Boehner on Fiscal Cliff Talks: 'You Can't Be Serious'

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President Obama and his White House team appear to have drawn a line in the sand in talks with House Republicans on the "fiscal cliff."


Tax rates on the wealthy are going up, the only question is how much?


"Those rates are going to have to go up," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner flatly stated on ABC's "This Week." "There's no responsible way we can govern this country at a time of enormous threat, and risk, and challenge ... with those low rates in place for future generations."


But the president's plan, which Geithner delivered last week, has left the two sides far apart.


In recounting his response today on "Fox News Sunday," House Speaker John Boehner said: "I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and said, 'You can't be serious.'


"The president's idea of negotiation is: Roll over and do what I ask," Boehner added.


The president has never asked for so much additional tax revenue. He wants another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, including returning the tax rate on income above $250,000 a year to 39.6 percent.






TOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images















Obama Balances Fiscal Cliff, Defense Department Appointment Watch Video





Boehner is offering half that, $800 billion.


In exchange, the president suggests $600 billion in cuts to Medicare and other programs. House Republicans say that is not enough, but they have not publicly listed what they would cut.


Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court, and the White House is seemingly content to sit and wait for Republicans to come around.


"They have to come to us and tell us what they think they need. What we can't do is to keep guessing," he said.


The president is also calling for more stimulus spending totaling $200 billion for unemployment benefits, training, and infrastructure projects.


"All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table," Boehner said.


Boehner also voiced some derision over the president's proposal to strip Congress of power over the country's debt level, and whether it should be raised.


"Congress is not going to give up this power," he said. "It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone."


The so-called fiscal cliff, a mixture of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, is triggered on Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House do not come up with a deficit-cutting deal first.


The tax increases would cost the average family between $2,000 and $2,400 a year, which, coupled with the $500 billion in spending cuts, will most likely put the country back into recession, economists say.



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Tiny tug of war in cells underpins life

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TUG of war could well be the oldest game in the world. Cells use it for division, and now researchers have measured the forces involved when an amoeba plays the game.












Hirokazu Tanimoto and Masaki Sano at the University of Tokyo, Japan, studied what happens during the division of Dictyostelium - a slime mould that has barely changed through eons of evolution. The amoeba uses tiny projections or "feet" to gain traction on a surface.












The pair placed the amoeba on a flexible surface embedded with fluorescent beads. They used traction force microscopy to measure how the organism deformed the pattern of beads: the greater the deformation, the greater the force.












Dictyostelium normally exerts a force of about 10 nanonewtons when it moves, but the pair found this roughly doubles during division. That's because the cell uses its feet to pull itself in opposite directions, as if playing tug of war with itself.












The forces involved are about 100 billion times smaller than those used in the human form of the game, Tanimoto says (Physical Review Letters, in press).


















































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Family tells of escape from Japan fire tunnel

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OTSUKI, Japan: A man who fled with his wife and children from a collapsed Japanese tunnel in which at least five people died spoke Sunday of how he had been unable to get anyone out of a crushed and burning vehicle.

Tomohiro Suzuki said the nearly five-kilometre (three mile)-long tunnel, passing through hills near Mount Fuji, had been the scene of confusion as cars drove the wrong way to try to escape the cave-in and ensuing fire.

At least five people are known to have died after being trapped inside their burning vehicle on one of Japan's most important highways. Officials had said at least seven people were missing.

Other vehicles were believed to have been buried when the 20-centimetre- (eight-inch)-thick concrete roof panels caved in on the Tokyo-bound side of the Sasago tunnel, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the capital.

Suzuki, 37, said he had jumped out of his car and rushed towards a vehicle that had been crushed by the fallen concrete in a bid to rescue people inside.

"A part of the ceiling, just as wide as the road, had collapsed straight down and broken in the middle into a V-shape," he told Jiji Press.

He told the agency there was a fire in its bonnet, but he could find no way in.

"I called the police as I thought it was impossible for me to rescue anyone inside."

"I could hear after a while on the public address system that a fire has occurred inside the tunnel and the sprinkler system was going to be activated."

