Senate rejects slimmed-down Obama jobs bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Despite a campaign-style push this week by President Barack Obama, the Senate on Thursday scuttled pared-back jobs legislation aimed at helping state and local governments avoid layoffs of teachers and firefighters.

Obama's three-day bus tour through North Carolina and Virginia ? states crucial to his re-election race next year ? didn't change any minds among Senate Republicans, who killed Obama's latest jobs measure with delaying tactics just as they killed his broader $447 billion jobs plan last week.

Thursday's $35 billion measure combined $30 billion for state and local governments to hire teachers and other school workers with $5 billion to help pay the salaries of police officers, firefighters and other first responders. The White House says the measure would "support" almost 400,000 education jobs for one year. Republicans call that a temporary "sugar high" for the economy.

Despite the negative vote, Obama and his Democratic allies are acting like they've found a winning issue in repeatedly pressing popular ideas such as infrastructure spending and boosting hiring of police officers and firefighters. The sluggish economy and lower tax revenues have caused many teachers' jobs to be cut over the past several years.

After the failure of the jobs measure last week, Democrats vowed to try to resurrect it on a piece by piece basis, even though the strategy doesn't seem to have any better chance of success. But Democrats are trying to win a political advantage through repeated votes.

They're also pressing for passage of a poll-tested financing mechanism ? a surcharge on income exceeding $1 million.

An AP-GfK poll taken Oct. 13-17 found 62 percent of respondents favoring the surcharge as a way to pay for jobs initiatives. Just 26 percent opposed the idea.

Republicans say the president is more interested in picking political fights with them than seeking compromise. Still, they don't seem to be afraid of a politically weakened Obama. Not a single Republican backed the president in last week's vote

At the same time, several Democrats opposed the underlying measure, even though they voted in favor of at least allowing debate to begin.

And Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, said the stimulus-style jobs bill spends money the country doesn't have and takes revenues away from a special "supercommittee" charged with cutting the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade.

According to the AP-GfK poll, Obama's party has lost the faith of the public on handling the economy. In the new poll, only 38 percent said they trust Democrats to do a better job than Republicans in handling the economy, the first time Democrats have fallen below 40 percent in the poll. Some 43 percent trust the Republicans more.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, speaking the day after Obama returned from bus tour, said the president's plan has the advantage of providing an immediate kick to the economy.

Republicans want to roll back government regulations that they say choke job growth. They backed free-trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that were ratified this month. They also back extending tax breaks for businesses that buy new equipment and favor offering a $4,800 tax credit to companies that hire veterans.

Democrats and the White House, meanwhile, are confident that other elements of Obama's larger jobs bill, including extending cuts in federal Social Security payroll taxes, will pass. A 2 percentage point payroll tax cut enacted last year expires at the end of the year. Obama has proposed cutting it by an additional percentage point and extending the cut to the first $5 million of a company's payroll.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-20-Senate-Jobs/id-ea945bd0fd144143aae8e3849c082ecf

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The Real Science behind Scientology

Image: Illustration by Richard Mia

In the 1990s I had the opportunity to dine with the late musician Isaac Hayes, whose career fortunes had just made a stunning turnabout upward, which he attributed to Scientology. It was a glowing testimonial by a sincere follower of the Church, but is it evidence that Scientology works? Two recently published books argue that there is no science in Scientology, only quasireligious doctrines wrapped in New Age flapdoodle masquerading as science. The Church of Scientology, by Hugh B. Urban, professor of religious studies at Ohio State University, is the most scholarly treatment of the organization to date, and investigative journalist Janet Reitman?s Inside Scientology is an electrifying read that includes eye-popping and well-documented tales of billion-year con?tracts, aggressive recruitment programs and abuse of staffers.

The problem with testimonials is that they do not constitute evidence in science. As social psychologist Carol Tavris told me, ?Every therapy produces enthusiastic testimonials because of the justification-of-effort effect. Anyone who invests time and money and effort in a therapy will say it helped. Scientology might have helped Isaac Hayes, just as psychoanalysis and bungee jumping might have helped others, but that doesn?t mean the intervention was the reason. To know if there is anything special about Scientology, you need to do controlled studies?randomly assigning people to Scientology or a control group (or a different therapy) for the same problem.? To my knowledge, no such study has been conducted. The real science behind Scientology seems to be an understanding of the very human need, as social animals, to be part of a supportive group?and the willingness of people to pay handsomely for it.

