Gingrich's New Contract with America Explained -- Don't Be Poor, Sick or Old (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Newt Gingrich , Herman Cain , Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the current leaders in the Republican race to win the GOP nomination. Republican voters are divided about which horse to back in the race. I'm here to help with by translating politician-speak into English, starting with Newt Gingrich's 21st century Contract With America, a 10-part program. Here are his points.

Repeal Obamacare

Repeal the Obama health care law and replace it with a market driven (profit focused) system. Profit means better care for your kids.

Return to robust job creation

Reduce taxes on corporations, eliminate most taxes on the rich, and saddle the middle class with the burden. That always creates jobs. Get rid of the National Labor Relations Board -- that pesky agency that tries to make sure workers are treated fairly.

Unleash America's full energy production potential

Drill every square inch of land that might have oil or coal under it. Get rid of the EPA. Energy companies have the best interests of the citizens at heart.

Save Medicare and Social Security

Begin privatizing the system so seniors can enjoy the thrill of gambling their savings in the stock market. That always pans out well for small investors.

Balance the budget

Increase revenues while lowering taxes. It's like increasing your income by taking a pay cut. If corporations and rich people don't get taxed but government revenue has to increase, who's left to tax?

Control the border

Turn the southern border into a new-age Berlin Wall. Make it easy to deport people including "gang members" whether they are citizens or not.

Revitalize national security

Write blank checks to defense contractors and build the army up to a size that could conquer the planet in a week. It's peace through superior firepower regardless of cost.

Maximize medical breakthroughs

Deregulate the drug industry. Cripple the FDA and let Big Pharma sell any drug without oversight. Who cares if that new pill makes you grow a third arm?

Reform the judicial branch

Limit the ability of the court system to affect legislation. Republicans hate packing the Supreme Court with sympathetic justices. OK, not really.

Enforce the 10th Amendment

Repeal Roe v. Wade. The window dressing is to give power to the states. What issue do Republicans refer to when they talk about states' rights? Hint: It starts with an A.

I give the "Contract" a down-check.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111122/pl_ac/10444503_gingrichs_new_contract_with_america_explained__dont_be_poor_sick_or_old

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American spies outed, CIA suffers in Lebanon

(AP) ? The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.

Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted on television in June that he had rooted out at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group closely allied with Iran. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon officially denied the accusation, current and former officials concede that it happened and the damage has spread even further.

In recent months, CIA officials have secretly been scrambling to protect their remaining spies ? foreign assets or agents working for the agency ? before Hezbollah can find them.

To be sure, some deaths are to be expected in shadowy spy wars. It's an extremely risky business and people get killed. But the damage to the agency's spy network in Lebanon has been greater than usual, several former and current U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about security matters.

The Lebanon crisis is the latest mishap involving CIA counterintelligence, the undermining or manipulating of the enemy's ability to gather information. Former CIA officials have said that once-essential skill has been eroded as the agency shifted from outmaneuvering rival spy agencies to fighting terrorists. In the rush for immediate results, former officers say, tradecraft has suffered.

The most recent high-profile example was the suicide bomber who posed as an informant and killed seven CIA employees and wounded six others in Khost, Afghanistan in December 2009.

Last year, then-CIA director Leon Panetta said the agency had to maintain "a greater awareness of counterintelligence." But eight months later, Nasrallah let the world know he had bested the CIA, demonstrating that the agency still struggles with this critical aspect of spying and sending a message to those who would betray Hezbollah.

The CIA was well aware the spies were vulnerable in Lebanon. CIA officials were warned, including the chief of the unit that supervises Hezbollah operations from CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the head of counterintelligence. It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster or whether the incident will affect the CIA's ability to recruit assets in Lebanon.

In response to AP's questions about what happened in Lebanon, a U.S. official said Hezbollah is recognized as a complicated enemy responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before September 2001. The agency does not underestimate the organization, the official said.

The CIA's toughest adversaries, like Hezbollah and Iran, have for years been improving their ability to hunt spies, relying on patience and guile to exploit counterintelligence holes.

In 2007, for instance, when Ali-Reza Asgari, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, disappeared in Turkey, it was assumed that he was either killed or defected. In response, the Iranian government began a painstaking review of foreign travel by its citizens, particularly to places like Turkey where Iranians don't need a visa and could meet with foreign intelligence services.

