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The Chamber of Commerce’s Health Reform Heretics
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Tue Jan. 25, 2011 3:00 AM PST
In October 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce had a full-scale revolt on its hands. Angry about the lobbying behemoth’s full-bore opposition to Democratic climate-change legislation, Apple, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, and a handful of other blue-chip corporations quit the Chamber. A few months later, about a dozen local Chambers of Commerce publicly broke away from the group, arguing that the national organization had swung too far to the right and no longer represented its members’ views.
Now, some of the same questions are beginning to surface over the Chamber’s hard-line stance on health care. Since the new Congress has begun, the group has come out swinging against “Obamacare,” boosting conservative claims that reform is killing businesses and the economy. “It’s time to go back to the drawing board,” said Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s chief executive officer, at his annual address last week. “The Chamber was a leader in the fight against this particular bill—and thus we support legislation in the House to repeal it.”
Could another civil war erupt within the Chamber over health care reform? Given that full repeal isn’t politically feasible any time soon, a repeat of 2009′s defections seems unlikely, and the Chamber itself has begun adopting a more targeted approach to submarining reform. But when it comes to the Chamber’s constituency outside the beltway, some local branches say they don’t agree with the national Chamber’s stance on repeal.
In Draper, Utah—one of the state’s fastest-growing suburbs—the business community has been enthusiastic about some of the early benefits of the legislation, William Rappleye, president of the Draper Chamber of Commerce, tells Mother Jones. He points in particular to the tax credits for employee health insurance that some small businesses will be eligible for, starting with the 2010 tax cycle. “They’re happy about the fact that there are credits there to offset costs involved for them,” he says. “Very small business hasn’t been able to afford health care for its employees.”
Though “the jury is still out” for the Draper business community about the overall legislation, he says most of his members “look forward to some reform.” Rappleye adds that he personally feels adamant that reform shouldn’t be overturned. “Hopefully they don’t throw the whole thing out—and this is coming from a Republican…I don’t believe we’re in a place in this country where we’re just going to throw people in the street and let them die. We have to have some sort of safety net.”
On the other side of the country, Carl Hum, the president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce in New York, voices similar sentiments. While the group’s individual members are still uncertain about the ultimate impact of the legislation on their businesses, they agree with many of the underlying principles of the Democratic legislation, Hum says: “A lot of the small business community supports the idea that everybody should have health insurance. This is a basic need for everybody.”
Just the same, Hum still shares some of the conservative criticisms of reform, arguing that some of the insurance regulations that have gone into effect immediately have forced insurance companies to raise their premiums. (Reform supporters deny that there’s a direct link between the two.) But Hum stresses that such concerns are likely to fade over time. “That’s a bit of a hiccup, a bump—whatever you want to call it—in affordability. In the long run, I think the business community will be supportive of the reform act.” Like many other small-business leaders, Hum held out hope that the state-based insurance exchanges, which will begin in 2014, would help small businesses become better equipped to access and afford health insurance for their employees.
Even branches of the Chamber of Commerce that are more openly dissatisfied with Democratic reform don’t run as far to the right as the national organization. Salt Lake City’s branch, for instance, has slammed the legislation for failing to control costs—one of the major Republican criticisms of the legislation. Yet at the same time, the group has broken from the GOP party line by emphasizing some of the positive aspects of reform, as well as its desire to improve the legislation, rather than shredding it. When asked whether the Salt Lake Chamber opposed federal reform as a whole, spokesman Marty Carpenter declined to answer the question directly: He referred Mother Jones to principles outlined on the group’s website to get a sense of “where we felt they hit and missed it” and stressed that the Salt Lake Chamber supported “continuing to work to better that legislation.”
Such local business leaders point out that that the national Chamber doesn’t speak for them on every issue. The Chamber’s support for repeal “doesn’t mean we’re always in lockstep with them on everything—their position doesn’t control our vote,” says Carpenter, noting that the Salt Lake Chamber hasn’t taken a formal position on repeal. Similarly, Brooklyn’s Hum says: “In any family, we’re going to have our disagreements.”
The Chamber, meanwhile, denies that there is any discord among its members on health care. “There is no disagreement,” says Blair Latoff, the US Chamber’s director of communications. “Everyone supports health reform." The Chamber and its members, he adds, just don’t support the Democrats’ “flawed and irresponsible” approach to it.
But there’s no denying the divergence of views within the Chamber’s ranks on health care. It’s just the latest reminder of the gulf between the Chamber’s unapologetically conservative views and those of the small businesses that it purports to represent. Though the Chamber portrays itself as the country’s leading voice on Main Street, one glance at the national organization’s donor base and leadership show an organization dominated by major corporations.
As Mother Jones has reported, the Chamber “claims that 96 percent of its members are small businesses, yet its self-selected board includes just 6 representatives from small businesses, 1 from a local chamber, and 111 from large corporations.” What’s more, the national organization has been predominantly bankrolled by just a small fraction of its members—most of them megacorporations.
As a result, the diversity of views within the business community has often been stifled, with deep-pocketed groups like the US Chamber dominating the national debate. In response, alternative small business associations and lobbying organizations have emerged in an effort to give voice to dissenting perspectives—and they’ve put health care reform front and center. The Seattle-based Main Street Alliance launched in 2008 to change the view that “small businesses are uniformly conservative.” The organization is now working in 13 states to educate its constituency about the legislation. Similarly, the Small Business Majority—a pro-business San Francisco organization headed up by a Democratic donor—has tried to push the pro-reform message by partnering up with liberal advocates.
Moreover, as more of the major pieces of reform begin to take hold, small businesses are likely to become increasingly concerned about how reform will affect them—and how they can best use the existing legislation to their benefit rather than overturning it. As such, they may become more vocal about breaking away from the national Chamber’s hard-line opposition to the federal health care reform—and encourage a more pragmatic approach to tweaking the law within the business community.
Even within the Draper branch itself, views on health reform have run the gamut from criticism to full-fledged support. Each member of the local Chamber has “to know what their stake is—each one of them is going to have their own opinion,” says Rappleye. In fact, he adds, Draper’s Chamber of Commerce “used to have a slogan—’The United Voice of Business.’ It was one of the first we got rid of, because it’s not really accurate. You can’t really say everybody’s for [health reform] or against it.”
MoJo Articles | Mother Jones
£100k council boss Byron Davies accused of raping drunken colleague
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By James Tozer
Last updated at 11:44 PM on 24th January 2011
Accused: Byron Davies is standing trial in north Wales charged with the rape of a younger colleague
A council chief bought a 26-year-old colleague drinks then took her back to his apartment and raped her, a court was told yesterday.
Byron Davies, 52, met the married woman at a hotel bar where she was having a drink after a meal with a friend.
She told police her next clear memory after that was waking up naked in her boss's bed early the next morning.
Davies, who earns £100,000 a year as chief executive of Conwy council in North Wales, is said to have asked the woman whether she wanted 'a quick one' before they went to work. She refused and fled, a court heard.
The jury at Mold Crown Court was told he couldn't have failed to notice she was too drunk to give genuine consent to sex.