Suzuki said people in the tunnel were in panic, with cars starting to drive the wrong way to try to get out.

He gathered up his 38-year-old wife, Nishiki, and their two children, six and nine, and hurried them to safety as several dozen people rushed to get out.

"I was anxious as I could not see the exit," he said.

"I kept wondering when the fire would spread and catch us. I tried to let my children get away first of all."

Suzuki, from central Nagano prefecture, said it had taken him and his family about an hour to get out of the tunnel. By the time they got out, the fire had established itself and they could see smoke coming from the tunnel mouth.

A search-and-rescue operation, which swung into operation shortly after the collapse at around 8 am (2300 GMT Saturday), was temporarily halted when engineers said there was a risk of a secondary cave-in.

But by late afternoon it had been resumed, with teams of rescuers, along with heavy equipment, including car transporters, sent back inside the tunnel.

Footage from security cameras nearly ten hours after the collapse showed large concrete panels still sitting in the V shape that Suzuki described, with men in protective gear scrambling over the top of them.

Broadcasters said they were working to get to at least one vehicle underneath the debris.

At the tunnel mouth, dozens of emergency service workers milled around. A number of tents had been set up, with crews apparently using them to co-ordinate their work.

- AFP/ck



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McAfee nabbed? His blog says maybe, following CNN interview

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The bizarre real-life potboiler concerning on-the-lam antivirus-software pioneer John McAfee continued today, as -- following a cloak-and-dagger CNN interview with the fugitive -- McAfee's own blog posted an item saying he may have been captured at the Belize-Mexico border.


The item, pictured above and reported earlier by news agency AFP, says little more than that and calls the report of the capture "unconfirmed." We'll update this post -- or link to a new, separate story -- when we know more. (Editor's note: See bottom of story for updates.)



Earlier, CNN managed to track McAfee down for an on-camera interview somewhere in his longtime country of residence, Belize -- where he's in hiding after his neighbor was shot to death. A CNN article accompanying an online video of the interview says its reporter had to provide a secret password and partake in a secret-agent-like, twisting-and-turning
car ride to get to the millionaire turned mystery man.


In the brief interview, which you can check out here, McAfee says, "I will certainly not turn myself in, and I will certainly not quit fighting. I will not stop my blog." He says he'll either get arrested or get away and clarifies that "Get away doesn't mean leave the country. It means they will, No. 1, find the murderer of Mr. Faull and, No. 2, the people of this country -- who are by and large terrified to speak out -- start speaking out,"


McAfee has been on the run since November 12, when his neighbor Gregory Faull was discovered with a bullet in his head. McAfee and Faull had reportedly had run-ins with each other over McAfee's dogs and armed security guards. In an interview with Wired that same day, McAfee said he thought the killers had actually been looking for him and not Faull.


Other aspects of the tale include the fact that the 67-year-old McAfee's home was raided in May and that police said they found multiple unlicensed firearms and McAfee with a 17-year-old girl. They also said he was manufacturing an antibiotic in his home without a license. McAfee's blog provides another unusual twist. Apparently begun about a week after Faull's murder, it includes entries from McAfee himself about his flight. In one such post, McAfee writes that he is traveling with a 20-year-old woman named Samantha, whom he credits with helping to keep him fed, clothed, and in hiding:



"She has also helped me evade detection by grabbing me and kissing me, in public, in a fashion that causes passerby's to feel embarrassment at the thought of staring and by creating emotional scenes that cause the curious to momentarily forget what they were looking for," he wrote. "She is acutely aware of her surroundings and is as street smart as a sober hobo."


Today's CNN report noted that police in Belize have said they don't consider McAfee a suspect in the killing; they want him only for questioning. The news agency also noted that McAfee maintains that his troubles began when he refused to bribe a government official and that he will be killed if he's arrested.


Again, the post on McAfee's whoismcafee.com/The Hinterland blog says the report of McAfee's capture is unconfirmed, so it remains to be seen if it turns out to be true. If nothing else, however, the post adds yet another chapter to this strangely unfolding tale.


