Amazingly, Pamela Geller’s Butterball Fail Continues (Little green footballs)

Posted on November 29, 2011 by
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PFT: Texans?overcome yet another QB loss

Posted on November 28, 2011 by

Matt LeinartAP

Almost 12 weeks of the 2011 season are in the books, and there are only so many things we know.

The Packers are good.? The Colts are bad.? And Ndamukong Suh is in trouble.

For the 30 other teams and 1,700 other players, who knows what?s going on?? Let?s try to make sense of some of it via 10 of the story lines coming out of Sunday?s (and one of Thursday?s) games.

1.? Texans need a proven veteran.

It?s pretty clear that the Texans have decided not to flirt with Brett Favre for the stretch run.? But that doesn?t mean it makes sense to go with T.J. Yates, Kellen Clemens, and possibly Brodie Croyle at quarterback.

While that three-headed monster could be enough to fend off the pesky Titans for the AFC South crown, it won?t be enough to advance in a playoff field featuring the likes of the Patriots, Ravens, and Steelers.

And so the Texans need a proven veteran with playoff experience.? Whether that?s Favre or Jeff Garcia or even Jeff George, the playoff-bound Texans will be a bunch of wide-eyed kids on their first trip to the amusement park, and they?d benefit from someone who has ridden a roller coaster once or twice.

Even Daunte Culpepper would be a better option than Yates, Clemens, and Croyle.? After all, Culpepper has played in four playoff games, winning two and losing two.

Texans fans defended the decision to give the keys to Leinart by pointing out the low-risk passing game, the chains-moving running game, and the brick-wall defense.? But that same reasoning applies to a veteran quarterback, too.

In the Texans offense, no quarterback will be expected to do all that much.? A veteran with playoff experience will be far better suited to do what needs to be done, when it counts the most.

2.? McNabb should pull an Orton.

After the Bears lost quarterback Jay Cutler to a broken thumb, Kyle Orton asked for, and received, his walking papers from the Broncos.? So with the Texans needing a quarterback, why isn?t Vikings backup Donovan McNabb doing the same thing?

He claims he still can play, and he believes he shouldn?t have been benched.? McNabb therefore should request his release and hope that he slides down to the Texans on the waiver priority list.

Even if he doesn?t, any chance to play is better than holding a clipboard for a 2-9 team.? If McNabb is holding out any hope of getting a starting job in 2012, he?d benefit from being on the field in the 2011 postseason.

Until then, his failure to even make a play to get out of Minnesota should prompt legitimate speculation about his actual desire to compete.

3.? High praise for A.J. Green.

Receivers taken in the first round of the draft often underwhelm at the NFL level.? Bengals rookie receiver A.J. Green provides the latest exception to that rule.

He?s Randy Moss without the attitude, making great catches via a long body and uncanny ball skills that leave players like 2010 first-round pick Joe Haden helpless when trying to stop him.

Green?s three-catch, 110-yard performance against Cleveland included a 51-yard play that set up the game-winning field goal.? After the 7-4 Bengals reversed a two-game losing streak by beating the Browns, Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis gave Green the ultimate endorsement.

?He?s the best first-round draft pick I?ve ever been around,? Marvin Lewis said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. ?He continues to amaze me, every day.?

How big of a deal is that?? In 1996, Marvin Lewis worked in Baltimore, where the Ravens picked up tackle Jonathan Ogden and linebacker Ray Lewis in the first round of the draft.

Both are headed for Canton.? In Marvin?s assessment, Green already is on the trajectory.

And Marvin is right.

4.? Chris Johnson saves his job.

The bad news for Titans tailback Chris Johnson after a 23-carry, 190-yard performance against the Bucs?? He still doesn?t have the explosiveness he displayed during the first three years of his career.

The good news?? He?ll get the chance to find it in 2012.

Although the Titans retain the ability to avoid most of the supposedly guaranteed money contained in Johnson?s new contract by cutting him after the season, Johnson has done enough to persuade the Titans to stick with him.? With the benefit of a full offseason program and training camp and preseason, Johnson could rediscover the quality that puts him a step ahead of all running backs not named Adrian Peterson.

It may not happen, but the Titans surely won?t risk that it will happen with another team.

5.? The Tebowmania effect.

Lost in the impact that Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has on his teammates is the impact he possibly has on his opponents.? (And, no, I?m not referring to the entirely different kind of Tebowing in which Chargers kicker Nick Novak engaged on Sunday.)

Despite the obsession that some have with statistics, football remains the unique product of 22 moving parts, fueled more by intangibles than metrics, especially where the metrics tend to balance each other out.? If 11 of the players possess genuine confidence in their skills, they can perform better than the sum of their parts.? And if they lack confidence, the opposite can occur.

That?s the other side of the Tebowmania effect.? The Broncos now believe that they can keep games close and find a way to win ? and teams like the Chargers believe that the Broncos will keep games close and find a way to win.

With each passing week, the team that Tebow plays will have to overcome his uncanny ability to overcome.? And that factor is far more dangerous than a rocket arm or a sub-4.4 40-yard dash or the ability to bench press 225 pounds up to 225 times.