If Scientology is not a science, is it even a religion? Well, it does have its own creation myth. Around 75 million years ago Xenu, the ruler of a Galactic Confederation of 76 planets, transported billions of his charges in spaceships similar to DC-8 jets to a planet called Teegeeack (Earth). There they were placed near volcanoes and killed by exploding hydrogen bombs, after which their ?thetans? (souls) remained to inhabit the bodies of future earthlings, causing humans today great spiritual harm and unhappiness that can be remedied through special techniques involving an Electropsychometer (E-meter) in a process called auditing.

Thanks to the Internet, this story?previously revealed only to those who paid many thousands of dollars in courses to reach Operating Thetan Level III (OT III) of Scientology?is now so widely known that it was even featured in a 2005 episode of the animated TV series South Park. In fact, according to numerous Web postings by ex-Scientologists, documents from court cases involving followers who reached OT III and abundant books and articles by ex-members who heard the story firsthand and corroborate the details, this is Scientology?s Genesis. So did its founder, writer L. Ron Hubbard, just make it all up?as legend has it?to create a religion that was more lucrative than producing science fiction?

Instead of printing the legend as fact, I recently interviewed the acclaimed science-fiction author Harlan Ellison, who told me he was at the birth of Scientology. At a meeting in New York City of a sci-fi writers? group called the Hydra Club, Hubbard was complaining to L. Sprague de Camp and the others about writing for a penny a word. ?Lester del Rey then said half-jokingly, ?What you really ought to do is create a religion because it will be tax-free,? and at that point everyone in the room started chiming in with ideas for this new religion. So the idea was a Gestalt that Ron caught on to and assimilated the details. He then wrote it up as ?Dianetics: A New Science of the Mind? and sold it to John W. Campbell, Jr., who published it in Astounding Science Fiction in 1950.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=0cd68c2f384b7d5f63dcc9f405e3a5bb

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How Muammar Qaddafi met his end

Shaky video shows that Muammar Qaddafi was taken alive, but injured, and there are credible reports that one of his sons died with him.

Reuters has the best report from the ground I've seen on Muammar Qaddafi's capture this morning. The reporters on the scene say it seems likely that NATO forces hit a convoy of about 15 vehicles fleeing Sirte to the west, that Qaddafi and the survivors took refuge in a drainpipe off the highway, and that rebel fighters induced them to surrender after a brief firefight.

Skip to next paragraph

Sirte, the last regime holdout and Qaddafi's hometown, was finally falling to the uprising at the time Qaddafi fled.

Rebel fighters on the scene told Reuters that Qaddafi was already wounded -- one said he'd been shot in the back and the leg -- at the time they took him into custody. They took him back towards Sirte, where the footage was apparently shot. It shows Qaddafi -- clearly alive, but shaken and wounded -- surrounded by triumphant rebels. The drainpipe detail, given that Qaddafi frequently referred to Libya's rebels as "rats" and other vermin, has been widely noted by many in Libya.

What happened next is uncertain. There are reports out of Libya that a rebel shot and killed him. It's also possible that he succumbed to his injuries, and that's the position of the National Transitional Council. An airstrike, for instance, can do a lot of internal damage that isn't immediately visible. But it seems fairly certain that he was dead within the hour, and his body was taken to Misrata, a city to the west of Sirte that withstood the bloodiest pro-Qaddafi siege of the war.

It's also becoming clear that a large number of his loyalists were either killed or captured in and around Sirte today. Abu Bakr Younes Jaber, Qaddafi's army chief, was killed around the time Qaddafi was captured. His son Mutassim was found dead in Sirte, and pictures of his body circulated on the Internet. Moussa Ibrahim, the regime spokesman whose declarations of imminent victory as Tripoli fell to the rebels this summer were an Internet sensation, was said to have been taken alive. And Al Jazeera reporter that the feared Abdullah Sennusi, probably Qaddafi's most trusted aide after his immediate family, was also reported dead. Mr. Sennusi has been accused by survivors of ordering the massacre of 1,200 prisoners at Abu Salim prison in 1996.

