November 2009

Emotions high, Senate opens partisan health debate

Posted Mon, 11/30/2009 - 17:08 by admin

WASHINGTON – Riven by partisanship, the Senate plunged into a widely anticipated debate Monday over sweeping health care legislation that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have vowed to approve and Republicans have sworn to block.
Debate is expected to last for weeks over the legislation, which includes a first-time requirement for most Americans to carry insurance and a mandate for insurers to cover any paying customer regardless of medical history or condition.
"We must avoid the temptation to drown in distractions and distortions," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in the first moments of the first speech, a jab at Republicans that was reciprocated minutes later.
"Well, I don't know what's more preposterous: saying that this plan 'saves Medicare' or thinking that people will actually believe you," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said of Reid's oft-made statement.
At a cost of nearly $1 trillion, the legislation is designed to extend health care to millions of American who lack it, abolish insurance industry practices such as denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions and cut back on the rise of health care spending overall.
Despite its huge price tag, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the 2,074-page bill would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion over the next decade. In all, CBO said 31 million uninsured individuals would receive insurance if the bill were enacted, many of them assisted by federal subsidies. As much as 94 percent of the eligible population would wind up covered. The legislation would be paid for through a combination of cuts in projected Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers, a payroll tax on the wealthy and taxes on drug makers, medical device manufacturers, owners of high-cost insurance and others.
It has taken months to advance the legislation to the floor, Democrats struggling with their own internal divisions as well as Republican opposition.
Democrats control 60 seats in the Senate, precisely the number needed to trump a promised Republican filibuster. While Reid spent most of the day jousting with Republicans, his ability to steer the bill to passage will depend on finding ways to finesse controversial provisions within the measure. None is more important than calls for the government to sell insurance in competition with private firms. Liberals favor the plan; moderate and conservative Democrats oppose it. As drafted the bill establishes a so-called government option, although each state can block it.
Even before Reid rose to speak, the two parties were squabbling over a new Congressional Budget Office study assessing the legislation's impact on the cost of insurance.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said it showed that "whether you work for a small business, a large company or you work for yourself, the vast majority of Americans will see lower premiums than they would if we don't pass health reform."
Not so, said a statement from McConnell's office: "Most people will end up paying more or seeing no significant savings."
The 28-page report was less clear-cut than either side said.
It said that by 2016, premium prices for Americans working at large companies, about 134 million people, would be between zero and 3 percent lower on average than would otherwise be the case.
At small companies, estimated to provide coverage for 25 million by 2016, the average premium would be between 1 percent higher to 2 percent lower on average. That did not factor in the federal subsidies that would be available to the firms to spur them to provide coverage. Those receiving the assistance would have premiums as much as 11 percent lower on average.
CBO said for non-group coverage, premiums would rise by between 10 percent and 13 percent on average. But more than half that group is expected to receive federal subsidies that would result in premiums as much as 59 percent less costly on average. Individuals purchasing coverage without any federal assistance would presumably face higher costs, although CBO's letter did not indicate how much more.
The debate over premiums was only one of many expected as the Senate dug into a complicated bill that seemingly delved into every corner of the health care system.
But both parties seemed to have political considerations in mind as the day wore on.
The first proposed change to the legislation, offered by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., would increase insurance benefits for women, mandating that policies include an annual health screening.

As the health care debate has unfolded in Congress, both parties have spent months vying for the support of women.

Not to be outdone, Republicans issued a statement saying that as written, an advisory committee that recently drew criticism for proposing a delay in routine mammogram screening would have even greater authority.

The two sides also sparred over issues important to seniors, whom polls show are particularly concerned about the impact of health care.

Reid sought Republicans' agreement that Social Security would be protected as debate moved ahead.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., objected, saying Reid had refused to extend the same protection to Medicare.

Not long afterward, Sen. John McCain proposed stripping out a total of $440 billion in Medicare cuts to home health providers, hospitals, hospices and other organizations, saying those reductions could not be sustained politically.

In a slashing attack on the White House and Democrats, the Arizona Republican accused the bill's supporters of resorting to "Bernie Madoff accounting, Enron accounting" to mask the true impact on the deficit.

The House approved its version of the health care bill last month. It would have to be reconciled with any Senate-passed measure before legislation could go to the White House for Obama's signature.

