Saturday, October 12, 2013

Focus of shutdown negotiations shifts to Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The focus of efforts to end the government shutdown and prevent a U.S. default shifted to the Senate on Saturday, where leaders were in talks aimed at resolving the twin stalemates.


Word of the negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the top Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, emerged as the Senate, as expected, rejected a Democratic effort to raise the government's borrowing limit through next year.


Republicans objected because they want the extension to be accompanied by spending cuts.


The spotlight turned to the Senate as the partial shutdown reached its 12th day. It also came with the calendar edging closer to Oct. 17, when administration officials have said the government will deplete its ability to borrow money, risking a first-time federal default that could jolt the world economy.


House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told fellow Republicans earlier Saturday that his talks with President Barack Obama had stalled.


"The Senate needs to hold tough," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Boehner told House GOP lawmakers. "The president now isn't negotiating with us."


GOP senators said the talks between Reid and McConnell had started Friday. That was confirmed by Senate Democratic aides.


Saturday's Senate vote derailing the Democrats' debt-limit measure was a near party-line 53-45 in favor of the bill. That fell seven short of the 60 required to overcome Republican objections to considering the measure.


"The only thing that's happening right now is Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell are talking. And I view that as progress," said the second-ranking Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas.


House conservatives said Obama was to blame for the talks with their chamber running aground.


"Perhaps he sees this as the best opportunity for him to win the House in 2014," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. "It's very clear to us he does not now, and never had, any intentions of negotiating."


"It doesn't have to be this way. It's not supposed to be this way," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "Manufacturing crises to extract massive concessions isn't how our democracy works, and we have to stop it. Politics is a battle of ideas, but you advance those ideas through elections and legislation — not extortion."


A bipartisan group of senators, closely watched by Senate leaders, is polishing a plan aimed at reaching compromise with Obama.


An emerging proposal by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and others would pair a six-month plan to keep the government open with an increase in the government's borrowing limit through January.


Obama has turned away a House plan to link the reopening of the government — and a companion measure to temporarily increase the government's borrowing cap — to concessions on the budget.


In the face of disastrous opinion polls, GOP leaders have signaled they will make sure the debt limit is increased with minimal damage to the financial markets. But they're still seeking concessions as a condition for reopening the government.


Obama met Senate Republicans on Friday and heard a pitch from Collins on raising the debt limit until the end of January, reopening the government and cutting the health care law at its periphery.


The plan also would strengthen income verification for people receiving subsidies through the health care law and set up a broader set of budget talks.


The Collins proposal would delay for two years a medical-device tax that helps finance the health care law, and it would subject millions of individuals eligible for subsidies to purchase health insurance under the program to stronger income verification.


Collins said Obama said the proposal "was constructive, but I don't want to give the impression that he endorsed it."


___


Associated Press writers Alan Fram and David Espo contributed to this report.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/focus-shutdown-negotiations-shifts-senate-150302289--politics.html
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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Out Of Lahiri's Muddy 'Lowland,' An Ambitious Story Soars



Geography is destiny in Jhumpa Lahiri's new novel, The Lowland. Her title refers to a marshy stretch of land between two ponds in a Calcutta neighborhood where two very close brothers grow up. In monsoon season, the marsh floods and the ponds combine; in summer, the floodwater evaporates. You don't need your decoder ring to figure out that the two ponds symbolize the two brothers — at times separate; at other times inseparable. But there's still more meaning lurking in this rich landscape. Lahiri's narrator goes on to tell us: "Certain creatures laid eggs that were able to endure the dry season. Others survived by burying themselves in mud, simulating death, waiting for the return of rain."


For most of Lahiri's novel, we're stuck in the mud with the cautious older brother whose name is Subhash. Consequently, there's a quality of stillness to The Lowland that, especially in its opening sections, almost verges on the stagnant — or would, were it not for Lahiri's always surprising language and plotting. The Lowland is something of a departure for Lahiri, whose other work often explores the struggles of Indian immigrant families. The Lowland, instead, opens in Calcutta in the 1950s and '60s, and keeps returning there even as the main story moves ahead in time.





Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies.



Marco Delogu/Courtesy of Knopf


Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies.