But Davies claims she willingly went back to his flat, agreed to have sex and let him take off her clothes.
However the court heard the council boss claims she willingly went back to his flat after asking whether he was staying at the hotel, kissing then agreeing to sex and letting him take her clothes off.
Opening the case, prosecuting barrister John Philpotts said tJohn Philpotts, prosecuting, said that rape took many forms, from the hooded predator who broke into a woman's home to a man who raped his wife after repeated consensual sex over the years.
'This is a case which falls somewhere between those two extreme examples,' he said.
The alleged victim told police she had bumped into her boss at the Castle Hotel in Conwy after an evening out with a male friend with the knowledge of her husband.
The friends had two or three bottles of lager each at a pub after work before having a curry and two bottles of wine between them.
While waiting at the hotel bar for her friend to be picked up by his fiancee, she ordered half a pint of 6 per cent strength Belgian beer, the court was told.
But when she was left alone, she spotted Davies, who was drinking by himself, and approached him, asking if he was the boss of the council.
They started chatting, and he bought her at least one more lager, at which point she said she had begun to feel she had reached her limit.
‘He didn’t come across as sleazy or anything, he was just chilled and very relaxed,’ she said in a video interview played to the jury.
She said she recalled very little about later being in her boss's flat and must have passed out.
Mr Philpotts told the jury the woman 'may have behaved unwisely that night, she may have drunk more than was good for her'.
But he concluded: 'We suggest that he must have been aware that she was incapable because of her state of intoxication to consent genuinely to have sex.'
Evening meal: The alleged victim ate at the Raj Indian restaurant on the night of the incident
She said she remembered being in his car and then being in the kitchen of his apartment in Llandudno.
‘At one point I remember he was kissing me and I was pushing him off,’ she said. ‘He kept grabbing me and I told him: “I am a married woman, I am not interested, you have the wrong opinion of me”.
‘Why on earth would I want to kiss him? He’s late 40s, early 50s. I can remember him kissing me and like lots of saliva and I was telling him to get off. Maybe I came across as too friendly.’
She said at this point she thinks she must have passed out, and the next thing she remembered was Davies tapping on the shoulder at about six o’clock the next morning, at which she discovered she was practically naked, and asking if she wanted ‘a quick one’.
‘Although she was disorientated and struggling to work out where she was, she knew perfectly well what he meant,’ said Mr Philpotts.
‘She immediately got out of bed telling him that he had the wrong idea about her.’
After dressing and leaving, she tried contacting her husband before calling in sick at work.
She initially told her husband she had awoken fully clothed but that nothing had happened, but after revealing the truth he went to police. She was examined and found to have bruising to her thigh and knee, and Davies was arrested.
Chance encounter: The alleged victim bumped into the council boss at the Castle Hotel
The ‘happily married’ alleged victim told the police that she was just ‘a really, rally chatty, social person’ who would never have knowingly gone home with someone for sex.
She thought her drink may have been spiked, but Mr Philpotts said there was no evidence of that.
The court was told Davies admitted taking her back to his flat, making her a mug of tea then kissing her. He claimed he asked her twice if she wanted to have sex before they went to bed.
Mr Philpotts told the jury that the woman ‘may have behaved unwisely that night, she may have drunk more than was good for her’.
But he concluded: ‘We suggest that he must have been aware that she was incapable because of her state of intoxication to consent genuinely to have sex.’
Cross-examined by David Williams, the alleged victim admitted she had once cut her throat with a camping knife after an argument with her husband at a friend’s wedding.
He accused her of being ‘a wilful person, who lacks judgement, who is impulsive and capable of hurting people if you want to’.
She retorted that it was ‘nasty’ to bring it up, saying it had just been a short period of instability.
She admitted she could be flirtatious but denied that in CCTV pictures showing her leaving the restaurant with her arms around her male friend, his hand was on her bottom.
Davies, who gave his address as Yelverton in Devon and was suspended following the allegation, denies raping the woman on March 23 last year.
The case continues.
Home | Mail Online
College Chronicles: Eating Disorder Treatment And Mistreatment
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There's a reason students at the University of Chicago call it "the place where fun comes to die." Its students are competitive. Its teachers, unforgiving. In short, the school demands 110 percent from you. Which, I can only imagine, is hard to give when you're starving.
Natalie developed an eating disorder as soon as she left home for U of C. She skipped meals and purged multiple times a day. She danced 10 hours a week. She couldn't stop working or start eating. Her behavior became so extreme that she suspected she might have bipolar disorder. At which point she finally decided to go to the university's student resource center, thinking the staff there could help her overcome whatever psychological problem was keeping her from eating. But she said the counseling center's health professionals addressed only her body mass index, not her mind.
"My behavior was basically dismissed," said Natalie, who is now 22 and uses medication and therapy to treat the diagnosed bipolar disorder that she thinks made her anorexia so severe. Each visit to the center was the same. "Before discussing medication or asking me how I was doing, [my doctor] would march me upstairs to the bathroom, weigh me, and then march into her office, where she would whip out a body mass index chart to see if I had crossed the magical line or not."
Natalie is one of three Chicago alumnae I talked to about coping with eating disorders while attending the academically rigorous college. (Fellow alumnae I should say – I graduated two and a half years ago.) I asked to hear their stories after reading a recent study released by the American Academy of Pediatrics that found eating disorders in young people at levels higher than they've ever been. I wanted to know how these disorders play out on college campuses where young people develop unhealthy eating behaviors, and where others bring habits that started in high school.
It turns out the University of Chicago is not alone. According to a recent New York Times article, college campuses across the country are struggling to provide the mental health resources for behavioral problems that take a physical toll, like anorexia and binge drinking.
"The only treatment that we know of that is effective is the restoration of calories and weight," said Becky Steinhauer, a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago's health clinic. While medication can help with the psychological symptoms that accompany eating disorders, for the physical ones, Steinhauer says she uses the body mass index (BMI) to calculate whether a student is healthy or not.
But the former students I talked to who struggled with eating disorders said their doctors focused so much on their BMIs, they all but ignored the mental issues they had simultaneously.
"The school doesn't seem to care much if you're addicted to cocaine or methamphetamines," said U of C alumna Lauren, now 28, who struggled with drug addictions, as well as self-mutilation and an eating disorder. She said the health center's staff never addressed the drugs or cutting, even after she admitted she was having serious problems with them. To her, the eating disorder was a defense mechanism at a time when she felt otherwise mentally incapable to dealing with her life in college. "As long as I was in pain I felt invincible," she said.
But for health professionals, there's reason to view the eating disorder as the chief medical concern. According to Steinhauer, anorexia nervosa is the most deadly of all psychiatric diseases, with 20 percent mortality rates in adults due to complications of starvation and the high suicide rate associated with the disorder.
"It can constitute a medical emergency," said Steinhauer, who considers a BMI level of 19 – 25 to be healthy. "If someone comes to my attention because they have anorexia, and have lost a lot of weight, and are at the gym for several hours a day, they get railroaded to the hospital," she said.