Objectively, there was no reason that the Broncos should have beaten the Chargers in San Diego on Sunday.? The home team had lost five games in a row, the head coach occupies one of the hottest seats in all of football, and the Chargers on paper seem to be the better team.

But the Tebowmania effect allowed Denver to keep it close ? and to find a way to win.? Unless and until someone breaks that spell, the Broncos will remain a serious threat not only to make the playoffs but also to do some serious damage once they get there.

6.? ?Fire Andy,? and then what?

The pitchforks and torches, which have been taken out and then put away and then taken out again and then put away again, are once again out.? And this time they?re likely staying out for the rest of the season.

With the 4-7 Eagles needing to run the table and hope for plenty of help, what happens if (when) they fail to qualify for the postseason?? The home crowd has begun chanting ?Fire Andy!,? an indignity that hasn?t been loudly foisted upon anyone in the NFL since Matt Millen left Detroit for good.? Given that the Eagles went ?all in? for 2011, with president Joe Banner telling PFT Live that the line between success and failure resides at winning the Super Bowl, common sense suggests that failing to succeed means walking away from the table, not getting another stack of chips with which to go ?all in? again.

So what happens if Reid gets fired?? Does owner Jeffrey Lurie believe he can find someone as good, and hopefully better, than Reid?

Then there?s the issue of the front office.? With Reid supposedly still in charge, Banner and G.M. Howie Roseman could be vulnerable if Lurie tries to hire someone like Bill Cowher, who would want to have the same power that Reid has enjoyed, along with the ability to hire a new set of lieutenants.

It becomes a complex and risky exercise for Lurie, making the status quo safer, and thus more likely.? Even though things haven?t gotten better under Reid lately, they could get a lot worse.

7.? Lame-duck reluctance could result in plenty of vacancies.

Through nearly 12 full weeks of the 2011 season, no teams have fired their head coaches.? Once the 2011 season ends, at least six coaches will slide into the spotlight, for one very important reason.

For coaches whose contracts expire after the 2012 season, teams must decide whether to extend the contracts, to allow them to coach as lame ducks next year, or to move on and/or move out.

That dynamic applies to at least a half-dozen men:? Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo, Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris, Chiefs coach Todd Haley, Colts coach Jim Caldwell, Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, and Giants coach Tom Coughlin.? Five of the six lost on Sunday, and the last one could lose on Monday night at New Orleans.

Over the past four weeks, those teams have generated a combined record of 5-20.? Apart from the Giants, none are in serious contention for the postseason.

So when Black Monday (not to be confused with Black Friday) arrives the morning after New Year?s Day, pay close attention to those six teams.? Assuming that none of them decide before then to make a change.

8.? Niners are still in great shape.

It would be easy to assume that the 49ers? bubble has burst, via a 10-point loss in Baltimore on Thanksgiving night.

It would be easy.? But it also would be incorrect.

Look at the schedule and the standings.? The 9-2 Niners still play four games ? four games ? against NFC West teams.? And they play the hapless Rams not once, but twice.

Even if the 49ers lose to the visiting Steelers in San Fran on Monday, December 19, the 49ers easily should get to 13-3, which would be enough to secure the second seed in the NFC.

Yes, at some point they may face another defense that could chase Alex Smith all over the field.? But that may not happen unless they face the Bears in the postseason ? or until the 49ers take on the the Ravens again, not in Baltimore but at a neutral site in February.

Either way, the 49ers will continue to be a significant factor down the stretch.? If anything, that loss knocks them toward the edge of the radar screen in the short term, which is probably where coach Jim Harbaugh would prefer to be anyway.

9.? The DeSean dilemma.

Regardless of whether Andy Reid stays or goes, the Eagles have a significant personnel issue on the horizon:? What should they do with receiver DeSean Jackson?

He?ll be a free agent after the season.? In recent weeks, Jackson has been deactivated after missing a meeting, flagged for a taunting penalty that wiped out a 50-yard gain (thanks to a bizarre quirk in the rules), and benched in the fourth quarter of Sunday?s latest loss, following another key drop.

Once presumed the Eagles would use the franchise tag in the hopes of signing Jackson to a long-term deal, the team may now opt to make a change.? But that doesn?t mean they?ll let him walk away.? Instead, look for the Eagles to apply the franchise tag (which will cost $9.5 million in cap space), to make him available in trade, to search for a replacement via free agency or the draft, and possibly to rescind the franchise tender if they can?t move him ? and if they can find another guy to return punts and run ?go? routes.

The risk of that approach comes from Jackson signing the franchise tender, which would guarantee him a base salary of $9.5 million in 2012; it equates to more than 15.8 times his $600,000 base salary in 2011.? And that would be Jackson?s smartest move, if he?s tagged.? Otherwise, the Eagles could end up removing the franchise tender later in the offseason (like they previously did to Jeremiah Trotter and Corey Simon), making Jackson an unrestricted free agent well after the vast majority of the unrestricted free agency money has flowed.

For that reason alone, the Eagles possibly could decide not to apply the franchise tag at all, something that would be more likely to happen if owner Jeffrey Lurie decides to clean house.

