Obama pushes payroll tax cut extension (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama wants voters to get involved in the debate over extending the reduced payroll tax and he's asking them to tell members of Congress to keep the cut in place.

"Let your members of Congress know where you stand," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "Tell them not to vote to raise taxes on working Americans during the holidays. Tell them to put country before party. Put money back in the pockets of working Americans. Pass these tax cuts."

Obama's address directs listeners to the whitehouse.gov website, where an online calculator lets them determine how much money it's worth to them to continue the 2 percent reduction in the payroll tax that took effect this year. A family with income of $50,000 a year would pay $1,000 more in payroll taxes if Congress does not act by the end of this year to extend that reduction.

Democrats want to expand the reduction in addition to extending it. Republican leaders say they're committed to passing an extension, fearing political fallout if payroll taxes rise on Jan. 1 on 160 million wage-earners. The GOP rank-and-file appears divided, with many Republican senators voting against an extension supported by their leadership this week.

There's also disagreement about how or whether to pay for any extension. Democrats favor a new tax on millionaires; Republicans prefer to cut federal spending.

"We're going to keep pushing Congress to make this happen. They shouldn't go home for the holidays until they get this done," Obama said in his address. "And if you agree with me, I could use your help."

Obama also took note of a new monthly jobs report out Friday that showed the economy added 120,000 jobs in November, a positive number. "We need to keep this growth going and strengthen it," the president said.

Republicans devoted their weekly address to promoting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which is headed for a vote in the Senate after failing in the House last month.

Democratic leaders worked aggressively to defeat the measure in the House, saying that such a requirement could force Congress to cut billions from social programs during times of economic downturn and that disputes over what to cut could result in Congress ceding its power of the purse to the courts. The result was that the amendment got majority support but fell short of the two-thirds needed to advance a constitutional amendment.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said "the impending vote to amend the Constitution represents a choice between changing business as usual in Washington or embracing the status quo that we can no longer afford."

"The real reason many lawmakers don't want a balanced budget amendment is the exact reason why it's so essential," Snowe said. "They don't want their hands tied; they want to continue to spend without restraint."

Like Obama, she asked listeners to make their views known.

"Contact your senators and urge them to support our balanced budget amendment," Snowe said, "so that we finally seize the fiscal reins and reclaim our future for our children and our grandchildren."

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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House Republicans divided over payroll tax cut (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed ahead on Friday to extend a popular payroll tax cut for another year despite opposition within their own ranks.

Following a 90-minute closed-door meeting, many Republicans said there was strong opposition but that House Speaker John Boehner planned to work to renew President Barack Obama's tax cut, which is set to expire on December 31.

Republicans have been lukewarm about extending this particular tax cut, saying it has failed to stimulate the economy and will weaken the Social Security retirement program over the long run.

But with fears of a political backlash in the run-up to November's presidential and congressional elections, their leaders have decided to also seek an extension.

If Republicans blocked the tax cut, "They (Democrats) are going to say, 'There they go, Republicans raising taxes,'" said Republican Representative Charles Boustany.

And so as Congress tries to wind down for the year, some Republicans, who rose to power opposing tax hikes, found themselves in the rare position of trying to block a tax cut financial markets think is vital to the economy.

Obama sought to ratchet up the pressure on Republicans to pass the extension, telling lawmakers they must not leave for their holiday break this month without taking action.

"We need to get this done. And I expect that it's going to get done before Congress leaves. Otherwise, Congress may not be leaving and we can all spend Christmas here together."

Late on Thursday, the Senate defeated competing versions of payroll tax cut extension bills, with most Republicans in that chamber bucking their own leadership's proposal -- a rare occurrence. Senate and House leaders are now expected to begin negotiating a compromise.

"There was a lot of push back" during the private meeting of House Republicans, Representative Jeff Flake told reporters as he left the room.

Flake, a conservative who has devoted his House career to controlling government spending, complained that it will take 10 years for the government to recoup the approximately $110 billion in lost revenues stemming from a continuance of the tax cut through 2012.