And that removal from campus may be part of the treatment. A college atmosphere can put extra pressure on students with eating disorders, and Steinhauer said sometimes the university needs to take action to remove them from it. "These students get straight A's, but they're subsisting on 800 calories a day… what prisoners at Auschwitz subsisted on. Students here are doing high-powered intellectual work under conditions of starvation. The loss of gray matter in your brain – the stuff you think with – is not reversible. They're asked to go to an in-patient treatment center because they're going to die."
However, according to the three University of Chicago alumnae, the prospect of leaving school came up too fast, without any alternative options. The third alumna, a 25-year-old whom I'll call Sally, recovered from her eating disorder before she went to college, but was identified by the university as someone needing regular check-ups. In hindsight, she said removing students from the university atmosphere can often do more harm than good. "I know from personal experience and from others that it is empowering (and the only way to fully recover) to develop independence," she said.
Natalie and Lauren both took leaves of absence from the university, and resented the process. They wanted to feel like valued members of the student body.
"I was in the hospital for maybe two weeks, and then I was transferred to a New York state psychiatric institution…" said Lauren. Before leaving, she had a conversation with the dean of students, after which Lauren came away feeling that the school was more concerned about the liability of a student dying on campus, than her own well-being.
Another aspect of feeling pushed out of the student body, was the amount of money the girls paid for mandatory treatment. Sally said she was told she had to make an EKG appointment, but had to pay for it herself.
After Lauren spent six months alternately in cardiology wards and psych institutions, she returned to the University of Chicago to face lots of fees. "The school set the following condition: I would see a psychiatrist at the hospital once a week. Since students are only allowed a set number of appointments at the Student Counseling and Resource Service Center (SCRS) I had to pay out-of-pocket to see someone at the hospital. This was incredibly expensive, as I did not have health insurance that covered psychiatric care," she said.
Sabrina De Lay, a University of Chicago graduate, wrote her undergraduate thesis in 2008 on the university's mental health policy. Her main argument was that the university should lay out specifically what a student's rights are, and be held accountable to respecting those rights. A few bullet points from this policy talk about allowing students to continue their education as normally as possible, and refraining from discrimination against students with mental illnesses including punitive actions toward those in crisis.She included a model policy in her thesis that she suggested the University of Chicago adopt. The SCRS did post language from the policy on their website, but later took it down.
Youth Radio – Newsroom
Tech Bigs Buy Village’s Bacchus House Where Napster Once Partied
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So much for West Village townhouses lagging behind their uptown neighbors. The 24-foot-wide converted carriage house at 40 West 10th Street has finally sold after nearly five years on the market for the stupendous price of $ 20 million. “It’s like you’re outside a little palazzo in Tuscany,” Brown Harris Steven super-broker Paula Del Nunzio told The Observer back when the 8,500-square-foot home first came on the market.
The Tuscan feel fits not only in terms of the exquisite Beuax Arts architecture that dates, in part, to 1833 but also the building’s pedigree—it has been in the possession of Italian wine heir and financier Enrico Marone-Cinzano for almost exactly two decades. (He bought the place in
January 1991.) Now, according to city records, it belongs to the San Francisco-based Founders Fund.
The $ 20 million deal makes this the first trophy sale of the year, of which there were only two such townhouse sales last year—another sign of an improving real estate market, perhaps.
Ms. Del Nunzio dubbed this the Bacchus House, a nod to the god of wine both past and present who inspired the space. Reconfigured by sculptor Charles Kreck, who lived at 40 West 10th Street for more than 60 years, and further renovated by Mr. Marone-Cinzano, the main feature of the home is a 40-foot landscaped atrium, around which the main rooms are arranged. It is like the Marriot Marquis in miniature, with breakfast enjoyed overlooking bamboo trees that rise 30 feet into the space. There are six bedrooms and seven-and-a-half baths.
The sale was first reported by our old colleague Roland Li at Real Estate Weekly.
The Bacchus House first came on the market five years ago for $ 19.5 million before jumping $ 2 million in price a year later—and then being listed two days later with Sotheby’s for $ 18.75 million. The house has been unlisted for more than a year, but that still did not keep it from nearly setting a downtown townhouse record. That prize belongs to 2 North Moore Street, one of the biggest sales of 2010.
Yet the Bacchus moniker fits for another reason, as well. As Curbed points out, Napster co-founder and Founders Fund partner Sean Parker once rented the townhouse for a whopping $ 45,000-per-month, where he threw elaborate bacchanals. Will his fellow Founders, PayPal creators Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, be throwing brash bashes there once again, or is the gang all grown up and this about business?
Perhaps this will become the city’s grandest tech incubator yet.
mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo
All Stories | The New York Observer
A Tiger Daughter’s Sense Of Humor
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Exactly one year ago, my grandfather died. On the day of the funeral, we gathered at the cemetery. In the center of all of us, stood my grandmother. The matriarch. The tiger mother of six Chinese American baby boomers. The woman who sent her kids under the dining room table if they talked during dinner.
In a moment of silence she asked my dad, son number three, to say a prayer.
My dad – who doesn't always hear the phone ring – missed the cue.
The moment passed, and we collectively launched into the Lord's Prayer.
It was then that I heard my aunt whisper to my dad one of the only Chinese phrases I know, a phrase so rude, we knew we were never supposed to use it – "Are you deaf?"
In the middle of that moment, which was loaded with Chinese ceremony, tradition, respect, duty, and expectations of perfection – my dad chuckled.
This is Chinese humor. It's sometimes insulting, sometimes self-deprecating, and often subtle. This is what people missed about Amy Chua's book, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
Chua spoke at the Hillside Club in Berkeley yesterday, and as I listened, I came to think of the book as one big inside joke. Chua said repeatedly, "You either get it, or you don't." Turns out, she is just a drama queen, who is ready to laugh at how she told her children that if they dared leave the house, they would be eaten by ferocious man-eating fish.
In light of the scathing reviews, Chua emphasized that the book was a memoir and not a parenting how-to guide. She read aloud one of the harshest points of her story, where she calls her daughter a 'savage,' and people were laughing hysterically. This Berkeley audience got the joke. Chua said, "My daughters have all the best lines." For example, when she threatens to drag her daughter's dollhouse to Salvation Army, her daughter calls her bluff and says, "Well, why are you still here? Aren't you going to Salvation Army?"
Not that the whole evening was fun and games. You could tell the audience wanted Chua to explain the media explosion around her book. KPFA Morning Show Host Aimee Allison asked probing questions like:
If my kid is not successful, did I fail?
- No. There are so many definitions of success.
Is the narrator in the book really you?
- Yes, but 18 years ago. The narrator changes over the course of the book.
Were you played by the media?
- No, I take full responsibility for it, just like my parents taught me to.
Some people would say what you did to your kids was abuse, what do you think?
- People use 'abuse' too broadly. There are kids who are seriously hurt by their parents and I take that very seriously.
Chua admitted that she said horrible things in the past, but she was trying to impart values in the only way she knew how. During her own childhood, the violin symbolized perfection, elegance, and achievement. Instead of allowing her daughters to pursue achievement in another way, she forced them to play the violin.