10.? ?Bowe doesn?t know football.?

Last night?s far-closer-than-expected game between the Steelers and Chiefs included a late effort by the Chiefs to drive for the winning touchdown.? Unthinkable given Kansas City?s recent inability to score offensive touchdowns but not impossible given Pittsburgh?s recent history of giving up big drives late, the Chiefs made it interesting.

Until receiver Dwayne Bowe blew it.

With the Chiefs facing first and 15 from the Pittsburgh 37, Bowe shot down the field, throwing his hand in the air ? the universal football gesture that means, ?I?m going deep.?

But then, right after Bowe called for a long throw, he broke to the post.? Tyler Palko already had launched toward where Bowe would have been.? And it landed where a Steelers defender was.

Making things worse for the Chiefs, and for Bowe, was a half-hearted (hoof-hearted) effort to catch the ball.? Bowe jumped but he didn?t extend, possibly wary of a rib-breaking blow to the midsection.

Bowe?s effort, or lack thereof, drew harsh criticism from NBC?s Cris Collinsworth, a former receiver who has the experience and the knowledge to justify criticism of a current player at the position.? And for a guy like Bowe, who?ll be heading to free agency after the season, a better try needs to be made in those situations.

It?s not as if a victory last night would have propelled the Chiefs back into the race for the AFC West crown or a wild-card berth, but it could have.? The loss instead dropped Kansas City to 4-7, making it difficult if not impossible for the Chiefs to qualify for the postseason and/or for coach Todd Haley to keep his job.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/27/texans-win-shows-how-far-they-have-come/related

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Pakistani ambassador’s departure leaves void

Posted on November 25, 2011 by

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS SPELLING OF HAQQANI’S FIRST NAME – In this picture taken on Aug. 19, 2010 shows Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani, left, talks with U.S. Sen. John Kerry as Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari walks on in Multan, Pakistan. Pakistan’s envoy to the United States Haqqani says he has resigned over claims he wrote a memo to Washington asking for its help in reining in the country’s powerful military. Pakistan’s slain governor Salman Taseer seen second from right. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS SPELLING OF HAQQANI’S FIRST NAME – In this picture taken on Aug. 19, 2010 shows Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani, left, talks with U.S. Sen. John Kerry as Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari walks on in Multan, Pakistan. Pakistan’s envoy to the United States Haqqani says he has resigned over claims he wrote a memo to Washington asking for its help in reining in the country’s powerful military. Pakistan’s slain governor Salman Taseer seen second from right. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The departure of Pakistan’s man in Washington, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, leaves U.S.-Pakistani relations temporarily adrift, with few trusted go-betweens after months of bruising political sparring that followed the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Haqqani resigned Tuesday over what has become known as “memo-gate” ? allegations that he sought U.S. help to head off a possible Pakistani military coup after the bin Laden operation. Former information minister Sherry Rehman, an important player in President Asif Zardari’s ruling political party, was appointed Wednesday to replace Haqqani.

Haqqani’s departure robs the two sides of a man who simultaneously was one of the Pakistani military’s biggest critics and a constant, needling thorn in Washington’s side, refusing American requests to expand the CIA’s drone campaign against militants or increase American intelligence personnel on the ground.

When relations went south between the two sides, as they did after the SEALs killed bin Laden inside Pakistan, Haqqani, a former journalist with a prodigious Rolodex, kept lines of communication open with the White House, the CIA and the media by text, email and multiple daily tweets.

His history as a critic of the Pakistani military and intelligence services allowed him to act as a somewhat neutral go-between. He could smoothly shift from sympathetic listener to hard bargainer, as much counselor as diplomat, convincing the Americans he understood their frustration and assuring his Pakistani masters back home that he was standing firm against U.S. pressure.

Yet despite the fallout here, his departure is more about Pakistani political squabbles than U.S. relations, with Washington serving as foil to help the Pakistani military get rid of a longtime enemy, said Tim Hoyt, counterterrorism scholar at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

Haqqani’s detailed account of the relationship between the Pakistani military and Islamic radicals in his 2005 book “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military” was seen “as a grievous betrayal,” Hoyt said.

The book won him accolades in Pakistani civilian circles and helped secure academic positions as a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University.

The ease with which Haqqani moved in such rarefied U.S. circles “helps explain why the military, the intelligence services and many elites in Pakistan view him as dangerously pro-American,” Hoyt said.

But it also made him effective. When U.S. lawmakers threatened to withdraw aid to Pakistan, Haqqani was credited with changing their minds. When then-U.S. military chief Adm. Mike Mullen accused Pakistan of complicity with the Haqqani militant network in attacking the U.S. Embassy in Kabul over the summer, the envoy went into overdrive, working the phones and persuading U.S. officials to meet him at his office or at the Army Navy Club near the White House ? discreet conversations that helped keep some forms of military cooperation moving forward.

The former ambassador has no family connection to the Haqqani militant network.

“Removing him at this juncture in U.S.-Pakistan relations can only be viewed as a self-inflicted wound,” Hoyt said.

