that money ? a little more than $2 billion ? went to California, where voters in 2008 approved a plan to build a 220-mph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The California High Speed Rail Authority promised voters that the line would open in 2020, at an overall price of about $33 billion.

Since then, not a single segment of track has been laid and not a single station has opened.

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    7. Obama rail initiative a 'train to nowhere'?

That 2020 ribbon-cutting? It's now projected to be no earlier than 2033 ? at least 13 years late. That $33 billion price tag? It's been recalculated at $98.5 billion ? nearly three times the original estimate.

The news came from the state's High Speed Rail Authority, which issued an updated "business plan" (.pdf) last week at the direction of California Gov. Jerry Brown. The good news, said Tom Umberg, chairman of the authority, is that "we understand the project better." The bad news is that "as time goes by, things get more expensive."

  1. An msnbc.com-NBC News special report

    Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. The following NBC stations contributed to this report: KCRA of Sacramento, Calif.; KGET of Bakersfield, Calif.; KNTV of San Francisco; and WTLV of Jacksonville, Fla.

Actual construction must begin by next October or federal funding, which has grown to nearly $4.7 billion, goes away. Republicans in the Legislature want to give sticker-shocked voters a chance to change their minds by holding another referendum next year, warning that California shouldn't risk starting construction only to have future appropriations dry up.

The construction schedule calls for the first segment to be built not in heavily populated areas around Los Angeles or San Francisco, but in a relatively lightly trafficked corridor between Fresno and Bakersfield, in the Central Valley. Critics say that if the project has to be abandoned, Californians would be stuck with an uncompleted spur serving only a few thousand passengers ? what they're calling "the train to nowhere."

"Knowing what we know now, we think the time is now to pull the plug on this project," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a conservative activist group.

The California line is the first of the major high-speed rail stimulus programs to get up and running toward real construction. The status of the other projects also is in flux.

  1. Status report: high-speed rail

    More than $2 billion in stimulus funds intended for high-speed rail projects was rejected by Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio; those funds were redirected to 15 other states, most in the Midwest, along the West Coast and in the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston. But nearly 85 percent of the investments are now concentrated on six key corridors:

    ? Los Angeles to San Francisco: The nation's first 220-mph high-speed rail system is intended to connect two of the country's largest metropolitan areas.
    ? Seattle to Portland, Ore.: New stations, new daily trains and faster service are under development.
    ? Chicago to St. Louis: Construction is under way to bring 110-mph speeds and new trains to service that saw ridership growth of 136 percent from 2005 to 2010.
    ? Chicago to Detroit: Improvements are projected to bring reduce trip time by 30 minutes, with 110-mph service and enhanced stations.
    ? Northeast Corridor (connecting Washington, D.C., New York and Boston): Improvements to the nation's busiest corridor are projected to allow speeds of 160 mph between Philadelphia and New York.
    ? Charlotte, N.C., to Washington, D.C.: Investments are intended to add new daily trains and decrease travel times.

    Sources: U.S. Transportation Department; Federal Railroad Administration; recovery.org

Most of them are still in planning phases, but a second complication has been resistance from Republican governors in three states ? Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin ? who turned down high-speed rail funding when it was initially offered. That money was redistributed among two dozen rail projects ? some of them high-speed, including the California line, as well as maintenance or infrastructure improvements. (See box.)

White House press secretary Jay Carney said last week that Obama was still committed to the the plan, telling reporters that "we've let our infrastructure decline, and we have ceded the cutting edge in many areas to our global competitors. And that's certainly the case with regards to high-speed rail."

Carney said the White House was ready to "continue to work with lawmakers of both parties around the country, as well as local officials, who are interested in this kind of investment, because it really is the kind of thing that will help create a better future for the individual states and the country."

  1. Just how much is $98 billion?

    What $98 billion could buy today (all original costs adjusted for inflation to 2011 levels):

    ? 3 International Space Stations
    ? 6 Boston Big Dig projects
    ? 44 original World Trade Centers
    ? 87 World Trade Center Memorials
    ? 164 Empire State Buildings
    ? 179 original Louisiana Superdomes
    ? 704 Disneylands

    Msnbc.com research by Alex Johnson. Sources: Costs: Boston Globe, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Los Angeles Times, NASA, New York Times. Inflation adjustments: Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index

Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott wasn't shy about saying "I told you so."