After Chua's crisis in the book, when her daughter smashes a glass in St. Petersburg, she allows her younger daughter to quit the violin and take up tennis, but you could tell that the tennis racket does not have the same significance for Chua. "Lulu was a beautiful violin player… I knew she could never be as good a tennis player – I mean, you can't start when you're 13!" she said. But for Lulu, the violin had come to symbolize oppression instead of excellence, she explained.
I found it impossible to listen to Chua speak and not think about my own family. Do I resent the way my parents questioned my A minuses and told me to stay after school to earn back the extra points? When I look at my sister and my cousins, I see karate trophies, student body president awards, piano certificates, and Honor Roll plaques. The firestorm about the way Chua pushed her kids made me question whether we were abused as kids. Were our choices unfairly taken away? Are we victims of tiger mothers and fathers?
But on that point, I agree with Chua. Tomorrow, my whole family will gather on the anniversary of my grandfather's death, and we'll gather in love. None of us ever questioned whether our parents loved us. Though they may have pushed us and acted "tough," the message that we were loved was consistent. There will always be discrepancies over parenting best practices, but as long as your kids hear that message, then you're doing alright. Chua realized that her youngest daughter wasn't hearing that message, so she changed.
Youth Radio – Newsroom
UK & World News: Anglicans join new Catholic branch
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Jan 23 2011
Seven Anglican priests and up to 300 members of several parishes are to join a new part of the Roman Catholic Church, a diocese has said.
The faithful, from six congregations, are to be welcomed into the Ordinariate – a grouping set up by the Pope for disaffected Anglicans.
The switch to Rome, reported to be the largest of its nature, involves three parishes in Essex and three in east London.
Between 250 and 300 churchgoers are expected to complete the move with them, a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Brentwood, in Essex, said. The transition follows the historic ordination of three former Anglican bishops as Catholic priests earlier this month.
The group of priests, including one retired vicar, met the Bishop of Brentwood, the Right Reverend Thomas McMahon, on Friday, ahead of their ordination.
“We had a wonderful day of sharing together and preparing for the future,” Bishop McMahon said. “It is a marking moment for the life of our diocese.”
However, the Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, expressed disappointed that members were converting to Catholicism.
“Although I’m sorry these people are going, I do respect their decision,” he told BBC Essex. “But it is a small group of people. The Church of England remains the church for everyone.” It is unclear where the new congregations will worship.
The seven priests – from the parishes of Chelmsford, Hockley, Benfleet and Billericay, in Essex, Leytonstone, in London, and two from Walthamstow, also in London, will go through training before they are ordained as deacons in May and then as Catholic priests in June.
The Ordinariate was established for Anglicans who wished to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining aspects of their heritage. The Vatican-approved scheme offers an alternative to opponents of women bishops, gay clergy and same-sex blessings.
People.co.uk – Home
Good Guy Gone Bad? Ted ‘Golden-Voice’ Williams Leaves Rehab
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By: Nsenga Burton
Ted “Golden-Voice” Williams, who went from being homeless to gaining worldwide fame because of his tremendous voice, has checked himself out of rehab against medical advice. Less than two weeks after checking into Origins Recovery Center for drug and alcohol addiction, Williams, who checked himself into rehab after a controversial appearance on Dr. Phil, left the rehab center in South Texas yesterday, headed for the airport. His whereabouts are currently unknown. Williams’ girlfriend is still in rehab in Costa Mesa, CA. Hopefully Williams will return to rehab so that he can get the help that he obviously needs. Clearly, the fame and celebrity was too much too soon.
Read more at TMZ.
In other news: Charlie’s Chocolate Angel
THEROOT.COM
Fears of double-dip recession as UK economy shrinks 0.5%
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December’s wintry weather was blamed for the shock fall in GDP. Photograph: Ian Nicholson/PAThe UK economy shrank by a shock 0.5% in the last quarter of 2010 as Britain’s recovery from recession faltered.
Most of the unexpected contraction was caused by the wintry weather that gripped Britain last month, the Office for National Statistics said. Without it, GDP would probably have been flat – suggesting that the UK economy had already run out of steam before the snow hit.
Economists said the first estimate of GDP for the last quarter was much worse than expected, and meant that Britain could now suffer a double-dip recession. With inflation hitting 3.7% last month, there are also growing fears the UK is heading for an unpleasant dose of “stagflation”.
The eagerly awaited GDP figures put the government’s austerity programme under fresh scrutiny, with Labour again arguing that cuts are being made too deeply, and too rapidly.
“With families and businesses already facing both rising unemployment and rising inflation, the fact that the economy is now shrinking means the Conservative-led government’s claims to have saved the economy and secured the recovery will ring very hollow indeed,” said shadow chancellor Ed Balls.
“It is now becoming even clearer that when David Cameron and George Osborne complacently congratulated themselves in the autumn for securing economic recovery, this was in fact the result of decisions taken by the Labour government to get the economy moving again,” Balls added.
Osborne, though, refused to change tack despite the evidence that Britain’s economy shrank last quarter.
“There is no question of changing a fiscal plan that has established international credibility on the back of one very cold month,” he said.
“That would plunge Britain into a financial crisis. We will not be blown off course by bad weather,” Osborne added.
The data sent the pound falling by nearly one and a half cents against the dollar to $ 1.575, and pushed the FTSE 100 index down by 36 points.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said Britain’s economic recovery was still in its “early days”.
He said: “The government has been doing the difficult work of putting the building blocks in place.”
Yesterday, though, the outgoing head of the CBI claimed that the government had failed to create a credible growth strategy.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna claimed Cameron’s administration was “a government of bystanders”.
He said: “Even accounting for the snow, today’s ONS figures show the Conservative-led government has no policies for growth.”
The ONS reported that the services sector – the dominant part of the UK economy – shrank by 0.5% in the last quarter. Construction suffered a 3.3% decline, but industry grew by 0.9%.
Data released earlier this month had shown that services suffered a sharp drop in activity in December, when snow and ice prevented many people from reaching their offices or the high street. Output in the construction industry also slowed last month, which analysts blamed on public sector cutbacks and the weather.
Alasdair Reisner, of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, urged the government to do more to support the construction industry, or risk a further contraction in the economy.
“It is clear that a downturn in activity in the industry has an impact that is felt far beyond the site fence, acting as a brake on the country’s ambitions to return to growth,” said Reisner.
High street firms also suffered from the snow, with the retail sector suffering its worst December in 12 years.
City experts had expected GDP to grow by anything from 0.1% and 0.7% – with last month’s weather making predictions harder.
George Buckley of Deutsche Bank said today’s 0.5% decline was “quite shocking”, and questioned whether the snow could really be blamed for the drop in economic activity.
Hetal Mehta at Daiwa Capital Markets said it was “an absolute disaster for the economy”.
“It seems that the economy is incredibly vulnerable, and with the fiscal tightening yet to fully bite, we will have to brace ourselves for a bumpy ride,” Mehta said.
Charles Davis, managing economist at CEBR, was concerned that the UK economy experienced a “complete loss of momentum” at the end of last year.
