C. African Republic leader faces rebel threat

A Chadian soldier fighting in support of Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, sits on a truck in a convoy of other Chadian soldiers near Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. After troops under Bozize seized the capital in 2003 amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, he dissolved the constitution and parliament, and now a decade later it is Bozize himself who could be ousted from power with rebels having seized more than half the country and made their way to the doorstep of the capital in less than a month. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A Chadian soldier fighting in support of Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, sits on a truck in a convoy of other Chadian soldiers near Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. After troops under Bozize seized the capital in 2003 amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, he dissolved the constitution and parliament, and now a decade later it is Bozize himself who could be ousted from power with rebels having seized more than half the country and made their way to the doorstep of the capital in less than a month. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Chadian soldiers who are fighting in support of Central African Republic President Francois Bozize, gesture as they ride in a truck loaded with weapons on the road leading to Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. More than 30 truckloads of troops from Chad line the two-lane highway just outside of Damara, supporting government forces who want to block a new rebel coalition from reaching the capital, and Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads a 10-nation regional force, says the town is a "red line that the rebels cannot cross" or his forces will attack. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Chadian soldiers who are fighting in support of Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, sit in a truck full of rocket-propelled grenades on the road leading to Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. More than 30 truckloads of troops from Chad line the two-lane highway just outside of Damara, supporting government forces who want to block a new rebel coalition from reaching the capital, and Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads a 10-nation regional force, says the town is a "red line that the rebels cannot cross" or his forces will attack. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A convoy of Chadian soldiers who are fighting in support of Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, moves along the road in Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. More than 30 truckloads of troops from Chad line the two-lane highway just outside of Damara, supporting government forces who want to block a new rebel coalition from reaching the capital, and Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads a 10-nation regional force, says the town is a "red line that the rebels cannot cross" or his forces will attack. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A soldier runs to jump on a moving truck carrying Chadian soldiers who are fighting to support Central African Republic president Francois Bozize, in Damara, about 70km (44 miles) north of the capital Bangui, Central African Republic Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. After troops under Bozize seized the capital in 2003 amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, he dissolved the constitution and parliament, and now a decade later it is Bozize himself who could be ousted from power with rebels having seized more than half the country and made their way to the doorstep of the capital in less than a month. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

(AP) ? More than 30 truckloads of troops from Chad line the two-lane highway just outside of Damara, supporting Central African Republic government forces who want to block a new rebel coalition from reaching the capital.

In a display of force, the turbaned fighters hold their rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons they threaten to use if the rebels seeking to oust President Francois Bozize push this far south.

Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads the regional force known as FOMAC, says a push on Damara, just 75 kilometers (45 miles) north of the capital, would be "a declaration of war" on the 10 Central African states.

"For us, Damara is the red line that the rebels cannot cross," Akaga said Wednesday. "If they attack Damara, we will attack."

The United Nations called for talks between the government and rebels and the Security Council scheduled closed consultations on the Central African Republic on Thursday afternoon.

The multinational force brought journalists up to Damara, where they touted the strength of the Chadian troops, who along with forces from Republic of Congo and Gabon are helping to stabilize the area.

The rebels, though, appear to be holding their positions after taking a string of towns including Sibut, which is 70 miles (112 kilometers) further north from Damara.

Back in 2003, troops under Bozize seized the capital amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, and he then dissolved the constitution and parliament. Now a decade later it is Bozize who himself could be ousted from power.

On Wednesday, he announced through a decree read on state radio that he was dismissing his son, Francis, as defense minister. Chief of Staff Guillaume Lapo also was being replaced.

The president already has promised to form a coalition government with rebels and to negotiate without conditions. It's a sign of how seriously Bozize is threatened by the rebel groups who call themselves Seleka, which means alliance in the Sango language.

Bozize says there's one point not up for negotiation: he does not intend to leave office before his term ends in 2016.

"We can't destroy the country. I don't think that a transition is a good solution for the rebels, for Central African Republic or for the international community," said Cyriaque Gonda, a spokesman for the political coalition behind Bozize.