Update, December 2 at 12:23 a.m. PT:
Peter Delevett at the San Jose Mercury News' SiliconBeat blog is reporting that McAfee has not been apprehended and is still on the run.


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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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Wikileaks Case: Guards Deny Intimidating Manning

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gty bradley manning dm 121108 wblog Bradley Mannings Former Guards Testify About Controversial Incident

(Brendan Smialkowski/AFP/Getty Images)


Bradley Manning’s former guards testified today that they did not intimidate the man accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrets website Wikileaks during  a Jan. 18, 2011 incident that resulted in Manning being placed on a temporary suicide risk watch.


Manning’s attorneys cite the event as a key reason why his pre-trial confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was unlawful and warrants the dismissal of the charges against him.


Manning faces life imprisonment on charges that he leaked the classified military and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks.  Details of those charges will come at a trial scheduled for February and are not being discussed at this week’s hearing, which is focused on his nine-month confinement at Quantico from July 2010 to April 2011.


On Jan. 18, 2011 Manning was being moved to his daily “recreation call” in a room at the brig when he experienced an apparent anxiety attack.  Manning said Thursday the guards escorting him seemed to have an aggressive attitude that made him feel nervous and ultimately feel faint.


Manning testified Thursday that he “lost my demeanor” during a later discussion with brig officials about the incident that led them to place him on temporary suicide risk watch.


Former Marine guards Lance Corporal Joshua Tankersly and Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline testified today that Manning had been moving around while his hand and leg restraints were placed on him for the escort to the exercise room.  They said they reminded Manning that he should respond properly to their orders by referring to their ranks when he answered them.


When Manning entered the recreation room they described a situation in which Manning fell backwards and landed on his backside.


They then said that when out of his leg restraints Manning ran to a weightlifting machine, hid behind it and began to cry.  Both Cline and Tankersly said they could not explain Manning’s behavior.  Both guards were ordered to leave the room and were replaced by two other guards who escorted Manning back to his cell.


Cline said he was puzzled when a supervisor later told him “we intimidated him or something like that.”


Each guard said he could not recall if they sounded harsh when they talked to Manning on the way to the exercise room.


They both said that aside from the January incident, Manning was courteous and professional in his interactions with them.  Both described him as an average prisoner, though Tankersly acknowledged that Manning was a high profile detainee who had the attention of high-ranking officials at the base.


“It’s hard to put ‘average’ on such a high profile, when you have higher ups on base come and check through to that see all was OK,” Tankersly said.


Gunnery Sgt. William Fuller, one of the senior officers at the brig, also testified today about his participation in a Classification and Assessment board that routinely assessed whether Manning’s Maximum Custody and Prevention of Injury status should be downgraded. The board never reduced Manning’s status during his stay.


Fuller acknowledged that before the January incident he and another brig official had considered a downgrade because Manning was “doing pretty good.”


He said the Jan. 18incident “kind of reset things … we had to keep him on Prevention of Injury.”


Fuller also cited Manning’s quiet interactions with him as a reason for keeping Manning on that status.


According to Fuller “he wouldn’t communicate … it seemed like he didn’t really want to talk” and that concerned him, given training he had received that being withdrawn could be an indicator of suicidal behavior.


Fuller admitted that the conversations were really just quick interactions to see how Manning was doing..  When asked to provide examples of longer exchanges he had with other prisoners, Fuller provided brief sentences.  That led David Coombs, Manning’s defense attorney to say sarcastically, “so if he’d thrown in more words then he would have classified as a Chatty Patty?”


Manning’s attorneys claim that a protest on Jan. 17 by Manning supporters, at the entrance to the base, may have motivated an aggressive attitude towards the detainee.


Cline recalled other guards “were annoyed” by the protest” because it would close parts of the base and hinder or interrupt how they got home.”  But Tankersly said the protest had no impact on Manning’s treatment.

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Weaver ants help flowers get the best pollinator

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MOST flowers don't want pesky ants hanging around scaring away would-be pollinators. Not so the Singapore rhododendron - the first flower found to recruit ants to chase poor pollinators away.












