Republicans Are Given a Price Tag for Health Law Repeal, but Reject It

The new House speaker, John A. Boehner, flatly rejected the report, saying it was based largely on chicanery by Democrats.

Mr. Boehner?s dismissal of the report by the Congressional Budget Office, at his first formal news conference as speaker, was the latest salvo in the battle over the health care law. White House officials on Thursday said they were stepping up efforts to defend the law, with a new rapid-response operation to rebut Republican claims and to deploy supporters to talk about the benefits of the law.

But Mr. Boehner?s remarks held wider implications, effectively putting him on a war footing with the independent analysts whose calculations generally guide discussions about the projected cost or savings of any legislation.

?I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit,? he said.

?C.B.O. is entitled to their opinion,? he said, but he said Democrats had manipulated the rules established for determining the cost of a program under the 1974 Budget Act.

?C.B.O. can only provide a score based on the assumptions that are given to them,? Mr. Boehner said. ?And if you go back and look at the health care bill and the assumptions that were given to them, you see all of the double-counting that went on.?

But the analysis released by the budget office on Thursday was based on the health care repeal bill that House Republicans introduced on Wednesday. And it highlighted the difficult position that Republicans are in as they try to address what they insist are the top two priorities of voters who elected them in November: cutting the deficit and undoing the health care law.

According to the budget office, those goals are contradictory.

The budget office estimated that the health care law, including education provisions, would reduce deficits over 10 years by $143 billion. Tax increases and cuts in projected Medicare spending would more than offset the cost of extending health insurance to millions of Americans. The budget office projected that the law would result in even bigger savings beyond 2019.

Republicans have said they do not believe that many of the Medicare cuts will ever take hold. They say that government subsidies to help people buy health insurance will prove far costlier than the budget office has predicted, and that the Democrats wrote the law to mask the steep future costs of some provisions, like a new long-term-care insurance program.

The budget office did not comment on Mr. Boehner?s remarks. Douglas W. Elmendorf, its director, has frequently said his office applies the longstanding budget rules. He says it uses its own professional expertise, as well as consulting with outside experts, to derive its projections, which represent the ?middle of the distribution of likely outcomes.?

Mr. Elmendorf has warned that Congress may find it difficult to follow through with parts of the health care law, particularly the cuts to Medicare. The law?s cost would rise if the cuts were not enacted.

In the report on Thursday, Mr. Elmendorf, a former Clinton administration official appointed in 2008 when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, said that a preliminary analysis showed that repealing the law would increase federal budget deficits by a total of $145 billion from 2012 to 2019 and by $230 billion between 2012 and 2021.

Moreover, he said, if the law is repealed, 32 million fewer people will have health insurance in 2019, compared with estimates of coverage under the existing law. As a result, he said, the number of uninsured would be 54 million, rather than 23 million, in 2019.

At Mr. Boehner?s news conference, reporters peppered him with questions about repealing the law ? including the cost analysis and a plan by Republicans not to allow amendments on the repeal measure even though the party had promised to maintain a more open legislative process.

?Well, listen, I promised a more open process,? Mr. Boehner said. ?I didn?t promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill.?

Mr. Boehner grew testy when a reporter noted that Democrats who controlled the Senate were unlikely to bring up the repeal measure, let alone support it, and that Mr. Obama could veto it.

?Don?t you think it?s a waste of time?? Mr. Boehner was asked.

?No, I do not,? he said, raising his voice. ?I believe it?s our responsibility to do what we said we were going to do. And I think it?s pretty clear to the American people that the best health care system in the world is going to go down the drain if we don?t act.?

In their own report on Thursday, intended to illustrate how the law would lead to job losses, Republican leaders put the cost of the health care law ?when fully implemented? at $2.6 trillion and said it would ?add $701 billion to the deficit in its first 10 years.?

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=17d37914927796a2b548a97454aa885f

pat summerall raven symone weight loss grindhouse earthquake san francisco

The Caucus: Sperling Returns as Obama's Top Economic Adviser

President Obama will name Gene Sperling today to replace Larry Summers as director of the National Economic Council, White House officials said.

The move, which had been widely predicted in recent days, shifts Mr. Sperling from his current role as a counselor at the Treasury Department to Mr. Obama?s top economic adviser in the West Wing.

