First oil nears for Kazakhstan's supergiant field

KASHAGAN OILFIELD, Kazakhstan (AP) ? The manmade islands that are home to Kazakhstan's mammoth Kashagan oilfield project rise like a mirage to the boats churning through the shallow waters of the Caspian Sea.

Creating them has been a gargantuan feat but the real test is yet to come, as uncertainty persists on when the first oil will actually be drawn, although that's expected sometime next year.

When surveyors confirmed in 2000 that Kazakhstan had a new supergiant oil reserve, the world's energy companies reacted with glee. It was the type of find that had no longer seemed possible. Nothing that big had been seen in four decades.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev branded the Kashagan field, which some believe holds up to 13 billion barrels of recoverable oil, as the great hope for the future of his fledgling Central Asian nation.

Yet developing a remote offshore site half the size of Delaware that is blighted by weather ranging from blazing to glacial has proven difficult. The northern section of the landlocked Caspian Sea is extremely shallow compared to most offshore energy projects. That makes transporting heavy equipment a problem, as deep-hulled vessels can't be used. The area's fragile ecosystem is also the site of spawning grounds for endangered sturgeon, birthing habitat for the rare Caspian seal and migratory sites for numerous birds.

Delays in the Kashagan project have also strained relations between the oil companies developing it ? from Italy, France, Holland, the United States and Japan ? and the government of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, a mainly Muslim nation four times the size of Texas that borders Russia and China, gained independence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. It's a thinly populated steppe nation of 16.5 million people that has grown wealthy off of several major oil projects and other substantial mineral reserves. Many locals, however, complain that the country's riches are poorly distributed.

ON THE ISLANDS

Away from the politics, technicians on Kashagan's hub island ? two long, narrow mazes of wells and processing modules linked by a bridge to form what is known as D-Island ? exude pride in what they have achieved.

"In 2004, when we first started, the island was just a small box," said Giancarlo Ruiu, offshore project manager with Agip KCO, a subsidiary of the Italian oil giant ENI, which has led the work on Kashagan. Other companies in the consortium are Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, ConocoPhillips, Inpex and Kazakhstan's state-owned KazMunaiGaz.

The rocks and sand needed to build up D-Island and its four satellite islands were laboriously transported from the once-vibrant fishing port of Bautino, some 350 kilometers (217 miles) to the south.

But when the wind pushes the Caspian's lime-green waters south, in effect tilting the entire sea to below-navigable levels, the 18-hour summertime boat trip can become impossible, forcing workers to rely on helicopters. In the winter, ice breakers are deployed to clear paths for convoys to make the stultifying 36-hour voyage.

To protect D-Island from destructive ice drifts, a defensive ring had to be erected.

"You can occasionally get very rare conditions, where it is partially melted, and the water and semi-melted ice becomes like a lubricant. And when you get a surge of the ice, it can move very quickly," said Robert Dunkley, head of information and design at Agip KCO.

The construction team used a computerized system to carefully place tons of material, using building techniques similar to those that created Dubai's palm tree-shaped islands.

"We used to say that you are just dumping rock," Ruiu said. "(But) every single placement of rock was done with GPS control" to calculate depth and location.

In all, some 200,000 tons of concrete, enough to fill 50 Olympic swimming pools, and 600,000 truckloads of rock were used to form D-Island.

The island is now a dense forest of barges housing facilities such as gas injection equipment and emergency generators from Norway, Italy and Dubai.

In parallel with the construction, 12 wells were put down on D-Island to begin tapping into the highly pressurized reservoirs of sulfurous oil located 4,200 meters (13,780 feet) below the seabed. Another eight wells are primed to go on the smaller A-Island, while drilling is still ongoing to complete a further 20 wells on three remaining islands by the end of 2016.

In the meantime, thousands of laborers in orange suits work on the islands and sleep in floating apartment blocks during monthlong shifts. Sometime next year, the workforce on D-Island will be scaled down to 240 people and the largely automated offshore operations will be run from a high-tech control room.

IT WAS A GAMBLE

When test crude at Kashagan was discovered in 2000, oil prices were around $30 per barrel. This made any massive investment on a problematic energy project seem potentially foolhardy, but could also keep costs down.