Francisco Gonzálvez at EEZA, the arid zone experimental station in Almeria, Spain, and colleagues studied flowers frequented by large carpenter bees (Xylocopa) and a much smaller solitary bee, Nomia. The larger bees seemed to be better pollinators - setting far more fruit than the smaller bees.












The team found that Nomia avoided plants with weaver ant patrols, and when they did dare to land, were chased away or ambushed by the ants. Being so much bigger, carpenter bees weren't troubled by the ants (Journal of Ecology, DOI:10.1111/1365-2745.12006).












Plants usually produce chemical repellents to scare off insects that prey on their pollinators. But lab tests suggested Gonzálvez's flowers were actively attracting weaver ants, although how remains a mystery. The team thinks carpenter bees choose flowers with ants so they don't have to compete with Nomia.












Michael Kaspari of the University of Oklahoma in Norman says this is a new kind of plant-ant interaction, and that the team makes a "strong case" for the rhododendron manipulating the behaviour of weaver ants to ward off inefficient pollinators.


















































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UMNO confident of wrestling lost seats

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KUALA LUMPUR - The Federal Territory Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) are confident of wresting the six seats that were lost to the opposition in the last general election.

Deputy chairman of the Federal Territory Umno Liaison Body Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin said he was also confident that besides defending the existing seats, BN would increase the number of seats in the 13th general election based on the trend of support for the BN from urban voters lately.

In the last general election, BN could only defend three parliamentary seats, namely Setiawangsa, Putrajaya and Labuan while losing Lembah Pantai, Batu, Titiwangsa, Bandar Tun Razak, Segambut and Wangsa Maju to the opposition.

Four other parliamentary seats, namely Kepong, Seputeh, Cheras and Bukit Bintang remained with the opposition too.

Raja Nong Chik said the opposition pact elected representatives in the Federal Territory did not bring any progress except to raise issues aimed at creating public anger against Umno and the government.

"But we look at the outcome of government efforts in Kuala Lumpur such as the implementation of the Greater Kuala Lumpur (Greater KL), National Key Economic Areas (NKEA), the sale and maintenance of houses under Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) which showed that the government is concerned about the welfare of the residents here," he told Bernama at the Putra World Trade Centre, here.

Raja Nong Chik said the election machinery in the Federal Territory was also actively making efforts to attract the young voters through various programmes.

"The young voters are important because the percentage of new voters in the Federal Territory has reached almost 25 per cent and this means that the young voters determine to a certain extent our victory in the 13th general election," he said.

- BER/ck



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Android-based Ouya game console shipping soon

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Early birds get their hands on Ouya after December 28.



(Credit:
Ouya)


Let the gamers,
Android nuts, and open-source geeks rejoice -- the Ouya is shipping on time!


Well, at least the developers' consoles are, that is. Ouya first garnered attention by raising more than $8.5 million on Kickstarter this summer to create an inexpensive, open-source, Android-based game system.


Early supporters of the crowdfunding campaign got first dibs on a finished Ouya for as little as $95, but those aren't scheduled to ship until March. However, the hundreds of folks who ponied up $699 or more for a first-run, rooted developers' system with early SDK access get to experience Christmas twice in the same week when their consoles ship on December 28.


If creators of the Ouya do fulfill their original commitment to ship the dev kits in December, they'll deserve kudos. Plenty of other Kickstarter-funded projects have run into snags meeting original timelines and commitments -- the Pebble watch is now months late on its original ship date and still working out production issues, for example.



Ouya points out that all consoles will actually be dev kits, but the late December batch is a special group that cost more to produce and give big early backers a first crack at working with the platform. The only catch for developers is that at least some part of the game play has to be available for free, be it a demo or the whole shebang.


Ouya is also working on its own ODK (Ouya development kit) that game designers will be able to access. At the same time, Ouya says it's been busy optimizing Android Jelly Bean for gameplay on a large screen.


If Ouya takes off, 2013 could be a year in which a certain segment of the population gets even less exposure to the sun than in the past.


If you missed out on the first Ouya rush, there's still a chance to get in on the ground floor noob level. Ouya is giving away 10 developers' consoles next month.


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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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