But mediators for the government and others note the rebels ? an alphabet soup of acronyms in French, UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK ? want Bozize gone. And that's the only issue the disparate group seems unified on. Seleka is a shaky alliance that lumps together former enemies.

In September 2011, fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead in the town of Bria and more than 700 homes destroyed.

"Even if they show unity in the military action, we know that they are politically very disunited, the only thing that holds them together is the opposition to the current president," said Roland Marchal, a Paris-based expert on Central African Republic. "If they take control of the capital I think that divisions would appear quickly."

Gonda, who has negotiated on behalf of the government with the rebels, says some of them couldn't even accept sitting together as recently as 2008.

Meanwhile, in some parts of the capital, Bangui, a city of 700,000, life continued as normal, while in others the military buildup was evident.

Trucks full of soldiers bounced on rutted roads dotted with shacks where people can charge mobile phones. Police officers stopped vehicles at intersections. Troops from neighboring nations have arrived including about 120 soldiers each from Republic of Congo and Gabon to help stabilize the area between rebel and the government forces.

In the Bimbo neighborhood, traders went about their business, selling everything from leafy greens to meat at roadside stands.

"We don't support what the rebels are doing," said banana farmer Narcisse Ngo, as a young boy played nearby with a monkey corpse for sale along with other meat. "They should be at the table negotiating without weapons. We are all Central Africans."

Bozize, who seized power while the democratically elected president was traveling outside the country, managed to win elections in 2005 but in the years since he has faced multiple low-level rebellions that have shattered security across the northern part of this large but desperately poor country.

He won the 2011 election with more than 64 percent of the vote, though the United States said the voting was "widely viewed as severely flawed." The U.S. evacuated its diplomats from Bangui last week.

The most prominent among the rebel groups in Seleka is the UFDR, or Union of Democratic Forces for Unity.

Human Rights Watch, which has documented abuses by both government forces and rebel groups operating in the country's north, says the UFDR rebellion "has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped."

The rebels, though, also have included some of Bozize's former fighters who helped bring him to power in 2003 but later accused him of failing to properly pay them, among other grievances, Human Rights Watch says.

For the people now caught in the middle, they want life to return to normal.

"Everyone is suffering here ? we have nothing to eat," said Daniel Ngakou, 55, as he watched the Chadian troops patrol his hometown of Damara. "The women are searching in the bush all day for food. We just don't know what will happen."

The United Nations called on the government and the rebels Wednesday to focus on dialogue that can avert violence and lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and respect for the 2008 Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement. That deal was signed by the government and three major rebel groups.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky reiterated the U.N. Security Council's call last week for all parties to refrain from any acts of violence against civilians, respect human rights and seek a peaceful solution.

"We welcome regional efforts to seek a political solution and reinforce security," Nesirky told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

While the United Nations has temporarily withdrawn its staff from Central African Republic, Nesirky said the world body remains engaged in efforts to resolve the crisis.

He said U.N. special representative Margaret Vogt "has remained in close dialogue with the key parties in the Central African Republic and the region and has offered support to political negotiations," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Oleg Cetinic in Paris and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-02-Central%20African%20Republic/id-99d563294ce146c2a9d044b2568d3c70

vince young evan longoria ryan seacrest kentucky derby beltane capitals john edwards

Real estate market stable in 2012 - London Free Press

The London-area real-estate market was stable in 2012, but the construction market will likely fall well short as some big institutional projects wind down.

The London and St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR) said 8,020 homes traded hands in 2012, 28 fewer than the 8,048 homes sold in 2011.

The December market reflected the rest of the year, with 381 sales ? down slightly from 384 sales in December 2011.

?We expected the market to be stable and balanced without a whole lot of change and that?s what happened,? said LSTAR president Barb Whitney.

Whitney says economic blows, like the closing of London?s Electro-Motive Diesel plant in February, did not have much impact on the real-estate market. But stricter mortgage rules put a damper on high-priced homes later in the year.

?We are lucky in this market. We don?t get the big spikes or dips,? said Whitney.

She said steady improvement in the U.S. economy will eventually boost employment and the housing market in London.