Today is one of major triumph for Libya's revolution, and in a smaller way for the Obama administration and NATO allies that decided to use air-power in support of the rebellion more than months ago now. Below is how Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got the news of Qaddafi's capture.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/DLk7YBGRJMI/How-Muammar-Qaddafi-met-his-end

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Lindsay Lohan Shows Up Late to Morgue; Officials Tell Train Wreck to Get Lost

Un. Believable. Lindsay Lohan was turned away from the L.A. County Morgue this morning after showing up late for community service. Way to go, girl!

The star, who was briefly cuffed and jailed yesterday, was supposed to be there at 8 a.m. At 7:40, her assistant called to say she'd be there in 10 minutes. 

When did she roll up in her $80,000 Porsche? Not until 8:40.

Linds in court for the 29,391st time yesterday.

Her publicist claims she was late "due to a combination of not knowing the entrance to go through and confusion caused by media waiting for her arrival."

Always excuses with LiLo, and Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter thinks this story has more cracks than Lindsay's teeth, since she's been there before.

Winter just told reporters there's NO WAY Lindsay was confused about anything, given that his office provided step-by-step directions on where to go.

More likely, she was strung out on meth ... KIDDING. Well, probably. You never know.

Lindsay was met at the door by Coroner's officials who turned her away. Her probation office was notified; Judge Stephanie Sautner will hear about it.

What happened today is not a violation, as the judge only required Lohan put in 16 hours at the morgue by November 2, when she's due back in court.

But for a colossal f*%k-up who can't get it together, and whose penchant for thumbing her nose at authority is well-known ... not a good PR move.

Lohan was on probation for her necklace heist until Judge Sautner revoked it yesterday. Lindsay posted $100,000 bail, freeing her until November 2.

She may be sentenced to jail then. Should she be?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/10/lindsay-lohan-shows-up-late-to-morgue-officials-tell-train-wreck/

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Rick Perry flat tax plan: Don't expect a 9-9-9 retread

Rick Perry says his flat tax plan is a major part of his broad prescription to revive the economy and create jobs ? a move he hopes will also revive his campaign.

Fresh off Tuesday night?s rollicking GOP presidential debate, Rick Perry says he?ll soon be unveiling a flat tax proposal.

Skip to next paragraph

"It starts with ? scrapping the three million words of the current tax code, starting over with something simple: a flat tax," the Texas governor told GOP activists at the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas Wednesday.

Like businessman Herman Cain, whose 9-9-9 plan came under fire at Tuesday's debate, Mr. Perry wants to do away with the current tax system. Although Perry won?t reveal the details until a speech scheduled for next week in South Carolina, the similarities likely end there.

?Herman, I love you, brother, but let me tell you something: You don?t have to have a big analysis to figure this thing out. Go to New Hampshire, where they don?t have a sales tax, and you?re fixing to give them one,? Perry told Mr. Cain during the debate. ?They?re not interested in 9-9-9. What they?re interested in is flatter and fairer."

Perry added, "I?ll bump plans with you, brother ? and we?ll see who has the best idea about how you get this country working again.?

(The Twitterverse, by the way, burbled with questions Wednesday about why Perry twice referred to Cain, who is African American, as ?brother.? Had it anything to do with Perry?s recent problem over his family?s hunting camp once having a racist name?)

It?s expected that Perry?s flat tax plan will be a major part of his broad plan to revive the economy and create jobs. The New York Times reports that Steve Forbes, who ran for president in 1996 and 2000 on a pledge of implementing a single flat tax on income, has recently joined Perry?s campaign as an adviser.

Perry told the Republican gathering Wednesday that he ?will put forward a plan that balances the budget,? and he pledged to ?barnstorm all 50 states to generate support for a balanced-budget amendment that will require the necessary tough choices year after year.?