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Associated Press reporters Donna Cassata, Laurie Kellman and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

Hutu extremist group leaders arrested in Germany

Posted Tue, 11/17/2009 - 14:41 by admin

BERLIN – Two top leaders of a mostly ethnic Hutu militia were arrested in Germany Tuesday on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in Congo.
Experts in the region called the arrests a major blow to one of the most brutal rebel groups in Africa.
German federal police arrested Ignace Murwanashyaka, the 46-year-old chairman of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia, and his 48-year-old deputy, Straton Musoni, in Karlsruhe, prosecutors said in a statement.
The pair are "suspected of carrying out crimes against humanity and war crimes" as members of the group, which is known by its French acronym FDLR.
Founded in the Congolese town of Lumumbashi in 2000, the FDLR is a Hutu extremist group made up of Hutu refugees from Rwanda who took cover across the border in Congo after the 1994 genocide of half a million Tutsis in Rwanda.
The United Nations has been putting pressure on Germany for years to arrest Murwanashyaka as well as Musoni, one of two vice presidents of the group. Murwanashyaka has served as the leader of the FDLR since 2001, prosecutors said.
"As part of this armed conflict, the FDLR militias are believed to have killed several hundred civilians, raped numerous women, plundered and burned countless villages, forcing villagers from their homes and recruiting numerous children as soldiers," the statement said.
The arrest is important because Murwanashyaka is the highest-ranking leader of FDLR, said Gregory Alex, a veteran U.N. official who now heads a United Nations unit in eastern Congo dedicated to demobilizing FDLR and other combatant.
"And this is a sign that the activities of the FDLR are being paid attention to by the international community. That they are seen as crimes against humanity," Alex said.
Julien Paluku, the governor of North Kivu province in eastern Congo, hailed Murwanashyaka's arrest.
"I think the arrest of Mr. Murwanashyaka will have a psychological impact on the morale of FDLR's militiamen who could be discouraged by this arrest," Paluku said. "Other leaders who will try to be speaking publicly for FDLR will fear that they too can be arrested like Mr. Murwanashyaka."
The FDLR is believed to number less than 5,000 men but they have become the excuse for numerous other equally brutal militias, which have cropped up in Congo over the years under the guise of protecting Congolese civilians. Experts say that dismantling the FDLR is key to solving the unending spiral of violence in Congo, a country the size of Western Europe that has suffered back-to-back wars since the end of the Rwandan genocide.
Gen. Paul Rwarwakabije, the former military chief of the FDLR who deserted several years ago and now works for the Rwandan government, said Murwanashyaka's arrest would significantly weaken the group.
"He was the head of the movement. This is an organization that has had its head cut off. Its brain has been taken away," said Rwarwakabije in a telephone interview from Rwanda.
The pair are to be brought before a judge later Tuesday.
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Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal; Patrice Chitera contributed reporting from Kinshasa, Congo.

Feds: Kuwaiti company conspired to defraud US

Posted Tue, 11/17/2009 - 02:22 by admin

ATLANTA – The chief food supplier for the U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq inflated prices and defrauded the U.S. government for multibillion-dollar contracts to feed American troops, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Kuwaiti logistics firm Public Warehousing Co. — which the Defense Logistics Agency says is the military's prime food supplier in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan — has been charged with making false statements, submitting false claims and committing wire fraud, said acting U.S. Attorney Gentry Shelnutt.
The company, also known as Agility, has received more than $8.5 billion in food supply contracts. Federal prosecutors say its contract with the government is still in effect and scheduled to expire in December 2010.
Agility said in a statement it is "surprised and disappointed" by the federal charges and that it has long cooperated with federal reviews and audits designed to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent appropriately.
It said the government has consistently found the company's prices to be "fair and reasonable" and that supply records show it was more successful in delivering food to the military in a war zone than some contractors working within the U.S.
The government's six-count federal indictment claimed the company manipulated a complex funding formula to defraud the U.S. government of at least $68 million while supplying soldiers in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Nelan.
She added, however, that the total could grow far beyond that sum because the investigation is ongoing.
The indictment said the company provided false invoices and statements to a logistics center, bought high-priced food items and then knowingly inflated prices. And it said the company received rebates and discounts from vendors that it did not pass to the government as required by the contract.
The company also inflated fees by asking vendors to manipulate the way the products were packed, enabling it to bill the government twice as much as it should have, prosecutors said. And they said the firm encouraged a vendor in Conyers, Ga., to conceal fees that should have been paid to the company, leading to inflated prices.
"The defendants, tempted by monetary gain, betrayed the trust invested in them by the U.S. Army," said Brig. Gen. Rodney Johnson, the commander of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division. "And now they must face the consequences."
The alleged scheme was first outlined in a civil whistleblower complaint filed by Kamal Mustafa Al-Sultan, the general manager of a contracting firm that partnered with Public Warehousing Co. in 2002 to submit a bid on a contract.
The lawsuit, filed in 2005 and unsealed this week, said that Agility, chief executive Tarek Abbul Aziz Sultan Al-Essa and supplier Sultan Center Food Products Co. have knowingly overcharged the government for fresh fruits and vegetables since 2003.
Agility, which is scheduled to make a first court appearance Friday, could face probation and a fine of up to twice the company's illegal gains or twice the loss to the U.S. Prosecutors also stressed that more charges could be filed as investigators dig deeper.
"Others who have engaged in similar conduct should beware," Shelnutt said. "This indictment is only the first step."