Year-end City of London building-permit figures have not been released, but November numbers point to an overall decline.

In the first 11 months, the city issued about $748 million in permits, compared to $912 million in the same period in 2011.

The biggest decline came in institutional construction, with $70.3 million in permits issued. That?s down from $250 million in 2011.

In 2011, the city saw a range of big projects, including $40 million for the new Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University, $51 million for projects at the London Health Sciences Centre and $27 million for a new Catholic high school.

But the decline in institutional projects was partly offset in 2012 by solid improvement in residential construction. The city issued $235 million in single-family home permits, and $101 million for apartment construction in the first 11 months of the year.

That compares to $198 million in single-family home permits and $28 million in apartment permits issued by the end of November 2011.

hank.daniszewski@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/HankatLFPress

- - -

LONDON REAL ESTATE? 2012

Total home sales $8,020 (-0.3%)
Total average price $238,822 (+2.8%)
Detached homes $254,434 (+4%)
Condos $171,403 (-4.5%)

BUILDING PERMITS

Value of permits issued by Nov. 30: 2012 and 2011

?Total ?$748,255,471 ?$912,065,795
?New institutional ?$70,336,000 ?$249,665,000
?Single-family homes ?$235,118,980 ?$198,401,360
?Apartments ?$100,962,000 ?$28,424,200

?

?

Source: http://www.lfpress.com/2013/01/02/london-area-real-estate-market-stable-in-2012

football score ron paul nevada buffalo chicken dip soul train nevada caucus ufc 143 what time does the super bowl start

How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents Review ? Is ...

How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents can be considered a great product that helped a lot of people.
It was released on 2010-03-01 by CGREENE20, How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents This product is one of the best in this particular niche, and its by far the best among the other rival products.

The product is made by Val ,one of the guys at CGREENE20 from North Carolina , and it is one of the very few great products that are available right in those days that actually tries to help and assist the new people in this niche.

How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents is very easy to understand made step by step so every new guy can actually learn and benefit from this product with no prior knowledge, but lets dive into the subject a lot more with this great How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents review.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE


How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents Review ? Scam or not

How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents Review ? The good parts
How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents is probably the most beneficial to its buyers as it has been written mainly to help and aid beginners. It has been made with a step by step method to learn, very easy with a nice learning curve easy to follow. Anyone can understand without having prior knowledge about the subject, and beginners and also advanced people can benefit greatly from this product.Get Rich In Real Estate By Buying It From Your Parents Or Anyone Else With No Money Down And No Credit Using Cutting-edge Strategies. You Get Free Spreadsheets So You Can Create Your Own Loan & A Free Book How To Avoid Foreclosure Or A Short Sale.>

How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents Is it scam?
When we talk about this great product there is no such thing as a scam. This product has been made only to help people looking to learn more information about this niche and its a great ebook that goes deep into the subject covering all aspects that you might be interested in or which you never heard of. All in all, How To Get Rich Buying Real Estate From Your Parents is really great and beneficial and there is no doubt its the best outranking its rivals.

Source: http://djs.whitefolksgetcrunk.com/how-to-get-rich-buying-real-estate-from-your-parents-review-is-it-scam/2013/01/

joe flacco 2013 nissan altima masters par 3 contest google augmented reality glasses wonderlic test texas tornado fantasy baseball

How do I know of I need online video fro my business? | RMAVP

Excerpts from Steve Young at SmartShoot.com

Would I like to increase traffic to my website? Then you need video?

Zappos reported that they received 250,000 visits from YouTube last year. That?s more than the entire population of St. Petersburg, FL.

I know what you?re thinking. Zappos is HUGE! They are a $1 billion company. I can?t possibly achieve those results.

Well, maybe: We may not be able to achieve Zappos-like success, but we can however achieve success that is more relevant to our business.

Wendy Sanger McGuire is the owner of Ganosh Gourmet, a gourmet food delivery service located in Coronado, California. After shooting a fantastic and unique video of her business, she now ranks #1 on Google for terms such as ?food delivery Coronado?, ?gourmet food Coronado?, and ?home food delivery Coronado?.

