By Dave Summers, R. Stickney and Greg Bledsoe, NBC San Diego
The U.S. government will pay $4.1 million to avoid a lawsuit against federal agents who forgot about a UC San Diego student left in a holding cell for days without food or water.
Daniel Chong spent five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) holding cell in April 2012.
Taken into custody on a DEA raid, Chong was left in a windowless room without food and water. He was forced to drink his own urine hoping it would help him stay alive.
Chong's attorney, who along with his client threatened a lawsuit against the DEA, announced the $4.1 million settlement Tuesday. ?What happened to Daniel Chong should not happen to any human being,? attorney Gene Iredale said.
Iredale said it was a San Diego Police Department officer by the name of Darin Reis who told Chong on that first day that someone would be right back to get him.
The officer was part of a DEA task force made up of local, state and federal law enforcement.
"It was an accident, a really really bad horrible accident," Chong said Tuesday regarding the officer's alleged mistake.
The UC San Diego student was at a friend?s house in University City celebrating 4/20, a day many marijuana users set aside to smoke, when agents came inside and raided the residence.
Chong was then taken to the DEA office in Kearny Mesa.
?I had to do what I had to do to survive,? Chong told NBC 7 after the incident. ?It?s so inconceivable. You keep doubting they would forget you."
When he was eventually found, Chong was incoherent and suffering from kidney failure. He was rushed to the hospital where he spent three days in the ICU.
More than a year later the DEA that put him there is paying the price.Defense attorney Gretchen Von Helms, who is not representing Chong, previously estimated the settlement could be in the $2-3 million range.
"You break it down into the pain and suffering and how horrible this could have been for the family. They didn't know where he was, all the anguish the family went through and the young man went through,? Von Helms said.
Eventually Chong was discovered and the DEA issued a formal apology.
Since then, Chong has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is being treated by a doctor who normally treats veterans who have returned from battle.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama sought Wednesday to reassure Democrats nervous about the impact of his health care law and the prospects for immigration legislation, telling them "You're on the right side of history."
In the first of two closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill, Obama focused on financial gains as the economy emerges from the worst downturn since the Depression. He was warned about nominating former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as chairman of the Federal Reserve and faced questions about his health care law. Some lawmakers complained that three years after its passage, the law still baffles many Americans.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., told the president that tapping Summers to replace current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be a mistake.
Obama defended Summers, saying he had been treated unfairly by the news media. The president insisted that he had not made a decision on his choice. Summers, a former Obama economic adviser, and Janet Yellen, the Fed's current vice chair, are among the leading candidates for the job.
The first major rewrite of immigration laws in a generation and legislation to keep the government running without interruption are paramount issues for Democrats. So is the president's contentious health care law, with uninsured people able to start shopping for a health plan on Oct. 1.
Provisions of the law that still confuse many Americans kick in on Jan. 1 although the administration announced earlier this month that it would delay a key requirement that employers with 50 or more workers offer affordable coverage, or face fines.
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., expressed concern about the health care law, mentioning that in her state there was not enough competition because only one company had entered into the health care exchange. Obama told Democrats that it was a problem in several states, but the administration was working to address the problem.
"He was reminding us as we all go back to our districts in August that we are on the right side of these issues and the right side of history in terms of providing health care to Americans and to ultimately finding comprehensive immigration reform is the right thing for the country to do at this time," said Shea-Porter.
"It was a real send-off to us, I think, as we went back to our districts that we are on the right side of history."
Said Rep. John Yarmouth, D-Ky.: "I just think he was trying to bolster the courage of the group."
Leaving the meeting, Obama said his message was about "jobs, middle class, growth."
"It's really about a focus on growing the middle class in this county after a trend of not just recession but really a couple decades of really all of Americans working really hard and not making economic progress for themselves or their kids ... Whatever we do that has to be obviously at the top of our minds," Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., told reporters.
House Democrats presented the president with a birthday cake; Obama turns 52 on Sunday. Later in the morning, the president huddled behind closed doors with Senate Democrats.
The sessions come just days before lawmakers leave the capital for a six-week recess and the prospect of facing constituents back home at town halls at a time when polls show Congress being held in low regard.
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., said Democrats asked the president for his assistance in next year's midterm elections, traditionally a rough ride for the party controlling the White House.
As Obama presses his economic agenda across the country, he's playing one chamber against the other in Congress, hoping Americans will hear his calls for compromise and conclude it's not his fault that little is getting done in Washington.
Call it a congressional two-step: Praise Senate Republicans for modest displays of cooperation, then contrast them with House Republicans, whom Obama has started describing as stubborn saboteurs. It's a theme Obama has used repeatedly to bolster his argument that he's the one acting reasonably as he prepares for clashes this fall with Congress, whose relations with Obama have always been notoriously strained.
"A growing number of Republican senators are trying to get things done," Obama said Tuesday as he unveiled a new fiscal proposal in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Days earlier, Obama accused the House GOP of risking another financial crisis by issuing ultimatums over the debt ceiling and government funding.
"We've seen a group of Republicans in the House, in particular, who suggest they wouldn't vote to pay the very bills that Congress has already racked up," Obama said. "That's not an economic plan. That's just being a deadbeat."
Obama has reason to be cautiously optimistic about the Senate, which passed a far-reaching immigration overhaul Obama sorely sought with bipartisan support and struck a deal over Obama's nominees that has led to a flurry of confirmations after months of logjam. A number of prominent GOP senators have also criticized a Republican plan to threaten a government shutdown unless funding is cut off for Obama's health care law.
But even in the Senate, there's skepticism about Obama's intentions. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Obama's contrasting tone about the House and Senate amounts to a divide-and-conquer strategy that calls into question the White House's outreach.
"These discussions have been going on for five years and no agreements have been reached yet," Sessions said. "It could be the president is playing the Senate like a fiddle."
On most issues ? including pressing tax and spending matters ? Senate and House Republicans are unified in their opposition. There was no telling Republicans apart Tuesday, for instance, as they panned a corporate tax cut and jobs spending package the White House had portrayed as a concession to Republicans ? who oppose using tax revenue to support more spending.
____
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.
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Fourteen percent of Canadians say they won't be able to pay off their debt before they die, according to a new poll.
The figure jumps even higher for those 65 years and older ? with 21% of seniors believing they'll remain in the red, the CIBC-commissioned poll found.
"While past research has shown many Canadians are making progress on reducing debt, there is a smaller group that feels they won't be able to achieve debt freedom in the long run," Christina Kramer of CIBC said in a statement.
"Carrying debt over the long term without a plan to pay it off means you are taking a risk with your long-term financial goals, including retirement."