The price of oil more than tripled over the decade, however, which sent outlays for energy-intensive construction labor, equipment and materials soaring as well.

More than $30 billion has been spent so far on the Kashagan project, way more than its original $10 billion estimate. The final bill for the Phase 1 development stage could even gallop past $45 billion. That figure will swell more with Phase 2 drilling at other patches of the field.

"It's not going to be profitable for the companies until you get into Phase 2," said Andrew Neff, Moscow-based senior analyst with IHS Energy. "Phase 2 is supposed to be by 2018-2019 and there hasn't been any progress in the last two years as far as I'm aware."

Kazakhstan has been irritated by the frequent postponement of the first oil, which over-optimistic planners had once said would start by 2005.

Kashagan operates under a production-sharing agreement where international companies pay for the exploration and development costs. Returns are shared between investors and the government on a sliding scale.

Now that Kazakhstan is growing increasingly rich on oil from other fields, it negotiates from a position of strength and has sought to adapt the deal to more favorable terms. The government is eager to begin receiving oil royalty payments and the state-owned KazMunaiGaz is due a share in the profits as a 16.85 percent owner.

"Everybody has been looking at Kashagan as this great cash cow coming down the road soon," Neff said.

While a KazMunaiGaz chief executive predicted a few years ago that Caspian oil would boost the country's annual oil production up to 180 million tons ? equivalent to 1.3 billion barrels ? by 2015, officials now have tamped that down to 90 million tons.

To reach that target, Kashagan will need to deliver 370,000 barrels of oil a day.

The production-sharing agreement expires in 2041 ? a date that is distressingly near to consortium members, considering the size of their investments. On the bright side for the companies, oil was selling for around $92 a barrel this week.

"We know the life of this field is much longer than 2041," said Alain Guenot, planning director of North Caspian Operating Co., the joint venture that manages Kashagan. "Everybody would like to extend the (deal)."

While Kazakh officials and oil executives are eager to start pumping, workers on the ground are more sanguine.

"Without production, we don't have revenue, they don't have revenue, and they'd like to have revenue as soon as possible," Guenot said. "(But) we're not going to start this plant if we're not sure that it's properly finished."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-oil-nears-kazakhstans-supergiant-field-070845105--finance.html

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Device to help stutterers: Interdisciplinary team developing prosthetic as part of a complete treatment program

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2012) ? Drawing on one another's expertise, a trio of University of Mississippi faculty members from different areas of campus has created a patent-pending device that could change the lives of people who stutter.

Paul Goggans, an electrical engineering professor, developed the prosthetic device, about the size of a cell phone, with Greg Snyder, associate professor of communications sciences and disorders, and Dwight Waddell, associate professor of health, exercise science and recreation management. The friends began working on the device after Snyder, himself a lifelong stutterer, demonstrated how he could speak much more fluently simply by feeling his throat while he and Waddell chatted over coffee.

"By feeling my throat vibrate when I speak, I get tactile speech feedback, which significantly reduces my stuttering," Snyder said. "Dwight immediately understood my application of speech feedback and neural circuitry, and he then approached Paul, who agreed to make the device development a senior-level design project in his class."

Since that time, the team has been focused on supporting and empowering the stuttering community by fighting social stigma and challenging the normal remedies associated with stuttering. "Our device is portable, battery-powered and easy to use," said Goggans, professor of electrical engineering and lead partner in the instrument's design and fabrication. "These are important attributes because other behavioral treatments for stuttering are more intense; they require too much concentration and are exhausting."

A prototype of the device was presented Tuesday (Oct. 16) as a "Hot Topic" at the 2012 Society of Neuroscience conference, which runs Oct. 13-17 in New Orleans. The paper is among 150 selected from thousands of submissions. An audience of about 33,000 neuroscientists and media representatives is expected at the conference.

Even after a long day of speech therapy, a stutterer might have no progress to show the next day, but the patient is tired because he or she worked so hard, Goggans said.

"This creation is offering a promising alternative that can be discreetly and easily used every day by adults," he said.

While the device does not cure stuttering, it helps the user reduce his or her stuttering frequency and can improve the client's quality of life, Snyder said.