“Few of us could have expected such a sharp contraction in output and the United Kingdom economy now faces the prospect of returning to recession,” Davis warned.
On a year-on-year basis, GDP during the quarter was 1.7% higher than in the last three months of 2009 – sharply slower than the 2.6% growth expected in the City.
Some economists predicted that the data could well be revised upwards in the coming weeks. Usually the ONS has little data from the final month of any quarter when it publishes its first estimate of GDP. This time, though, it put extra effort into trying to quantify the impact of the snow in December.
Andrew Goodwin, senior economic adviser to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club, said he was sceptical that the economy had shrunk as much as the ONS reported.
“These figures are quite staggering and scarcely believable. No doubt this will mostly be attributed to the snow, and that undoubtedly would have had a significant effect. However, the ONS have also said that GDP would have been flat had we not had that disruption and quite simply that does not square with what any of the survey indicators are telling us,” Goodwin said.
An early interest rise also looks less likely, according to Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight.
“Given that the contraction in GDP in the fourth quarter occurred even before the fiscal tightening had really kicked in, it reinforces already serious concern over the economy’s ability to grow significantly in the face of the spending cuts and tax hikes that will increasingly bite as 2011 progresses,” he said.
The Guardian World News
FBI: Woman admits 1987 child kidnap
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Ann Pettway admitted kidnapping a baby after her own attempts to have children failed, the FBI said
Ann Pettway confessed to taking the baby in August 1987 from Harlem Hospital during an interview on Sunday, after she surrendered to the FBI and Connecticut police, according to a criminal complaint prepared by FBI Agent Maria Johnson.
Pettway surrendered days after a widely publicised reunion between the child she raised – now 23-year-old Carlina White – and her biological mother. Pettway was ordered to be held without bail on kidnapping charges during a five-minute appearance at the federal court in Manhattan.
Pettway said she had had difficulty having her own children in the 1980s, was dealing with the stress of trying to be a mother and had suffered several miscarriages, when she went to the hospital and saw the baby, Ms Johnson said.
After taking the baby, Pettway took her outside the hospital and, when no-one stopped her, proceeded to a train and on to her home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she told friends and family members that the baby was her child, the agent said.
Prior to representing Pettway at a court hearing, lawyer Robert Baum said: “She feels badly. She’s very upset. She’s expressed concern about her family. But she understands the gravity of the charges.”
Brian Pettway, a 38-year-old cousin of Pettway who lives in Connecticut, said his cousin appeared pregnant in 1987 and disappeared, only to return with a baby the family assumed was hers. He said Pettway was a reliable, loving and trustworthy cousin.
“This is so uncharacteristic,” Brian Pettway said. “We’re all left with our mouths opened. It’s kind of like a double loss. We accepted her (Carlina White) as family. Unbeknownst to us, she was not our family.”
White was 19 days old when her parents took her to Harlem Hospital late on August 4, 1987 with a high fever. Joy White and Carl Tyson said a woman who looked like a nurse had comforted them. The couple left the hospital to rest, but their baby was missing when they went back on August 5. A police investigation failed to locate the baby.
Carlina White has been living under the name Nejdra Nance in Connecticut and in the Atlanta area. She said she had long suspected Pettway was not her biological mother because she could never provide her with a birth certificate and because she did not look like anyone else in Pettway’s family.
Daily Express :: News / Showbiz Feed
Emanuel Seeks Expedited Appeal After Judges Boot Him From Chicago Ballot
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JUDY WOODRUFF: And to a ruling in another courtroom today that upended the Chicago mayoral race.
Ray Suarez has that story.
RAY SUAREZ: With less than one month to go before the primary, an Illinois appellate court ruled in a 2-1 decision to remove former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel from the ballot in the Chicago mayoral race.
Emanuel’s eligibility to run was called into question because he lived in Washington while serving in the Obama administration. Today’s ruling was a setback for the front-runner, but he plans to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.
He spoke to reporters this afternoon.
RAHM EMANUEL (D), mayoral candidate, Chicago: When the president asks you to serve the country as his chief of staff, that counts as part of serving your country. And I have no doubt that we will in the end prevail at this effort. As my father always used to say, nothing is ever easy in life. So, nothing is ever easy. So, this is just one turn in the road.
RAY SUAREZ: For more on the fallout from today’s ruling, we are joined by Lynn Sweet. She is the Washington bureau chief for The Chicago Sun-Times and a columnist for Politics Daily.
And, Lynn, why was this case even back in court? A Cook County court said he could run. A Board of Elections decision said he could run. And yet there he is still defending himself.
LYNN SWEET, Washington bureau chief, The Chicago Sun-Times: Well, that’s because this case was always destined for the Illinois Supreme Court. No matter what happened in the lower courts, the skirmish was going to go all the way.
The attorney who is the leading force behind the challenge to Rahm Emanuel’s residency would have brought it to the Supreme Court today if the appellate court had ruled against him, Ray.
RAY SUAREZ: In his remarks today, Rahm Emanuel kept coming back to that idea that he was serving the country. Why is that so important in this case?
LYNN SWEET: Well, it’s important because Illinois law has an exemption from the residency requirement from a Chicago — from a resident who goes to serve the country.
Now, clearly, Rahm Emanuel served the country in his role as chief of staff. But he’s talking about a section of the law that deals with the eligibility of someone in Illinois to vote. So, it’s a more elastic, more lenient threshold to allow people who serve the country to vote.
Now, the part of the law that the Illinois appellate court dealt with today was some other language in the election code dealing with the qualifications for a candidate. And what a candidate has to do is live in the municipality a year before the election.
So, while Rahm Emanuel is focusing on one legal aspect of the case, the appellate court found that the part of the code that talked about having to live in the city a year before you run, a very important part of the law.
This is a very ripe, open legal question, Ray. It has always been a close call, but it’s not surprising that an appellate court found against Rahm, just as it wasn’t surprising that lower courts found for him.
RAY SUAREZ: Lynn, the clock is ticking. The ballots are about to be printed. Early voting starts in Chicago at the end of this month. Does he have enough time to get back in the race?
LYNN SWEET: Oh, certainly. One, he’s never out of it.
Here’s why. He has a formidable lead against his three main opponent — opponents. He’s got millions and millions of dollars more than even the second-place guy in the money race, around $ 10.5 million — $ 2.5 million. Gery Chico, and Carol Moseley Braun, former senator, and the city clerk don’t even have half-a-million combined.
This case will be taken to the Supreme Court on an expedited basis, on an emergency basis. There have been many public questions of great public interest like this one that have gone to the Supreme Court, and they have acted swiftly. Their first decision, though, is whether or not to take the case. We will know that soon.
RAY SUAREZ: Today, Rahm Emanuel called it just a turn in the road.
But City Clerk Miguel del Valle, one of his opponents, said that this may be an opening for candidates like him to get another look. Even if Rahm Emanuel gets back on the ballot, does this open up the race a little more?
LYNN SWEET: Absolutely. The — there is political damage that the Emanuel campaign has to worry about even if, legally, they prevail and they’re on the ballot.