Read her full story and watch her unique video.

?Would I like to increase sales from my website? Then you need video?

Whether you sell goods or services online or use your website to drive customers to your local business, online video can help drive more sales.

Dropbox has three things on its homepage:

  • Logo
  • Video
  • Download button

The video increased downloads by more 10% resulting in several thousand extra signups per day.

Okay I understand, you?re tired of examples from BILLION dollar companies.

Let?s take a look at Method Yoga, a yoga studio based in Oakland, CA. Reed Taylor, founder of Method Yoga, bought Google ads to drive traffic to a free 2-hour fitness class.

He used two identical web pages ? one with video and one without video.

The results? An 11% increase in signups for his free course. More signups without spending any more money? Sign me up!

Now, the Method Yoga website has three videos: an overview, customer testimonials and a bio of Reed himself.

Conclusion

To recap, using online video does make sense if?

  • Having an online presence is important to your business
  • You?d like to drive more traffic to your website
  • You?d like to drive more sales from your website ? especially important if you buy ads

What are YOUR experiences? Share them with us?

Source: http://www.rmavp.com/you-need-video-for-your-business-if/

superpac steve appleton bishop eddie long madonna give me all your luvin video roseanne barr president green party day 26

Add a comment - Dowd on Drinks - Bill Dowd - Wine beer spirits ...

December 31, 2012 at 2:30 pm by Comment Comments

|

Email E-mail

|

Print Print

.



Go here for the region?s best local food & drinks events calendar.

Comment Comments

|

Email E-mail

|

Print Print Posted in General | Add a comment

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a Comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> -->

Note: All comments are read and approved before they display. Comments with profanity or personal attacks will be rejected.

Ads by Yahoo!

Source: http://blog.timesunion.com/dowdondrinks/13360/13360/

kevin youkilis Tropical Storm Debby legend of korra lebron james magic mike trailer Alan Turing brave

CNBC&#39;s Fast Money: Stocks, Investing, Market Analysis - CNBC

The Fast Money traders discuss whether Yahoo or Apple make a better investment headed into 2013; and it was an interesting past year for internet companies, including Facebook's IPO fiasco, and how to play these names in the New Year, with Colin Gillis, BGC Financial Partners.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838499/CNBCrsquos_Fast_Money_Stocks_Investing_Market_Analysis__CNBC

Alison Pill Sam Bacile sprint britney spears At&t Wireless 9/11 Jerry Lawler

Effective Leadership: In Search of the Holy Grail | Governors&#39; Agenda

During the last half-century, the concept of leadership and management in schools has morphed from being something fairly ad hoc in the late 1960s to becoming one of the most centralised and controlled features of the educational landscape in the United Kingdom.

During the period following the promulgation of the famous Butler (Education) Act in 1944 to the mid-1980s, the term leadership was interchangeable with administration. The time was one where education was described as a national system locally administered. The key players were local educational authorities and schools who operated in a culture underpinned by the bureaucratic-professional modus operandi.

The values that drove the system ? especially with the creation of the comprehensive school ? were those of equity and social justice.? Local Authority officers were drawn from a cadre of headteachers and senior teachers in schools.? But training was one associated with serendipity rather than planned and fashioned by the needs of the service.? I can recall how, in the early 1980s when I moved from being headteacher of an independent primary school to that of Assistant Education Officer in a local authority, I was out of my depth and, unsure about how and where I could learn ? on and off the job.? I bumbled and bumped along at the bottom of knowledge and understanding of what my function was, what I should do and how to become effective.??

When Kenneth Baker pushed through the Education Reform Act 1988, the expectations on school leaders became more explicit. There was an increasing focus on the identification of standards and competencies. Assessment centres mushroomed.?? In the early 1990s, the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the National Development Centre (NDC) were established. The concept of management ? as opposed to administration ? took shape.? Local authorities were given control of funds to provide for the development of management and leadership for teachers.