Scott said he rejected a federal offer of $2.4 billion because he didn't want Florida to get stuck with a wildly inflated bill. Now, Californians are "on the hook for another 50-some billion dollars," Scott told reporters. "So I know all of you were very supportive of my decision on high-speed rail."

And even if California officials go full speed ahead, the federal money could be drying up.

Supporters of high-speed rail in Congress couldn't overcome a threatened Republican filibuster last week to the transportation section of Obama's proposed American Jobs Act, which effectively killed the section and the $4 billion extra it would have spent on the rail initiative.

Story: What happened to super-speedy trains?

And the Senate flat-lined overall spending when it passed its 2012 transportation bill last week, agreeing to budget a meager $100 million for Obama's plan ? in essence, approving just enough money to act as a placeholder so the program isn't "zeroed out," or killed. The bill ? including the placeholder money ? passed with the support of the White House (.pdf).

The Republican-controlled House hasn't passed its transportation bill yet, but it's expected to cut overall funding even more.

It wasn't supposed to be this way
The U.S. had ambitious plans to connect the country with a network of high-speed trains when it inaugurated Amtrak's Acela Express service between Washington and New York in December 2000. Eleven years later, the Acela remains the nation's only high-speed line, and it's not really accurate to call it even that.

The Acela is capable of running as fast as 165 mph, well above the government high-speed definition of 150 mph. But it averages only about 80 mph, because it has to share tracks with conventional trains and because some of those tracks are supported by infrastructure dating, in some stretches, back to 1935.

That's why so much attention is being paid to the project in California ? it effectively would be the first truly high-speed rail line in the U.S. But the attractiveness of that distinction is wearing off with Californians, whose support for the line has dropped sharply amid delays and ballooning costs.

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In September 2010, 76 percent of Californians told pollsters that they fully or somewhat supported building the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line. Only 13 percent said they opposed it completely.

One year later, opposition to the line had nearly quintupled, to 62 percent, according a poll by Probolsky Research of Newport Beach, Calif. Moreover, "the more voters know about high-speed rail, the more they are likely to vote to stop the project," Probolsky reported.

Another big problem is that the biggest resistance is in the area where the first line is planned: the Central Valley. By October, California officials must overcome not only the cost roadblocks? ? "each year we delay, the project adds about 2 (billion) to 3 billion dollars to the project price tag,? said Umberg, head of the High Speed Rail Authority ? but also intense opposition from people like Jack Vesely, a retired brewery worker whose home in Rosedale is in the segment's path.

?I'm 72. I don't want to move. Nobody wants to move," Vesely said. "We all love our land."

The proposed initial line would also go right through Bakersfield High School and Bethel Christian School in Bakersfield, along with as many as 239 homes, 282 business and eight churches, according to calculations by Citizens Against High Speed Rail, a local activist group.

Jeff Taylor, the owner of a landscaping business in Bakersfield who joined the group, said that was an unacceptable hit on the area's infrastructure.

The concerns ? the delays, the soaring costs or the disruption to local landowners ? have not changed the mind of Gov. Brown, who has championed the initiative from the beginning.

In a statement after the High Speed Rail Authority put out its gloomy new business plan, Brown reiterated his conviction that the rail line would "create hundreds of thousands of jobs, linking California's population centers and avoiding the huge problems of massive airport and highway expansion."

Even with its alarming new numbers, the plan remains "solid," Brown said, and it "lays the foundation for a 21st century transportation system."

Documents cited in this story:

? California High-Speed Rail Program Draft 2012 Business Plan (.pdf)

? YouTube: Florida Gov. Rick Scott's comments on California overruns

? White House Office of Management and Budget letter supporting passage of Senate bill cutting high-speed rail funding (.pdf)

? 2010 California poll survey of support for Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line (.pdf)

? 2011 California poll survey of support for Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line (.pdf)

? California Gov. Jerry Brown's statement reiterating support for Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45153941/ns/us_news/

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France forced to cut budget again as election looms (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? France announced 65 billion euros of tax hikes and budget cuts over five years on Monday, as President Nicolas Sarkozy seeks to protect the country's creditworthiness in financial markets without killing his chances of re-election in six months time.

The main goal was to protect a top-notch credit rating that allows France to fund itself as cheaply as possible at a moment when the debt market crisis that started in Greece threatens to engulf far bigger fish such as Italy.