What has happened is, is that Rahm Emanuel has run a very good campaign with his millions. He’s well-funded. He has run a mini-presidential campaign, focusing on 50 wards, instead of 50 states. And he’s just overwhelmed his opposition, who — he’s out-organized them, and he’s been very message-driven, very much like a mini-presidential campaign.
Now, everyone in Chicago might know Rahm, and they know the other rivals, but there is a certain amount of fluidity in the race. This is a great chance for some of the candidates, because what you want to do now in the race is at least come in number two on February 22.
Why we call it a primary in Illinois, Ray, it’s nonpartisan. If no the — if one has more than 50 percent of the vote come February 22, the top two finishers face off April 5. So, it’s very much a race for second place and to keep Rahm below 50 percent.
RAY SUAREZ: OK. What happens now? You say there’s going to be an expedited appeal. I guess that paperwork is, where, on its way to Springfield? When will we know whether they’re going to hear the case?
LYNN SWEET: Well, I’m not sure of the timetable right now.
The — I talked to Rahm Emanuel’s campaign a short time ago. They’re also going to ask for a stay of the Illinois appellate order. And an Illinois appellate court just said, don’t put him on the ballot. If you have, take him off.
They want that decision stayed, so that ballots are printed. That might also be a side skirmish in this unfolding legal drama over who will be the next Chicago mayor.
RAY SUAREZ: Lynn Sweet of Politics Daily and The Sun-Times, thanks for talking to us.
LYNN SWEET: Thank you.
PBS NewsHour | PBS
Minggu, 23 Januari 2011
Help Save the Planet: Eat Some Carp
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Japanese knotweed is one of the 100 worst invasive species by the World Conservation Union. It grows fast, spreads far, and takes monumental effort to kill. It’s reviled throughout much of the country as a great foe to gardeners and conservationists alike.
Tastes great in a salad, though. And the more of it you eat, the less of it there is to do its damage.
During the summer months, Bun Lai of Miya’s Sushi in New Haven, Conn., serves a popular roll featuring Japanese knotweed, in addition to a few other dishes made with invasive species. Asian shore crabs might be a nightmare for the shell fishing industry, but flash-fried with a bit of lemon dill sauce, they’ve got a great crunch to them.
Lai is part of a growing national movement to take species that are usually considered dangerous alien invaders and turn them into dinner. Practitioners have got a name: “invasivores.”
Invasivores might eat things like zebra mussels, a plague in the Great Lakes, or kudzu, which has spread throughout the south. Fish have been one of the strongest fronts for invasivores: fisheries for the world’s more popular fishes have been decimated in the modern era, but other species are expanding to the point that they’re destroying ecosystems all over the world.
In the Midwest, chefs and activists alike are trying get people eating Asian carp, an invasive species of fish that has smashed the ecosystem of the Mississippi River and is moving en masse into the Great Lakes. In Florida, conservationists are trying to get seafood lovers to develop a taste for lionfish, which have wreaked havoc on coral reefs.
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But the movement faces serious difficulties getting their particular world view to take hold. People like to eat what they like to eat, and food is one place where cultural norms carry significant weight. Wisconsin publisher Reggie McLeod has held a contest for chefs and restaurants to submit recipes for the Asian carp, but despite ongoing media coverage, he hasn’t gotten an entry yet.
“There’s a lot of cultural prejudice against different types of food,” he told AOL News. “Carp have been enormously popular in Asia for thousands of years, and people in the United States consider them undesirable. And yet people eat octopus and lobsters, and 150 years ago those were considered inedible in North America.”
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And yet McLeod remembers that when he was growing up, his friends with eastern European and German parents would eat carp on Christmas Day as a delicacy. Now, most people won’t go near the stuff. You don’t even need a pole to catch carp in the upper Mississippi — they will literally jump right into your boat. Some restaurants serve them, but they have yet to catch on in a widespread way.
Land-based invasive species consumption faces similar challenges — the idea of eating weeds has probably been around since people started considering some plants “weeds,” but outside of times of hardship, most people tend to prefer to eat higher on the hog.
But as McLeod points out, tastes do change. And some chefs are trying to move them toward a more sustainable direction.
“As a chef, the challenge is not to create something that is sensationalistic,” Lai told AOL News. “It’s our responsibility as artists to translate palatability from one culture to another.”
(Editor’s note: Dave Thier occasionally works for Miya’s Sushi.)
AOL News
Football News: Blackpool’s Jason Euell slams FA twits
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Jan 23 2011 by Tom Hopkinson, The People
EuellPic
BLACKPOOL ace Jason Euell has blasted football's anti-fun law-makers for ruining the game.
Veteran striker Euell, 33, grew up at Wimbledon during the Crazy Gang era and admits he cannot believe how football has been stifled since those heady late-'80s days.
Liverpool star Ryan Babel became the first player to be censured for his use of social networking site twitter last week, when the FA fined him £10,000 for posting a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United jersey.
And Euell reckons that was just another example of the fun being taken away.
He said: "The image of football has changed because of the amount of money which has come in, and the FA have tried to put down a marker to say we're role models and should set an example.
"But we are human beings and you can't curb everything that happens. It's ruining things.
"The rule where, if you take your top off after scoring, you get booked – that's everyone's dream to score a goal, yet if you celebrate with your fans now, you get a yellow card.
"There are certain reasons for that because of the safety of the stewards and the fans, but that adrenaline rush sometimes can't be controlled.
"If you tell people about the carry-ons at Wimbledon they'd say, 'No way, not at a football club'.
"Like John Hartson having his clothes set on fire after he signed.
"But that was part of our day-to-day growing up as a person and it helped us achieve what we did.
"It was a completely different way. The things we did then you could say we couldn't do now."
You can follow The People sports desk on twitter @PeopleSport for the latest news in the sporting world, views from columnists Jimmy Greaves and Chris Waddle and how to win some great prizes in our competitions.
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Banks challenge insurance rules
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UK NEWS
Banks are set to challenge new rules on payment protection insurance complaints
The major banks will this week begin their High Court challenge over new rules on the way complaints about controversial payment protection insurance must be handled.
The British Bankers’ Association is launching a judicial review against the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service over new regulations that came into force in December.
The rules aim to ensure consumers are treated fairly, both when they buy payment protection insurance (PPI) and when they complain about being mis-sold the cover.
To ensure people understand what they are buying, providers will have to talk potential customers through the key features of a policy, rather than just provide them with a document giving the information, as was previously the case.
They will also have to provide evidence to show that it was made clear to the customer that the cover was optional if it was taken out alongside credit.
But the banks are unhappy that the rules will apply to complaints relating to PPI policies which were sold before the new regime was brought in.
The BBA said: “We believe the FSA is effectively creating a precedent which permits it to apply new rules to previous sales – even where those sales were regulated by other FSA rules.”
It said the policy was like having a road with a speed limit of 30mph, which was later changed to 20mph, and deciding to hand out speeding tickets to people who drove at 30mph before the limit was reduced.