The charges against Haqqani remain unproven. They rise from a leaked memo he says he did not write, delivered by a Pakistani American businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, who lives in London and has a history of making such claims with little follow-through. The Pakistani government says it will investigate.

The envoy and his supporters have claimed the memo was a hoax cooked up by the military establishment to get rid of Haqqani and weaken the Zardari government and democratic institutions ? explosive charges in a country that has seen at least three military coups.

Ijaz claimed he received the missive from Haqqani and, following his instructions, passed it to Mullen through an intermediary after the bin Laden raid. A spokesman said Mullen had received it but considered it unreliable and ignored it.

The memo accuses army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani of plotting to bring down the government in the political turmoil and finger-pointing after the raid. It asks Mullen for his “direct intervention” to prevent a coup.

In return, it promises help in installing a “new security team” in Islamabad that would be friendly to Washington.

Ijaz has led a high-profile media campaign attacking the ambassador. He claimed that Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, flew to London to meet with him last month. Ijaz said he provided Pasha with computer records implicating Haqqani.

Ijaz has a history of making claims to be well connected with U.S. politicians. During the Clinton administration, he said U.S. officials told him Sudan was willing to turn over then-fugitive bin Laden ? claims the U.S. administration immediately denied.

Haqqani returned to Pakistan over the weekend to face questioning over the alleged memo by the army and the intelligence chiefs.

“I have resigned to bring closure to this meaningless controversy threatening our fledgling democracy,” he said in a statement. “It was an artificial crisis over an insignificant memo written by a self-centered businessman.”

“I have much to contribute to building a new Pakistan free of bigotry & intolerance,” Haqqani tweeted after his resignation. “Will focus energies on that.”

Christine Fair, a Pakistan scholar who teaches at Georgetown University, said she didn’t expect Haqqani’s departure to lead to a further downturn in U.S.-Pakistan ties, noting that both countries were continuing with cooperation on targeting al-Qaida and on drone strikes in the Afghan border area.

“So we’re still getting from them what we need in terms of a bare minimum,” said Fair. “It would be surprising if a new ambassador would try to sabotage that … but you can’t rule it out.”

___

Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt and Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Kimberly Dozier can be followed on Twitter (at)kimberlydozier.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-23-US-Pakistan-Envoy%20Scandal/id-6cff80c899794aae9aadee3e238c4305

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BBDO Wins 'NY Open for Business' Marketing Initiative | Adweek

Posted on November 24, 2011 by

Looks like New York State has a new ad agency: BBDO, with a mandate to do as much for attracting business as ?I Love New York? has accomplished in wooing global tourism.

A State rep, Austin Shafran confirmed the Omnicom shop was unanimously selected to handle the ?New York Open for Business? global marketing push recently launched by Governor Andrew Cuomo. BBDO prevailed after a fast-moving RFP process in which the agency beat out other undisclosed finalists. An RFP went out August 25th; responses were due back by Sept. 16th and by Nov. 4th directors of the Empire State Development Corp. were scheduled to vote on approving contract negotiations with BBDO

Negotiations are still underway for a two-year contract with BBDO. Over the course of two years up to $50 million has been set aside for “Open for Business,” Shafran said. According to the RFP there is an option of two additional one-year renewals.

Cuomo has made it clear he wants to improve the state?s image as a place to retain and attract new businesses, with the RFP describing the situation as: ?New York?s reputation as an attractive environment to do business has suffered greatly.?? In August he launched the ?Open for Business” marketing initiative and announced the formation of a committee of business leaders headed by execs like Kathy Bloomgarden, CEO of Ruder Finn; Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express; Deutsch chairman Donny Deutsch and Ogilvy & Mather?s chairman Shelly Lazarus.

Earlier in April, Harvey Cohen, a former FCB creative director, was appointed vp, marketing of the Empire State Development Corp. In addition to working at multiple agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi and Ally & Gargano, Cohen has been a consultant to Andrew Cuomo and worked for his father Mario Cuomo as a senior media advisor who led the state?s “I Love New York? effort from 1982 to 1984.

In 1977, Wells Rich Greene was tapped by the state to create that iconic work along with New York graphic designer Milton Glaser who developed the accompanying logo. (Glaser, who reportedly expected the campaign to last just a couple of months did the work pro-bono. The State began licensing the logo in 1994 and took in more than $1.83 million in licensing fees in fiscal 2011.)

The campaign, which made New York a global destination, remains the benchmark of success for the state. According to the RFP:

?Ultimately, the (“Open for Business”) Committee hopes the New York State Open for Business? marketing effort will do for New York?s business image and reputation what the world-renowned ?I Love New York? campaign did for travel and tourism ? develop a new, very big idea that is both emotionally compelling as well as intellectually persuasive.?

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/bbdo-wins-ny-open-business-marketing-136727

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Medicare chief steps aside in political impasse (AP)

Posted on November 24, 2011 by

WASHINGTON ? The point man for carrying out President Barack Obama’s health care law will be stepping down after Republicans succeeded in blocking his confirmation by the Senate, the White House announced Wednesday.