Among other traditionally conservative talking points, Perry promised ?a serious commitment to spending cuts,? said he would aggressively pursue a ?Made in America? energy policy that goes after ?untapped supplies of natural gas, oil and coal,? and vowed to ?put a halt to job-killing EPA rules that are grinding our economy to a halt.? He also promised to ban congressional earmarks.

In principle, a flat tax would replace today?s graduated tax rates that increase with income with a single rate for all income levels. Critics consider it regressive and harmful to those of lesser means.

According to a recent analysis by the Tax Policy Center, Cain?s 9-9-9 plan (a flat 9 percent income tax, a 9 percent sales tax, and a 9 percent tax on business income) would raise taxes on 84 percent of American households while cutting taxes for the ?millionaires and billionaires? President Obama says can afford to pay more.

Notable among the debate fireworks Tuesday night were the sharp exchanges between Perry and party establishment favorite Mitt Romney.

In his speech Wednesday, Perry did not mention Romney by name, but he alluded to a difference he wants to portray.

?I am not the candidate of the establishment,? he said. ?You won?t hear a lot of shape-shifting nuance from me.?

Perry also used his flat tax teaser to take a poke at Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who admitted during his 2009 confirmation hearings that he had been late in filing his income tax returns.

?I want to make the tax code so simple that even Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time,? Perry said.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/KBJptqVynsw/Rick-Perry-flat-tax-plan-Don-t-expect-a-9-9-9-retread

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The caveman in us votes for tall presidents

We like our presidents tall, it seems. And now researchers think they know why, saying leftover caveman instincts draw us toward strong and mighty (or tall) leaders who we view as able to protect us.

"Some traits and instincts that may have been acquired through evolution continue to manifest themselves in modern life, seemingly irrationally," study researcher Gregg R. Murray of Texas Tech University said in a statement, adding that our fear of snakes, for instance, likely evolved from a time when snakes were a common threat. [ Top 10 Phobias Explained ]

"We believe similar traits exist in politics," he said.

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Murray, along with Texas Tech graduate student J. David Schmitz, credited the "presidential height index" ? a popular observation that taller candidates have won 58 percent of U.S. presidential elections between 1789 and 2008 ? as piquing their interest in the role that height plays in leader selection.

"Culture and environment alone cannot explain how a preference for taller leaders is a near-universal trait we see in different cultures today, as well as in societies ranging from ancient Mayans, to pre-classical Greeks and even animals," Schmitz said.

For instance, past research based on skeletal measurements collected from pre-classical Greek and ancient Mayan excavations suggests that "political control" was associated with greater physical stature, the researchers write in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly. And studies on animals ranging from chimpanzees and gorillas to African elephants and even some birds suggest height can serve as a cue of an opponent's strength and power.

Tall presidents
The researchers theorized that evolutionary psychology, or the study of universal human behaviors related to psychological mechanisms that evolved based on ancient humans' interactions with their physical and social environments, influenced the development of this height preference for political leaders.

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To test their theory, the authors asked 467 U.S. and international students from both public and private schools in the United States to describe and draw a "typical citizen" and an "ideal national leader." They were then asked to draw the citizen and leader meeting each other. The findings showed that 64 percent of the participants drew the leader as taller than the citizen.

In a second study, the researchers asked participants to complete a questionnaire about their height and perceptions of their own leadership characteristics. For example, the participants rated how likely they would be to run for an elected position in an organization on a four-point scale. The results showed that the taller participants were more likely to think of themselves as capable leaders and were more likely to express an interest in pursuing a leadership position.

The findings suggest that humans' preference for tall leaders is likely an evolved psychological trait that is independent of any cultural conditioning, the researchers said. They also stated that individuals with a greater physical stature are more likely to view themselves as qualified to be a leader, and as a result of this increased sense of efficacy, are more likely to pursue a leadership position.

"So while at 6 feet 1 inch, Barack Obama towered over the 5-foot-8-inch John McCain in 2008, perhaps he?ll meet his physical equal in one of the 'big man' governors in the 6-foot-1-inch Rick Perry or the 6-foot-2-inch Mitt Romney in November 2012," Murray said.