It didn't take long, a Western intelligence official told the AP, before the U.S., Britain and Israel began losing contact with some of their Iranian spies.

The State Department last year described Hezbollah as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world," and the Defense Department estimates it receives between $100 million and $200 million per year in funding from Iran.

Backed by Iran, Hezbollah has built a professional counterintelligence apparatus that Nasrallah ? whom the U.S. government designated an international terrorist a decade ago ? proudly describes as the "spy combat unit." U.S. intelligence officials believe the unit, which is considered formidable and ruthless, went operational in about 2004.

Using the latest commercial software, Nasrallah's spy-hunters unit began methodically searching for spies in Hezbollah's midst. To find them, U.S. officials said, Hezbollah examined cellphone data looking for anomalies. The analysis identified cellphones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then it came down to old-fashioned, shoe-leather detective work: Who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the enemy?

The effort took years but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government, began making arrests. By one estimate, 100 Israeli assets were apprehended as the news made headlines across the region in 2009. Some of those suspected Israeli spies worked for telecommunications companies and served in the military.

Back at CIA headquarters, the arrests alarmed senior officials. The agency prepared a study on its own vulnerabilities, U.S. officials said, and the results proved to be prescient.

The analysis concluded that the CIA was susceptible to the same analysis that had compromised the Israelis, the officials said.

CIA managers were instructed to be extra careful about handling sources in Lebanon. A U.S. official said recommendations were issued to counter the potential problem.

But it's unclear what preventive measures were taken by the Hezbollah unit chief or the officer in charge of the Beirut station. Former officials say the Hezbollah unit chief is no stranger to the necessity of counterintelligence and knew the risks. The unit chief has worked overseas in hostile environments like Afghanistan and played an important role in the capture of a top terrorist while stationed in the Persian Gulf region after the attacks of 9/11.

"We've lost a lot of people in Beirut over the years, so everyone should know the drill," said a former Middle East case officer familiar with the situation.

But whatever actions the CIA took, they were not enough. Like the Israelis, bad tradecraft doomed these CIA assets and the agency ultimately failed to protect them, an official said. In some instances, CIA officers fell into predictable patterns when meeting their sources, the official said.

This allowed Hezbollah to identify assets and case officers and unravel at least part of the CIA's spy network in Lebanon. There was also a reluctance to share cases and some files were put in "restricted handling." The designation severely limits the number of people who know the identity of the source but also reduces the number of experts who could spot problems that might lead to their discovery, officials said.

Nasrallah's televised announcement in June was followed by finger-pointing among departments inside the CIA as the spy agency tried figure out what went wrong and contain the damage.

The fate of these CIA assets is unknown. Hezbollah treats spies differently, said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies who's writing a book about the terrorist organization

"It all depends on who these guys were and what they have to say," Levitt said. "Hezbollah has disappeared people before. Others they have kept around."

Who's responsible for the mess in Lebanon? It's not clear. The chief of Hezbollah operations at CIA headquarters continues to run the unit that also focuses on Iranians and Palestinians. The CIA's top counterintelligence officer, who was one of the most senior women in the clandestine service, recently retired after approximately five years in the job. She is credited with some important cases, including the recent arrests of Russian spies who had been living in the U.S. for years.

Officials said the woman was succeeded by a more experienced operations officer. That officer has held important posts in Moscow, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Balkans, important frontlines of the agency's spy wars with foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org

Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-21-US-Hezbollah-CIA/id-e25d383186bc44d4a1eba4d374927b48

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Chew gum, lose weight

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Most people understand that serious weight loss requires changing attitudes toward what they eat and how often they exercise. But, what if the process could be aided by simply chewing a stick of gum after meals? That's the question a team of scientists, led by Syracuse University chemist Robert Doyle, is trying to answer. In a groundbreaking new study, Doyle's team demonstrated, for the first time, that a critical hormone that helps people feel "full" after eating can be delivered into the bloodstream orally.

Doyle's study was published online Nov. 4, 2011 in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and is forthcoming in print. The journal is the most cited in the field and one of the leading primary research journals internationally. Doyle is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry in SU's College of Arts and Sciences. He collaborated on the study with researchers from Murdoch University in Australia.