Of the 14% of Canadians who believe they'll be buried in debt for life, a quarter of them said they're already too far in the hole to pay it off based on their current income, another 16% blame a high cost of living, and 12% said they're comfortable with the amount they owe and don't plan to pay it off.
Canada's seniors were most likely to report being debt-free, but they were also the most likely to believe they'd never pay out creditors.
Just 7% of those aged 18-34 said they believe they will always carry debt.
Harris/Decima surveyed 2,002 Canadians from March 28-April 7. The margin of error is 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Free agent forward Josh Childress is receiving strong interest from three teams on a potential veteran?s minimum deal, a league source told RealGM.
Childress has focused his career on the NBA, and he rejected a lucrative offer from Olympiacos this offseason for an opportunity to stay in the league, a source said.
At 6-foot-8, Childress established himself as an active defender and slasher in four years with the Atlanta Hawks, but he averaged just one point in 14 games for the Brooklyn Nets last season. The Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings are known as firm suitors for wing free agents.
Childress, 30, has averaged 9.2 points and 4.8 rebounds over seven NBA seasons.
Source: www.onenewsnow.com --- Tuesday, July 30, 2013 An appeals court ruling that struck down New York City's big-soda ban is a victory for food freedom and New Yorkers, says a critic of the ban. ...
Mmm, why am I in charge of this, you ask. That's what I'd like to know. You'd think they'd pick one of the computer nerds from the technical abilities class with the abnormally large heads or, you know, Naoya, but no. You represent the students, they say. They look up to you, they say.
You look up to me my ass.
The teachers are too lazy and Nero nominated you because he gains immense pleasure from your suffering, they don't say. So don't argue with me here. The fates have spoken and they are never wrong. And lose the gum, you look like the maid.
Note: Newbies will have fewer stars by virtue of being new. They have yet to prove themselves. The following characters have been put in order of newest (many are tied) to oldest. For those who didn't give me a specific age, I sort of estimated where they might be.)
Full name: Sylvia Cauthon Age: 16 Alice: Taunt pheromone Alice Type: Somatic Alice Form: Diffuse Star Ranking: No star (We can make it one star if you want, but you seem like a sadist xD) Joined: New
Full name: Maya Shinozaki Age: 17 Alice: Sound Waves Manipulation Alice Type: Latent Alice Form: Unknown Star Ranking: Double Star Joined: New
Full name: Lorelai Bay Age: 17 Alice: Mermaid transformation Alice Type: Somatic Alice Form: Unknown Star Ranking: Double star Joined: New
Full name: Midna Silvera Age: 16 Alice: Shadow manipulation and transformation Alice Type: Dangerous Alice Form: Limited Star Ranking: Triple (She wouldn't be a special star after only being in the school for a week. I hope you'll understand. It is likely that she'll become a special star in the course of the RP.) Joined: New
Full name: Jules Carter Age: 17 Alice: Linking Alice Type: Special Alice Form: Diffuse Star Ranking: Double star Joined: Late last year
Full name: Michel De Angelo Robutton Age: 18 Alice: Artistic Illusion and Creation Alice Type: Latent Alice Form: Unknown Star Ranking: Double Star Joined: Middle School
Full name: Feris Lilland Age: 17... We think. Alice: Mimicry and dopplegangry Alice Type: Special Alice Form: Latent Star Ranking: Triple star Joined: Age 12
Full name: Alexander Rammis Age: 17 Alice: Amplification Alice Type: Special Alice Form: Diffuse Star Ranking: Single star Joined: Elementary school
Full name: Shino Terr Age: 17 Alice: Animal transformation Alice Type: Somatic Alice Form: Intermittent Star Ranking: Triple star (This is really tricky because the nature of his abilities would make him a three star but sheer laziness might make him a double. Let's just say he's on a rocky pedestal xD) Joined: Age 10
Full name: Naoya Watanabe Age: 17 Alice: Clocksmith Alice Type: Technical Alice Form: Limited Star Ranking: Triple (I'm actually thinking he might be Special because he's been in the school so long. It'll depend on his Alice, behaviour and grades though. He seems a "little" weird.) Joined: Elementary School
Full name: Mitsuki Hisakawa Age: 17 Alice: Leaching Alice Type: Dangerous Alice Form: Limited Star Ranking: Special Star Joined: Age 6
Full name: Nero Sceer Age: 28 Alice: Water Manipulation Alice Type: Dangerous Alice Form: Unknown Role: Dangerous Abilities Teacher
Full name: Age: Alice: Alice Type: Alice Form: Role:
Here you may also dpost your NPCs, for example, teachers or students. You can even make the elementary and middle school principles if you would like, as well as the teachers for the various classes and grades (although dangerous abilities is taken.) However the senior school principle will be made by me :) Probably.
The following are basic skellies, although you may use your own and add more detail :) You don't even have to make a student or teacher. He/she could be something else entirely.
[b]Full name: [/b] [b]Age: [/b] [b]Alias/Nickname: [/b] [b]Alice: [/b] [b]Role: [/b] [b]Personality: [/b] [b]Relationship to the characters: [/b](If relevant. They could just be random students if you want. Otherwise they could be best friends, rivals, love interests, anything your creative minds can think of.) [b]Biography: [/b] [b]Other: [/b]
Tito Ortiz is in the UFC Hall of Fame, but he shouldn't rely on that fact to get back with the promotion. The retired fighter has been talking about coming back to MMA. However, UFC president Dana White was not so keen on the idea.
"Who gives a [expletive]?" White said after Saturday night's UFC on Fox 8 fights. "Does anyone want to see Tito Ortiz in a superfight with who? I mean, Tito's lost every fight that he's had over the last three years or something. He won one fight in the last three years."
Ortiz floated the idea of a comeback over Twitter, but it's clear he's not going to get a fight back in the UFC. He has talked about an opportunity with Bellator, but White is right about Ortiz's lack of success in recent years. He hasn't strung two wins together since 2006.
Timothy Schenck | Photography: Wall Street Journal Carol Bove Article skip to main | skip to sidebar
Wall Street Journal Carol Bove Article
One of a my recent photographs of Carol Bove's sculpture "Celeste", part of her High Line Art Show "Caterpillar" was recently featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal's Arts & Entertainment section--my first photo in the Journal. ?See more images.
Station astronauts remotely control planetary rover from spacePublic release date: 30-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie A. Robinson julie.a.robinson@nasa.gov NASA/Johnson Space Center
Just as remotely-operated vehicles help humans explore the depths of the ocean from above, NASA has begun studying how a similar approach may one day help astronauts explore other worlds. On June 17 and July 26, NASA tested the Surface Telerobotics exploration concept, in which an astronaut in an orbiting spacecraft remotely operates a robot on a planetary surface. In the future, astronauts orbiting other planetary bodies, such as Mars, asteroids or the moon, could use this approach to perform work on the surface using robotic avatars.