Musical Greeting Cards

Posted Tue, 11/03/2009 - 04:21 by admin

Musical Greeting Cards

Early computer sound chips had only simple tone and noise generators with few channels, imposing limitations on both the complexity of the sounds they could produce and the number of notes that could be played at once. In their desire to create a more complex arrangement than what the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds and scores, employing a diversity of both methods of sound synthesis, such as pulse width modulation and wavetable synthesis, and compositional techniques, such as a liberal use of arpeggiation. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or squeaky to the unaccustomed listener.

The program played a major role in the Game Boy chip music trend that came to attract a lot of attention in media. The now non-existent Swedish duo Puss is one of the better-known chip music projects, and was nominated 2003 for a Grammis prize in "Årets klubb/dans". The same year, Goto80 probably played as the first chip musician live at Hultsfredsfestivalen. In 2005, Paza produced an Atari song for Beck. The Stockholm club Microdisko has since 2004 arranged gigs with the biggest chip music artists worldwide.

E! to launch Asian version of flagship news show

Posted Tue, 11/03/2009 - 02:40 by admin

HONG KONG – One of America's best-known entertainment news shows is launching an Asian edition.
Los Angeles-based E! Entertainment Television will launch a weekly half-hour edition in Asia that combines both Hollywood and regional entertainment news in the second quarter of 2010, the international media arm of U.S. Internet and cable TV operator Comcast Corp., said in a statement sent Tuesday.
"E! News Asia" is part of a new push for localized content in Asia, Hong Kong-based Comcast International Media Group said.
E! Entertainment Television has already launched local editions of "E! News" in Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Latin America. The company will also add subtitles to more of its shows that air in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, the statement said.
"The Asia-Pacific region is one of the global media industry's most exciting areas of growth ... The expansion of our activities to include local production is the next stage of our business' evolution as viewership reaches critical mass," Christine Fellowes, the Asia-Pacific managing director for Comcast International, was quoted as saying in the statement.
E! programming is seen in more than 120 countries, reaching 600 million homes, according to Comcast.

Obama's Democrats face first big election test

Posted Mon, 11/02/2009 - 23:50 by admin

NEW YORK (AFP) –
Democrats and Republicans lock horns Tuesday in three off-year elections seen as a referendum on President Barack Obama's first 12 months in the White House.

The hottest race is for governor in New Jersey, with Democrat Jon Corzine -- the incumbent governor in a heavily Democratic state -- fighting desperately to avoid defeat by former Republican prosecutor Chris Christie.

Latest polls showed them in a statistical dead heat, with some analysts saying Christie was best positioned to poach votes from supporters of an independent third candidate.

Obama spent political capital to save Corzine's flagging campaign, including when he made a trip to New Jersey on Sunday.

Republicans, in fierce opposition to Obama's handling of the recession and reform of health care, smelled blood.

"A victory for Republicans in deep blue New Jersey would send shock waves through the country that would be felt right up to the doors of the White House," Republican blog redstate.com said.

Republicans seem likely to score a big success in another gubernatorial race in Virginia.

The swing state was captured by Obama in his election last year, the first time a Democratic presidential contender had managed to do so since 1964.

But Democratic dreams of making the southern state theirs seemed fanciful for now, with polls forecasting a heavy victory for Republican Bob McDonnell against Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Perhaps the most intriguing race is a smaller contest in New York state's 23rd congressional district, where Vice President Joseph Biden stumped on behalf of the Democratic candidate Monday.

The official Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, withdrew over the weekend after being overwhelmed by a rival bid from Doug Hoffman of the tiny Conservative Party.

Hoffman ran to the right of the more moderate Scozzafava, winning crucial if controversial backing from senior Republicans such as Sarah Palin, a possible presidential candidate in 2012.

As a result, Hoffman has become a standard bearer for the conservative wing of the Republicans, the same group behind nationwide protests against Obama's health care and economic recovery plans.

But Hoffman's success also exposed high-level splits in the Republican Party between those urging a move to the right and those seeking a centrist approach that could lure independent voters in nationwide elections for congress and governors next year.

Underlining the bitterness of the feud, Scozzafava followed her withdrawal from the race by calling on her supporters to switch allegiance to the Democrat Bill Owens rather than Hoffman.