The hormone, called human PYY, is part of a chemical system that regulates appetite and energy. When people eat or exercise, PYY is released into the bloodstream. The amount of PYY that is released increases with the number of calories that are consumed. Past studies have shown that people who are obese have lower concentrations of PYY in their bloodstream both when fasting and after eating than their non-obese counterparts. Additionally, intravenous infusion of PYY into a volunteer group of obese and non-obese individuals increased the serum levels of the hormone and lowered the number of calories both groups consumed.

"PYY is an appetite-suppressing hormone," Doyle says. "But, when taken orally, the hormone is destroyed in the stomach and that which isn't destroyed has difficulty crossing into the bloodstream through the intestines."

What's needed is a way to disguise the PYY so that it can travel through the digestive system relatively unharmed. Several years ago, Doyle developed a way to use vitamin B12 as a vehicle for the oral delivery of the hormone insulin. B12 is able to pass through the digestive system with relative ease and carry with it insulin, or other substances, into the bloodstream. Similarly, his research team attached the PYY hormone to his patent-pending vitamin B12 system. "Phase one of this study was to show that we could deliver a clinically relevant amount of PYY into the bloodstream," Doyle says. "We did that, and we are very excited by the results."

The next step involves finding ways to insert the B12-PYY system into such things as chewing gum or an oral tablet to create a nutritional supplement to assist individuals in losing weight in much the same way as nicotine-laced gum is used to help people stop smoking. "If we are successful, PYY-laced gum would be a natural way to help people lose weight," he says. "They could eat a balanced meal, then chew a stick of gum. The PYY supplement would begin to kick in about three to four hours later, decreasing their appetite as they approach their next meal."

###

Syracuse University: http://www.syr.edu

Thanks to Syracuse University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115383/Chew_gum__lose_weight_

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Video: Gingrich explains stance on issues

HBT: Braun edges Kemp for NL MVP

HBT: Milwaukee's Ryan Braun has won the NL Most Valuable Player Award after helping lead the Brewers to their first division title in nearly 30 years. Braun earned the MVP on Tuesday, receiving 20 of 32 first-place votes and 388 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Los Angeles center fielder Matt Kemp, who came close to winning the Triple Crown, received 10 first-place votes and finished with 332 points. Braun's teammate Prince Fielder finished third with 229 points, and Arizona's Justin Upton finished fourth with 214 points.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45392126#45392126

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Chew gum, lose weight? Hormone that helps people feel 'full' after eating can be delivered into bloodstream orally

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2011) ? Most people understand that serious weight loss requires changing attitudes toward what they eat and how often they exercise. But, what if the process could be aided by simply chewing a stick of gum after meals? That's the question a team of scientists, led by Syracuse University chemist Robert Doyle, is trying to answer. In a groundbreaking new study, Doyle's team demonstrated, for the first time, that a critical hormone that helps people feel "full" after eating can be delivered into the bloodstream orally.

Doyle's study was published online Nov. 4, 2011 in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and is forthcoming in print. Doyle is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry in SU's College of Arts and Sciences. He collaborated on the study with researchers from Murdoch University in Australia.

The hormone, called human PYY, is part of a chemical system that regulates appetite and energy. When people eat or exercise, PYY is released into the bloodstream. The amount of PYY that is released increases with the number of calories that are consumed. Past studies have shown that people who are obese have lower concentrations of PYY in their bloodstream both when fasting and after eating than their non-obese counterparts. Additionally, intravenous infusion of PYY into a volunteer group of obese and non-obese individuals increased the serum levels of the hormone and lowered the number of calories both groups consumed.

"PYY is an appetite-suppressing hormone," Doyle says. "But, when taken orally, the hormone is destroyed in the stomach and that which isn't destroyed has difficulty crossing into the bloodstream through the intestines."

What's needed is a way to disguise the PYY so that it can travel through the digestive system relatively unharmed. Several years ago, Doyle developed a way to use vitamin B12 as a vehicle for the oral delivery of the hormone insulin. B12 is able to pass through the digestive system with relative ease and carry with it insulin, or other substances, into the bloodstream. Similarly, his research team attached the PYY hormone to his patent-pending vitamin B12 system. "Phase one of this study was to show that we could deliver a clinically relevant amount of PYY into the bloodstream," Doyle says. "We did that, and we are very excited by the results."