But economists said the government's growth outlook was still too optimistic, even after cutting the forecast for 2012 to 1 percent from 1.75, meaning the latest measures might not be enough for France to meet its deficit reduction goals.

They also said that much of the plan would have to be carried out by a new government chosen in the election that takes place in two rounds next April and May.

The second package of cutbacks in three months was left to Prime Minister Francois Fillon to announce and included a rise in VAT sales tax and cuts in welfare benefit as well as heftier taxation of dividend income and, temporarily, corporate profit.

Fillon said French public finances had been in the red for 30 years and the time had come to break with the damaging habit of spending more than it had.

"Our country is going to pull up its sleeves," Fillon told a news conference.

"Europe's supremacy of old is well and truly behind us. Budget repair is as urgent as economic reform. We've got to pull out of this spiral of stagnation, excessive debt and poor competitiveness."

The plan was not short of measures that could dismay voters ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections.

The budget savings start in 2012 with measures worth 7 billion euros, and 11.6 billion the year after.

The lower rate of value-added tax will rise to 7 percent from 5.5 for all but essentials, hitting restaurants and home repairs among others, while family allowances and housing benefit will be indexed at a much less favorable rate.

Fillon also announced a temporary five percent increase in profit tax for firms with sales of more than 250 million euros a year, a similar rise in dividend tax, and heavier taxation of buy-to-let property investments as well as further rowback on tax breaks in other domains.

The plan also involved speeding up the pace at which the retirement age rises to 62 from 60, getting there in 2017 instead of 2018 and creating extra savings as a consequence. Securing the rise in the retirement age was a key political victory but highly unpopular move for Sarkozy last year.

MAKE-OR-BREAK

The steps could be make-or-break for Sarkozy as he tries to reassure jumpy financial markets and ratings agencies without upsetting voters and putting at risk a second five-year term in the 2012 election.

Like other European countries, France is struggling to keep its public finances under control and contain its debt without triggering a sharp drop in consumer spending, a cornerstone of the economy, or sparking protests of the scale seen in other countries such as Greece.

Ratings agencies have been hinting they could cut France's prized triple-A credit rating because of slowing growth and its potential liability for the cost of bailouts in the European debt crisis.

France aims to shrink its public deficit to 5.7 percent of GDP this year and to 4.5 percent next year before hammering it down to the European benchmark of 3 percent of GDP in 2013 before a further push toward zero in 2016.

"I don't have faith in the (government's) growth forecast of 1 percent next year and I think it will be closer to zero. Therefore, there's a risk that the government will have to have a second go (at belt-tightening) before long," economist Bruno Cavalier at Oddo Securities said.

"The government is facing the constraints imposed by the upcoming elections and the dilemma of how to stay in the same pack as Germany. To keep France's AAA credit rating, the government cannot stray from its efforts to bring the deficit in line with the (EU) limits."

While the cuts come at a politically sensitive moment for a leader whose popularity rating is low, Sarkozy's Socialist adversary in next year's election is also telling voters France's public finances must be fixed and the government's measures would prove insufficient.

"We are going to have weaker growth and there will have to be other measures," Francois Hollande told TV channel France 2. "The situation is serious because the deficits are considerable."

Hollande, the favorite right now in opinion polls, said part of the fix is to abolish all of the tax breaks Sarkozy provided since 2007, which he puts at 75 billion euros or a little more than the package announced on Monday.

Fillon defended the package of measures as an act of political courage months from a presidential election necessary to keep France from succumbing to Europe's debt crisis.

"We have done this because we consider that it is our duty to protect the French from the grave difficulties seen by many other European countries that did not act as quickly," Fillon told TV channel TF1.

(Additional reporting by Nicholas Vinocur, Leigh Thomas, Jean-Baptiste Vey and Alexandria Sage; editing by Geert De Clercq, Anna Willard and Diane Craft)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111107/wl_nm/us_france_budget

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Not one, not two, not three, but four clones: First quantum cloning machine to produce four copies

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2011) ? Xi-Jun Ren and Yang Xiang from Henan Universities in China, in collaboration with Heng Fan at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have produced a theory for a quantum cloning machine able to produce several copies of the state of a particle at atomic or sub-atomic scale, or quantum state, in an article about to be published in The European Physical Journal D. The advance could have implications for quantum information processing methods used, for example, in message encryption systems.