Medicare chief Don Berwick, a Harvard professor widely respected for his ideas on how to improve the health care system, became the most prominent casualty of the political wars over a health care overhaul whose constitutionality will be now decided by the Supreme Court.

Praising Berwick for “outstanding work,” White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith criticized Republicans for “putting political interests above the best interests of the American people.”

Berwick will be replaced by his principal deputy, Marilyn Tavenner, formerly Virginia’s top health care official. The White House said Obama will submit Tavenner’s nomination to the Senate.

Tavenner has been at Medicare since early last year, earning a reputation as a problem solver with years of real-world experience and an extensive network of industry contacts. A nurse by training, the 60-year-old Tavenner worked her way up to the senior executive ranks of a major hospital chain. She ran Virginia’s health department under former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine.

Berwick’s fate was sealed early this year when 42 GOP senators ? more than enough to derail his confirmation ? asked Obama to withdraw his nomination. He remained as a temporary appointee, and his resignation takes effect Dec. 2.

Berwick’s statements as an academic praising Britain’s government-run health care had become a source of controversy in politically polarized Washington. Although he later told Congress that “the American system needs its own solution” and Britain’s shouldn’t be copied here, his critics were not swayed.

In an email to his staff, Berwick said he leaves with “bittersweet emotions.”

“Our work has been challenging, and the journey is not complete, but we are now well on our way to achieving a whole new level of security and quality for health care in America, helping not just the millions of Americans affected directly by our programs, but truly health care as a whole in our nation,” Berwick wrote.

A pediatrician before becoming a Harvard professor, Berwick has many admirers in the medical community, including some former Republican administrators of Medicare. His self-styled “three-part aim” for the health care system includes providing a better overall experience for individual patients, improving the health of groups in the population such as seniors and African-Americans, and lowering costs through efficiency.

But some of his professorial ruminations dogged him in Washington. Republicans accused him of advocating health care rationing, which Berwick denies.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Berwick’s past record of controversial statements and his lack of experience managing complex bureaucracies disqualified him from the Medicare job. Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate panel that oversees Medicare, led the opposition to his nomination. Hatch said Wednesday the Senate must “thoroughly examine” and “carefully scrutinize” Tavenner’s nomination.

Berwick oversaw the drafting and rollout of major regulations that will begin to reshape the health care system, steering Medicare away from paying for sheer volume of services and procedures and instead putting a premium on quality care that keeps patients healthier and avoids costly hospitalizations. He also presided over significant improvements for Medicare beneficiaries, including better coverage for preventive care and relief for seniors with high prescription drug costs.

Berwick turned 65 this year, making him the first Medicare chief eligible to be enrolled in the program. He told The Associated Press in an earlier interview that he was putting in his application, but doesn’t plan to retire any time soon. Instead he plans to keep working as an advocate for change in the nation’s health care system.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111123/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_medicare_chief

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Obama asserts growing US stake in Asia

Posted on November 23, 2011 by

FILE – In this Nov. 19, 2011, photo, U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Nusa Dua, on the island of Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

FILE – In this Nov. 19, 2011, photo, U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Nusa Dua, on the island of Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

U.S. President Barack Obama talks with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao as they walk together for a family photo at the East Asia Summit Gala dinner in Nusa Dua, on the island of Bali, Indonesia, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama’s close attention to the Asia-Pacific region signaled both a turn toward a part of the world experiencing solid growth and one away from Europe’s dark economic woes, at least temporarily.

The president’s nine-day trip to Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia was marked by back-to-back summits and high-profile pronouncements, including decisions to station U.S. Marines in northern Australia, advocate a new free-trade area that leaves China out and call on Beijing not to buck the current world order.

He also made an overture to isolated, repressive Myanmar, also known as Burma, dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton there next month and speaking by phone with peace activist and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

With Europe’s growth stalled, and the continent teetering on the edge of another recession, Obama redirected his focus across the Pacific to an area largely out of recession and steadily growing ? and which now accounts for roughly 50 percent of the world’s economic output.

America’s standing in Asia-Pacific has declined in the past decade as China’s has increased. China now is the top trading partner for many countries across the region.

Obama portrayed his trip and his new, muscular approach toward China as an effort to help open new Asian markets that could lead to more jobs in the U.S. as he strives to help get the nation’s economy back on track, a big order ahead of next year’s presidential election.

He was able to perform as an active player in the summits in Hawaii and Bali, Indonesia, and in his visit to Australia ? after finding himself largely on the sidelines in efforts to resolve the euro zone’s deepening debt crisis.

Obama’s goal “is clearly a rebalancing on the economic side and Europe’s current economic situation starkly underlines that,” said Ernest Bower, director of Southeast Asia programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Europe is flat on its back, and Asia is growing like a snowball rolling down a hill.”

China was the first major world economy to emerge from the 2008 financial crisis. And while it is has struggled to keep inflation at bay, it recently roared past Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. It’s on track to overtake the U.S. and become No. 1 within the next few decades.

The financial-system meltdown that hobbled the U.S. and its European allies bypassed Australia and many of its neighbors. And while Japan is still struggling to recover, many of the region’s other economies are exhibiting healthy growth.