The next step involves finding ways to insert the B12-PYY system into such things as chewing gum or an oral tablet to create a nutritional supplement to assist individuals in losing weight in much the same way as nicotine-laced gum is used to help people stop smoking. "If we are successful, PYY-laced gum would be a natural way to help people lose weight," he says. "They could eat a balanced meal, then chew a stick of gum. The PYY supplement would begin to kick in about three to four hours later, decreasing their appetite as they approach their next meal."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Syracuse University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Christopher H. Fazen, Debbie Valentin, Timothy J. Fairchild, Robert P. Doyle. Oral Delivery of the Appetite Suppressing Peptide hPYY(3?36) through the Vitamin B12Uptake Pathway. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2011; : 111116124253000 DOI: 10.1021/jm2012547

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/P5X2dTEu1q4/111121194035.htm

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'The Fink' talks Survivor Series

Survivor Series 2011 will always be remembered as the night that The Rock returned to the ring, put ?boots to asses? and proved that after seven years, he?s still got it.

However, another WWE Legend received a huge ovation from the WWE Universe inside Madison Square Garden, a surprise return that reminded the sold-out MSG crowd and millions watching around the world that WWE?s November annual is truly rich in tradition and history. As a counter to Alberto Del Rio?s personal ring announcer, CM Punk revealed his own ring announcer for the evening: WWE Hall of Famer Howard Finkel.

A mainstay of WWE throughout the ?80s and ?90s, the signature voice of ?The Fink? has often garnered him the distinction of being one of the greatest ring announcers in history.

Fink and PunkHearing the legendary announcer introduce ?The Voice of the Voiceless,? and anoint CM Punk as the ?NEWWWW? WWE Champion at Survivor Series was not only an honor for Punk, but a welcome treat for our longtime fans. Furthermore, this was a chance for young fans to hear ?The Voice? that has introduced countless iconic Superstars, including ?Stone Cold? Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, The Undertaker and The Rock.

For The Fink, returning to Madison Square Garden was a night he will never forget. ?This building is hallowed to me,? Fink told WWE.com. ?I have been coming here since January 17, 1977. Each and every time I got in the ring, no matter whom I was introducing or when, I?ve always had fun.?

The WWE Hall of Famer, who served as ring announcer inside Madison Square Garden at the inaugural WrestleMania in 1985, has witnessed many memorable moments in The Garden?s history, though the evening of Nov. 20, 2011, now ranks high for him.

?I?d have to say Survivor Series 2011 will be in my top three favorite Garden moments.? Finkel said with a smile. ?I?ll forever remember it because of the rush I got and the adulation of the WWE Universe in New York City. It meant so much to me because I have always given everything I have when I ring announce. As I said when I was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, no matter who I was introducing, I always wanted them to feel as though they were heading into the main event.?

While The Fink was certainly ecstatic about introducing CM Punk, he also mentioned two other Garden moments that have always resonated with him. ?Certainly being a part of the very first WrestleMania in 1985 was phenomenal.? he recalled. ?Also I will always remember my very first announcing duties inside the Garden: January 17, 1977, with the main event of Bruno Sammartino against Ken Patera.?

Fink and AndreHoward has introduced a number of WWE Champions over the years and knows what it takes to wear the prestigious title. ?CM Punk certainly makes a great champion because he is for the people. He is ?The Voice of the Voiceless? and then some. Punk not only wants to represent himself, but many of us in the WWE Universe, and that?s why I think he resonates as a very positive champion.?

And what of the ring announcers that have succeeded him? Ricardo Rodriguez immediately comes to the WWE Hall of Famer's mind.

?Ricardo is lucky he has a meal ticket from Alberto Del Rio, as far as I?m concerned,? Fink expressed. ?I saw Ricardo once in the locker room, and he said to me, ?Howard, you were great in 1990. But this is 2011 and you are no longer relevant.? Well, after the reaction I received at Survivor Series, I truly believe that relevant is my middle name!?

Indeed you are relevant, Howard. And that's more than just the Garden crowd talking.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/howard-finkel-survivor-series

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Study rejects "faster than light" particle finding

GENEVA | Sun Nov 20, 2011 6:35pm EST

GENEVA

(Reuters) - An international team of scientists in Italy studying the same neutrino particles colleagues say appear to have travelled faster than light rejected the startling finding this weekend, saying their tests had shown it must be wrong.

