Obama tries to pressure Republicans on tax cut (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama sought on Saturday to boost pressure on Republican lawmakers to back an extension of a tax cut for workers that he views as vital to help the fragile economy.

Obama's proposal to renew a temporary payroll tax holiday has received a lukewarm reception from Republicans who say it would not do much to spur economic growth and would weaken the Social Security retirement program.

Without congressional action by the end of the year, the payroll tax would revert to 6.2 percent from the current rate of 4.2 percent.

Obama, whose 2012 re-election chances hinge largely on whether he can spur economic recovery and curb high unemployment, has warned that failure to extend the cut would deal a huge blow to the economy.

"Now is the time to step on the gas, not slam on the brakes," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "Unfortunately, too many Republicans in Congress don't seem to share that same sense of urgency."

In an attempt to rally support for his effort, Obama urged Americans to visit the White House website to calculate how their household incomes would be affected by the expiration of the payroll tax cut.

"Try it out. Then let your members of Congress know where you stand," Obama said, adding that the average family would see their tax bills go up by $1,000 if the tax cut lapses.

The radio address was the latest in a series of public remarks Obama has been making to try to boost support for the payroll tax cut.

Obama, who proposes to pay for the measure with higher taxes on wealthier Americans, has taken on an increasingly populist tone.

He will try to keep the heat on Republicans when he gives a speech on Tuesday in Osawatomie, Kansas, the town where President Theodore Roosevelt gave his landmark "New Nationalism" speech in 1910 that hailed the government's role in promoting social justice and helping the poor, and also warned against the excesses of rich business interests.

"He'll lay out the choice we face between a country in which too few do well while too many struggle to get by and one where we're all in it together - where everyone engages in fair play, everyone does their fair share," the White House said.

REPUBLICAN DIVISIONS

On Thursday, the Senate defeated competing versions of legislation that would have extended the payroll tax cut, exposing divisions among Republicans as many declined to back a version of the bill put forth by their leadership.

While many Republicans are unenthusiastic about the payroll tax cut, others worry they could suffer fallout in congressional and presidential elections in November next year if they are seen as blocking a tax reduction for middle-class Americans.

Obama is grappling with weak approval ratings because of the lackluster economy and high unemployment. Any improvement in the economy would help his chances of winning another four-year term in office.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent in November from 9 percent in October, offering a hopeful sign for the economy. But employers added workers at a modest pace of 120,000, suggesting the labor market still lacked vigor.

After gaining little traction for his efforts to pass in full the $447 billion jobs he unveiled in September, Obama is making an aggressive push on parts of the bill such as the payroll tax cut and an extension of jobless benefits that he sees as having the greatest chance of passage.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Writing by Caren Bohan; Editing by Chris Wilson and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111203/pl_nm/us_obama_taxes

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Romney, Gingrich proceed carefully in GOP showdown

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks to supporters and volunteers during a rally Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks to supporters and volunteers during a rally Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at a town hall style event in the Staten Island borough of New York Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Gingrich praised GOP presidential rival Herman Cain for bringing optimism and big ideas to the 2012 campaign on Saturday. Polls show that Gingrich's candidacy has surged in recent weeks, with many showing him topping the Republican field. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Gloria Cain, left, blows a kiss to the crowd as she arrives with her husband, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, right, at an event Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. Cain announced he is suspending his campaign for president. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) ? The once-bursting 2012 Republican presidential field is narrowing to a two-man race, and GOP voters have one month before casting the first votes to winnow it to one. Barring a dramatic new turn, their chief options will be the steady but often bland demeanor of Mitt Romney and the idea-a-minute bombast of Newt Gingrich.

Herman Cain's suspension of his campaign Saturday, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry's continued struggles to regain traction, have focused the party's attention on Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Gingrich, the former House speaker. They offer striking contrasts in personality, government experience and campaign organization.