ECONOMIC STIMULUS?

"I think unless we have the courage right now to address entitlement reform, we shouldn't be extending the payroll tax holiday. But we don't have the courage right now to do that," Flake said.

Workers and employers pay the tax and the revenues are deposited into a Social Security retirement fund. The money returns to workers after they retire from the work force.

Obama and his fellow Democrats won passage a year ago of a one-year payroll tax cut to 4.2 percent, down from 6.2 percent.

The idea was that it would put more money, nearly $1,000 per family, in workers' hands to spend and thus help stimulate the economy. The White House has warned that letting the tax cut expire would significantly hurt the economy as it is struggling to grow.

Senate Republicans defeated a Democratic plan to offset the revenues that would be lost with a surtax on the wealthy.

Like their Senate counterparts, House Republican leaders have proposed paying for the tax cut extension in part by freezing federal employee wages through 2015, said Representative Steven LaTourette.

He said there was a long list of other savings, including some changes to Medicare healthcare programs and raising fees investors pay for mortgage transactions involving government sponsored agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

All of these ideas have been discussed by Democrats and Republicans during budget talks earlier this year, he said.

The Republican plan, LaTourette said, would also extend unemployment insurance benefits for the long-term unemployed, but with some reforms.

LaTourette said some of his fellow Republicans proposed a "tradeoff" for extending the payroll tax cut.

"Some people think ... if you are going to give someone $900, that perhaps there should be a tradeoff: you have to delay your (Social Security) retirement for a month. That wasn't very popular" in the meeting, he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/pl_nm/us_usa_taxes

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Professor is dumpster-diving urban Robin Hood (Reuters)

FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) ? University professor Jeff Ferrell is something of a U.S. urban Robin Hood, although what he gives away is not stolen but the result of dumpster diving.

The Texas Christian University (TCU) professor of sociology sifts through dumpsters and gives the vast majority of what he finds to the needy or to friends.

He has also managed to furnish his living room with what is left, filled a tool shed with a collection of everything from screws to power tools and never pays for a bar of soap or office supplies.

Ferrell, 57, has been known to give scrounged food to friends, in the form of prepackaged, never-opened cocktail nuts. And because he gathers the goods on a bicycle, most of his finds are from dumpsters near his home.

The energetic, lanky professor with spiky hair is passionate about the ill effects of consumerism on society.

"I think it's appalling on the level of just sheer waste and full landfills," he said in an interview at his house. "I think it's also profoundly disturbing given the level of need in our society."

Ferrell's wife, Karen, buys groceries and not all her clothes come from the dumpster, and some of their furnishings did not come from the trash. But Ferrell says he never buys clothes for himself.

Scrounging is his word for what he does. When he moved to Texas 10 years ago from Arizona, Ferrell decided to live off other people's discards.

He blames a rushed culture for the habit of throwing things away instead of donating them to charity.

"That stuff needs to be put back in the rhythm of our society," he said. "When a new iPhone comes out every six months, that absolutely causes iPhones to be thrown away."

The same goes for new styles and colors in fashion. He stretches out a leg clad in good-looking jeans.

"I found these. These are low-cut. Who cares?"

Ferrell, who is also a visiting criminology professor at the University of Kent in England, has written nine books, including "Empire of Scrounge" in 2006.

He said he detects a "meanness in our society towards the poor."

"We don't think they're deserving," he said. "That's where I come in,- to intervene in that process."

Phil Harvey, a longtime friend who has gone along on scrounging trips, said Ferrell searches with an almost scientific precision for things that have value.

"You want to think that sometimes it's just Jeff looking under rocks and trying to find beauty when there's just a bunch of earthworms," Harvey said. "Nine times out of 10, it's that we're just a bunch of wasteful buffoons."

Ferrell sorts his findings in a room at the back of the house. He knows what is needed where.