Quantum cloning is difficult because quantum mechanics laws only allow for an approximate copy?not an exact copy?of an original quantum state to be made, as measuring such a state prior to its cloning would alter it.

In this study, researchers have demonstrated that it is theoretically possible to create four approximate copies of an initial quantum state, in a process called asymmetric cloning. The authors have extended previous work that was limited to quantum cloning providing only two or three copies of the original state. One key challenge was that the quality of the approximate copy decreases as the number of copies increases.

The authors were able to optimise the quality of the cloned copies, thus yielding four good approximations of the initial quantum state. They have also demonstrated that their quantum cloning machine has the advantage of being universal and therefore is able to work with any quantum state, ranging from a photon to an atom.

Assymetric quantum cloning has applications in analysing the security of messages encryption systems, based on shared secret quantum keys. Two people will know whether their communication is secure by analysing the quality of each copy of their secret key. Any third party trying to gain knowledge of that key would be detected as measuring it would disturb the state of that key.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Springer Science+Business Media.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. X. J. Ren, Y. Xiang, H. Fan. Optimal asymmetric 1 ? 4 quantum cloning in arbitrary dimension. The European Physical Journal D, 2011; DOI: 10.1140/epjd/e2011-20370-2

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://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111106150759.htm

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Greece talks under way in bid to avoid bankruptcy

Greece's Prime Minister George Papandreou pauses during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias, at the presidential house in Athens on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou launched efforts to form a four-month coalition government, arguing the move is vital to demonstrating Greece's commitment to remaining in the eurozone.(AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

Greece's Prime Minister George Papandreou pauses during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias, at the presidential house in Athens on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011. Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou launched efforts to form a four-month coalition government, arguing the move is vital to demonstrating Greece's commitment to remaining in the eurozone.(AP Photo/Kostas Tsironis)

FILE - This Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011 file photo shows Greece's Conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras addressing conservative members of parliament in Athens. Greece's prime minister struggled Saturday Nov. 5, 2011 to form a temporary coalition government, faced with opposition calls for immediate elections that have extended a political deadlock in the debt-shackled country. George Papandreou has agreed to step aside if necessary to help his Socialist party hammer out a four-month coalition he says is vital to securing a new debt deal worth an additional euro130 billion ($179 billion). But his offer was snubbed hours later by opposition leader Antonis Samaras. "We have not asked for any place in his government. All we want is for Mr. Papandreou to resign, because he has become dangerous for the country," Samaras said in a televised address. "We insisted on immediate elections." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

(AP) ? Greek leaders struggled for a second day Sunday to end an ongoing political crisis, under intense pressure to ensure the country doesn't go bankrupt in the next few weeks and that it remains in the eurozone.

Embattled Prime Minister George Papandreou, who narrowly survived a parliamentary confidence vote Saturday, has said he is prepared to step down once political leaders agree on an interim government to lead the country through the next four critical months.

The new government would secure a new European debt deal agreed on little more than a week ago, and ensure the country receives a critical installment of bailout loans. Then elections could be held in late February.

But Antonis Samaras, the leader of the main conservative opposition New Democracy party, said Sunday no talks between the two parties were taking place and he reiterated his stance that Papandreou must resign before any coalition discussions can take place.

That has been the main sticking point in forming an interim government.

Papandreou, who chaired an emergency Cabinet meeting Sunday evening, said in a statement he had contacted the country's president, asking him to chair a meeting with him and Samaras in order to find a solution "soon."

Arriving for the Cabinet meeting, Civil Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis said Papandreou's proposal was "a clear, honest ... proposal in today's situation."

Greek politicians were hoping to arrive at a solution by Sunday night, so the country can attend a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels Monday with a semblance of stability.

"It is evident ... that the entire government can and will resign once the national cooperation and discussions result in a new government," said Interior Minister Haris Kastanidis as he arrived for the Cabinet meeting.

"There is a eurogroup tomorrow. If the government resigns today without there being a new government, who will hold talks at the eurogroup?" Kastanidis said.

Greece has been surviving since May 2010 on a first euro110 billion ($152 billion) bailout. But its financial crisis was so severe that a second rescue was needed as the country remained locked out of international bond markets by sky-high interest rates and facing an unsustainable national debt increase.