Romney has maintained a political infrastructure since his 2008 presidential bid, especially in New Hampshire. Gingrich, whose campaign nearly collapsed several months ago, is relying much more heavily on his televised debate performances and the good will he built up with conservatives as a congressional leader in the 1980s and 1990s.

Gingrich's efforts appear to be paying off in Iowa, which holds first in the nation caucuses January 3.

A Des Moines Register poll released late Saturday found Gingrich leading the GOP field with 25 percent support among likely caucus goers. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 18 percent support and Romney, who began campaigning in Iowa in earnest only recently, had 16 percent.

Gingrich's and Romney's political philosophies and differences are a bit harder to tease out. Both men have changed their positions on issues such as climate change. And Gingrich, in particular, is known to veer into unusual territories, such as child labor practices.

Gingrich, Romney and the other Republican contenders except former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman sat for interviews at a Fox News campaign forum Saturday hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who sought the GOP nomination in 2008. Questioned by three Republican state attorneys general, the candidates described ways they would scale back federal programs.

Cain's announcement in Atlanta offered a possible opening for Romney or Gingrich to make a dramatic move in hopes of seizing momentum for the sprint to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus. Neither man did. They appear willing to play things carefully and low-key for now.

At a town hall meeting in New York sponsored by tea party supporters, Gingrich declined to characterize the race as a direct contest between himself and Romney. Any of the remaining GOP contenders could stage a comeback before the Iowa caucuses, he said. "I'm not going to say that any of my friends can't suddenly surprise us," Gingrich said.

But once high-flying contenders such as Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota have not managed to bounce back so far, despite weeks of trying.

Gingrich was careful when asked why voters should choose him over Romney.

"I'll let you decide. I think we are very, very different in a wide variety of ways," Gingrich said.

Romney seemed as eager as Gingrich to avoid casting the contest as anywhere close to decided. He repeatedly turned aside reporters' invitations to light into Gingrich, offering only gentle critiques. As usual, he aimed much sharper remarks at President Barack Obama.

"I don't think people have really settled down, in a final way, to decide who they're going to support in the nomination process," Romney told reporters in Manchester, where he held a rally and knocked on a few doors. "I hope they give us a good, careful look."

That was about as much emotion and daring as he showed all day. With the second-tier candidates ramping up their criticisms of Gingrich, Romney stuck to his steady-as-she-goes campaign style of criticizing Obama's economic record, and saying little else.

Cain's once-prospering campaign was undone by allegations of sexual wrongdoing. Gingrich has been the most obvious beneficiary of Cain's precipitous slide. But Perry, Bachmann and possibly others are likely to make a play for Cain's anti-establishment tea party backing. Time is running short for them to establish themselves as the top alternative to Romney, who has long been viewed with suspicion by many conservatives.

Cain said he would offer an endorsement. His former rivals were quick to issue statements on Saturday praising his conservative ideals and grassroots appeal.

Romney seemed loath on Saturday to criticize Gingrich or to stir the political waters. Reporters asked why his background makes him more qualified than Gingrich. "Speaker Gingrich has been a legislator and has worked in government affairs, and he can describe his own background," Romney replied.

Why are his positions better than Gingrich's on issues such as immigration, Romney was asked. "We have very similar views on a whole host of issues," he said. "There are some places, I'm sure, where there are differences." The biggest difference, he said, is "our life experience."

Asked if he fears that Gingrich will draw more tea party support, Romney said tea party activists "want someone who comes from outside Washington," someone who has spent his life "in the private sector, who has learned the experiences of the American economy."

"Speaker Gingrich is a fine person," Romney said, "but he spent his life in Washington, the last 40 years. That doesn't exactly line up with the tea party."

He also said he differed with Gingrich on child labor laws. Gingrich recently suggested that children as young as nine should work as assistant school janitors, to earn money and learn work ethics.

Romney noted that Gingrich would end taxes on dividends and capital gains for everyone, whereas Romney would keep them in place for the wealthiest Americans.