Marco Delogu/Courtesy of Knopf


As a college student in the late '60s, Subhash's younger, more daredevil brother, Udayan, becomes involved in the Maoist "Naxalite" political movement, set on bettering the living conditions of India's poor through violent uprising. Subhash, in contrast, dutifully dedicates himself to personal, rather than collective, improvement: He earns a scholarship to study science in America and moves to Rhode Island. For a couple of lonely years in a student boarding house, he learns to live without the voices of his family. But when Udayan is executed by the police in that very same marsh between the ponds, Subhash races back to Calcutta. He goes to comfort his parents; but, as it turns out, he also rescues his murdered brother's pregnant wife, Gauri, from her own diminished future as a widowed (and unwelcome) daughter-in-law.


The Lowland is buoyantly ambitious in both its story (I've only summarized the first quarter of the novel here) and its form. Subhash, his parents, Gauri and the daughter she eventually bears are all reticent people — at one point, Subhash thinks of them as "a family of solitaries" — so it's necessary for our narrator to constantly eavesdrop on their various thoughts and relay them to us. For instance, Subhash proposes to Gauri by stressing the practicalities of their union: He woos her by saying in America she could pursue her studies in philosophy. But his unspoken words are those of a lovesick poet: "[Subhash] had tried to deny the attraction he felt for Gauri. But it was like the light of the fireflies that swam up to the house at night, random points that surrounded him, that glowed and then receded without a trail." Hastily enough, the two do wind up marrying and raising Gauri's daughter in America, but the memory of Udayan — his fierce politics and his terrible death — has corrosive aftereffects.




The Lowland is a novel about the rashness of youth, as well as the hesitation and regret that can make a long life not worth living. Toward the end of The Lowland, a metaphorical monsoon finally hits, rousing Subhash out of his lifelong timidity, that mud hiding place Lahiri describes in her lyrical opening. Part of the beauty of this novel is that it's far from a foregone conclusion whether this hard rain will give Subhash new life, or drown him.




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Friday, July 5, 2013

Good Biology Tips | Mom\'s Education Sites

You are through with your secondary school studies. I am sure you would pass a sigh of relief. All the night time long studies, preparing challenging to secure high scores within your board exams to secure a seat with a top colleges and perform best courses and turn into professionals in this particular field and realizing your dreams has turned into a reality and is also just one step away from you at www.biologysyllabus.net.

Although not ?student teachers,? TAs enable you to periodically teach a selected unit or perhaps a brief section of that unit, under appropriate guidance and instruction. For students considering work in education, this is a tremendous starting point and one that they?ll list boldly on high school resumes. Such experiences could also serve as a thesis attending college application essays.

Source: http://www.suchasmartmom.com/reference-and-education/good-biology-tips/

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Zahia Dehar, cake, Franck Ribery, France, Karim Benzema, prostituteZahia Dehar has become a celebrity in France in the wake of the scandal

The 21-year-old has been dubbed 'la scandaleuse' [?the scandalous?] by French media after she became involved in an underage prostitution case.

Bayern Munich ace Franck Ribery and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema have both been charged with paying for sex with an underage call-girl.

Both players deny the allegations and Ms Dehar has said neither of them knew show was under 18 at the time.

Ribery has admitted sleeping with Ms Dehar but says he did not know she was underage, while Benzema denies any relationship.

Ms Dehar has become a celebrity in France in the wake of the scandal, which was revealed just before the 2010 World Cup.

Along with appearances on numerous reality shows, she has now begun her new bizarre business.

?ayern Munich ace Franck Ribery and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema have both been charged with paying for sex with an underage call-girl?

French pastry cook Sebastien Gaudard has created a number of actual cakes to sell alongside her Candy Cake lingerie collection.

Well, shopping for pants is hungry work...

Source: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/324482/Franck-Ribery-prostitute-Zahia-Dehar-opens-a-lingerie-and-PASTRY-shop-PICS-/

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Thursday, July 4, 2013

Morsi rejects Egyptian military ultimatum, will make own attempt at reconciliation

Protesters against the Morsi regime remain encamped in Tahrir Square, with more demonstrations planned.