The latest Siena Research Institute poll showed Hoffman taking a 41-36 lead against Owens after Scozzafava's departure, but with 18 percent still undecided.

In New Jersey, two polls showed the race too close to call accurately.

In Virginia, a Richmond Times-Dispatch poll showed McDonnell leading Deeds by 53-41 percent.

Also on the ballot Tuesday are mayoral posts in major cities, including New York City and Atlanta, as well as a referendum in northeastern Maine on whether or not to permit same-sex marriage.

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican media tycoon, looks likely to win a third term after getting City Council to scrap a mayoral two-term limit and spending a record amount of his own money on the campaign.

Supreme Court declines to hear civil-rights era KKK case (The Christian Science Monitor)

Posted Mon, 11/02/2009 - 19:26 by admin

Washington –
The US Supreme Court has declined to decide whether the federal statute of limitations bars the prosecution of a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member accused of kidnapping and murdering two black teens in 1964.
James Ford Seale was tried, convicted, and sentenced to three life prison terms in 2007. His lawyers challenged the prosecution on grounds that a five-year statute of limitations for kidnapping had long since passed.
By declining to take up the case, the high court's action leaves in place a decision by Mr. Seale's trial judge allowing his prosecution to go forward and upholding his conviction and life sentences. But the issue remains unresolved in future cases.
The statute of limitations issue is significant because it could undermine efforts by the Justice Department to prosecute suspects in as many as 22 other alleged racially-motivated killings and civil rights crimes dating to the 1950s and 1960s.
Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia issued a statement saying the high court should have agreed to resolve the issue now. "The question is narrow, debatable, and important," Justice Stevens wrote. "I see no benefit and significant cost to postponing the question's resolution. A prompt answer from this court will expedite the termination of this litigation and determine whether other similar cases may be prosecuted," he wrote.
A 40-year-old case
The statute of limitations issue arose during the federal prosecution of Seale, a former Klan member from Mississippi suspected of kidnap and murder.
Seale was identified by federal agents forty-five years ago as the primary suspect in the teens' deaths. The agents turned their findings over to local law enforcement officials in Mississippi, but no state charges were ever filed.
In 2007, federal prosecutors resurrected the cold case, indicting Seale on federal kidnapping charges.
The two victims, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, were abducted by members of the KKK on May 2, 1964 while hitchhiking near Meadville, Miss. They were taken to a remote location and beaten.
Then Seale and others allegedly taped their mouths and hands, and tied their bodies to a steel engine block before dumping both teens, still alive, into the Mississippi River.
They were reportedly first targeted for abduction because the KKK suspected Mr. Dees of engaging in civil rights work.
The issue of limitations
Lawyers for Seale challenged his indictment, arguing that a five-year federal statute of limitations on kidnapping had long since run out.
Prosecutors countered that there was no statute of limitation for a kidnapping that resulted in a death.
The trial judge agreed with that view, but a three-judge appeals court panel in New Orleans reversed the conviction. The full Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals then took up the case and split 9-9 on the question.
That action reinstated Seale's conviction and life sentences. But the appeals court took the somewhat unusual step of asking the US Supreme Court to resolve the underlying question of whether the five-year statute of limitations applied in the Seale case.
The central question in the case was whether a 1972 amendment by Congress designating kidnapping a non-capital offense retroactively reduced the statute of limitations to five years for a crime committed in 1964.

Seale's lawyers acknowledge that kidnapping was a capital offense in 1964 and thus had no statute of limitations under federal law. But they argue that the law changed in 1968 and 1972 with action by the Supreme Court and Congress.

In a dissent to the decision of the full Fifth Circuit to take up the Seale case, Judge Jerry Smith blamed the Justice Department for delaying more than 40 years in prosecuting Seale for this "despicable crime."

"The government now asks this court to bail it out by declaring a result that cannot be reached except by a strained explication of the applicable statutes and caselaw," he wrote. "The result of the government's inaction under myriad attorneys general is, to say the least, unfortunate. Because, as the [appeals court] panel held, Seale's conviction is barred by the statute of limitations, Seale must be set free and cannot be successfully prosecuted for this unspeakable crime."

Judge Smith said: "It is a necessary consequence of having a government of laws that wrongdoers at times must be released without further punishment."

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Adult Halloween Costumes

Posted Mon, 11/02/2009 - 16:05 by admin

The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists, and a rather commercialized take on the dark and mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, magic, or mythical monsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, vampires, bats, owls, crows, vultures, pumpkin-men, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, and demons.

There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dunking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face.

Adult Halloween Costumes