The September announcement of the finding, backed up last week after new studies, caused a furor in the scientific world as it seemed to suggest Albert Einstein's ideas on relativity, and much of modern physics, were based on a mistaken premise.

The first team, members of the OPERA experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory south of Rome, said they recorded neutrinos beamed to them from the CERN research center in Switzerland as arriving 60 nanoseconds before light would have done.

But ICARUS, another experiment at Gran Sasso -- which is deep under mountains and run by Italy's National Institute of National Physics -- now argues that their measurements of the neutrinos energy on arrival contradict that reading.

In a paper posted Saturday on the same website as the OPERA results, arxiv.org/abs/1110.3763v2, the ICARUS team says their findings "refute a superluminal (faster than light) interpretation of the OPERA result."

They argue, on the basis of recently published studies by two top U.S. physicists, that the neutrinos pumped down from CERN, near Geneva, should have lost most of their energy if they had travelled at even a tiny fraction faster than light.

But in fact, the ICARUS scientists say, the neutrino beam as tested in their equipment registered an energy spectrum fully corresponding with what it should be for particles traveling at the speed of light and no more.

Physicist Tomasso Dorigo, who works at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the U.S. Fermilab near Chicago, said in a post on the website Scientific Blogging that the ICARUS paper was "very simple and definitive."

It says, he wrote, "that the difference between the speed of neutrinos and the speed of light cannot be as large as that seen by OPERA, and is certainly smaller than that by three orders of magnitude, and compatible with zero."

Under Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. That idea lies at the heart of all current science of the cosmos and of how the vast variety of particles that make it up behave.

There was widespread skepticism when the OPERA findings were first revealed, and even the leaders of the experiment insisted that they were not announcing a discovery but simply recording measurements they had made and carefully checked.

However, last Friday they said a new experiment with shorter neutrino beams from CERN and much larger gaps between them had produced the same result. Independent scientists said however this was not conclusive.

Other experiments are being prepared -- at Fermilab and at the KEK laboratory in Japan -- to try to replicate OPERA's findings. Only confirmation from one of these would open the way for a full scientific discovery to be declared.

(Reported by Robert Evans; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/mN-L2Q4nSrg/us-science-neutrinos-idUSTRE7AJ0ZX20111120

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Awesome iPhone case spins up Holga lenses (Yahoo! News)

When photo apps just don't cut it, dial up some photo effects

There are a lot of different?lens attachments for the iPhone. From fisheye to 360-degree panoramics, the options are wide, but you still have to actually take the lens attachment off the phone to switch to another. Apparently, the folks at hipster camera company Holga thought that was just a bit too much work, so they created a case with a spinning lens attachment, so you can dial up the effects without ever taking off the case.

Holga is known for creating simple, inexpensive toy cameras that embrace an old-school vibe, yielding photographs with blur, vignetting, light leaks, and other distortions that most consider undesirable. It has developed a cult following, though, and many consider those "flaws" to add to the artistic flavor of the cameras.

This iPhone case continues the Holga's retro ideal, with a rotary dial reminiscent of an old-fashioned phone, with nine different lens filters. There's a macro lens, red and green filters, yellow and blue filters with clear centers, a red filter with a clear heart-shaped center, and dual, triple, and quadruple image lenses. And, for those rare moments when you actually just want to take a normal photo with your phone, there's also an empty hole.

Holga Direct via?Engadget

This article was written by Katherine Gray and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20111121/tc_yblog_technews/awesome-iphone-case-spins-up-holga-lenses

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Official: Drug cartel tried to skew Mexico vote (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? A Mexican official says drug traffickers tried to influence elections in the western state of Michoacan, a charge some of the candidates and party leaders in the race have already made.

Juan Marcos Gutierrez says a drug cartel conducted "boldfaced interference" in last Sunday's state elections. The Knights Templar cartel dominates most of Michoacan.

Gutierrez calls the threats and pressure used by the traffickers "extremely worrisome."

Gutierrez served about a week as interim interior secretary before handing over the post to newly designated secretary Alejandro Poire on Thursday.

The interior department oversees domestic security in Mexico.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

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