"The initial test was notable for achieving a number of firsts for NASA and the field of human-robotic exploration," said Terry Fong, Human Exploration Telerobotics project manager and director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., which designed and manages the tests. "Specifically, this project represents the first fully-interactive remote operation of a planetary rover by an astronaut in space."
During the June 17 test, Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA remotely operated the K10 planetary rover in the Roverscape an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields located at NASA Ames hundreds of miles below on Earth's surface from his post aboard the International Space Station (ISS). For more than three hours, Cassidy used the robot to perform a survey of the Roverscape's rocky, lunar-like terrain.
The July 26 test picked up where Cassidy left off. Fellow Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency remotely-controlled the rover and began deploying a simulated Kapton film-based radio antenna.
These tests represent the first time NASA's open-source Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate (RAPID) robot data messaging system was used to control a robot from space. RAPID originally was developed by NASA's Human-Robotic Systems project and is a set of software data structures and routines that simplify the process of communicating information between different robots and their command and control systems. RAPID has been used with a wide variety of systems including rovers, walking robots, free-flying robots and robotic cranes.
The test also is the first time the NASA Ensemble-based software -- jointly developed at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- was used in space for telerobotics. Ensemble is an open architecture for the development, integration and deployment of mission operations software. Fundamentally, it is an adaptation of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP), a widespread, stable and supported framework for component-based application development. Since 2004, the Ensemble project has supported the development of mission operations software for NASA's Science and Human Exploration and Operations mission directorates.
"Whereas it is common practice in undersea exploration to use a joystick and have direct control of remote submarines, the K10 robots are more intelligent," said Fong. "Astronauts interact with the robots at a higher level, telling them where to go, and then the robot itself independently and intelligently figures out how to safely get there."
The primary objective of the Surface Telerobotics testing is to collect engineering data from astronauts aboard the space station, the K10 robot and data communication links. This will allow engineers to characterize the system and validate previous ground tests.
NASA will conduct a final test session with the space station in August. During this test, engineers and an astronaut will inspect the deployed antenna and study human-robot interaction.
"During future missions beyond low-Earth orbit, some work will not be feasible for humans to do manually," said Fong. "Robots will complement human explorers, allowing astronauts to perform work via remote control from a space station, spacecraft or other habitat."
The primary goal of the Human Exploration Telerobotics project is to understand how human and robot activities, such as Surface Telerobotics, can be coordinated to improve crew safety, enhance science activities and increase mission success while also reducing cost, risk and consumables, such as fuel and oxygen, during future exploration missions.
The K10 robot is a four-wheel drive, four-wheel steer robot that stands about 4.5 feet tall, weighs about 220 pounds and can travel about three feet per second (a little slower than the average person's walking pace). For the Surface Telerobotics tests, K10 is equipped with multiple cameras and a 3-D scanning laser system to perform survey work, as well as a mechanism to deploy the simulated radio antenna.
This year's Surface Telerobotics tests simulate a possible future mission involving astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft traveling to the L2 Earth-moon Lagrange point. The L2 point is where the combined gravity of the Earth and moon allows a spacecraft to easily maintain a stationary orbit and is located 40,000 miles above the far side of the moon. From L2, astronauts would remotely operate a robot to perform surface science work, such as deploying a radio telescope. This mission concept was developed by the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR), which is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU).
"Deploying a radio telescope on the farside of the moon would allow us to make observations of the early universe free from the radio noise of Earth," said Jack Burns, a professor at CU, director of LUNAR and co-investigator at NASA's Lunar Science Institute. "The Surface Telerobotics test represents a next step in new modes of exploration that will bring together humans and robots, as well as science and exploration. Such telerobotics technology will be needed for exploration of the moon, asteroids and eventually the surface of Mars."
Students from several universities assisted with the development of Surface Telerobotics. Industrial design students from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco collaborated with NASA engineers to create the user interface for remotely operating the K10 rover. Undergraduates from CU and the University of Idaho helped design the Kapton film deployer, which is mounted on K10.
"These surface telerobotics tests, in collaboration with astronauts aboard the ISS, offer exciting opportunities for our students to have hands-on engineering and mission operations experiences with realistic simulations of future human-robot missions to planetary bodies," said Burns. "Such experiences inspire our students to careers in the aerospace sciences. These students are destined for bright futures as part of NASA's exploration of the solar system."
"This work really tests the notion that robots can project human presence to other planetary surfaces," said Fong. "Ultimately, this will allow us to discover and explore dangerous and remote places, whether they're at the bottom of the ocean or at the far reaches of our solar system."
###
Rachel Hoover
NASA Ames Research Center
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Station astronauts remotely control planetary rover from spacePublic release date: 30-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Julie A. Robinson julie.a.robinson@nasa.gov NASA/Johnson Space Center
Just as remotely-operated vehicles help humans explore the depths of the ocean from above, NASA has begun studying how a similar approach may one day help astronauts explore other worlds. On June 17 and July 26, NASA tested the Surface Telerobotics exploration concept, in which an astronaut in an orbiting spacecraft remotely operates a robot on a planetary surface. In the future, astronauts orbiting other planetary bodies, such as Mars, asteroids or the moon, could use this approach to perform work on the surface using robotic avatars.
"The initial test was notable for achieving a number of firsts for NASA and the field of human-robotic exploration," said Terry Fong, Human Exploration Telerobotics project manager and director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., which designed and manages the tests. "Specifically, this project represents the first fully-interactive remote operation of a planetary rover by an astronaut in space."
During the June 17 test, Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA remotely operated the K10 planetary rover in the Roverscape an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields located at NASA Ames hundreds of miles below on Earth's surface from his post aboard the International Space Station (ISS). For more than three hours, Cassidy used the robot to perform a survey of the Roverscape's rocky, lunar-like terrain.
The July 26 test picked up where Cassidy left off. Fellow Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency remotely-controlled the rover and began deploying a simulated Kapton film-based radio antenna.
These tests represent the first time NASA's open-source Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate (RAPID) robot data messaging system was used to control a robot from space. RAPID originally was developed by NASA's Human-Robotic Systems project and is a set of software data structures and routines that simplify the process of communicating information between different robots and their command and control systems. RAPID has been used with a wide variety of systems including rovers, walking robots, free-flying robots and robotic cranes.