It will be a return engagement for Mr. Sperling, who served as director of the council under President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.

Mr. Obama will make the announcement Friday morning at a window-manufacturing company in Landover, Md. The company, which makes energy-efficient windows and doors, has recently expanded and hired new workers as a result of tax credits created by Mr. Obama?s policies.

In addition to the Sperling announcement, the president will also elevate Jason Furman to principal deputy director of the council. Mr. Furman got his start in the White House during Mr. Sperling?s first tour as N.E.C. director.

White House officials said the president will also nominate Katharine Abraham, a professor at the University of Maryland, to be a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. And he will nominate Heather Higginbottom, a deputy director at the White House Domestic Policy Council, to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6c5bb7f5f78da714c3ad9752c597248f

lsu football earthquakes today christine paolilla no country for old men

Twitter isn?t the new Cronkite ? it needs the new Cronkite(s)

Twitter isn?t the new Cronkite ? it needs the new Cronkite(s)

Editors Note: Today was a horrible day in Tucson, Arizona, and as far as the shooting itself, the criminal investigation and any political ramifications, we are not here to discuss any of that, and our condolences and thoughts go out to all those killed, injured and to their families. We are here to discuss Twitter and breaking news.

Twitter needs an anchor ? or perhaps hundreds, thousands or millions of them.

A while back ? specifically when the world was transfixed by Tiger Woods crash on his lawn, an event that in really no way compares to the outcome of today?s events, though if you remember, the first (mistaken) reports were that Woods had been seriously injured ? MG Siegler over on Techcrunch wrote a seminal piece saying that Twitter was the new Walter Cronkite, i.e. it has become the place that we all turn to get the most breaking of news. I thought a lot about that post during todays events, and I now feel that while the point that Twitter is the place to go for breaking news is beyond question, I think that saying that Twitter is the new Cronkite is going a bit too far ? I think that Twitter actually needs it?s own Cronkite, either standing alone or preferably with the aid of crowdsourced volunteers.

If you were not following the days events in real-time on Twitter today, then I?ll give a quick recap of the roughly two hours on Twitter preceding the press conference at hospital where the victims were sent:

  1. The shooting was reported.
  2. Word spread that Representative Giffords was holding an event at the Safeway, and may have been injured.
  3. A report that Rep. Giffords was shot in the head.
  4. Reports, apparently verified by major news organizations, that Rep. Giffords was dead.
  5. Conflicting reports that she was alive, again, from major news orgs.
  6. More indications from sources that she was alive.
  7. Confirmation from the hospital in a press conference that not only was she alive, but that her prognosis was ?optimistic?. Also, the beyond tragic news that  a child was among the 6 dead.

The conflicting reports upset many people, blaming Twitter/reporters/people sharing the news that they messed up. That, to me, wasn?t the case ? news organizations were doing their best to get the story as straight as quickly as possible, and many on Twitter were also doing their best to constantly pass on the correct and most up-to-date information. In fact, if anything, it reminded me that news of John F. Kennedy?s assassination was handled in quite a similar fashion by Cronkite ? trying to sort through all of the conflicting reports as an anxious world watched in the real-time of the day.

It was a kind of crowdsourced editorial effort that has happened in some ways before on Twitter, but today seemed to me to be the starkest example of this I?ve ever seen ? and that includes personally doing the same through multiple natural disasters ? including the Haiti earthquake nearly a year ago to the day.

If you were helping to find and pass on the most accurate information of the moment, you were part of one giant newsroom today.

However, there was one issue that keep coming up to me today, and it had to do specifically with some of the changes that Twitter has made over the last year, specifically the ?Top Tweet? distinction on search. If you don?t know what a Top Tweet does, basically, it is ?sticky? at the top of the search results because it has had so many retweets. In most cases, this is perfectly fine. However, for a long while today, there was a Top Tweet by a CNN Political Director Sam Fiest (since deleted, I just found out, almost certainly by himself) that had both sides of the story, saying Giffords was taken the hospital and that a sheriff had said she was already dead. That tweet was stuck up near the top of Twitter search for awhile, even after it was becoming very clear that Giffords was in fact alive.