Romney's generally mild reproofs contrast with the hits Gingrich is taking from rivals such as Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Paul's campaign is airing a video accusing Gingrich of "serial hypocrisy." It shows Gingrich in a TV commercial with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., talking about the dangers of climate change.

Gingrich has called the Pelosi spot a stupid mistake on his part.

Romney's campaign had hundreds of volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls Saturday, pushing a slogan that presidential hopefuls must "earn it."

Romney has a vacation home in New Hampshire, where he is well known. His campaign structure there isn't perfect, however.

Aides sent reporters to 827 Chestnut Street in Manchester, where Romney would start some door-knocking of his own. But there was no one home at 827, or the next house he tried, or the three after that. In nearly an hour of door-knocking, Romney met only a handful of voters, and all of them already seemed in his corner.

Asked at the day's end why he was being so gentle with Gingrich, Romney replied: "I think the right course for me is to continue talking about my vision for the country, my experience, and how I'd lead the nation. And Speaker Gingrich will get the chance to do the same thing."

___

Fouhy reported from New York.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-03-GOP%20Campaign/id-6f8e7e10fb144c7f8d4c6824e672673c

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You can lead a penguin to water, but can you make him swim?

When it comes to water, penguins aren't naturals.

"Some of them are terrified," says Bethany Wlaz, a keeper at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

So each time African penguins are born into the zoo's breeding program for the endangered birds, someone like Wlaz becomes their swimming coach. But first comes the introduction to being wet.

Soft as a cotton ball and about the size of a roasted chicken, Male One ? hatched on Oct. 12 ? is lowered into a stainless steel sink by Wlaz and Betty Dipple, another animal keeper.

"Araaah," the bird protests, as a stream of lukewarm water washes over its head and flippers. "Araaah."

Back and belly, tail feathers and webbed feet, nothing escapes the faucet. Five minutes later, the penguin's first bath is in the can.

While Male One is being dried and wrapped in a fluffy towel, Male Two ? four days younger ? gets the same treatment and emits a similar donkey-like bray. Puffs of gray down float in the air.

"They're getting the full salon service," Wlaz says.

Doting on African penguins has been a Maryland Zoo specialty for more than three decades. With 55 to 65 birds living at the moat-enclosed area known as Rock Island, the zoo has one of the largest breeding colonies in the country. Another major colony is at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

The work is of global importance because African penguins, found only along the southern shore and islands of Africa, are teetering on the edge of extinction. Their numbers have declined from as many as 4 million in the early 1900s to 60,000 in 2010, according to the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds. Fewer than half of them are estimated to be breeding pairs.

African penguin eggs were targeted up until the 1960s by people who considered them a delicacy and scooped them up by the millions. The penguins' habitat has been destroyed by commerce and oil spills, and overfishing and climate change have depleted their food, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

The Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums has developed a species survival plan to map out breeding to ensure a strong genetic pool while scientists and conservation groups try to stabilize the population. The Maryland Zoo keeps breeding pairs on hand and distributes other penguins to zoos for display or breeding.

The parents of Male One and Male Two ? proper names are coming, zoo officials promise ? came to Baltimore a year ago. The father hailed from Tampa and the mother from Memphis. They quickly became a family of four, with the newborns spending three weeks with their parents before keepers took over the domestic duties.

"It's hard to have an entirely bad day when you're around penguins," Dipple says as she slides a chunk of squid into the gaping black beak of Male One.

The chicks weigh 4.9 pounds and 3.8 pounds. When fully grown right around Christmas, they'll be 23 to 25 inches tall, will weigh about 8 pounds and will be fully decked out in black-and-white plumage.

Once Male One and Male Two get the hang of being wet, the keepers will fill a small pool halfway with water and shoo the birds in. This march of the penguins will happen three times a day, every day, until the lessons take.

"For each bird, it will click at a different point," Wlaz said. "Some we'll put in and they'll take to it. Some will run and jump out like it's molten lava. One day they realize that it's the coolest thing in the world and they start diving and swimming, and then it's pretty much impossible to get them out."