The test also is the first time the NASA Ensemble-based software -- jointly developed at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- was used in space for telerobotics. Ensemble is an open architecture for the development, integration and deployment of mission operations software. Fundamentally, it is an adaptation of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP), a widespread, stable and supported framework for component-based application development. Since 2004, the Ensemble project has supported the development of mission operations software for NASA's Science and Human Exploration and Operations mission directorates.
"Whereas it is common practice in undersea exploration to use a joystick and have direct control of remote submarines, the K10 robots are more intelligent," said Fong. "Astronauts interact with the robots at a higher level, telling them where to go, and then the robot itself independently and intelligently figures out how to safely get there."
The primary objective of the Surface Telerobotics testing is to collect engineering data from astronauts aboard the space station, the K10 robot and data communication links. This will allow engineers to characterize the system and validate previous ground tests.
NASA will conduct a final test session with the space station in August. During this test, engineers and an astronaut will inspect the deployed antenna and study human-robot interaction.
"During future missions beyond low-Earth orbit, some work will not be feasible for humans to do manually," said Fong. "Robots will complement human explorers, allowing astronauts to perform work via remote control from a space station, spacecraft or other habitat."
The primary goal of the Human Exploration Telerobotics project is to understand how human and robot activities, such as Surface Telerobotics, can be coordinated to improve crew safety, enhance science activities and increase mission success while also reducing cost, risk and consumables, such as fuel and oxygen, during future exploration missions.
The K10 robot is a four-wheel drive, four-wheel steer robot that stands about 4.5 feet tall, weighs about 220 pounds and can travel about three feet per second (a little slower than the average person's walking pace). For the Surface Telerobotics tests, K10 is equipped with multiple cameras and a 3-D scanning laser system to perform survey work, as well as a mechanism to deploy the simulated radio antenna.
This year's Surface Telerobotics tests simulate a possible future mission involving astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft traveling to the L2 Earth-moon Lagrange point. The L2 point is where the combined gravity of the Earth and moon allows a spacecraft to easily maintain a stationary orbit and is located 40,000 miles above the far side of the moon. From L2, astronauts would remotely operate a robot to perform surface science work, such as deploying a radio telescope. This mission concept was developed by the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR), which is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU).
"Deploying a radio telescope on the farside of the moon would allow us to make observations of the early universe free from the radio noise of Earth," said Jack Burns, a professor at CU, director of LUNAR and co-investigator at NASA's Lunar Science Institute. "The Surface Telerobotics test represents a next step in new modes of exploration that will bring together humans and robots, as well as science and exploration. Such telerobotics technology will be needed for exploration of the moon, asteroids and eventually the surface of Mars."
Students from several universities assisted with the development of Surface Telerobotics. Industrial design students from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco collaborated with NASA engineers to create the user interface for remotely operating the K10 rover. Undergraduates from CU and the University of Idaho helped design the Kapton film deployer, which is mounted on K10.
"These surface telerobotics tests, in collaboration with astronauts aboard the ISS, offer exciting opportunities for our students to have hands-on engineering and mission operations experiences with realistic simulations of future human-robot missions to planetary bodies," said Burns. "Such experiences inspire our students to careers in the aerospace sciences. These students are destined for bright futures as part of NASA's exploration of the solar system."
"This work really tests the notion that robots can project human presence to other planetary surfaces," said Fong. "Ultimately, this will allow us to discover and explore dangerous and remote places, whether they're at the bottom of the ocean or at the far reaches of our solar system."
###
Rachel Hoover
NASA Ames Research Center
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Baseball is slowly having to come to terms with the fact that ?America?s favorite pastime? is evolving into an international sport.
With a mounting influx of foreign-born players growing in prominence in the majors, one of the issues being raised by fans and members of the league alike is how to accommodate players who do not speak English.
On opening day of the 2013 MLB season, over 24 percent players were born in Latin America and 4 percent were born in Canada, Europe or Asia. This marked the fourth highest percentage of foreign-born players in the league?s history.
Some foreign players always seem to have a translator, while others do not. That?s because of a number of factors, including team and league policies.?
For Latinos, sports experts said, there are both benefits and disadvantages to being the ?majority? minority in this sport.
While players can easily find other members on their team who speak Spanish, they are rarely guaranteed translators the way Asian players are.
Major League Baseball officials told Fox News Latino that it?s because Japanese players make sure translators are worked into their contract.
?It has been more common for Japanese players, some of whom have long played professional baseball before playing in MLB, to negotiate interpreters into their contracts,? Michael Teevan, senior director of public relations for?Major League Baseball,?said in an email.
That leaves many Spanish-speaking players to rely on teammates and coaches to interpret things for them when they don?t fully grasp the English language.
And while this seems to be working for players on the field, it can be a whole other story when it comes to press and high-profile events.
The issue came to light during the 2013 All-Star Game Home Run Derby, when ESPN reporter Pedro Gomez, a Cuban-American, interviewed a variety of players in their native tongue.
Though it was not the first time that ESPN had interviewed players in Spanish, some viewers blasted the bilingual broadcast.
Even though the majority of the criticism seemed to have a racist undertone, there were also many Latino fans asking why ESPN decided to not make a translator available to these players rather than have the reporter interpreting the responses himself.
?I?m still surprised because I try to see what is really the harm in doing that type of interview,? Gomez told Fox News Latino recently.
Having built a relationship with many of the players he interviews, Gomez said that with millions of viewers watching events like this, he thinks ?[the players are not] comfortable trying to put together English phrases that they?re not sure exactly what they?re saying.?
While many players, he said, are attempting to learn English, they become uncomfortable speaking a foreign language when the world is watching them.
?If I was dropped into Germany tomorrow, I don?t think two years from now I?d be comfortable giving a national interview in German,? he said.
With this being the second consecutive year ESPN has received flack for having Gomez conduct the interviews this way, ESPN is aware this issue is a ?hot topic.?
ESPN said they strongly stand by Gomez?s bilingual reports.
?Pedro?s report in Spanish during the Home Run Derby was an effective way to serve all sports fans ? both English and Spanish-speaking fans ? and we?re proud that we?re able to do this,? said Gabby Nunez, the manager of communications for ESPN Deportes and ESPN International.?
Nunez said the network tries to deliver the news the best way it can.
?The Hispanic market continues to grow with the bilingual fans and we want to be able to deliver news and report in the best way possible,? he said.
Ultimately, the decision regarding translators has nothing to do with the broadcaster or the league. It has to do with the players themselves.
?In the case of the All-Star Game and its events, we work with players individually to gauge their comfort level and to meet their preferences,? Teevan said. ?We also talk to teams about the needs of individual players.?Many players bring their own interpreters, in either a formal or an informal capacity.?
You can contact Kacy Capobres via twitter.?