Obama pledged greater involvement in a wide array of regional security and economic concerns as the U.S. ratchets down its military presence in the Middle East with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; and as it seeks to extricate itself from Afghanistan.

“The Asian economies are the fastest growing economies on the planet. It’s where the action is, where U.S. businesses are increasingly looking for growth,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “We’ve got to be looking toward Asia. Europe is in trouble.”

Rapid growth of Asian economies could help offset weaknesses in Europe. Still, China and several other Asian exporting countries do substantial business selling their goods in European countries.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned that the European crisis is still “the central challenge to global growth” and urged Asia-Pacific leaders to do more to help keep the European contagion from spreading, including boosting demand in their own countries.

Still, economists generally say that so long as any new recession in Europe is relatively mild, it seems unlikely that it would drag down other economies.

“Asia is in ascendency while Europe is fading in the power lineup of the world,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics. He said the new U.S. focus on the region “is long overdue.”

Obama’s trip follows congressional approval of a free-trade pact with South Korea, initially negotiated by the Bush administration. The president said the pact would help open the big South Korean market to U.S. goods and services and help create badly needed jobs in the United States.

With unemployment hovering at a stubbornly high 9 percent, and congressional negotiators straining to meet a November 23 deadline for delivering a deficit-cutting plan, Obama did take some heat from Republicans for leaving the country instead of focusing on domestic priorities, even as he promoted job-creation as a key part of his mission .

And a few Democrats voiced skepticism about some aspects of the trip.

“I guess the strategic purpose, we’re told, is we have to contain China. I think we overdo that,” said Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.

“We have a legitimate strategic interest in deterring North Korea and in giving Taiwan some assurance, but I don’t think we have to keep open the sea lanes. I don’t think we have to mediate every dispute … in the South China Sea,” Frank told a foreign-policy forum. “I do not think that China is prepared to commit economic suicide by shutting down the sea lanes.”

Many lawmakers blame China for America’s economic woes. It is one of the few issues on which many Democrats and Republicans agree.

By a wide bipartisan margin, the Senate last month passed a bill to punish China for deliberately undervaluing its currency, a practice that makes Chinese products cheaper in the United States ? at a time when the U.S. manufacturing sector is struggling and jobs are scarce.

Lawmakers have also reached across the aisle to condemn Beijing for human rights abuses, intellectual property theft and the counterfeiting of components that end up in U.S. military hardware.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has thus far declined to take up the Senate China currency, agreeing with business interests that it could hurt, not help, the U.S. economy by triggering a trade war.

China has also become a hot political issue on the GOP presidential campaign trail. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has said that, if elected, he would seek to sanction China as a currency manipulator on Day One of his presidency. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota suggests, without offering evidence, that the U.S. is helping to subsidize China’s People’s Liberation Army with the interest payments it makes to China on the debt.

Only former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman ? who recently was U.S. ambassador to China ? warns against actions against China that could result in trade retaliation. He is a former U.S. ambassador to China.

As to borrowing from China to help cover U.S. budget deficits, China buys Treasury bonds the same way as other countries, mutual and pension funds and individual investors do ? on the open market.

Last year, the federal government paid about $206 billion in interest for the portion of the national debt held by the public. China holds about 11 percent of that debt, making it the largest foreign creditor.

“I do think that in this populist age, a little China-bashing never hurts politically,” said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

___

Follow Tom Raum at http://twitter.com/tomraum

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-21-Obama’s%20Asian%20Focus/id-7911f5d71c784c38b576792c60ae254f

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Republicans seek Iowa social conservatives’ nod

Posted on November 23, 2011 by

At an event sponsored by an Iowa Christian group, Republican candidates tried to gain a political edge with social conservatives. But some of the discussion turned uncharacteristically personal.

Six Republican presidential candidates dove deep into how their religious faith influences their public life, during a free-flowing forum before a large, influential audience of social conservatives in early-voting Iowa on Saturday.

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At an event sponsored by an Iowa Christian group, the candidates tried at times to gain a political edge with potent Iowa conservatives. But some of the discussion turned uncharacteristically personal, with the would-be presidents tearfully revealing formative chapters that shaped their faith.

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose recent rise has renewed scrutiny of his two divorces, admitted taking the advice of a recovering alcoholic to soothe the demons he had treated for years with his own national ambition.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for Nov. 13-18, 2011

“I wasn’t drinking but I had precisely the symptoms of someone who was collapsing under this weight,” Gingrich said. “And I found myself, this emerging national figure ? trying to understand where I had failed, why I was empty and why I had to turn to God.”

Businessman Herman Cain, accused of sexually harassing four subordinates more than a decade ago, didn’t address the accusations which he has denied vigorously. But he acknowledged not being home enough during his career’s meteoric rise to the top of a national restaurant chain, and he credited his marriage with helping him after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

“Before my wife and I were about to head to the care, I said, ‘I can do this,’” Cain recalled. “She said, ‘We can do this.’”