Soon, they may have siblings. The parents have produced another clutch, and four other penguin pairs are expected to breed this season.

That's a lot of swimming lessons.

candy.thomson@baltsun.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/JYL5NeNZF5k/la-na-penguin-chicks-20111204,0,4883065.story

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Using Toads to Predict Earthquakes

Seismology Ph.D. student, here. Bear with me here as I don't recall the sources for this but if you do enough Googling, I'm sure you can find them. I wrote a paper on the history of Japanese seismology for my undergrad senior project (included some information from Japanese textbooks that might not be available in English), so I've read a lot of about this subject.

People have noticed phenomena such as bizarre animal behavior, earthquake lights, and earthquake clouds since the dawn of time, and more recently people have noticed an increased charge in the ionosphere before earthquakes. A NASA scientist has also shown that a spike in electric current will run through a rock moments before the rock fractures.

Much research has been done by Chinese and Japanese regarding animals. Japanese believed for hundreds of years that earthquakes were caused by catfish. They based this on much historical evidence of catfish going crazy shortly before an earthquake. At one time in Japanese history, "catfish" and "earthquake" were used as interchangeable words. There were lots of science experiments and observations done regarding catfish in the early 1900s at a lab in Aomori prefecture. A famous early Japanese seismologist (his name escapes me) found an incontrovertible correlation between oarfish catches and some seismic swarm in the 1960s. There was an earthquake in Hokkaido a few decades ago that was foreshadowed by all of the mice on the island running amok in the streets. It is common folk knowledge that when deep sea fish appear near the surface en masse, a large earthquake will strike soon.

I don't know as much about Chinese seismological history, but it's commonly believed and has been shown that snakes can detect earthquakes. There have been studies and anecdotal evidence in Chinese seismology of snakes that will awake from hibernation before an earthquake. My Taiwanese adviser claimed that the Chinese scientists determined that sulfur gasses produced similar behavior in hibernating snakes. I also should note that China is the only place in the world where there is a government mandate to study earthquake prediction, event if it's fruitless. Every seismological bureau in China (there is one in every province) must look into earthquake prediction. There is a stigma about earthquake prediction and looking at animal behavior in the West, but that stigma is much less severe in Asia, especially China.

In addition to Asia, every time there's a major earthquake in the Western world, I see stories like this, like "I'm a biologist and my frogs went berserk the day leading up to the earthquake," or "I'm a zoologist and my alligators did weird things before the earthquake." There is clearly some link between animal behavior and earthquakes that has been shown repeatedly throughout history.

Lastly, it wasn't but a year ago I saw posters at a seismology meeting about huge spikes in ionosphere charge before large earthquakes. This has been shown repeatedly to happen all over the world.

Now for the bad news. This past Seismological Society of America meeting, I saw a poster from NASA research debunking a specific ionosphere charge before a large earthquake result. There are many large earthquakes that are preceded by a huge spike in ionosphere charge. The problem is that there are many, many other times where there are equally, if not more severe spikes in ionosphere charge. The ionosphere likes to have charge spikes relatively frequently. How can you tell the difference between a normal day with a high ionosphere charge and the day before an earthquake? Well, you can't. At least we cant, yet.

The NASA scientist that has shown electrical current running through rocks the moment before a fracture is also very controversial. His results are extremely promising for seismology. The problem is that we've never been able to observe an increased charge in the ground or a change in resistivity before an earthquake. Look up Parkfield, CA. That place is loaded with instruments for earthquake pr

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/s6gjoBZ_nYo/using-toads-to-predict-earthquakes

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Mindy McCready Defies Judges Order To Return Son Zander

Mindy McCready Defies Judges Order To Return Son Zander

Country singer Mindy McCready, who just revealed last night that she is pregnant with twins, is defying a Florida judge’s orders by refusing to return [...]

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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2011/12/01/mindy-mccready-defies-judges-order-to-return-son-zander/

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Colleges defend humanities amid tight budgets (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. ? Like many humanities advocates, Abbey Drane was disheartened but not surprised when Florida's governor recently said its tax dollars should bolster science and high-tech studies, not "educate more people who can't get jobs in anthropology."