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You have a choice when it comes to maps, and the answer isn?t as clear as it used to be. Google?s maps are still king, but OpenStreetMap is making a name for itself, gaining favor among many apps and services that rely heavily on maps, such as Foursquare and Evernote.?
OpenStreetMap launched in the UK in July 2004 as an alternative to the large number of proprietary maps that were big in the country at the time. Where does OpenStreetMap get its granular data from? You. Not in an NSA-eye-in-the-sky type of spying, but from information manually input from thousands of casual cartographers. It is truly the Wikipedia of maps.?
As for Google, it has recognized the usefulness of a ground team ? particularly in far flung locations where its Street View contraptions haven?t reached yet. In June 2008, the company introduced Google Map Maker, which allows casual cartographers to add or correct information on Google?s maps. Sounds familiar, doesn?t it??
Though there are similarities between the two community mapping programs, what?s the best one to invest time into if you want to see your mad mapping skillz reflected online??
Open vs. closed data system
The biggest difference between Google Map Maker and OpenStreetMap is how it treats the data you feed it, which may influence your decision on which one to use. OSM describes itself as an open data source, meaning that any person or company is able to use the map information contained in OpenStreetMap. Bear in mind that companies such as Foursquare pay OSM to use the maps for their app, but any information that Foursquare or its users add to it becomes part of and available to all OSM users. In other words, there?s no specialized OSM map that a paying company has access to that a regular Joe doesn?t also have access to.?
OpenStreetMap recently switched from a Creative Commons license to an Open Database License (ODbL), which is a?share-alike license. It?s similar to the previous Creative Commons license as both allow OSM to be shared and used as long as all of the data one person or company puts into it is made available to all of OSM?s users.?
Google Maps and, by extension, Google Map Maker, is a closed system. All of the information you submit becomes property of Google. From the always thrilling Terms of Service page:
By submitting User Submissions to the Service, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, distribute, and create derivative works of the User Submission. You confirm and warrant to Google that you own or have all of the necessary rights or permissions to grant this license. You also grant to end users of Google services the right to access and use, including the right to edit, the User Submissions as permitted under the applicable Google terms of service.
Depending on your personal stance, this may not be a big deal for you. It is, after all, a way to contribute to a map that is pretty much the online standard around the world. Speaking of that, because of Google Maps omnipresence, there?s not always a lot of information to add to heavily populated areas. Much of the major road information missing from Google Maps is in remote parts of the world, such as parts of Africa and Asia.
Speed of updates
As someone just getting started with mapping, you?ll want to see the changes you make as soon as possible, right? Much like Wikipedia, updates made via the Javascript-based iD editor for OpenStreetMap are able to be viewed instantly. However, like Wikipedia, there is another tier of users who have the power to remove or alter your edits or additions. So if you label your ex-boyfriend?s house ?Dirtbag Manor,? it?s going to be removed between a few hours to a couple of days.?
Google Map Maker lets you instantly view your edits, but it cautions that your edit will need to be reviewed before it?s officially added. Oddly enough, even if it?s your first edit to a map, you can still review other people?s edits. In fact, reviewing others? edits is a way to get your edit reviewed more quickly.?However, there?s no telling how long it will take to get reviewed. One edit in our neighborhood had been waiting for review since October 2012.?
Interfaces
Google?s Map Maker looks a lot like Google Maps before the most recent update. There?s a column on the left side and the map is on the right. The big difference is that the left column has a header for ?My Neighborhoods.? This isn?t the traditional Mr. Rogers definition of neighborhood, but rather geographical locations that you?re interested in. We had a little bit of difficultly adding locations other than where we were currently located, but we were able to add them once we included a city name and state instead of just a zip code. Adding neighborhoods isn?t required to edit a map, but it does provide a general area for viewing and reviewing map edits made by others.
By comparison, you can view any area on OpenStreetMap with the iD editor and not have to specify geographical areas of interest or expertise.?
Adding a road, building, place of interest, or town boundary is similar in both applications. In our experience, the OSM iD editor seemed more user friendly and straight forward. We found it much easier to add a business within a building using the iD editor than it was in Map Maker.
Social component
It?s no secret that Google is pushing Google+ extra hard, and Map Maker is no exception. The company encourages?Map Maker fans to gather for ?MapUps??where amateur cartographers meet up to update Google Maps together. Sounds pretty geeky, right? The MapUp may be held in person or virtually (through Google Hangouts, of course). Google suggests MapUps as a project for a cycling club that wants to add bike paths. The host of an in-person MapUp is elevated in the Map Maker world to an Advocate, as long as at least 20 people attend who each make at least five approved edits.
If that?s not enough cred for you, there?s also a club for Power Mappers. This is for cartographers who make numerous edits and reviews to Map Maker. There?s a private forum and a ?unique opportunity to work behind the scenes toward mapping initiatives and product improvements.? Google is really pushing the social side of Map Maker to the point where it seems a little contrived.
Make no mistake, OpenStreetMap is not without its social entities, either. There are numerous mapping meet ups we found listed on?openstreetmap.meetup.com?and many were taking place this month. We can?t say the same for Google?s MapUps. We only found two events for the month of July, one of which was in Romania. To be fair, Google says it has over 25,000 Map Maker users, while OSM says it has over 1 million.?
End of the Road
Ultimately, if you?re interested in cartography, OpenStreetMap is more readily accessible and it?s easier to find others in your locale who share the same interest. Google?s Map Maker is not without its benefits, but our overall experience with it felt more like we were navigating a ghost town instead of a thriving community.
Has Glenn Thrush at the Politico thrown up the white flag on Democrats regaining control of the House until 2022, the first election cycle after the next wave of congressional and statehouse redistricting? If so, he clearly underestimates Republicans' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I digress.
It would appear that Thrush has thrust himself into the throes of despair, based on the bolded sentence seen after the jump from his Friday report on how 2010 losses of control of the U.S. House and especially control of so many statehouses and state legislatures "still haunt" Dear Leader Barack Obama:
Story Continues Below Ad ?
Obama?s states of despair: 2010 losses still haunt
Barack Obama has spent well over $1 billion on his political campaigns, but it?s the $20 to $30 million Democrats didn?t shell out three years ago that is costing the White House as he slogs through the first six months of his second term.
The GOP?s wildly successful, low-key, and stunningly cheap campaign to seize state capitals in 2010 has come back to haunt Obama and his fellow Democrats. It?s now clear that the party?s loss of 20 state legislative chambers and critical Midwestern governor?s seats represents an ongoing threat every bit as dangerous as the more-publicized Republican take-back of the House that same year.
There was no stopping the GOP wave that year ? but strategists in both parties say Obama?s team might have blunted it if they had somehow managed to cut into the GOP?s $30-to-$10 million cash advantage in state house races by making campaigns at the very bottom of the ballot a priority.