The new European deal, agreed on by the 27-nation bloc on Oct. 27 after marathon negotiations, would give Greece an additional euro130 billion ($179 billion) in rescue loans and bank support. It would also see banks write off 50 percent of Greek debt, worth some euro100 billion ($138 billion). The goal is to reduce Greece's debts to the point where the country is able to handle its finances without relying on constant bailouts.

Greece's lawmakers must now approve the new rescue deal, putting intense pressure on the country's leaders to swiftly end the political crisis so parliament can convene and put the debt agreement to a vote.

"In these critical moments, the two (main) parties are merely wasting time," said lawmaker Giorgos Kontoyannis, a former New Democracy member of parliament who has joined the splinter group Democratic Alliance. "I want to say to my former New Democracy colleagues that our responsibility to our country is individual and not bound by party allegiance."

In return for bailout money, Greece was forced to embark on a punishing program of tax increases and cuts in pensions and salaries that sent Papandreou's popularity plummeting and his majority in parliament whittled down from a comfortable 10 seats to just two.

Papandreou's government came under renewed threat after his disastrous bid this past week to hold a public referendum on the new euro130 billion ($179 billion) deal. The idea was swiftly scrapped Thursday after an angry response from markets and European leaders who said any popular vote in Greece would determine whether the country would keep its cherished membership in the eurozone. They also vowed to withhold a critical euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment of loans from an existing bailout deal that Greece needs urgently to stave off an imminent and catastrophic default.

After the aborted referendum idea, Papandreou's government survived the confidence vote. Now, European Union partners and creditors are pressing Papandreou and other political leaders to form a coalition government as a condition to receive any further rescue funds.

Government spokesman Elias Mossialos told state television Sunday that talks have begun and the name of the new prime minister should be known by Monday, in which case Papandreou would resign. Mossialos later told The Associated Press that his remarks regarding a new premier expressed "a personal wish" and were not an official announcement.

Samaras' party denied any talks were taking place "either in the open or behind the scenes."

The socialists and New Democracy differ on the duration of such a caretaker government, with the opposition demanding elections within a few weeks and the government saying the coalition Cabinet should last through the end of February.

____

Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-11-06-EU-Greece-Financial-Crisis/id-4837bfd3d1a44adeaed141b6f2af2f55

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Eyes of nation on Ohio vote on union-limiting law (AP)

COLUMBUS, Ohio ? A ballot battle in Ohio that pits the union rights of public workers against Republican efforts to shrink government and limit organized labor's reach culminates Tuesday in a vote with political consequences from statehouses to Pennsylvania Avenue.

A question called Issue 2 asks voters to accept or reject a voluminous rewrite of Ohio's collective bargaining law that GOP Gov. John Kasich signed in March, less than three months after his party regained power in the closely divided swing state.

Thousands descended the Statehouse in protest of the legislation known as Senate Bill 5, prompting state officials at one point to lock the doors out of concern for lawmakers' safety.

The legislation affects more than 350,000 police, firefighters, teachers, nurses and other government workers. It sets mandatory health care and pension minimums for unionized government employees, bans public worker strikes, scraps binding arbitration and prohibits basing promotions solely on seniority.

By including police and firefighters, Ohio's bill went further than Wisconsin's, which was the first in a series of union-limiting measures plugged by Republican governors this year as they faced deep budget holes and a tea party movement fed up with government excess. Democratic governors, including New York's Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut's Dannel Malloy, have also faced down their public employee unions in attempts to rein in costs.

That's why labor badly needs a win in Ohio, said Lee Adler, who teaches labor issues at Cornell University's New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"If the governor of Ohio is able to hold the line on the legislation that was passed, then it would be a very significant setback for public sector workers and public sector unions in the U.S.," he said. "Likewise, if the other result happens, then it would certainly provide a considerable amount of hope that, with the proper kind of mobilization and the proper kind of targeting, some of the retrenchment that has been directed at public sector workers can be combated."

Victory could also galvanize support and build energy within the Democratic-leaning labor movement ahead of the 2012 presidential election, a potential boon for President Barack Obama's re-election effort.