While it?s impossible to tell if there was any kind of negative effect from the spreading of what turned out to be false info (though I of course Fiest was hardly the only one tweeting it out and I don?t blame Fiest if that is what he was informed) that tweet had while millions of others were flying around Twitter, it opened up to me a need that I hope Twitter address ? adding some crisis situation editorial.

Twitter has stated quite clearly that it embraces its roll as the place that breaking news and indeed entire movements can take place on its service, but with that commitment has to come some kind of responsibility. There is a large difference between someone (or a news organization) tweeting out something that turns out to be untrue, to continuing to highlight that misinformation simply based on the number of times it has been retweeted (just to be clear, I?m not suggesting that Twitter just delete tweets ? that would be censorship ? just removing the ?Top Tweet? distinction, which can give a lot of weight to a tweet, regardless of its factual accuracy).

No algorithm can fix this ? only human beings can. As crowdsourcing projects such as CrisisCommons have shown (disclosure: I?m an active volunteer with CrisisCommons), human ?gardening? is very important to getting the story straight. In the worst-case, unattended misinformation could lead to obstructing official responses to crisis, including getting the most up-to-date and official news to everyone.

During today?s crisis, NPR?s Andy Carvin put up a Storify about the event, which was much appreciated, but Storify can only be used to collect, not to actually affect the news editorially on Twitter. So here?s what I?m suggesting for Twitter to at least consider: either hire an experienced editorial staff that can quickly make changes to direct people to the most factual/official account of what is happening during a crisis, and/or develop a mechanism where Twitter users can vote up or down tweets (or perhaps flag in a way?). Of course, a retweet itself is a kind of vote up, but there is no way to vote anything down?

Yes, that sounds a lot like Quora, doesn?t it? Somewhat surprisingly to me, Quora wasn?t used this way today (I set up an experiment after the news had settled a bit even so). If Twitter doesn?t do this, I can see citizen (and actual) reporters using Quora or a similar service in the future to get the story straight and spread the correct word. That said, Twitter has proven itself as the platform for this new generation of news, but we?re still waiting for old Walter to take his seat.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/01/09/twitter-isnt-the-new-cronkite-it-needs-the-new-cronkites/

lsu football earthquakes today christine paolilla no country for old men

Bit-Gamer Competition #2

Bit-Gamer Competition #2

Posted on 20th Dec 2010 at 11:31 by Joe Martin with 23 comments

Congratulations to the three winners from last week, who told us their favourite games ever over Twitter. We sent them each a copy of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit on PlayStation 3 as a prize, but here's what the winners chose, in case you were wondering:

@dragronphreak - Pools of Radiance Ultima 7
@xmvx - Diablo 2
@Krisposkitt - BioShock

Now it's time for our second competition to celebrate the launch of Bit-Gamer.net. This time we've got a copy of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Codex Edition on Xbox 360 to send out - and, yes, this competition is open worldwide.


To be in for a chance of winning, all you have to do is Follow @bit_gamer on Twitter and send us a tweet telling us which game you're most looking forward to next year.

The deadline for this competition is 5 January 2011.

We've already handed out a few unannounced prizes over Twitter too, and we expect to be giving out a lot more of as we've got a ludicrous amount of prizes to be given away. Congratulations to @darth_careful and @alastor2004, both of whom grabbed themselves copies of Diamond Dan on Steam.

We'll be bringing you a new competition after the New Year. Don't worry if you're not interested in signing up for Twitter either; you'll get a chance to win something soon!

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/3W66eQ0uJx4/

heaven s rain movie les miles michigan texas a m country strong soundtrack

CES 2011: Polaroid?s GL30 Instant Digital Camera

CES 2011: Polaroid?s GL30 Instant Digital Camera

Digital Retro? This camera pretty much captures it. This year at CES, Polaroid teamed up with none other than Lady Gaga to unveil its new GL30 Instant Camera. The boxy, tapered shape of the digital incarnation shares a similar aesthetic to the much-loved Polaroid cameras from the 80s.