"The team plans to include the prosthetic device within a holistic therapy program to better serve the real-life needs of stuttering clients," he said.

About 1 percent of the global population stutters, representing a dramatically underserved population that has few alternatives available for effective long-term treatment. As a result, the stuttering population often suffers severe social prejudices that hinder educational and occupational opportunities.

"Building confidence and self-esteem in people who stutter is life-changing," Waddell said.

"From childhood, we are told that stuttering is wrong, bad behavior -- that it's a personal weakness and if we would just work a little harder, we would speak fluently," Snyder said. "Even though stuttering is a genetic and neurological condition, the inaccurate and destructive beliefs that children accept as fact follow people through adulthood and can hinder both personal growth and potential."

With funding from a Technology Commercialization Initiative grant from the Division of Technology Management in the UM Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, the idea conceived by Goggans, Synder and Waddell is being turned into a prototype.

"It's not always easy to convince folks that a project is worth doing," Goggans said. "But this one was easy. Simply put, our team wanted to improve the lives of people who stutter."

The patent rights to the device have been licensed to Hyperion Technology Group Inc. of Tupelo.

"We are excited to be working with a local company to commercialize this important technology," said Walt Chambliss, UM director of technology management.

Alice Clark, vice chancellor of research and sponsored programs, expressed support for the trio's invention as an example of interdisciplinary research success.

"This project is a great example of the value of multidisciplinary research in developing a technology that promises to have a transformative impact in society," Clark said. "These researchers with complementary skills in speech therapy, neuroscience and electrical engineering serve as a model of collaborative research on campus."

Though the new device is still being developed and tested, its potential benefit for people who stutter is clear.

"The stigma surrounding stuttering is overwhelming and cruel," Snyder said. "For any number of reasons, I was able to successfully emerge from the challenges of stuttering and have stayed focused on finding a new and better treatment for others. It just makes sense to me that if we can wear prosthetics like eyeglasses to help with our vision and hearing aids to enhance our hearing, then why not a prosthetic to help with speech?"

The Technology Commercialization Initiative at UM is funded by a grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBA's funding should not be construed as an endorsement of any products, opinions or services. All SBA-funded projects are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/child_development/~3/USExbe9sZhc/121018094857.htm

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Effective Networking Activities for Small Businesses | The Company ...

? October 18, 2012Posted in: Business Startup, Marketing, Research and Planning

We took a look at the Success in Challenging Times: Key Lessons for UK SMEs report from the University of Surrey a couple of days ago. We have already written a blog post on its findings about how start-ups and small businesses finance themselves. But the research covers some other interesting areas including the networks that small businesses in the UK use to generate leads and grow their profile.

It is easy to spend a lot of money very quickly on advertising and marketing without getting much of a return. For many businesses the key to success is getting their products and services in front of the right people at the right time. While there are lots of excellent marketing books out there it is also useful to know what real small businesses think are the best ways to promote their businesses. The University of Surrey research asked people to grade different types of networking activity on a scale from ?Not Important at All? to ?Extremely Important?. Taking the figures from the important side of this scale we can see that small businesses consider a wide range of networking activities to have some importance. By far the most important networking activity was found to be earning direct referrals to their business through personal contacts. This supports what most marketing research says in that face to face referrals are the best form of advertising any business could have. The fact that SEO shows up as the second most important factor shows the continuing importance websites as a marketing tool for small businesses.

Networking for small businesses

The rest of the networking activities that small businesses found to be important were a mix of online and offline activities. Chambers of Commerce meetings and Business Mentors were both seen as important (although the researchers point out that a large proportion of their survey sample were Chambers of Commerce members, perhaps distorting the figures). It is interesting that different online social networks varied in importance with Linkedin being seen as important by 44% of small businesses but Facebook seen as important by only 24% of small businesses.

However when we look at the networking activities that small businesses felt were ?Extremely Important? we can see that the ratings for all of the social networks drop below 10%. In fact the only networking activities that are really seen as being Extremely Important are direct personal referrals and website marketing through Search Engine Optimization. The University of Surrey research also found that creating websites is one of the most common things for small businesses to outsource.

Networking Activities for small Business

So if you are starting or trying to build a small business then getting a website built is going to be important. However the most important thing that you can do to promote your business is encourage your network to make direct referrals to your business.