The event occurred while many evangelical conservatives, a powerful force in Iowa’s caucuses, still look for a more conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has not courted this segment of the voting bloc aggressively in his second bid for the GOP nomination.

The format was a sharp departure from the 10 GOP debates that have already been held in the 2012 campaign. Instead of the rapid questions and timed answers of the televised debates, Saturday’s forum was held around a large dining table on a stage with fall-themed decorations, aimed at resembling a family Thanksgiving dinner scene. Pollster Frank Luntz moderated the two-hour event, which often flowed conversationally.

Notably absent was Romney, a leader in most national and Iowa polls this year but who has not campaigned vigorously for the social conservative vote.

Also missing was former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is focusing his early-state campaign on New Hampshire, where his moderate positions on gay rights are not as glaring a liability.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has campaigned aggressively for the support of evangelical conservatives in Iowa, tearfully confessed to have resisted loving his severely disabled daughter.

“I had decided that the best thing I could do was to treat her differently and not love her the way I did because it wouldn’t hurt as much if I’d lost her,” Santorum told an audience of 3,200 in a large, evangelical Des Moines church.

And Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann described the pain and uncertainty of her parents’ divorce when she was an adolescent girl, but held back somewhat when asked what prompted her Christian awakening when she was 16.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/xAB0h_03BJw/Republicans-seek-Iowa-social-conservatives-nod

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Deficit deal failure would pose crummy choice

Posted on November 22, 2011 by

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, co-chair of the supercommittee, tells reporters outside his office that the deficit reduction panel would work over the weekend as the deadline for its work nears, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, co-chair of the supercommittee, tells reporters outside his office that the deficit reduction panel would work over the weekend as the deadline for its work nears, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Co-Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, speaks to reporters following a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the Senate GOP whip, arrives for a meeting with bi-partisan members of the supercommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., member of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, speaks to reporters following a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., arrives for a meeting with bi-partisan members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? If the deficit-cutting supercommittee fails, Congress will face a crummy choice. Lawmakers can allow payroll tax cuts and jobless aid for millions to expire or they extend them and increase the nation’s $15 trillion debt by at least $160 billion.

President Barack Obama and Democrats on the deficit panel want to use the committee’s product to carry their jobs agenda. That includes cutting in half the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax and extending jobless benefits for people who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Also caught up in what promises to be a chaotic legislative dash for the exits next month is the need to pass legislation to prevent an almost 30 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. Several popular business tax breaks and relief from the alternative minimum tax also expire at year’s end.

A debt plan from the supercommittee, it was hoped, would have served as a sturdy, filibuster-proof vehicle to tow all of these expiring provisions into law. But if the panel fails, as appears likely with Wednesday’s deadline nearing, a dysfunctional Congress will have to sort it all out.

There’s no guarantee it all can get done, especially given impact on those measures on the spiraling debt.

Instead of cutting the deficit with a tough, bipartisan budget deal, Congress could pivot to spending enormous sums on expiring big-ticket policies.

If lawmakers rebel against the cost, as is possible, they would bear responsibility for allowing policies such as the payroll tax cut, enacted a year ago to help prop up the economy, to lapse.

Last year’s extensions of jobless benefits and first-ever cut in the payroll tax were accomplished with borrowed money.

The 2 percent payroll tax cut expiring in December gave 121 million families a tax cut averaging $934 last year at a total cost of about $120 billion, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Obama wants to cut the payroll tax by another percentage point for workers at a total cost of $179 billion and reduce the employer share of the tax in half as well for most companies, which carries a $69 billion price tag.

“The notion of imposing a new payroll tax on people after Jan. 1 in the midst of this recession on working families is totally counterproductive,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Letting extended jobless assistance expire would mean that more than 6 million people would lose benefits averaging $296 a month next year, with 1.8 million cut off within a month.

Economist say those jobless benefits ? up to 99 weeks of them in high unemployment states ? are among the most effective way to stimulate the economy because unemployed people generally spend the money right away.

“We will have to address those issues,” Durbin said.

Extending benefits to the long-term unemployed would cost almost $50 billion under Obama’s plan. Preventing the Medicare payment cuts to doctors for an additional 18 months to two years would in all likelihood cost $26 billion to $32 billion more.

Lawmakers also had hoped to renew some tax breaks for business and prevent the alternative minimum tax from sticking more than 30 million taxpayers with higher tax bills. Those items could be addressed retroactively next year, but only increase the uncertainty among already nervous consumers and investors.

This time, Obama wants them to be paid for. But a move by Democrats to try to finance jobs measures with hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has gotten a cold shoulder from top Republicans.

“I’ve made it pretty clear that those savings that are coming to us as a result of the wind-down of the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan should be banked, should not be used to offset other spending,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. He did not address whether war savings could be used to extend expiring tax cuts.

Those savings are the natural result of national security strategies unrelated to the federal budget. Deficit hawks say tapping into them is simply an accounting gimmick.

“It’s just the worst of all worlds if that were to happen,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

But without the war money at their disposal, lawmakers simply can’t pay for the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits. Liberals such as Durbin are fine with employing deficit financing, especially if the alternative is playing Scrooge just before the holidays.