Caveman instincts?
Murray said he expects some scientists will be skeptical about the interpretation of the results, for one, because proving a theory in the social sciences is tricky. "We don?t 'prove' things in the social sciences, we present evidence in support of our arguments then look for or do other research to see if we get results that confirm or disconfirm our findings," he told LiveScience.

In addition, some reject evolutionary psychology as an explanation for modern phenomena. "I think mostly because they have not had full exposure to the arguments and evidence [of evolutionary psychology]," Murray said.

Murray's team has ruled out other explanations for our preference of tall leaders, he said, including a cultural reason, such as the possibility that our society is biased against shorter people. The researchers accounted for this idea, finding the phenomenon happens in nonhuman animals, across cultures and in pre-modern human cultures.

Past research has also suggested humans have retained our caveman instincts. A study published in 2007 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world's safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle.

You can follow LiveScience writer Remy Melina on Twitter @remymelina. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescienceand onFacebook.

? 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44949896/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Iowa sets caucuses for Jan. 3 (Politico)

The Iowa caucuses will be Jan. 3, state Republican Chairman Matt Strawn announced after a Monday evening conference call of the Iowa GOP?s Central Committee that set the date.

The announcement leaves New Hampshire as the last state to announce the date of its presidential nominating contest. Iowa went forward with setting its date without waiting for New Hampshire, its traditional partner at the beginning of the presidential calendar to set its own.

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The result could upend the primary calendar by pushing New Hampshire?s date into December ? potentially reverberating into the calculus of the nomination itself. Iowa is usually the first vote of the season, followed by New Hampshire, but now New Hampshire may go first.

?On behalf of over 600,000 Iowa Republicans, I?m excited to announce the first step Iowans will have to replace Barack Obama and his failed presidency will be next January 3 at our First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses,? Strawn said in an Iowa GOP press release. ?A January 3 date provides certainty to the voters, to our presidential candidates, and to the thousands of statewide volunteers who make the Caucus process a reflection of the very best of our representative democracy.?

Much weighs on the calendar and the order in which the early states choose their candidates. Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have, largely, bet their campaigns on performing well in Iowa?s caucuses and using that momentum to catapult them through the other early states.

Likewise, to show solidarity with the state where he?s bet his entire candidacy, Jon Huntsman is boycotting Tuesday night?s Las Vegas debate. Bachmann, Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain said they would boycott the Nevada caucus if the matter is not resolved by then. Perry, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul said they would continue to campaign in Nevada.

But if Gardner jumps New Hampshire?s primary ahead of Iowa, he could throw that early momentum advantage to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is heavily favored and far ahead in New Hampshire polls.

Iowa?s date had originally been set for Feb. 6. However, following a rush to earlier in the calendar set off by Arizona and Florida selecting earlier dates ? South Carolina and Nevada moved their contests up from February to the second and third Saturdays in January ? Iowa Republicans moved their date earlier to keep the state?s traditional first spot.

Iowa GOP Central Committeeman Drew Ivers said Chairman Matt Strawn told the committee that he?s in regular communication with Gardner and that the two states are working in concert.

?They don?t have any problem with us going on Jan. 3,? Ivers said. ?Now that we set our date, it?s between New Hampshire and Nevada how they want to negotiate.?

Strawn called on Nevada Republicans, who are engaged in a game of primary calendar chicken with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, to move their caucus back from the scheduled Jan. 14 date, which Gardner has said may require New Hampshire to hold its primary in December.

?I will do everything in my power on the RNC to hold Florida accountable for creating this mess, but the culpability for creating a compressed January calendar does not end there,? Strawn said. ?The actions of early state newcomer Nevada have also exacerbated this problem and unnecessarily crowded the January calendar. Time remains for Nevada to respect the process, honor tradition and rectify the problem in a way that will restore order to the nomination calendar.?

Nevada Republicans? choice of Jan. 14 led to Gardner warning last week that he may schedule the New Hampshire primary in December to abide by state law that requires the primary be held at least seven days before the next ?similar election.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1011_66214_html/43293065/SIG=11mebosjr/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66214.html

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