By Shaimaa Fayed and Paul Taylor,?Reuters / July 2, 2013

In this photo released by the Egyptian Presidency Monday, July 1, 2013, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, right, meets with Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, center, and Egyptian Minister of Defense, Lt. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, left in Cairo, Egypt.

Egyptian Presidency/AP

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President Mohamed Morsi clung to office on Tuesday after rebuffing an army ultimatum to force a resolution to Egypt's political crisis, and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood sought to mass its supporters to defend him.

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But the Islamist leader looked increasingly isolated, with ministers resigning, the liberal opposition refusing to talk to him and the armed forces, backed by millions of protesters in the street, giving him until Wednesday to agree to share power.

In a defiant 2 a.m. statement, Morsi's office said the president had not been consulted before the armed forces chief-of-staff set a 48-hour deadline for a power-sharing deal and would pursue his own plan for national reconciliation.

Newspapers across the political spectrum saw the military ultimatum as a turning point. "Last 48 hours of Muslim Brotherhood rule," the opposition daily El Watan declared. "Egypt awaits the army," said the state-owned El Akhbar.

The president's office said Morsi was meeting chief-of-staff General Abdel Fateh al-Sisi and Prime Minister Hisham Kandil for the second straight day.

The confrontation has pushed the most populous Arab nation closer to the brink amid a deepening economic crisis two years after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, raising concern in Washington, Europe and neighbouring Israel.

Military sources said troops were preparing to deploy on the streets of Cairo and other cities if necessary to prevent clashes between rival political factions.

Protesters remained encamped overnight in Cairo's central Tahrir Square and protest leaders called for another mass rally later in the day, dubbed a "Tuesday of persistence", to try to force the president out.

Senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders branded the military ultimatum a "coup", backed by a threat that the generals will otherwise impose their own road map for the nation.

The Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party, called on supporters to stage mass counter-demonstrations to "defend constitutional legitimacy and express their refusal of any coup", raising fears of violence.

One FJP leader urged "free revolutionaries" who supported Morsi to prepare for martyrdom.

HEED THE CALL

Sisi delighted Morsi's opponents on Monday by effectively ordering the president to heed the demands of the street. It took the president's office nine hours to respond with a statement indicating he would go his own way.

"The president of the republic was not consulted about the statement issued by the armed forces," it said. "The presidency confirms that it is going forward on its previously plotted path to promote comprehensive national reconciliation ... regardless of any statements that deepen divisions between citizens."

Describing civilian rule as a great gain from the revolution of 2011, Morsi said he would not let the clock be turned back. Egypt's first freely elected leader, he has been in office for just a year. But many Egyptians are impatient with his economic management and inability to win the trust of non-Islamists.

Morsi spoke to US President Barack Obama by phone on Monday, stressing that Egypt was moving forward with a peaceful democratic transition based on the law and constitution.

The White House said Obama, visiting Tanzania, encouraged him to respond to the protests and "underscored that the current crisis can only be resolved through a political process".

RESIGNATIONS

Six ministers who are not Brotherhood members have tendered their resignations since Sunday's huge demonstrations, including foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr. The cabinet spokesman also resigned, the state news agency MENA said.

Kandil chaired a session of the rump cabinet without the key ministers of defence and the interior. Justice Minister Ahmed Suleiman denied reports that the government had resigned.

In another blow to the president, Egypt's top appeals court upheld the dismissal of the prosecutor general appointed by Morsi last year - a major bugbear to the liberal opposition.

The court removed public prosecutor Talaat Abdallah, accused of using his position to pursue journalists, artists and critics of the president while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses. It reinstated his predecessor.

Senior Brotherhood politician Mohamed El-Beltagy said the return of the Mubarak-era prosecutor was part of a creeping coup and he expected the High Committee for Elections to meet within hours to consider annulling the 2012 presidential election.

"We are therefore facing a coup against the entire revolution and not just the legitimacy of the elections and the constitution," Beltagy said on the FJP's Facebook page.

"So will the free revolutionaries allow this coup? Or will they stop it even at the price of joining a new martyrs' brigade, following the martyrs of the previous revolution?"

Compounding a sense of an administration disintegrating even as the president hangs on, Morsi's military adviser, US-trained former chief-of-staff General Sami Enan, also resigned.

