Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/278143856?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, January 20, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Stabenow: Farm bill about jobs, crucial to Michigan
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Source: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20130115/NEWS01/301150035/1002/NEWS01
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Quinn will veto gaming bill - Capitol Fax.com
* As if there was ever any doubt, Gov. Pat Quinn will veto the gaming bill that was finally released last week from a parliamentary hold?
On Oct. 17, 2011, Quinn announced that if Cullerton ever did send him the 2011 bill, he would veto it. So the bill sat, until last week. At the end of the expiring General Assembly, Cullerton cleared off his desk and sent the measure to Quinn. And on Friday, Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson assured us that the governor will follow through on his 2011 threat.
* Meanwhile, I?m not so sure this smoking ban explanation is correct?
According to a year-end report issued by the Illinois Gaming Board, [casino] revenue for the 2012 calendar year was $1.6 billion, which was up slightly from 2011, but down by about 38 percent from 2007.
Tom Swoik, director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, which represents the Metropolis casino, Harrah?s, said that the 2007 smoking ban and an economy that took a turn for the worst are two reasons for the dip.
?Once the economy starts improving, I think that casino revenues will pick up,? Swoik said. ?I think it will be a long time if ever that we get back to the 2007 figures because they?re not going to change the smoking ban.?
?All of the bordering states that have casinos do not have a smoking ban, so we lost about 20 percent in 2008, and we?ve lost an additional 18 or 19 percent on top of that since then just because of the economy,? Swoik added.
* It turns out, things are tough all over, despite casinos allowing smoking. For instance?
Revenues at Northwest Indiana?s five casinos dropped by $24.3 million in 2012, the second straight year of decline with the state of Indiana predicting more declines ahead.
The five Northwest Indiana casinos raked in $1.11 billion total in 2012, as compared to $1.13 billion in 2011, for a 2.1 percent drop overall, according to a tally by The Times of Indiana Gaming Commission monthly revenue reports. That drop compares with a 5.5 percent drop statewide in 2011.
And?
All but one of the St. Louis area?s six casinos experienced revenue declines in December.
Pinnacle Entertainment?s River City Casino, in Lemay, received 3 percent more from gamblers last month than it did in December 2011. But that was the only growth among the area?s casinos, according to figures released Thursday by state regulators.
Winnings fell slightly at Lumi?re Place, Pinnacle?s other casino in the St. Louis market.
The biggest drop took place at Hollywood Casino, which changed hands late last year. Penn National Gaming paid Caesars Entertainment $610 million for the casino and adjoining hotel in Maryland Heights.
And?
Nevada gaming revenues took a nosedive in November.
Statewide, casinos collected $782.6 million from gamblers during the month, a drop of almost 11.1 percent compared with $880.1 million collected in November 2011.
On the Strip, gaming revenues fell 12.8 percent with casinos collecting $431.8 million from customers, compared with $495.2 million collected a year ago.
The Gaming Control Board released the November numbers this morning.
Clark County gaming revenues as a whole fell 13 percent as every reporting area showed year-over-year monthly declines. Casinos along the Boulder Strip reported a 26 percent decline in gaming revenues while revenues were off 24 percent in North Las Vegas.
Downtown Las Vegas gaming revenues declined 17.2 percent.
Source: http://capitolfax.com/2013/01/14/quinn-will-veto-gaming-bill/
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Flu prevention and treatment in Central Texas
kvue.com
Posted on January 13, 2013 at 5:58 PM
Updated today at 6:01 PM
ROUND ROCK, Texas - Separating fact from fiction, where does Austin and central Texas stand when it comes to flu cases, vaccinations, and treatment?
High levels of flu activity continue to be reported in Travis County.
20 to 30 people are coming to the emergency room daily at Scott & White Hospital in Round Rock.
Texas has been reporting high flu activity since October, and peak season does not begin until after later this month.
According to doctors at Scott and White, Tamiflu is available. However, Dr. Ross Tobleman, the medical director at the hosptial's emergency room, says not everyone benefits from Tamiflu, as it has to be taken 24 to 36 hours from the onset of symptoms.
He says there are people who benefit, but for most people it only gives a 12 to 24 hour reduction in the duration of your symptoms. There is no cure.
The doctor says there is still time for the flu shot, and that you cannot get the flu from getting the shot.
"The flu shot contains inactive and dead virus particles. So it doesn't even contain the live virus particle at all. So there is absolutely no way you can get the flu from getting the flu shot," said Tobleman.
He says you might feel achy or have a low grade temperature, but that is just your immune system responding.
Other preventative measures include getting pleny of rest and drinking fluids. And if you chose to go the holistic approach, the doctor recommends vitamin c, echinachea and zinc. But mostly he says, lots of rest and water.
Source: http://www.kvue.com/home/Flu-prevention-and-treatment-in-Central-Texas-186709671.html
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Monday, January 14, 2013
Senate GOP leader optimistic about Afghanistan
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The United States should keep a residual force of about 10,000 in Afghanistan after combat forces leave at the end of 2014, the Senate Republican leader said Monday after a series of meetings with military leaders in the country.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, who led a congressional delegation to Afghanistan and Israel, expressed optimism about an 11-year war that now stands as the longest in American history, and the prospect of Afghans assuming a lead role in the fighting.
"My observation about Afghanistan at this point is this is the first time I've left there with a sense of optimism," he told reporters in a conference call. "I think there's a widely held view among the American military leaders there ? we met with Gen. (John) Allen ? that this has a very great potential for a happy ending after 2014, provided we have a residual force that we can provide for training."