PPI covers debt repayments if the holder is unable to work due to an accident or illness or if they lose their job, but it has come in for heavy criticism after research found it had been mis-sold to many consumers who would never be able to claim on it while others felt pressurised into taking it out alongside a loan or credit card.
The cover is currently the single most complained about product to the Financial Ombudsman Service, with the group receiving nearly 2,600 complaints during the past week alone. It is also finding in favour of consumers in 86% of PPI cases, suggesting the banks are not handling the complaints properly.
Daily Express :: News / Showbiz Feed
Carlina White: Kidnapped Baby Comes Home 23 Years Later
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By: Sheryl Huggins Salomon
I remember this case from the ’80s, of the child who was kidnapped from Harlem Hospital, but it’s amazing that it went unsolved all these years, until the victim herself solved it. Her entire childhood was spent being raised by her abductor in what she describes as an abusive environment.
Carlina White, when only 19 days old, was taken from her young parents in Harlem Hospital by a mysterious woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Almost 23 years later, she and her parents, Joy White and Carl Tyson, are reunited.
White’s abduction in the summer of 1987 stunned the city. “Just give me my baby back! Please! I want her back now. Just want her back,” said her mother, back in 1987 from the hospital.
The family spoke with the New York Post after their joyous reunion. “When I lost my daughter, oh my God, that was just like a big part of my heart just ripped apart,” Tyson said.
SOURCE: CBS 2 News
Find out how Carlina White is doing in the video below.
If you think you have a lead on a missing child, speak up — you know our kids get too little attention when they go missing — and contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
In other news: First Lady in Red.
THEROOT.COM
Two Recipes for Invasive Species
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Here are two recipes from restaurateurs featuring invasive species.
Nippon Knotweed Salad
Serves 4
3 shoots of Japanese knotweed
1 teaspoon salt
1 Roma tomato, chopped finely
1 small red onion chopped finely
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
3 tablespoons toasted sesame seed oil
2 teaspoons Japanese soy sauce, such as Kikkoman
juice of one-half lemon
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon dried dill
1. Collect the knotweed. Each shoot should not be taller than a foot tall. Break the knotweed off just above the base; they should snap when you break them off. If they don’t snap, it means that they are too sinewy to eat.
2. Wash off the knotweed stalks and peel all the way around with your favorite peeler then chop into one-inch lengths.
3. Prepare a large bowl with 4 cups of cold water and 2 cups of ice and set aside. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt. Drop the knotweed pieces in the boiling water for fifteen seconds, then remove with a slotted spoon and dump them into the bowl of ice water for fifteen seconds. Remove with slotted spoon and set aside in a colander to drain.
4. Place the drained knotweed pieces in a small bowl with tomato and onions and mix well. Add the sesame seed oil, soy sauce, and lemon juice. Season with the black pepper and dill and mix well. Serve as a side dish or cold salad.
Red-in-Snow Carp
Whole 2-pound carp, scaled
1/2 cup red-in-snow (a Chinese vegetable available from an Asian grocery) or broccoli
1/2 cup sliced bamboo shoots
1 cup chicken broth
4 slices chopped ginger
1 chopped scallion
2 tbs peanut oil
1 tbs sherry
salt
1. In a large, heavy skillet, heat peanut oil. Add chopped scallion and chopped ginger.
2. Add the whole scaled carp, as well as the sherry, bamboo shots and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a light boil, and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add the red-in-snow or broccoli, salt to taste, and simmer 2 or 3 minutes until done.
AOL News
Balls attacks ‘gamble’ on economy
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Labour leader Ed Miliband appointed Ed Balls as shadow chancellor following the surprise resignation of Alan Johnson. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty ImagesEd Balls, the new shadow chancellor, claimed on Saturday that the government’s “reckless gamble” of massive spending cuts was already harming the economy as the country headed for high unemployment, lower mortgage lending and slower growth.
Balls, who was promoted last week after the surprise resignation of Alan Johnson, showed signs of a newly combative approach as he claimed that the coalition had turned a promising economic outlook into a gloomy one by pushing through “the fastest, deepest deficit reduction in Britain’s peacetime history”.
Labour MPs had become frustrated during the first months of Ed Miliband’s leadership at how the coalition managed to pin all blame for the deficit on Labour. They were also dismayed at how Tories and Lib Dems had convinced large sections of the public that there was no alternative to their strategy of savage fiscal retrenchment.
Balls, who was denied the shadow chancellor post by Miliband last autumn, after the leadership contest, is determined to stamp his mark on the job by showing there is a clear alternative. This will be to reduce the deficit through slower, targeted spending cuts and more active policies to encourage job creation and growth.
Writing on his blog, Balls described 2011 as “a critical year” for Britain’s economy and public services, which would show the effects of David Cameron and George Osborne’s approach.
While stopping short of predicting a “double-dip” recession, he said there were already signs that the government had made the wrong choice – an approach that could backfire if the economy turns round later this parliament.
“The Tory-led government has deliberately and needlessly taken Britain down a different path with cuts that go too far and too fast, and tax rises which directly hit family budgets,” he says.
“They have cut jobs programmes, withdrawn government investment from the economy, raised VAT and cut government support to millions of families. And in the autumn – before the impact of these measures had even begun – George Osborne and David Cameron boasted that their gamble had already succeeded and that strong growth was secure.
“Instead, we are now starting to see the real consequences of their decisions: unemployment rising, economic growth forecast to slow, mortgage lending at a 20-year low, and tax revenues falling.”
The economic outlook could worsen further in months to come. “Over the coming months, as the impact of the VAT rise, deep spending cuts and rising inflation starts to hit home, we will be able to gauge the true impact of the Tory economic plan, and see whether their gamble has worked. If they are proved wrong and growth is slow this year, it is millions of ordinary workers, families and homeowners who will pay the price.” MPs on all sides of the Commons now predict more fiery exchanges between Labour and the coalition over the economy. The Tories accuse Balls of being a “deficit denier” and refusing to admit the errors of the Gordon Brown years. Last week they said it “beggared belief” that Miliband had appointed him after his record at the Treasury.
But in private, Conservatives admit Balls will be a more formidable performer in the economic brief than Johnson.
Balls said that Labour’s alternative would put “jobs and growth first”. “Instead of doing backroom deals with the banks on the disclosure of their pay, we would apply the bank bonus tax again. It brought in £3.5bn last year, which could be used this year to help create the jobs and growth we need.”
On Friday, the day after his appointment, Balls – who had opposed Labour’s policy of halving the deficit over four years, believing that level of cuts was too rapid – said he could now back the policy because borrowing had been less than expected, and growth higher, thanks to the effect of Labour’s action in government.
Balls added: “It is not too late to change course. It is not too late for an alternative. And if they do not provide it to the British people, Ed Miliband and I will. Of course we do not oppose every cut, but the Tory-led government is cutting too far, too fast. And over the coming weeks and months, we will hold them to account for the reckless gamble they have taken, and the historic mistake they have made.”
The Guardian World News
Hart shines at UK Comedy Awards
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ABOVE: Miranda Hart capped a superb night at the British Comedy Awards by being named Queen of Comedy
TV viewers crowned Miranda Hart the Queen of Comedy in a public vote.