A stack of thick wool blankets is for the homeless shelters, which also need backpacks and blue jeans. A small shop near his home gets small appliances and other items.

Once he supplied a group of immigrant students at TCU, who were learning how to service their bicycles, with sets of tools for each of them.

Still more is stored in the shed behind his house, where every wall, the floor and the ceiling are covered with hanging tools and parts.

His friends also get clothes. Ferrell keeps track of shoe, shirt, blouse and dress sizes and shops for them.

He has seldom had problems with police or store owners.

"I've found that being a good community member and being kind resolves all problems," Ferrell said. "I try to leave a neater situation than what I come to."

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oddlyenough/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/od_nm/us_robinhood_odd

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Toads could be used to forecast earthquakes days before they happen (Yahoo! News)

Study says the pond-dwelling animals can sense a change in groundwater before an earthquake

Aside from ionosphere disturbances, nature has a number of ways that signify an earthquake's arrival far earlier than an iPhone can. Animals, for instance, are known to leave their homes and head to safety anywhere from a few seconds to weeks before humans can feel quakes. It was easy enough for researchers to determine the science behind the behavior seconds before ground tremors are felt, but the explanation behind instances of animal exodus days or weeks prior to any seismic activity has eluded them ? until now, that is. Rachel Grant from the U.K. Open University and Friedemann Freund from NASA?believe they may have figured it all out, thanks to a colony of toads.

Grant monitored a toad colony in L'Aquila, Italy for her PhD project, when she noticed the population number dropped from 96 to almost zero at least three days before an earthquake hit. After forming a team with Freund, they studied how and why that event happened. The results ? which were recently published in a research paper ? showed that stress in the surrounding rocks released charged particles that contaminated the groundwater. The toads, of course, sought refuge away from their environment which had suddenly become toxic.

According to the study, rocks under very high levels of stress due to tectonic forces emit particles that react with air to form positively charged ions. These particles are known to cause health problems in humans like headaches, nausea, and increased levels of the stress hormone serotonin. The positive ions then dissolve in the water, making it lethal not just to toads but other aquatic, semi-aquatic, and even burrowing animals.

The scientists admit their findings need to be tested and studied more. But even now they believe it can be used as one of the early indicators of an earthquake. "Once we understand how all of these signals are connected, if we see four of five signals all pointing in [the same] direction, we can say, 'ok, something is about to happen'," Freund says.

[Image credit: Wikimedia]

[via BBC, Telegraph]

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20111202/tc_yblog_technews/toads-could-be-used-to-forecast-earthquakes-days-before-they-happen

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Russia vote watchdog head detained before election (Reuters)

MOSCOW (Reuters) ? The head of an independent Russian election watchdog was detained for 12 hours at a Moscow airport Saturday as part of attempts to stop it monitoring Sunday's vote for a new parliament, the group's lawyer said.

Golos leader Liliya Shibanova was held by customs officers at Sheremetyevo airport after returning from a trip abroad on the eve of the election, in which Vladimir Putin's United Russia is likely to have its huge parliamentary majority reduced.

The Western-funded group's lawyer, Ramid Akhmetgaliyev, told Reuters the customs officers copied contents of her laptop computer and Golos deputy head Grigory Melkonyants said her laptop had been confiscated.

Hours earlier, the United States had expressed concern about "what appears to be a pattern of harassment" of Golos, which has aired reports of alleged violations in Russian elections.

A Moscow court ruled late Friday that Golos had violated a ban on the publication of opinion poll results within five days of the election to the State Duma lower house.

During the campaign, Prime Minister Putin has accused foreign countries of meddling in the preparations for the election -- and for a March presidential election he is expected to win -- by funding organizations in Russia.

"The pressure on Golos and its leaders (is) an attempt to block their activities involving independent public monitoring of the election," Akhmetgaliyev said.

Akhmetgaliyev said customs authorities had no legal right to examine or copy the contents of Shibanova's computer and had violated her rights by preventing him seeing her during her detention.