For that seed money, Republicans secured an historic return, cementing a ten-year grip on the House of Representatives and a score of state houses, and erasing the remaining smudges of blue in red states.
... It might be the greatest opportunity cost of the Obama Era in terms of sheer damage to Democrats, a gift that keeps giving to the Republicans in the form of GOP-dominated redistricting and a barrage of state actions that challenge Obama?s core agenda on health care, civil rights and abortion.
... the conservative revival has capped the number of states fully developing their own health care exchanges at 17, far fewer than Obama?s team had anticipated.
Thrush might as well have stopped at "There was no stopping the GOP wave that year," as he didn't cite a single race in which more money would somehow have swung the balance.
It also takes a special brand of deliberate historical revisionism to spend over 1,400 words on the 2010 congressional and state elections and never bring up the terms "tea party," "economy," "stimulus," or "deficit."
Naturally, Thrush didn't even consider the idea that the debacle might not have been so bad if Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hadn't governed so radically and so fiscally irresponsibly during 2009 and 2010, causing hordes of conservatives who had never been politically active to man the barricades.
Sour-grapes Thrush also convenient ignored the fact that large blue states like California, New York, and Illinois, whose congresspersons make up over 22% of that body, have been every bit as ruthlessly gerrymandered to favor Democrats.
Predictably, the Politico reporter also finds space to blame the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Democrats' imaginary excuse for all that ails them, while tagging caricatured enemies in the process:
Then came January 2010, when Republicans? luck turned. The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United opened up the spigot for conservative donors, followed a couple of weeks later by Scott Brown?s Senate win in supposedly safe Democratic Massachusetts.
(Ed) Gillespie & Co. pounced, pulling in millions from traditional GOP donors, including Wal-Mart, tobacco companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other conservative donors, according to a report by the online investigative web site Pro Publica. In addition, the RSLC activated a subsidiary to funnel cash to the party?s best map-drafter ? the snowy-haired bane of liberals for decades, Tom Hofeller.
In other words, Republicans played aggressive hardball politics based on the playing field as it existed. I guess Democrats never do that. Boo hoo.
As to Wal-Mart, it supported Obamacare.
The big picture point is that Thrush somehow, like so many in Washington, believes that the amount of money spent in political campaigns means almost everything. When Democrats lose, it simply must be because they didn't spend enough of it. It can't possibly be because so much of the country rejects their political views. Keep telling yourself that, Glenn.
d8:announce33:http://www.h33t.com:3310/announce13:announce-listll33:http://www.h33t.com:3310/announceel33:http://exodus.desync.com/announceel39:udp://area51.tracker.prq.to:80/announceel38:udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announceel40:http://inferno.demonoid.me:3403/announceel44:udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announceel32:udp://tracker.ccc.de:80/announceel32:udp://tracker.ccc.de:80/announceel35:udp://tracker.istole.it:80/announceee10:created by13:uTorrent/184013:creation datei1375089466e8:encoding5:UTF-84:infod6:lengthi734982144e4:name45:BBC The Mystery of Rome's X Tomb XviD AC3.avi12:piece lengthi1048576e6:pieces14020:6?'!wLJgc
A scientific controversy erupted this week over claims that methane trapped beneath the Arctic Ocean could suddenly escape, releasing huge quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas, in coming decades, with a huge cost to the global economy.
The issue being debated is this: Could the Arctic seafloor really fart out 50 billion tons of methane in the next few decades? In a commentary published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (July 24), researchers predicted that the rapid shrinking of Arctic sea ice would warm the Arctic Ocean, thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea and releasing methane gas trapped in the sediments. The big methane belch would come with a $60 trillion price tag, due to intensified global warming from the added methane in the atmosphere, the authors said.
But climate scientists and experts on methane hydrates, the compound that contains the methane, quickly shot down the methane-release scenario.
"The paper says that their scenario is 'likely.' I strongly disagree," said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
An unlikely scenario
One line of evidence Schmidt cites comes from ice core records, which include two warm Arctic periods that occurred 8,000 and 125,000 years ago, he said. There is strong evidence that summer sea ice was?reduced during these periods, and so the methane-release mechanism?(reduced sea ice causes sea floor?warming and hydrate melting) could have happened then, too. But there's no methane pulse in ice cores from either warm period, Schmidt said. "It might be a small thing that we can't detect, but if it was large enough to have a big climate impact, we would see it," Schmidt told LiveScience.
David Archer, a climate scientist at the University of Chicago, said no one has yet proposed a mechanism to quickly release large quantities of methane gas from seafloor sediments into the atmosphere. "It has to be released within a few years to have much impact on climate, but the mechanisms for release operate on time scales of centuries and longer," Archer said in an email interview.
Methane has a lifetime of about 10 years in the atmosphere before it starts breaking down into other compounds. [What are Greenhouse Gases?]
Defending new model
Today (July 26), Peter Wadhams, a co-author of the Nature commentary, defended the work against critics in an essay posted online.
"The mechanism which is causing the observed mass of rising methane plumes in the East Siberian Sea is itself unprecedented, and the scientists who dismissed the idea of extensive methane release in earlier research were simply not aware of the new mechanism that is causing it," wrote Wadhams, an oceanographer at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
"But once the ice disappears, as it has done, the temperature of the water can rise significantly, and the heat content reaching the seabed can melt the frozen sediments at a rate that was never before possible," Wadhams added. "David Archer's 2010 comment that 'so far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that (a catastrophic methane release) happen' was not informed by the ... mechanism described above. Carolyn Ruppel's review of 2011 equally does not reflect awareness of this new mechanism," Wadhams wrote.
But Ruppel, a methane hydrate expert at the U.S. Geological Survey who authored a review of research on gas hydrates in 2011, also called the sudden-thawing scenario unrealistic.
"I would say it's nearly impossible," Ruppel, chief of the USGS Gas Hydrates Project in Woods Holes, Mass., told LiveScience.
Methane: microbial or hydrate?
Much of the Arctic's methane sits in permafrost buried under hundreds of meters of seafloor sediments, Ruppel said. The deposits formed on exposed ground during the last Ice Age, when sea levels were lower. The rising seas have been warming the deposits for millennia. Any added warming will have to work down through the thick sediment cap.
Much of the modeling predictions in the Nature commentary were based on recent discoveries of rising methane plumes in the East Siberian Sea. However, those plumes may be from methane hydrates or from microbes.
"Methane release in the Arctic from both marine and terrestrial sources is expected to increase with warming climate, as documented in numerous papers," Ruppel said. "Much of the methane may actually be produced in the shallow sediments by microbial processes and be completely unrelated to methane hydrates." ? ?