Popularity: 1%

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Source: http://blog.thecompanywarehouse.co.uk/2012/10/18/where-do-small-businesses-get-their-sales-leads/

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Google will be holding an Android event on October 29th in New York City

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-holding-android-event-october-29th-york-city-005004605.html

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GoPro's new Hero3 is lighter, faster, higher res and has WiFi, comes in three flavors starting at $199

GoPro's new Hero3 Black Edition is lighter, faster, higher res and has builtn WiFi

At a San Francisco launch event GoPro has just revealed the next addition to its line of action cameras, the Hero3. The Hero3 claims specs that are 30 percent smaller and 25 percent lighter than its predecessor, with a resolution that's up to 4x higher and it has WiFi included. The top of the line Black Edition (pictured above) is capable of capturing video at up to 4K res -- if you're willing to drop the framerate down to 15fps -- however thanks to a processor it says is 2x faster, it has also doubled frame rates at lower resolutions. That means 1080p60, 1440p48 and 720p120 modes are supported for your super slow and still-HD capture needs. The Silver Edition maxes out at 11MP stills and 1080p30 video, while the White Edition drops down to 5MP stills. All three versions include WiFi (no BacPac necessary for remote control via the just-released-on-iOS app) however the Black edition includes a remote that can control up to 50 cameras at once with a 600ft range and is waterproof to 10 feet deep. It will also be available as a $79 accessory for the lesser versions.

As far as pricing, the Black Edition is $399, the Silver is $299 and the White $199. Pre-orders are scheduled to start at 12:01AM PT (3:01AM ET), and there's a handy counter on the GoPro site if you otherwise might forget. The variety of models and ubiquitous WiFi may help fight off competition at the pricing low end like the new ContourROAM2, among others. Naturally we were in the house and will have hands-on pics and impressions soon, check the gallery for pics of the box and detailed specs.

Update: Our hands-on is live! Check out how tiny the Hero3 really is right here.

Gallery: GoPro Hero3

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under:

GoPro's new Hero3 is lighter, faster, higher res and has WiFi, comes in three flavors starting at $199 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/wA5ij-kf-rw/

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Pen Knife Poetry ? Oxford Arts Festival 2012

1st November, Thursday

7 ? 10 pm

$5 ? Just turn up!

Ariel Books | 19 Oxford St, Darlinghurst | (02) 9332 4581

Hosted by 2SER?s Angela Stretch and featuring special guests Elena Knox, Roberta Lowing, Tug Dumbly and many more!

Also featuring an open mic session.

Source: http://www.oxfordartsfestival.com.au/2012/10/pen-knife-poetry/

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Capitol Confidential ? Homebody Hanna Releases First TV Ad

Posted on by Liz Benjamin in Ads, Congress, Republicans

With just 20 days remaining until Election Day, Rep. Richard Hanna has released his first TV ad of the campaign, which protrays him as a hard-working guy who prefers his home in what is now the 22nd Congressional District to being down in D.C.

The spot shows the freshman Republican hard at work, interacting with constituents, driving a car. (You get the picture). It makes no mention of his party affiliation, which is interesting, since he?s one of the more moderate members of the GOP conference ? a fact that surprised some attendees at a recent debate between the congressman and his Democratic opponent, Dan Lamb, a former aide to retiring Rep. Maurice Hinchey.

For example, Hanna is pro-choice, and he raised some eyebrows ? and received national attention ? when he attended a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment?back in March and urged women to contribute their political cash to the Democrats.

The NY-22 battle is not one of New York?s most competitive House races. Hanna has consistently out-fundraised his opponent and is viewed as relatively safe. Still, better safe than sorry, which explains this ad. Here?s the script:

?I?ve worked for you these two years like I?d expect my representative to work for my family: thoughtfully, compassionately working for solutions knowing our future is at stake.?

?So I?m focused on rebuilding our economy, reducing the spending that?s strangling our country, and making sure Medicare is secure. I come home every weekend, listen to you and go back to work. Thank you for the privilege.?

?I?m Richard Hanna and I approve this message.?

Read more...