The Labour Party came into government in 1997, following which it built on the Conservative paradigm of school autonomy and accountability adding the ingredient of ?leadership? to help force speedier improvements in performance and effectiveness in the public sector ? especially in schools.? To accelerate its plans, the government established the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in 2000.? The NCSL created a development framework for leadership with four programmes ? Leading from the Middle, Leadership Pathways for Senior Leaders, the National Professional Qualifications for Headteachers (NPQH) ? later taken over by the TTA ? and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers (NPSH.)

In his seminal article for Educational Management, Administration and Leadership (EMAL) ? Volume 40 No 5 September 2012 ? Tim Simkins, Professor of Educational Management at Sheffield Hallam University, described the three perspectives of leadership that emerged over this period ? the functionalist, constructivist and critical.

Initially, leadership was seen as essentially functional.? Good leadership had objectively determined and agreed targets ? defined competencies, qualities and skills ?that effective performance requires and best practice sought?. Researchers explored ?the causal relationships between practices and outcomes in order that purposes could be better achieved?.? There were problems with this model of leadership because the perspective diverted attention from the important management development processes that included unanticipated outcomes and informal, more covert episodes, and ignored major ethical and moral questions.

These problems resulted in the birth of the constructivist approach, which aimed to resolve the dilemmas.? The new approach conceived blended learning which combined face-to-face and on-line provision, supplemented by in-school activities.? The constructivist model spawned a cadre of coaches and mentors, generally ?expert? and recently-retired (and sometimes redundant ? where schools were closed) headteachers.

Leadership and management developed a second constructivist, development strand.?? Role transition, career development and identity formation became as important as training leaders for school improvement.?? The concept of distributed leadership took shape.?? The successful headteacher was not viewed as a mover and shaker ? a charismatic, miracle-worker ? in the way in which Michael Gove views Michael Wilshaw (HMCI) ? as ?my hero?.?? The interactions between the individual leadership trainee, the programme (generally mounted by the NCSL) and the school became messy as tensions grew.

In an attempt to resolve the complexity, a critical perspective of leadership brought the important issue of values into the frame.? Questions were asked.

(i)???????? What are the purposes of education?

(ii)??????? Where should power be reposed ? the government, the school, the community, Ofsted, the local authority, universities, the profession, private organisation, private individual ? or is there any room for power-sharing?

(iii)?????? What are the levers and mechanism through which control is achieved?

In the current set-up, the piper government controls the funding and calls the tune.?? It promotes an educational market, but places pressures on schools and local authorities to respond to central initiatives and demands ? not least through Ofsted.?? Even the NCSL, which was created by Labour to operate at arm?s length from the Department for Education, has become, from April 2012, an arm of government.

The government?s agenda to create a nation where the overwhelming number of institutions are academies and free schools is an open secret. The overt justification for this is to liberate them from the fetters of local authorities and to promote a ?self-improving school system?, according to Professor David Hargreaves, Associate Director of Development and Research at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. The covert motive, according to critics, is to control schools from the centre creating the mirage of freedom.?? Teaching schools ? which must work with the universities and other schools (of excellence) ? are selected to act as individual agents to develop the new, central model of leaders at all levels. Also, the NCSL has nominated the headteachers of outstanding (in Ofsted parlance) schools for their capacity to act as agents.

The scene is evolving because at this stage we are uncertain about how the tensions between the centralisation of power in the DfE and NCSL will square with the devolution of powers to schools ? in particular, academies and free schools.

Despite the above developments, the functional message of schools dominates.?? Children are regimented to pass tests and examinations so that their schools feature highly in league tables and the nation must do well to dominate the international league tables when it comes to the OECD?s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS).

Denis Mongon and Charlie Leadbeater in High Level Leadership; Improving Outcomes in Educational Settings (2012) described a study they conducted on the headteachers of 10 very good schools in the country.? They discovered that there were five critical ingredients for their successes in increasing the capacity of those who worked in and benefited from their schools.

(i)???????? These headteachers improved the core activity, teaching and learning, measured by educational attainment.

(ii)??????? They drew on and enhanced capacity from within the community.

(iii)?????? They developed the ability of immediate, social networks and families to improve pupil attendance and attitudes towards learning.