However, there has yet to be a detectable change in Arctic methane emissions in the atmosphere over the past two decades, Ed Dlugokencky, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory, said in an email interview.
Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It is understandable that some people might be uncomfortable reading a book about sexual orientation, gender identity and death.
And it stands to reason that no single book chosen for freshmen at the College of Charleston to read will appeal to every student. Or their parents.
But the to-do over ?Fun Home? is overblown, and efforts to ban the book could undermine academic independence and even the basic right to free speech.
Each year, a College of Charleston committee of faculty, administrators, staff and students chooses a book, which freshmen are given to read before the start of school. Recommendations come from the public as well as the college community.
This year, ?Fun Home? by Alison Bechdel was selected, as it has been at many other colleges around the country. She has been engaged to speak at the College in October.
The College of Charleston might have expected some push-back because of its comic book format. But it is the content that upsets the conservative Palmetto Family organization. Oran Smith, president and chief operating officer, called it ?very close to pornography.?
That?s what the blue-stocking critics of previous eras said about books by D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, J.D. Salinger and many others.
In the memoir, Ms. Bechdel chronicles her childhood and youth in rural America, including recognizing that she was a lesbian and her father was hiding his homosexuality.
?Fun Home? spent two weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. It was praised for its graphic novel form: a memoir expressed in comics. Several publications named it one of the best books of 2006.
College Associate Provost Lynne Ford said the book addresses issues that freshmen are facing, including ?Who am I and how do I fit in??
But even if the book weren?t acclaimed for its literary value, and didn?t have themes that might be of interest to students, the threat of censorship is chilling.
If a public school teacher chose ?Fun Home? for students, parents could reasonably object to it as age inappropriate.
But college students are of an age to be considered adults, or at least heading in that direction. They should be expected to encounter a wide spectrum of thought and behavior during their college years, just as they will in the working world.
Professionals at the college work with those students, study a variety of publications and ought to have an idea what might benefit them.
Oran Smith hasn?t decided what action his group might take concerning the C of C. At least he concedes that the book shouldn?t be banned in America.
Mr. Smith and Palmetto Family are clearly not alone in their distaste for Ms. Bechdel?s book. A public library in Missouri removed the graphic novel from its shelves for five months after local residents objected to its contents. Eventually, it was returned to the shelves.
Literary censorship is generally a bad idea in a nation built on free speech.
And making a big deal about a book?s supposedly prurient content virtually guarantees a higher level of readership than it would otherwise expect.
Been looking for a solution to this for a while, since my answer wasn't exactly posted anywhere I thought I could help others , this can literally save your life if driving !! Google search still parses commands much better than vendor apps("text bill hey I'll get at u later") .. works too if you want to launch apps from search key, short press only.... would suggest trying MENU instead of VOICE, but try them both if you want.
HOW TO REMAP SEARCH KEY TO GOOGLE SEARCH DIRECT VOICE PROMPT
This worked for me on stock Android 4.1.2 rooted, remember backup before you edit:
1. Root
2. Edit /system/usr/keylayout/cy8c201xx.kl
3. Change from
key 217 SEARCH WAKE_DROPPED VIRTUAL
To
key 217 VOICE WAKE_DROPPED VIRTUAL
4. Save and reboot
Does spaz a bit on long press, but short press it will FINALLY let you choose an app.....and don't be fooled, choosing Google doesnt bring up the general Google Search with all the cards and crap, its just a voice prompt directly to the new Google voice search...exactly what i needed. Again only short press works but it's awesome having the nice, accurate voice commands back from 4.0 and older Android released on RAZR. May take a few selections and selecting "always" a couple times, then reboot for it to hold.
YANGON (Reuters) - President Thein Sein has proposed that a former head of the central bank of Myanmar be brought back as governor as part of reforms that will make it independent from the Ministry of Finance, a source at the president's office said on Monday.
"In his message sent to the Union Parliament, the president last week proposed appointing Kyaw Kyaw Maung, retired central bank governor, as the governor," the senior official said, asking not to be identified.
Kyaw Kyaw Maung, a career banker in his early 70s, was governor of the central bank from 1997 to 2007. He graduated from Mandalay University and briefly worked there as a tutor before joining the Ministry of Finance.
Thein Sein signed a new central bank act into law on July 11, adding to the economic and political reforms he has pushed through since taking office in March 2011 after nearly half a century of military rule.
Than Lwin, vice-chairman of KBZ Bank, the biggest private bank in the country and a former vice-governor of the central bank, applauded the mooted appointment and those of other senior officials.
"I think the president has made the right choices to take care of nurturing the newly reformed central bank. Parliament should approve it very soon," he said.
Aye Maung, an upper house lawmaker, said the proposals would be tabled for the current session of parliament this week.
The source from the president's office said the present governor of the central bank, Than Nyein, had been proposed for a post of vice-governor. Than Nyein, 60, a former army officer, took over from Kyaw Kyaw Maung in 2007.
Set Aung, deputy minister of national planning and economic development, and Khin Saw Oo, a senior official at the central bank, had also been put forward as vice-governors.
Set Aung is a Western-educated economist in his early 40s. He has been deputy minister as well as a presidential economic adviser for about a year.
Khin Saw Oo, a career banker in her early 60s, is currently in charge of the regulation of financial institutions and the anti-money-laundering department.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's most significant fiscal reform in years - a planned increase in the country's sales tax - could be delayed or watered down in a move that might rattle financial markets and amount to an own goal for the prime minister.
Despite holding the strongest political mandate of any prime minister in years, there are signs Shinzo Abe is seriously rethinking the plan out of concern it could derail a nascent economic recovery he has crafted with an aggressive policy mix, dubbed Abenomics.
Abe says he will decide in the autumn whether to proceed with the first part of the two-stage plan after gauging the state of the economic recovery, especially GDP data that is due on Sept 9. The tax, similar to general sales tax and value added tax in other countries, is due to rise to 8 percent in April 2014 and then 10 percent in 2015.
Abe does not want to raise the tax, given the likely economic and political repercussions, but he understands the risks of upsetting the markets by giving the appearance of backtracking on promised reform, said a person involved in crafting economic policies. At 5 percent, Japan and Canada have the lowest equivalent consumption taxes in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD data shows.
The stakes in Japan are high. The tax hike was passed into law last year with the support of Abe's current coalition parties and the previous government and is meant to be the first step toward repairing Japan's tattered finances. However, the law also requires the government to judge the economic conditions before giving the final go ahead.