El-Watan quoted senior General Adel El-Mursi as saying that if there were no agreement among political leaders to hold early presidential elections, the alternative could involve "a return to revolutionary legitimacy".

Under that scenario, the sole functioning chamber of parliament, the Islamist-dominated Shura Council, would be dissolved, the Islamist-tinged constitution enacted under Morsi would be scrapped, and a presidential council would rule by decree until fresh elections could be held under new rules, he was quoted as saying. That is largely the opposition position.

Highlighting the huge scale of anti-Morsi protests, an opposition TV station broadcast aerial footage of vast crowds thronging Cairo's central Tahrir Square, spilling over a wide adjoining area and stretching across the Nile bridges. The army used helicopters to monitor the crowds on Sunday and Monday.

World powers are looking on anxiously, including the United States, which has long funded the Egyptian army as a key component in the security of Washington's ally Israel.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to Sisi, his Egyptian counterpart, on Monday. It is unclear how far the military has informed, or coordinated with, its US sponsors but an Egyptian official said a coup could not succeed without U.S. approval.

The United Nations Human Rights office called on Morsi to listen to the demands of the people and engage in a "serious national dialogue" but also said: "Nothing should be done that would undermine democratic processes."

A senior European diplomat said that if the army were to go further and remove Morsi by force, the international community would have no alternative but to condemn the toppling of a democratically elected president.

Yasser El-Shimy, Egypt analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the army ultimatum had hardened positions on either side, making it very difficult to find a constitutional way out of the crisis - for which Morsi might have used decree powers.

"It will have to override the constitution and wage a full coup," Shimy said of the army. "Things could deteriorate very rapidly from there, either through confrontations on the street, or international sanctions.

"Morsi is calling their bluff, saying to them, 'if you are going to do this, you will have to do it over my dead body'."

DEADLINES

The coalition that backed Sunday's protests said there was no question of negotiating now with Morsi on the generals' timetable and it was already formulating positions for discussion directly with the army once the 48 hours are up.

In his statement, Sisi insisted that he had the interests of democracy at heart - a still very flawed democracy that Egyptians have been able to practise as a result of the army pushing aside Mubarak in the face of a popular uprising in 2011.

That enhanced the already high standing of the army among Egyptians, and the sight of military helicopters streaming national flags over Cairo's Tahrir Square at sunset, after Sisi had laid down the law, sent huge crowds into a frenzy of cheers.

Among Morsi's allies are groups with more militant pasts, including al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, a sometime associate of al Qaeda, whose men fought Mubarak's security forces for years and who have warned they would not tolerate renewed military rule.

Liberal coalition leaders appointed former U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei as their negotiator with the army and are pushing for the senior judge on the constitutional court to replace Morsi as head of state for an interim period, while technocrats - and generals - would administer the country.

A military source said Sisi was keen not to repeat the experience of the 17 months between Mubarak's fall and Morsi's election, when a committee of generals formed a government that proved unpopular as the economy struggled.

The army would prefer a more hands-off approach, supervising government but not running it.

For many Egyptians, fixing the economy is key. Unrest since Mubarak fell has decimated tourism and investment and state finances are in poor shape, drained by extensive subsidy regimes and struggling to provide regular supplies of fuel.

The Cairo bourse, reopening after a holiday, shot up nearly 5 percent after the army's move.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/E-XyuGHqThg/Morsi-rejects-Egyptian-military-ultimatum-will-make-own-attempt-at-reconciliation

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Rescuing citizenship and civic virtue (Michellemalkin)

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ZEN & TECH 55: Parenting; Keeping kids safe on social

ZEN & TECH is our mobile lifestyle podcast, focusing not just on our phones, tablets, and gadgets, but how we can use technology to help us live better, richer, happier lives. It's how we center our inner geeks! On today's show, Georgia and Rene tie into Talk Mobile 2013 and, as part of our ongoing parenting series, look at how we can handle kids going online and onto social networks, from when they're very young, to when they're legally adults.

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Disclaimer

While Georgia is a therapist, she's not YOUR therapist. Everything said or implied on this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only. And shouldn't be taken in any way as a replacement for proper, professional care.

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Music is Peace on Earth by wellman.

Thanks everyone, you're the best community on the web and we love having you with us!

    


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