We Are Ohio, the labor-backed coalition fighting the law, had raised more than $24 million as of mid-October ? more than Obama, John McCain and 18 other presidential contenders raised in combined Ohio contributions during the 2008 presidential election, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Building a Better Ohio, the business-fueled proponent campaign, has raised $8 million. Outside groups including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and the Virginia-based Alliance for America's Future are also rallying support for the law. Their spending hasn't been documented.

"This will eclipse any statewide candidate election in the history of the state, in terms of spending," said Jason Mauk, a spokesman for Building a Better Ohio. "It's an unprecedented campaign."

Ohio voters favored repeal 57 percent to 32 percent, an Oct. 25 Quinnipiac University poll showed. But Mauk said the law's backers are still cautiously optimistic they can win, and will continue through the weekend to carry the bill's tea party-friendly message to voters.

"People are tired of government spending more than it makes, more than it collects, and they're frustrated by the debt and deficit problem in Washington," he said. "Voters clearly sent a message of concern (in 2010) and they're demanding that government get its house in order, and that's the platform John Kasich ran on. This is an effort to try to eliminate government excess and get spending under control."

Kasich is ranked among America's least popular governors, thanks in part to his fight against the unions. The former congressman, investment banker and Fox News commentator has traveled the state to rally voters to keep the law and appeared in pro-Issue 2 commercials paid for by Make Ohio Great, a project of the Republican Governors Association.

Voters are eager to help defeat the law because they felt disenfranchised by the process, said Melissa Fazekas, a spokeswoman for the opposition.

The bill was introduced, debated in the Legislature, passed and signed by Kasich in two months. GOP legislative leaders say they heard dozens of hours of testimony and Democrats proposed no amendments to the bill during deliberations.

After it passed, the law's opponents easily gathered 1.3 million signatures for their ballot effort and now boast a legion of more than 17,000 volunteers of all political stripes.

"I've never been involved in something quite like this," Fazekas said. "I've just never seen people so engaged and enthusiastic. I've seen situations before where people were willing to sign petitions, but on this issue people were literally grabbing petition booklets out of our hands and taking them out and circulating them."

Adler said public schools and the post office are the last two big government entities not controlled by corporations, and so are primary targets of union-limiting efforts.

He said "everybody A to Z" will be watching the vote's outcome because of the state's long history as a political bellwether: "Ohio tells a story about America every time it votes."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111105/ap_on_el_ge/us_ohio_union_fight

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Ebert says show in danger of being canceled

CHICAGO (AP) ? Film critic Roger Ebert is telling his readers that he may have to cancel his television show "Ebert Presents: At the Movies" unless someone steps up and helps him and his wife pay for it.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic wrote on his blog Sunday night that after an initial contribution of $25,000 from Kanbar Charitable Trust, he and Chaz Ebert have been paying virtually all the bills for the show, which began airing on public television in January.

Ebert said he has been pleased with the program, which is hosted by Associated Press movie reviewer Christy Lemire and Mubi.com film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.

But after months of paying for everything from screen tests to interns to lunch on taping days, "We can't afford to support the show any longer," wrote Ebert, who can no longer speak after cancer surgery. "That's what it comes down to."

Ebert wrote that he had hoped foundations and others would step forward to underwrite the show, but that nobody has. And now, he wrote, American Public Television is asking him whether the show will be back next season, and he has to have an answer by the end of this month. He wrote that Chaz Ebert, the executive producer, will continue to seek funding for the show.

"Unless we find underwriting, I'm afraid our answer will have to be 'no,'" he wrote.

Lou Ferrara, the AP managing editor who oversees entertainment coverage, said Lemire has reviewed movies for the AP throughout her tenure with the Ebert show.

"Even if the show ends, Christy will continue providing film reviews and other movie coverage for The Associated Press," Ferrara said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-11-07-Ebert-At%20The%20Movies/id-9c6ee1dd1f804be49b108d613e20361e

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HP embraces this 3D thing, outs 2311gt monitor and second-gen Wireless TV Connect (video)