"They told me that they had information that I was supposedly bringing some sort of dangerous software across the border," Shibanova told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Akhmetgaliyev also disputed the court decision, which came with a 30,000-rouble ($970) fine. He said Golos had published allegations of campaign violations, not opinion poll results.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration expressed concern Friday about the court ruling.

"The Obama administration is concerned with today's decision by a Moscow court regarding ... Golos, as well as what appears to be a pattern of harassment directed against this organization," a White House spokesman said in a statement.

Before the court hearing, Moscow city prosecutors said they were investigating Golos over a complaint by lawmakers objecting to its foreign financing and urging it to stop vote monitoring.

Golos, a non-profit organization founded in 2000, has a hotline for electoral violation allegations and an interactive map showing reported violations.

It openly says its funding comes entirely from Europe and the United States and that this helps it remain objective.

PUTIN CRITICISES WESTERN MEDDLING

During his 2000-2008 presidency, Putin repeatedly accused the West of seeking to weaken Russia and of meddling in its affairs, including by funding non-governmental organizations meant to strengthen democracy.

Formally launching his bid to return to the Kremlin next year by accepting United Russia's nomination at a party congress last Sunday, Putin reiterated these accusations last month.

He said "representatives of some foreign countries are gathering those they are paying money to, so-called grant recipients, to instruct them and assign work in order to influence the election campaign themselves."

He said any such activity was a "wasted effort" because Russians would reject foreign-funded politicians, comparing them to Judas, the traitor of Jesus in the bible.

Critics in Russia and the West accuse Putin of curtailing democracy through a series of electoral reforms during his presidency, which coincided with an oil-fueled economic boom.

His announcement of plans to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medevedev upset some Russians who saw it as a back-room deal agreed with no regard for voters. Putin, 59, could be in power until 2024 if he wins the maximum two more terms as president.

United Russia, which has dominated the Duma since 2003, is expected to retain a clear majority in the chamber though the two-thirds that allow it to pass constitutional changes without opposition support may prove out of reach.

Many voters say they expect the party's result to be boosted by vote rigging and favorable coverage by traditional media. A liberal party led by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and two allies is barred from even taking part.

The biggest gainers could be the Communist Party, which is likely to remain the second biggest force 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist LDPR also hopes to gain votes from United Russia.

$1 = 30.8947 Russian roubles)

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111203/wl_nm/us_russia_election

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Ahead of Russian elections, quashed Ossetia vote embarrasses Moscow

The crushing of an apparently legitimate election victory in South Ossetia, a key client state of Moscow, could bring a fresh wave of unwanted attention to Russia's own problematic democracy.

A bizarre electoral upset in Russia's tiny protectorate of South Ossetia, a breakaway province of Georgia, has thrown the little republic into chaos and brought acute embarrassment to its sponsors in the Kremlin.

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On the cusp of Russia's own crucial cycle of elections, the blatant crushing of an apparently legitimate election victory in a key client state of Moscow could bring a fresh wave of unwanted attention to Russia's own problematic democracy.

The trouble began last Sunday, when South Ossetia's official election commission declared former education minister and anticorruption outsider?Alla Dzhioyeva decisively ahead in presidential elections, having won 57 percent of the votes with most of the ballots counted. The problem was that Ms. Dzhioyeva's opponent, Anatoly Bibilov, who was trailing far behind with 40 percent, had been personally endorsed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

On Tuesday the republic's Supreme Court met behind closed doors and declared the polls null and void, citing "irregularities" that have yet to be spelled out. The decision barred Dzhioyeva from participating in any future elections.

In a move that some Russian analysts say Moscow will come to regret, Russia's Foreign Ministry subsequently issued an official statement endorsing the annulment of the election results, saying that Russia favors maintaining a "calm and stable situation" in South Ossetia.

Dzhioyeva's supporters took to the streets the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on Wednesday and Thursday to protest, bringing a tough response from riot police who fired shots into the air and physically prevented protesters from approaching government buildings. The?Kremlin dispatched a special emissary, Sergei Vinokurov, to the region in hopes of negotiating a solution.