Source: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/160747/homebody-hanna-releases-first-tv-ad/

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Facts and fiction from tonight's showdown

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the rough-and-tumble of a town hall-style presidential debate, the facts took something of a beating Tuesday night.

Mitt Romney wrongly claimed that it took 14 days for President Barack Obama to brand the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya a terrorist act. Obama yet again claimed that ending the Afghanistan and Iraq wars makes money available to "rebuild America," even though it doesn't.

A look at some of their claims:

OBAMA: The day after last month's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, "I stood in the Rose Garden and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. That this was an act of terror and I also said that we're going to hunt down those who committed this crime."

ROMNEY: "I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror."

OBAMA: "Get the transcript."

THE FACTS: Obama is correct in saying that he referred to Benghazi as an act of terrorism on Sept. 12, the day after the attack. From the Rose Garden, he said: "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. ... We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act."

But others in his administration repeated for several days its belief that the violence stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam. It took almost a month before officials acknowledged that those protests never occurred. And Romney is right in arguing that the administration has yet to explain why it took so long for that correction to be made or how it came to believe that the attack evolved from an angry demonstration.

___

OBAMA: "Let's take the money that we've been spending on war over the last decade to rebuild America, roads, bridges, schools. We do those things, not only is your future going to be bright, but America's future is going to be bright as well."

THE FACTS: What Obama didn't mention is that much of the money that has been paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was borrowed. In fact, the government borrows nearly 40 cents for every dollar it spends. Thus using money that had been earmarked for wars to build schools and infrastructure would involve even more borrowing, adding to the federal deficit.

___

ROMNEY: "As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production was down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters."

OBAMA: "Very little of what Governor Romney just said is true. We've opened up public lands. We're actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration and my ? the previous president was an oilman."

THE FACTS: Both statements ring true, as far as they go. Obama more correctly describes the bigger picture.

According to an Energy Department study published in the spring, sales of oil from federal areas fell 14 percent between 2010 and 2011 and sales of natural gas production fell 9 percent, supporting Romney's point. The lower oil production was a result mainly of a moratorium on offshore drilling imposed by the Obama administration after the April 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

According to the same report, though, oil production from federal areas is up 13 percent since Obama took office despite last year's dip, and analysts say Gulf oil production is expected to soon exceed its pre-spill levels.

Natural gas production from federal areas has been declining for years because drillers have found vast reserves of natural gas in formations under several states that are cheaper to access than most federally controlled areas.

___

OBAMA: "For young people who've come here, brought here often times by their parents, have gone to school here, pledged allegiance to the flag, think of this as their country and understand themselves as Americans in every way except having papers, we should make sure we give them a pathway to citizenship. And that's what I've done administratively."

THE FACTS: His administrative actions do not provide a pathway to citizenship. The administration is allowing as many as 1.7 million young illegal immigrants to apply to avoid deportation for up to two years and get a work permit. And the government has begun a policy of prosecutorial discretion under which illegal immigrants with long-standing ties to the U.S. and no criminal history are generally not arrested and deported by immigration authorities. But these steps do not extend legal status or a process resulting in citizenship.

___

ROMNEY: "I know he keeps saying, 'You want to take Detroit bankrupt.' Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did. And I think it's important to know that that was a process that was necessary to get those companies back on their feet, so they could start hiring more people. That was precisely what I recommended and ultimately what happened."

THE FACTS: What Romney recommended did not happen, and his proposed path probably would have forced General Motors and Chrysler out of business. He opposed using government money to bail out the automakers, instead favoring privately financed bankruptcy restructuring. But the automakers were bleeding cash and were poor credit risks. The banking system was in crisis. So private loans weren't available. Without government aid, both companies probably would have gone under and their assets sold in pieces.

___

OBAMA: "And what I want to do is build on the 5 million jobs that we've created over the last 30 months in the private sector alone."

THE FACTS: As he has done before, Obama is cherry-picking his numbers to make them sound better than they really are. He ignores the fact that public-sector job losses have dragged down overall job creation. Also, he chooses just to mention the past 30 months. That ignores job losses during his presidency up until that point. According to the Labor Department, about 4.5 million total jobs have been created over the past 30 months. But some 4.3 million jobs were lost during the earlier months of his administration. At this point, Obama is a net job creator, but only marginally.