In case you haven't noticed, HP's really pushing this newfangled 3D thing right now. In addition to the TouchSmart 620, its first 3D desktop, the outfit just announced the 2311gt monitor, along with its second-generation Wireless TV Connect box, which now streams 3D content. Starting with the display, you've got a a 23-inch, 1080p panel that uses Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) technology to create 3D visuals by aligning every other row of pixels with the left or right eye. It's a passive technology and indeed, we came away from our brief eyes-on with the impression that the 3D rendering isn't as convincing as what you'll get on the TouchSmart 620 and its active shutter glasses. Still, HP says when it comes to viewing there's a sweet spot of 20 to 30 inches from the screen, and we have to admit we got the sharpest view from that vantage point. Also, HP threw in Cyberlink's PowerDVD software for 2D-to-3D conversion, which makes this a potentially tempting deal. Moving on, the Wireless TV Connect box now streams 1080p movies in 3D, and HP claims to have lowered its latency, especially compared to Intel Wireless Display. Look for it in December with a $180 price tag. As for you, gamers, that 2311gt monitor will ring in at a reasonable $299 and go up for grabs mañana.

Gallery: HP 2311gt

Continue reading HP embraces this 3D thing, outs 2311gt monitor and second-gen Wireless TV Connect (video)

HP embraces this 3D thing, outs 2311gt monitor and second-gen Wireless TV Connect (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ending Insurance Company Profits Won't Materially Impact ...

I knew this was true, but it is nice to see someone so close to the Obama Administration,?namely Ezekiel Emanuel, say it.? Emanuel used to be the head bioethicist at the NIH and was one of President Obama?s primary advisers on healthcare issues.?He is now a professor of bieothics at Penn.

In today?s NYT, Emanuel punctures some hopes?both liberal and conservative?about how to get control of healthcare spending.? He?states quite unequivocally?that even seizing all health insurance profits would have a very minimal imact.? From ?Less than $26 Billion? Don?t Bother:?

According to many on the left, health insurance companies are sleazy and unethical, making obscene profits by charging high prices to sick people, giving physicians and patients the runaround to avoid paying bills, and rescinding policies just when people who paid in good faith get cancer, while their executives often walk away with millions in compensation. Last year, health insurance companies did rack up big profits, but it turns out that the combined profits of the country?s five largest for-profit health insurance companies ? United, WellPoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna ? were $11.7 billion, only 0.5 percent of total health care spending. Even confiscating every penny of those profits would add up to less than half of the cost-saving threshold. And even not-for-profit insurance companies need to have an operating margin ? a profit by another name. There just isn?t enough money there to make a dent in health care spending.

Exactly right.?But isn?t it fun to hate them?? Occupy!

Frankly, I would like to see more non profit companies enter the marketplace, as I think that is a good model for this sector.? And I sure trust private sector management?whether for or non profit?more than public bureaucratic suffocation.

Emanuel also notes that tort reform to protect doctors from malpractice?won?t cut that much either, in fact, about the same as confiscating health insurance profits.? I tend to oppose tort reform as a matter of principle.? But I can see some adjustments to protect doctors.??That being said,?limiting non economic damages?aka pain and suffering?to a measly $250K is to deny just compensation.? That was the amount California instituted decades ago when a few hundred thousand dollars was real money.

Finally, Emanuel makes the ridiculous assertion that those who want to cut off expensive care are conservative:

Another conservative proposal ? to restrict health care spending on exorbitantly expensive patients ? would both save less money and cause more harm. The paradigmatic case seems to be infants who are born prematurely and end up in intensive care on breathing machines for months, before requiring feeding tubes, constant nursing care, multiple medications and follow-up procedures for kidneys, heart or other complications. If we just stopped paying for these ?million dollar babies,? the argument goes, the health care system could save a fortune.

That?s known as health care rationing and Futile Care Theory?and liberals tend to be its biggest champions.? Think the New York Times? stridently?hard left editorial page.? In contrast, conservatives?at least social conservatives?oppose that kind of thinking out of hand.? Remember the Baby Joseph case?? Remember Terri Schiavo, who, many liberals said?and I know as I was hip deep in that fight?wasn?t worth the price of maintaining?

Emanuel says he?ll be back next week with ideas that could really work.? I am skeptical that it will be good news.? While I have liked his opposition to assisted suicide, I have noted also that he has suggested age and ?quality of life? as potential entry points for rationing, not to mention arguing that we each have a moral duty to be willing to volunteer as human subjects in medical experiments.?Beyond that, he is a big supporter of Obamacare.? Yikes!? In any event, I?ll check it out next Sunday and?opine here about?what he writes.

Source: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/11/06/ending-insurance-company-profits-wont-materially-impact-healthcare-costs/

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