“Many people will hate to go home for Christmas saying to the American people, ‘Merry Christmas, your payroll taxes go up 2 percent Jan. 1 and unemployment benefits are cut off.’”

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-19-Debt%20Supercommittee-What%20Next/id-452ec1a45e5d4409a3f4d497ca42db52

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LanceUlanoff: Chinese hackers took control of NASA satellite for 11 minutes http://t.co/KElJsi6a

Posted on November 21, 2011 by
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    Science panel: Get ready for extreme weather (AP)

    Posted on November 21, 2011 by

    WASHINGTON ? Think of the Texas drought, floods in Thailand and Russia’s devastating heat waves as coming attractions in a warming world. That’s the warning from top international climate scientists and disaster experts after meeting in Africa.

    The panel said the world needs to get ready for more dangerous and “unprecedented extreme weather” caused by global warming. These experts fear that without preparedness, crazy weather extremes may overwhelm some locations, making some places unlivable.

    The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report on global warming and extreme weather Friday after meeting in Kampala, Uganda. This is the first time the group of scientists has focused on the dangers of extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, droughts and storms. Those are more dangerous than gradual increases in the world’s average temperature.

    For example, the report predicts that heat waves that are now once-in-a-generation events will become hotter and happen once every five years by mid-century and every other year by the end of the century. And in some places, such as most of Latin America, Africa and a good chunk of Asia, they will likely become yearly bakings.

    And the very heavy rainstorms that usually happen once every 20 years will happen far more frequently, the report said. In most areas of the U.S. and Canada, they are likely to occur three times as often by the turn of the century, if fossil fuel use continues at current levels. In Southeast Asia, where flooding has been dramatic, it is likely to happen about four times as often as now, the report predicts.

    One scientist points to this year’s drought and string of 100 degree days in Texas and Oklahoma, which set an all-time record for hottest month for any U.S. state this summer.

    “I think of it as a wake-up call,” said one of the study’s authors, David Easterling, head of global climate applications for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The likelihood of that occurring in the future is going to be much greater.”

    The report said world leaders have to prepare better for weather extremes.

    “We need to be worried,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Maarten van Aalst, director of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre in the Netherlands. “And our response needs to anticipate disasters and reduce risk before they happen rather than wait until after they happen and clean up afterward. … Risk has already increased dramatically.”

    Another study lead writer, Chris Field of Stanford University, said scientists aren’t quite sure which weather disaster will be the biggest threat because wild weather interacts with economics and where people live. Society’s vulnerability to natural disasters, aside from climate, has also increased, he said.

    Field told The Associated Press in an interview that “it’s clear that losses from disasters are increasing. And in terms of deaths, “more than 95 percent of fatalities from the 1970s to the present have been in developing countries,” he said.

    Losses are already high, running at as much as $200 billion a year, said Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, a study author.

    Science has progressed so much in the last several years that scientists can now attribute the increase in many of these types of extreme weather events to global warming with increased confidence, said study author Thomas Stocker at the University of Bern.

    Scientists were able to weigh their confidence of predictions of future climate disasters and heat waves were the most obvious. The report said it is “virtually certain” that heat waves are getting worse, longer and hotter, while cold spells are easing.

    The report said there is at least a 2-in-3 chance that heavy downpours will increase, both in the tropics and northern regions, and from tropical cyclones.

    The 29-page summary of the full report ? which will be completed in the coming months ? says that extremes could get so bad at some point that some regions may need to be abandoned.

    Such locations are likely to be in poorer countries, van Aalst said in a telephone interview, but the middle class may be affected in those regions, which aren’t specifically identified in the report. And even in some developed northern regions of the world, such as Canada, Russia and Greenland, cities might need to move because of weather extremes and sea level rise from man-made warming, he said.

    In places like van Aalst’s native Netherlands, citizens will have to learn how to handle new weather problems, in this case heat waves.

    And it’s not just the headline grabbing disasters like a Hurricane Katrina or the massive 2010 Russian heat wave that studies show were unlikely to happen without global warming. At the Red Cross/Red Crescent they are seeing “a particular pattern of rising risks” from smaller events, van Aalst said.

    Of all the weather extremes that kill and cause massive damage, he said, the worst is flooding.

    There’s an ongoing debate in the climate science community about whether it is possible and fair to attribute individual climate disasters to manmade global warming. Usually meteorologists say it’s impossible to link climate change to a specific storm or drought, but that such extremes are more likely in a future dominated by global warming.

    Jerry North, a scientist at Texas A&M University who wasn’t part of the study, said he thought the panel was being properly cautious in its projections and findings, especially since by definition climate extremes are uncommon events. MIT professor Kerry Emanuel thought the panel was being too conservative when it comes to tropical cyclones.

    The panel was formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization. In the past, it has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report. But this time, the scientists are putting them together.

    The next major IPCC report isn’t expected until the group meets in Stockholm in 2013.

    ___

    Online:

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/

    NOAA on weather extremes: http://1.usa.gov/sYQQRv

    Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_sc/us_sci_climate_extremes

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