The United States now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. and its NATO allies agreed in November 2010 that they would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they haven't decided on the scope of future missions to contain al-Qaida and the size of a remaining force.
Obama administration officials gave the first clear signal last week that it might leave no troops in the country after December 2014. Administration officials in recent days have said they are considering a range of options for a residual U.S. troop presence of as few as 3,000 and as many as 15,000, with the number linked to a specific set of military-related missions like hunting down terrorists.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is believed to favor an option that would keep about 9,000 troops in the country.
McConnell said the military leaders were somewhat cautious about pushing for a specific number as the decision will be made by the White House. The Kentucky lawmaker, who made his seventh trip to Afghanistan, did make his own recommendation.
"I think we're going to need a minimum of about 10,000 troops to provide adequate training and counterterrorism in the post-2014 period and we anticipate there will be forces from other countries that will remain here beyond 2014 as well," McConnell said.
The number from the Senate GOP leader could influence other members of Congress as they weigh the continued American presence in Afghanistan amid increasing war-weariness from constituents.
A sticking point for President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who met last week, is whether any U.S. troops remaining after 2014 would be granted immunity from prosecution under Afghan law. Immunity is a U.S. demand that the Afghans have resisted, saying they want assurances on other things ? like authority over detainees ? first.
"There is a widely held view that the Afghan army is definitely coming up to speed," McConnell said at a stop in Aviano, Italy. "I'm optimistic that this country will be able to maintain itself after we're largely gone."
In a separate appearance, Afghan ambassador to Washington H.E. Eklil Hakimi said under security negotiations to flesh out what the two presidents decided last week, U.S. special operations troops could stay at their posts in the villages, with Afghan special operations forces leading the program to train local militiamen to fight the Taliban.
"Afghans will be in in the lead," he said.
His remarks to reporters Monday clarified Karzai's remarks Friday when he stated all foreign forces would leave Afghan villages in the spring.
He declined to say how many troops should remain, adding "it's up to experts and generals to decide."
Hakimi also predicted progress on reconciliation talks with the Taliban, aided by another release of Taliban prisoners by Pakistan. But this time, Afghan officials have asked Pakistan to let them know when, where and whom is being released.
"We are in talks to make sure to have a proper monitoring mechanism, and they should notify us and do things in a systematic manner," Hakimi said.
McConnell was joined on the congressional trip by four Republican senators ? John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Ted Cruz of Texas and Deb Fischer of Nebraska. Flake, Cruz and Fischer were just sworn in a week ago.
In Israel, they met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. McConnell said the threat from Iran tops Israel's list of concerns.
____
AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-gop-leader-optimistic-afghanistan-165234603.html
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Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013: a computer hacker who is now a political martyr
By Virginia Heffernan
"Aaron Swartz's death is a loss for all humanity," Jacob Applebaum, a distinguished hacker, said by email to me today.
He was a "Web genius," wrote Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard Law School professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
But just after Swartz died, on Friday, Lessig had wondered about another epithet used to describe him. ?The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Swartz be labeled a 'felon.'"
Aaron Swartz was a hacker-activist and a committed liberator of information. Facing federal charges, a possible sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine, for downloading subscription-only academic papers with the intent to distribute them, Swartz hanged himself in his apartment in Brooklyn on Friday. He was 26.
Sample papers Swartz attempted to set free include "John Berryman: The Poetics of Martyrdom" and "Mapping the Niger, 1798-1832: Trust, Testimony and 'Ocular Demonstration' in the Late Enlightenment." On its own initiative, JSTOR, which hosts the academic papers and never pressed charges against Swartz, started offering limited free access to its archive just this week.
"Aaron has been depressed about his case/upcoming trial," Susan Swartz, Swartz's mother, posted on a hacker section of the Ycombinator Web site today. "But we had no idea what he was going through was this painful."
If Swartz's death plunged his admirers and colleagues into deep mourning, it also activated their fury. Though his suicide had no doubt many causes, Swartz may have come as close as anyone in recent memory to dying for a political movement. Those over 40 will have to think back to counterculture martyrs of the early 60s to find a comparably galvanizing figure in the current circle of hacker-activisits. The prodigy developer, at 14, of RSS feeds, Swartz also agitated without cease?or compensation?for the free-culture movement.
Two years ago, in January, 2011, Swartz was arrested for, essentially, setting information free?as an animal-rights activist might liberate a zoo. In 2008, he had thrown open PACER, a subscription-only trove of federal judicial documents. And then he had downloaded the 4.8 million articles from JSTOR. Of course, thanks to the magic of electronic reproduction, the articles still exist on the JSTOR site.
Swartz was charged, then, with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and damaging a protected computer.
"I don't fully understand the reasons that he took his own life," Applebaum, who worked with Swartz on security projects, told me. "If it has to do with the thought of nearly endless pain of prison for working toward an open culture, I empathize with the goals and certainly with the stress." (Applebaum was himself the subject of a federal investigation for his connection with Wikileaks.)
"Such a jackboot on one's throat creates atomized people, which contributes to deep despair and depression."
As Applebaum and Lessig eulogize their hero, it's time a wider audience appreciate his achievements. Applebaum cites especially Tor2Web, Swartz's security project, and his Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto. The Manifesto, which lays out Swartz's politics, should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the open-culture movement.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/what-we-learned-from-aaron-swartz-s-suicide-004332081.html
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