She picked up three accolades at the British Comedy Awards at a ceremony at the O2 in Greenwich, south-east London, scooping Best New TV Comedy Show, Best Female Comedy Actress and the People’s Choice Award – chosen by viewers.
She said she was “genuinely thrilled” by her success and hinted that her show, which ran on BBC2, might be moving channels.
She said: “I heard BBC1 are interested and that is very nice to know that they think there might be an audience.”
The show, broadcast live on Channel 4, opened with a flurry of gags from host Jonathan Ross. He took aim at fellow comics and celebrities, branding Eamonn Holmes an “elephant in the room” and describing Simon Amstell’s acting as “so wooden Ray Mears tried to make a canoe out of him”.
There was an Outstanding Contribution To Comedy award for Russell Brand. The controversial comic recorded a video message for the ceremony explaining he was unable to attend because a friend was “really ill”.
The first award, for Best Male TV Comic, went to Michael McIntyre. Next up was Best Comedy Panel Show which was won by Would I Lie To You. Accepting the award, one of the stars of the BBC1 show Lee Mack joked: “We’d just like to thank the creators of Call My Bluff for not suing us.”
Hollywood veteran Goldie Hawn handed out the award for Best TV Comedy Actor to the star of The Thick Of It Peter Capaldi. The Scottish actor, who plays foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, said he had got used to the public mistaking him for his famously short-tempered character. He said: “People often ask me to tell them to f*** off, so I do”.
Peep Show stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb gave the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award to its writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong.
Jo Brand won the Best Female TV Comic award, while teen comedy The Inbetweeners won Best Sitcom. Meanwhile the British Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award went to Roy Clarke, the writer of numerous hit shows including Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours, and Jo Brand won the Best Female TV Comic award.
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Birthers Unite! Hawaii Governor’s Quest to End Birth Certificate ‘Controversy’ Hits a Dead End
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Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie's one-man crusade to end the "controversy" over President Obama's birth certificate has hit a dead-end that is sure to delight WorldNetDaily, Orly Taitz, and legions of Birthers everywhere. The Governor's office told the Associated Press that Hawaii's privacy laws prevent Abercrombie from pursuing the matter any further.
Aside from his implication that the Obama administration is capable of murdering Abercrombie, Rush Limbaugh might have a kernel of a point about who this helps.
Abercrombie's Richard Kimball-esque mission dates back nearly a month, when he announced his intention to clear this thing up once and for all. Since then, Birthers have managed to re-emerge into the news cycle to remind Americans just how unhinged this sector of opposition to the President is. Now, the quest ends with a tidbit that doesn't seem like it should have taken a month to find out. From the AP report:
State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual's birth documentation without the person's consent, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Friday.
"There is nothing more that Gov. Abercrombie can do within the law to produce a document," said Dela Cruz. "Unfortunately, there are conspirators who will continue to question the citizenship of our president."
Whether the White House is involved or not (and there's no reason to believe it is, Limbaugh's suspicions notwithstanding), does anyone really think that a 2012 election centered around a vocal Birther movement really hurts Obama's chances at this point? Abercrombie says so, but then, why take a month to announce something he could've found out with a quick Google search?
On the other hand, if the economy is still slow to improve as the 2012 election unfolds, having a gaggle of Birther loons running around on cable TV could be a helpful distraction for the President, and a handy embarrassment for Republicans, who will be forced to either denounce them in the name of sanity, or smile nervously for fear of alienating them.
The President has nothing left to prove regarding his eligibility for the Presidency, and so will surely decline to provide more than he already has in the way of birth records. This will surely throw gasoline on the Birther fire, but those flames will only serve to burn those who stand too close to the Birthers.
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New target in battle against cancer
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A microscopic view shows a colony of human embryonic stem cells (light blue) growing on fibroblasts (dark blue) at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Photograph: Ho/ReutersScientists have pinpointed a new target in the battle against cancer. They believe that stem cells – the precursors of normal skin, blood and other types of tissue in the body – frequently play a crucial role in the spread of tumours.
Cancer Research UK (CRUK), Britain’s biggest cancer charity, has set up a consortium of research groups to develop drugs that could deactivate affected stem cells. Such medicines would stop these cells from dividing to create new tumours.
Researchers involved in the project said last week that they hoped to highlight new drugs within two years. Clinical trials could begin using the most promising of these. Cancers of the skin and blood are considered to be prime targets for the new medicines.
“Stem cells are responsible for renewing tissue in the body,” said Dr Clive Stanway, chief officer of Cancer Research Technology, the charity’s commercial arm. “But sometimes they are subverted by cancerous processes. You can give a cancer patient radiotherapy or cut out their tumour surgically – but you can still leave a few affected stem cells behind. The person appears cured. Then the stem cells start dividing again and the tumour reappears.”
Stem cells come in two varieties: embryonic stem cells, created at conception, from which all cells in the body are ultimately derived; and adult stem cells, which lie dormant until switched on when new tissue is needed. The new campaign will be concerned only with adult stem cells.
Professor Fiona Watt, deputy director of the CRUK’s Cambridge Research Institute, said: “Essentially, these drugs would tell these cells to stop growing and multiplying.”
Drugs are being tested by CRUK researchers to find those that are best able to switch off cell division and the spread of cancer.
The Guardian World News
Families mourn 4 men killed in industrial accident in Great Yarmouth
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By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:18 AM on 23rd January 2011
Two brothers were yesterday revealed to be among four men killed in an industrial accident.
Building contractors Daniel Hazelton, 30, and his brother Tom, 26, were working in
13ft-deep foundations on Friday afternoon when a steel structure collapsed.
They were killed along with Adam Taylor, 28, and 42-year-old Peter Johnson.
Members of the Health and Safety Executive enter the offshore engineering company Claxton Engineering in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk where four men died after the steel structure they were working on collapsed
Nine fire crews and a crane were used to free the men from the wreckage at Claxton Engineering in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, but they died at the scene.
Yesterday, the village of Stanton, Suffolk, where the men lived, was in mourning.
All four had links with the local Saturday league football team Stanton FC, and a match yesterday was cancelled out of respect.
Daniel Hazelton was a defender for the side, Mr Taylor played in midfield, while Tom Hazelton was a former player and a volunteer groundsman.
Mr Johnson, who is believed to be a father, helped with fundraising and also worked in the village's Cock Inn as a disc jockey.
The firm said building work was being carried out by external contractors at their premises where the accident happened at approximately 2pm yesterday (above, a photographer on the scene today)
Caxton Engineering: The company is a specialist in offshore jack-up drilling
Club chairman Peter Knights, 72, said: 'This is a devastating loss. I've known these men all their lives. I can't put into words how shocked the village is.'
Yesterday the two brothers' eldest sibling Matt Hazelton – a former manager of the team – was comforting his mother, Marilyn, at her detached cottage in Stanton.
Police and the Health and Safety Executive will conduct an inquiry into the circumstances leading to the men's deaths.
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