Reneging on fiscal reform could hit investor confidence, which has allowed Tokyo to borrow money cheaply even though its $5 trillion public debt, well over twice the nation's annual economic output, is the heaviest burden in the industrial world.
At the same time, Abe has stressed that his top priority is to rouse Japan from 15 years of deflation and tepid growth through his Abenomics program of heavy government spending, massive monetary easing and promises of a longer-term growth strategy.
Abe himself admitted the thorny dilemma just hours after scoring a landslide win in upper house elections on July 21 that gave his ruling bloc a clear parliamentary majority.
"It will be a difficult decision," he said of the looming tax choice.
"The economy is just starting to recover and now is the best chance for Japan to emerge from deflation," Abe said. "I don't want to lose this chance. At the same time, markets are watching (our progress) on Japan's fiscal reform."
SPLIT
Despite his electoral triumph, Abe's team is split.
A small number of vocal reflationists, such as cabinet office adviser Koichi Hamada, say Abe should prioritize recovery and go-slow on raising the tax. Pitted against them, the Finance Ministry says it is vital for Japan to show markets and trading partners that it is serious about putting its fiscal house in order.
Japanese media reported on Saturday that Abe had instructed his government to study the impact on the economy and prices of four tax-hike options, including sticking with the existing plan, raising the rate 1 percentage point a year for five years and delaying the hike entirely.
Abe, speaking at a news conference on a visit to Manila, said: "I haven't yet issued any instructions to come up with several proposals."
Government officials also say they haven't received any formal orders to draw up fresh scenarios, although an advisory panel to the premier had already been mandated to study the impact of the current plan on the economy and prices.
Public opinion may play to the advantage of the reflationists.
A survey of 902 people in the Nikkei business daily, conducted just after the election, found only 11 percent supporting the existing plan, compared with 58 percent who favor "flexibility" in the timing or scale of the increase and 27 percent who oppose raising the tax at all.
History too provides a cautionary tale for Abe, who got a rare second chance at running the government in December.
Noboru Takeshita, the premier who forced the first sales tax through parliament in 1988, and Ryutaro Hashimoto, who raised it to 5 percent from 3 percent in 1997, were driven from office as their public support collapsed - although other problems also plagued both men. The decision to double the tax contributed to the defeat of Abe's predecessor, Yoshihiko Noda.
Adviser Hamada, a 77-year-old emeritus professor at Yale University and a key member of Abe's brain trust, told Reuters on July 23 that Japan needed much more evidence of a sturdy recovery before raising the tax.
The economy, which grew at an annualized rate of 4.1 percent in the first quarter - the fastest among Group of Seven industrial powers - needs to maintain similar growth for two more quarters before enduring a tax hike, Hamada said.
BOND TRADERS WATCHING
He set the bar higher still, saying he is pushing Abe to wait not only until growth picks up but until employment improves, ensuring a firmer footing for the recovery.
The government should wait until unemployment falls to 3 percent from around 4 percent now and job seekers outnumber job offers "in all regions" of the country, Hamada said.
Although the latest data shows there were 90 seekers for each 100 job offers in May nationally, only four of Japan's 10 regions have more labor demand than supply.
It is unclear how much influence Hamada has on fiscal policy, but the views of the reflationists might "have significant influence on Abe's thinking on this subject," said former Bank of Japan deputy governor Kazumasa Iwata, head of the prominent think tank, the Japan Centre for Economic Research.
Some government officials are keen to start fiscal reform, privately worried that changing the tax plan would endanger Japan's promise to halve its budget deficit - excluding debt-financing - from fiscal 2010 levels by fiscal 2015 and balance the budget five years later.
They say raising the tax in incremental steps each year could be too easily derailed, since the politically sensitive hikes would have to be approved for five years in a row - with national elections scheduled in three years.
Finance Minister Taro Aso has strongly insisted on sticking with the tax-hike plan, saying it is an international promise. Still, Aso signaled last week he is willing to soften the economic blow by offering another dollop of fiscal stimulus.
The Japanese government-bond market, which lets Abe's government borrow 10-year money for less than 0.8 percent, would be hit hard if Abe changes the sales-tax plan, said Tadashi Matsukawa, head of Japan fixed income at PineBridge Investments.
"The whole of Abenomics would basically crash under that scenario," he said, adding he thinks it unlikely Abe will change the plan.
Iwata, the former BOJ deputy governor, told Reuters that if Abe postponed the agreed tax hike, that would endanger the rest of the fiscal-reform schedule.
"If Japan can't raise the tax rate even when the economy is in good shape, that may lead to market distrust over Abe's governance," Iwata said.
(Reporting by Sumio Ito, Yuko Yoshikawa, Hitoshi Ishida, Kaori Kaneko, Leika Kihara and Lisa Twaronite; Writing by William Mallard; Editing by Neil Fullick)
Tito Ortiz is in the UFC Hall of Fame, but he shouldn't rely on that fact to get back with the promotion. The retired fighter has been talking about coming back to MMA. However, UFC president Dana White was not so keen on the idea.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 30-Jul-2013
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The biggest difference between Google Map Maker and OpenStreetMap is how it treats the data you feed it, which may influence your decision on which one to use. OSM describes itself as an open data source, meaning that any person or company is able to use the map information contained in OpenStreetMap. Bear in mind that companies such as Foursquare pay OSM to use the maps for their app, but any information that Foursquare or its users add to it becomes part of and available to all OSM users. In other words, there?s no specialized OSM map that a paying company has access to that a regular Joe doesn?t also have access to.?
Google?s Map Maker looks a lot like Google Maps before the most recent update. There?s a column on the left side and the map is on the right. The big difference is that the left column has a header for ?My Neighborhoods.? This isn?t the traditional Mr. Rogers definition of neighborhood, but rather geographical locations that you?re interested in. We had a little bit of difficultly adding locations other than where we were currently located, but we were able to add them once we included a city name and state instead of just a zip code. Adding neighborhoods isn?t required to edit a map, but it does provide a general area for viewing and reviewing map edits made by others.
By comparison, you can view any area on OpenStreetMap with the iD editor and not have to specify geographical areas of interest or expertise.?
It?s no secret that Google is pushing Google+ extra hard, and Map Maker is no exception. The company encourages?Map Maker fans to gather for ?MapUps??where amateur cartographers meet up to update Google Maps together. Sounds pretty geeky, right? The MapUp may be held in person or virtually (through Google Hangouts, of course). Google suggests MapUps as a project for a cycling club that wants to add bike paths. The host of an in-person MapUp is elevated in the Map Maker world to an Advocate, as long as at least 20 people attend who each make at least five approved edits.
works too if you want to launch apps from search key, short press only.... would suggest trying MENU instead of VOICE, but try them both if you want.