Drane, a 21-year-old anthropology major at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has spent years defending her choice to pursue that liberal arts field.

And now, as states tighten their allocations to public universities, many administrators say they're feeling pressure to defend the worth of humanities, too, and shield the genre from budget cuts. One university president has gone as far as donating $100,000 of her own money to offer humanities scholarships at her school.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott's comments last month cut to the heart of the quandary: whether emphasizing science, math and medical fields gives students the best career prospects and a high-tech payback to society, and whether humanities fields are viewed as more of an indulgence than a necessity amid tight budget times.

"You can definitely feel the emphasis on campus, even just based on where the newest buildings go, that there is a drive toward the sciences, engineering and (the) business school," said Drane, a senior from Plymouth, Mass. "I'm constantly asked what job opportunities I'll have in anthropology or what I'm going to do with my degree, and I tell people that it's giving me a skill set and critical thinking you can apply to anything."

Humanities studies peaked in U.S. colleges in the 1960s and started dwindling in the 1970s as more students pursued business and technology and related fields. Today, more than 20 percent of each year's bachelor's degrees are granted in business; in humanities, it's about 8 percent.

Liberal arts colleges, too, have declined. A study published in 2009 by Inside Higher Ed said that of 212 liberal arts colleges identified in 1990, only 137 were still operating by 2009.

At Amherst College in western Massachusetts, a healthy endowment makes closing the doors a remote possibility at best. But its president, Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, experienced the same concerns about the humanities in her previous job as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was tapped this year to serve on a commission for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences to review the issue.

Martin said many universities struggle with declining enrollment in those fields, making the classes an easy budget target if their worth is not defended.

"There are more and more people in higher education ? and I hope political leaders ? who are understanding that an over-leaning emphasis on the sciences to the expense of the humanities is not a good thing for the country," she said.

Therein lays the debate for many, though, including Gov. Scott in Florida, who is unapologetic about his push to direct tax dollars toward rapidly growing science, technology, engineering and math fields, known collectively as STEM.

And since state governments control nearly two-thirds of all higher education funding, according to the National Governors Association, their embrace or disregard for humanities can affect the study paths of hundreds of thousands of students.

The governors' organization published recommendations for states this year on how to align their higher education priorities with their labor markets and economic development, citing Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington for "bold, comprehensive strategies" in those efforts.

It did not advise state governments to move money from humanities, but said it's "often challenging" to get the universities to participate in economic development, partly because of "their emphasis on broad liberal arts education."

Advocates say STEM fields also provide tangible returns for states, universities and businesses through patent royalties, new products and the prestige of achieving scientific breakthroughs ? paybacks far less evident among, say, new intellectual insights by scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer's literature, devotees of Frederic Chopin's nocturnes or adherents to Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist views.

"People feel like there are no real careers open for people studying in the liberal arts and I don't think that's true at all," said John Beck, 20, a senior from Newton, Mass., who's majoring in philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

His father and two grandparents are doctors, and his mother and brother are both pharmaceutical scientists. He is double majoring in economics and plans to attend law school, a decision that eased his parents' concerns about his philosophy studies because they see a legal career as a tangible way to support himself.

He sees it as a good use of his philosophy degree, too, though he says he would have been perfectly content to pursue teaching, public service or other fields to which many other philosophy majors gravitate.

To Susan Herbst, students shouldn't have to choose between picking a field they love and one that offers them the best shot at a job. She believes humanities does both, and feels so strongly about it that she and her husband donated $100,000 this year to provide scholarships limited to students in those fields.

"The humanities are where people learn about ethics and values and critical thinking," she said. "The truth is that for all of these students going into the STEM fields or other social sciences or business, if they didn't have the humanities, they don't know why they're doing what they do. The humanities really teach us how we're supposed to live and why what we do matters."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_us/us_defending_humanities

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