(iv)?????? They generated activities which had an indirect impact on educational attainment and a positive impact on other outcomes for the pupils.

(v)??????? They made resources available for community activity building community capacity.

The headteachers made it clear to the researchers that without good teaching and learning ? the first feature ? the other four would be stillborn.

The Ofsted framework for inspection ? which focuses on teaching and learning ? pays little (if any) attention to the other four relevant activities.? Timescales are driven by political imperatives and do not relate to the everyday and long-term experiences of schools, families and communities.

Successful leaders, it seems, run with the grain of government diktat but go much further by embracing other strategies that involve their governors, staff, parents, community, and, of course, the young people whom they serve. Perhaps this is the secret, the Holy Grail, of good school leadership which both, governors and headteachers would do well to nurture.

Source: http://www.governorsagenda.co.uk/?p=743

Rise of the Guardians Pumpkin Pie Jack Taylor Apple Pie Recipe black friday How long to cook a turkey green bean casserole

Details of tentative deal averting 'fiscal cliff'

Highlights of a tentative agreement Monday between the White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at averting wide tax increases and budget cuts scheduled to take effect in the new year. The measure would raise taxes by about $600 billion over 10 years. Still unresolved is how to avert across-the-board spending cuts set to begin slashing the budgets of the Pentagon and numerous domestic agencies.

Highlights include:

?Income tax rates: Extends decade-old tax cuts on incomes up to $400,000 for individuals, $450,000 for couples. Earnings above those amounts would be taxed at a rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 35 percent. Extends Clinton-era caps on itemized deductions and the phase-out of the personal exemption for individuals making more than $250,000 and couples earning more than $300,000.

?Estate tax: Estates would be taxed at a top rate of 40 percent, with the first $5 million in value exempted for individual estates and $10 million for family estates. In 2012, such estates were subject to a top rate of 35 percent.

?Capital gains, dividends: Taxes on capital gains and dividend income exceeding $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for families would increase from 15 percent to 20 percent.

?Alternative minimum tax: Permanently addresses the alternative minimum tax and indexes it for inflation to prevent nearly 30 million middle- and upper-middle income taxpayers from being hit with higher tax bills averaging almost $3,000. The tax was originally designed to ensure that the wealthy did not avoid owing taxes by using loopholes.

?Other tax changes: Extends for five years Obama-sought expansions of the child tax credit, earned income tax credit, and an up to $2,500 tax credit for college tuition. Also extends for one year accelerated "bonus" depreciation of business investments in new property and equipment, a tax credit for research and development costs and a tax credit for renewable energy such as wind-generated electricity.

?Unemployment benefits: Extends jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed for one year.

?Cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors: Blocks a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors for one year. The cut is the product of an obsolete 1997 budget formula.

?Social Security payroll tax cut: Allows a 2 percentage point cut in the payroll tax first enacted two years ago to lapse, which restores the payroll tax to 6.2 percent.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-12-31-Fiscal%20Cliff-Glance/id-8eb3178df6b142bebc124f40bac8a8e8

vince young vince young evan longoria ryan seacrest kentucky derby beltane capitals

Extreme Diet Hacking: How Cheesecake Made Me Leaner And Stronger With Carb Backloading

photo (39)Never before have I binged so many delicious desserts, yet been stronger or more ripped. For 3 weeks, I experimented with a cult bodybuilding diet, Carb Backloading, which promises outcomes too good to be true: slam carbs at night after heavy lifting, get slimmer and build muscle. Like all web sensations, there aren't any large scale studies, and anecdotal reviews never properly control for all the right variables. Only a methodical body hacking experiment, with the latest gadgets and devices tracking calorie burn, fat loss, and training intensity, could legitimately test this dream diet. The results? Despite eating a thousand more calories a day--mostly comprised of sundaes and cheesecake--I've maintained my weight, have noticeable ab definition, and increased my strength an average of 37% over all muscle groups.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/A23m26se6Tg/

kenny powers carl hagelin triple play james neal jackie robinson virginia tech emancipation proclamation