___

ROMNEY: "The proof of whether a strategy is working or not is what the price is that you're paying at the pump. If you're paying less than you paid a year or two ago, why, then, the strategy is working. But you're paying more. When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now, it's $4.00 a gallon. The price of electricity is up. If the president's energy policies are working, you're going to see the cost of energy come down."

THE FACTS: Presidents have almost no effect on energy prices; most are set on financial exchanges around the world. When Obama took office, the world was in the grip of a financial crisis and crude prices ? and gasoline prices along with them ? had plummeted because world demand had collapsed. Crude oil prices have since risen even as U.S. oil production has soared in recent years because global demand is reaching new heights as the developing economies of Asia use more oil.

Other energy prices have fallen during Obama's term. Electricity prices, when adjusted for inflation, are down, and homeowners are finding it much cheaper to heat their homes with natural gas. That's because natural gas production has surged, reducing prices both for homeowners and for utilities that burn gas to generate electricity.

___

OBAMA: "What I've also said is, for (those earning) above $250,000, we can go back to the tax rates we had when Bill Clinton was president."

THE FACTS: Not exactly. The Bush tax cuts set the top income rate at 35 percent. Under Obama's proposal to raise taxes on households earning more than $250,000, the president would return the top rate to the 39.6 percent set during the Clinton administration. But he neglected to mention that his health care law includes a new 0.9 percent Medicare surcharge on households earning over that amount ? and that tax would be retained. The health care law also imposes a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for high earners. So tax rates would be higher for the wealthiest Americans than they were under Clinton.

___

ROMNEY: "I'm going to bring rates down across the board for everybody, but I'm going to limit deductions and exemptions and credits, particularly for people at the high end, because I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now."

THE FACTS: Romney is proposing to cut all income tax rates by 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, maintain and expand tax breaks for investment income, and do it all without adding to the deficit or shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class. He says he would pay for the tax cuts by reducing or eliminating tax deductions, exemptions and credits, but he can't achieve all of his goals it under the budget rules presidents must follow.

The Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group, says in a study that the tax cuts proposed by Romney would reduce federal tax revenues by about $5 trillion over 10 years. The study concludes that there aren't enough tax breaks for the wealthy to make up the lost revenue, so the proposal would either add to the deficit or shift more of the tax burden on to the middle class.

Romney's campaign cites studies by conservative academics and think tanks that say Romney's plan will spur economic growth, generating enough additional money to pay for the tax cuts without adding to the deficit or shifting the tax burden to the middle class. But Congress doesn't recognize those kinds of economic projections when it estimates the budget impact of tax proposals.

___

ROMNEY: "A recent study has shown that people in the middle class will see $4,000 a year in higher taxes as a result of the spending and borrowing of this administration."

THE FACTS: Romney's claim is based on an analysis by the conservative American Enterprise Institute that examines the amount of debt that has accumulated on Obama's watch and in a potential second term and computes how much it would cost to finance that debt through tax increases. Annual deficits under Obama have exceeded $1 trillion for each year of his term.

However, Obama is not responsible for all of the deficits that have occurred on his watch. Most of the federal budget ? like Medicare, food stamps, Medicaid and Social Security ? runs on autopilot, and no one in a leadership position in Washington has proposed deep cuts in those programs. And politicians in both parties voted two years ago the renew Bush-era tax cuts that have contributed to the deficit. Even under the strict spending cuts proposed by Romney, the debt would continue to rise, just not as fast.

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Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Jonathan Fahey, Tom Krisher, Stephen Ohlemacher, Andrew Taylor, Bradley Klapper, Matthew Daly, Matthew Lee and Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don't tell the full story

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-stumbles-latest-presidential-debate-015330844--election.html

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Daniel Craig Thinks James Bond Timetable Will Speed Up Again

Being at the head of a multi-billion dollar film franchise certainly comes with it perks, but for Daniel Craig, being James Bond doesn't mean riding the Aston Martin DB5 to Easy Street. The man cares about 007. If you've ever read an interview with Craig about the films, the upcoming "Skyfall" in particular, he talks [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/10/16/daniel-craig-james-bond-24/

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