"The people have spoken; 17,000 voters [out of 28,000 registered voters in the tiny republic] supported me," said Dzhioyeva, reached by telephone in Tskhinvali on Thursday. "Both the official Central Election Commission, and international election observers [including Russian ones] declared our elections to be basically free and fair. That gives us grounds to believe that we have won."

But Russia, which fought a war with Georgia in 2008 to preserve the independence of South Ossetia and another rebel republic, does not appear to see things that way.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/f419MxzZhuA/Ahead-of-Russian-elections-quashed-Ossetia-vote-embarrasses-Moscow

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Space 'Never Got Old,' NASA Astronaut Says (SPACE.com)

After living in space for nearly six months on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum is still getting used to his "land legs."

Fossum and his crewmates, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, launched to the International Space Station in June. The trio returned to Earth 10 days ago, on Nov. 21, landing in a Russian Soyuz capsule on the frigid and snowy steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia. ?

Fossum, who was commander of the space station's Expedition 29 mission, previously visited the orbiting outpost on two separate space shuttle missions. But, this return trip inside the notoriously cramped Soyuz spacecraft was a very different experience, he said.

"The trip home on a Soyuz spacecraft was very memorable," Fossum told reporters today (Dec. 1) in a series of live satellite interviews from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was like riding a meteor home inside that fireball."

As the capsule made its scorching re-entry through Earth's atmosphere, Fossum described looking out the window next to him and being able to see the spacecraft's plasma trail.

"We had the full ride home in darkness and got to see the plasma trail and heat shield itself," Fossum explained. "You have these incandescent orange pieces of the heat shield screaming by the window. It was like a fireworks display."

Fossum and his crewmates were also the last space station residents to play host to a visiting space shuttle. NASA launched the shuttle Atlantis and a four-astronaut crew to the orbiting outpost on the agency's last-ever shuttle flight in July.

Being present for the final shuttle mission was a highlight for Fossum, who said that watching the orbiter back away from the complex for the final time was particularly poignant. [Photos: NASA's Last Shuttle Mission in Pictures]

"I caught a peek and managed to snap some photos of Atlantis as she was backing away for the last time," he said. "To see her back away on that final mission with the sensor boom across the payload bay ? to me, it looked kind of like a salute as she backed away and headed home."

With Atlantis' jam-packed eight-day mission, the finality of the shuttle program did not sink in until the very end, when the hatches between the station and the orbiter were being sealed, Fossum said.

"It really wasn't until the end when the main job was done and we were down to taking the last photos, cleaning things up and getting ready to close the hatches, and we realized, we're closing this hatch for the last time in we-don't-know-how-long," he said.

With the retirement of the space shuttle program, NASA is currently relying on Russian-built rockets and spacecraft to take American astronauts to the space station. In the meantime, commercial companies are developing new spaceships to take cargo and humans to and from the orbiting complex.

These commercial vehicles are critical for NASA's future in human spaceflight, Fossum said.

"I think we need a second launch system for sure ? a second way to get people to and from the space station," he said. "The Soyuz booster is a great program, very successful by any measure, but it still is a single program, and things can happen. Students of space history know things can happen, and we're not immune to things happening in the future. I hope we get another capability for getting humans to and from space soon."

Still, the veteran astronaut remains hopeful for the future, and spoke extensively about the exciting research projects that are being conducted at the International Space Station.

Fossum said the months he spent living on the orbiting outpost were a dream come true. Fossum said that while he's thankful to be back on terra firma with his friends and family, he will miss living in space, and hopes to be able to have the opportunity to fly again soon.

"For me, it never got old," Fossum said with a wide smile. "I hoped I could fly this mission until I was tired of living in space, but I didn't achieve that, so who knows. We'll see."

You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111202/sc_space/spacenevergotoldnasaastronautsays

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