The digital camera has an adjustable display and of course, being a classic Polaroid, it even prints 3×4 inch photos. You can even add in the white border around images. While it?s certainly a step in the right direction for Polaroid (maybe not the Lady Gaga part), I?d still like to see them revive Polaroid film sometime in the not too distant future (pretty please!)

via @Gizmodo

About the Author

Courtney Boyd Myers is the East Coast editor of TNW, based in NYC. She began her career writing about robots @ Forbes and has also written for PCMag, PSFK, IEEE Spectrum, the Huffington Post + Pocket-Lint. She loves magnets + reading on her Kindle. You can follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at Courtney@TheNextWeb.com.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2011/01/09/ces-2011-polaroids-gl30-instant-digital-camera/

earthquakes today christine paolilla no country for old men cotton bowl

Spinning Nano Yarns

Many important technologies?from battery electrodes and superconducting wires to the catalysts in fuel cells?rely on materials containing powdered particles, which can be tricky to manage. Now, in a feat that could simplify the production of many such technologies and might point the way toward some radical new ones, researchers at the University of Texas have demonstrated a way to spin yarn out of nanotubes infused with useful powdered materials.

The researchers have used the method to make strips of yarn that function as a battery electrode, others with superconducting properties, and self-cleaning yarns.

"Powders are very important functional materials because they have very high surface area," says Ray Baughman, who directs the MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas. "The problem is that powders without form are difficult to use."

Lithium-ion battery electrodes, for example, take advantage of the high surface area of powders to achieve greater storage density. But typically either powders must be held together by binders that add weight and solidity, or they must be sintered together into solid structures, the processes for which are complicated.

Baughman says the technology developed by his group should make it easier to work with a wide range of powdered materials. "You can take almost any powder and make a sewable, knittable, knotable, braidable yarn," he says.

The researchers start by growing a forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes in a chemical reactor. Then they drag a roller over the nanotubes, which separate from the surface and get tangled up in a long, stretchy ribbon?a so-called nanotube web. These webs, Baughman's team has discovered, can act as a host for nanoparticles and powders. The researchers spray the surface of the web with the powder and then twist it into a yarn. The powder is confined inside the spirals of the nanotube web. "When you wash it, almost all the powder is retained," he says. The resulting yarns can be 95 to 99 percent powder by weight.

Baughman's group used a mixture of powdered boron and magnesium to make superconducting yarns by a simple process. The conventional process for making superconducting wires involves packing the powders in copper tubes and heating and drawing them tens of times to stretch them into wires. But the superconducting yarns are heated just once to anneal the powders and form a superconducting thread.

The powders retain the properties that make them so useful, says Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University, who was not involved with the work. Baughman's method is essentially "turning particles into fibers," he says. Chemicals can readily move in and out of the sparse nanotubes and interact with the surface of the particles trapped inside.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=bb8b25e97aadcbd9d91563d998429bd1

texas chainsaw massacre true story earthquake bay area heaven s rain movie les miles michigan

Constitution Has Its Day (More or Less) in House

But one new member, Representative Mike Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania who failed to be officially sworn in Wednesday, proceeded nonetheless to participate in the reading, one of the first official acts of House members in the 112th Congress.

At the time of the oath-taking, both Mr. Fitzpatrick and Representative Pete Sessions of Texas were elsewhere, watching the proceedings on television. They raised their respective right hands as the oath was administered, but that was not enough to make them official.

Both men were sworn in for real on Thursday afternoon. But before that happened, a Rules Committee hearing had to be halted because Mr. Sessions was taking part in it, and both men had cast votes on the floor. House leaders were conferring to see what steps might need to be taken to make things right.

The oath-taking foul-up was not the only opening week boo-boo.

During the reading of the Constitution, because of an inadvertent double page turn, Section 4 of Article IV was skipped, as was a part of Article V. (It was entered into the record later.) The proceeding was interrupted by a protester questioning President Obama?s place of birth. And an argument began on the floor over the version of the Constitution being read, before a word of the preamble was uttered.

The reading of the full Constitution ? for the first time in the history of the House ? came about in recognition of the influence of the Tea Party, which helped send scores of new members to the chamber, and the new condition set by Republicans that each bill must cite the part of the Constitution that justifies its existence.

Roughly one third of the body filled the chamber on Thursday to take turns at reading.

For roughly 90 minutes, sentence by sentence, the words of the Constitution fluttered through the chamber, in accents reflecting myriad districts that did not even exist when the document came into being, and in the voices of women and African-Americans whose full rights were not recognized at the hour of its drafting.

Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who came up with the idea for the reading, said, ?Throughout the last year there has been a great debate about the expansion of the federal government, and lots of my constituents have said that Congress has gone beyond its powers granted in the Constitution.?

In consultation with the Congressional Research Service and others, the leaders of the House had decided to read a version of the Constitution that was edited to exclude those portions superseded by amendments ? including amendments themselves ? preventing lawmakers from having to make references to slaves, referred to in Article I, Section 2 as ?three fifths of all other Persons? or to failed experiments like Prohibition. Members were not provided with the version before the reading began.

Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, registered a complaint he expanded on later in a prepared statement, essentially arguing that the House was whitewashing history and ignoring the blood, sweat and tears paid to achieve the amendments.

The wrangling over parliamentary procedure went on for several minutes with the arguments of Democrats and Republicans perhaps presaging future partisan battles over the meaning, purpose and application of the Constitution.

After that opening fray, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the newly installed speaker of the House, read the preamble (?We the people?), before yielding to the woman who handed him the gavel on Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who was followed by other House leaders.

From there, members who wished to read were recognized from their seats on a first-come, first-served basis. The reading generally volleyed evenly back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.

?I just read the First Amendment!? Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, said gleefully as she exited the floor.

?I wanted to be here, I think it?s important,? Ms. Giffords said. ?Reflecting on the Constitution in a bipartisan way is a good way to start the year.?

Another reader, Representative Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican, called the experience ?heartwarming,? though he said he was sad that he had not been able to read the 14th Amendment on citizenship because of his concerns about so-called anchor babies, children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States.

In bookend moments of modern identity politics, there was a standing ovation when Representative John Lewis, the black Democrat from Georgia who was a leader in the civil rights movement, read the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, And a protester had to be removed from the gallery after yelling out ?except Obama? as Representative Frank Pallone Jr. read that ?no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States? is eligible for the presidency.

The Office of the Historian of the House of Representatives could not find any examples of the full text of the Constitution actually being read out loud on the House floor. It said that in 1882, Roswell Flower of New York ?appended? a text of the Constitution ? minus the amendments ? to the Congressional Record, and in 1915, Thomas Reilly of Connecticut inserted the full text into the record as an extension of his remarks.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=64b6b0bf11670b97e75d4541dc2e3a3a

earthquakes today christine paolilla no country for old men cotton bowl

Apple pulls VLC from the App Store

Apple pulls VLC from the App Store

Months of speculation preceeded the action but today Apple officially pulled the popular media streaming app VLC from its App Store.

VLC for iPhone and iPad gained approval back in September, existing as a side project from the official desktop application by VideoLAN. After months of contention between the app developers, the creators of the desktop application and Apple, the app was removed at VideoLAN?s request because Apple?s App Store contravenes various parts of the GPL license under which it was released.

The official statement came from Rémi Denis-Courmont, posting on the Planet VideoLAN website:

At last, Apple has removed VLC media player from its application store. Thus the incompatibility between the GNU General Public License and the AppStore terms of use is resolved ? the hard way. This end should not have come to a surprise to anyone, given the precedents.

There you have it. It?s quite evident the iPhone app was not supported by the VideoLAN community. When software uses a GPL license, any third-party revisions must adhere to them also. In the case of the iPhone app, you can see it did not. To reiterate, Apple had nothing to do with its removal (other than to physically pull it from the store), the beef was between the respective developers.

Were you a user of VLC on your iPad or iPhone? Have you found a decent alternative? Let us know in the comments.

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/01/08/apple-officially-pulls-vlc-from-the-app-store/

no country for old men cotton bowl jersey shore season 3 episode 1 full episode pat summerall

Bit-Gamer Competition #2

Bit-Gamer Competition #2

Posted on 20th Dec 2010 at 11:31 by Joe Martin with 23 comments

Congratulations to the three winners from last week, who told us their favourite games ever over Twitter. We sent them each a copy of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit on PlayStation 3 as a prize, but here's what the winners chose, in case you were wondering:

@dragronphreak - Pools of Radiance Ultima 7
@xmvx - Diablo 2
@Krisposkitt - BioShock

Now it's time for our second competition to celebrate the launch of Bit-Gamer.net. This time we've got a copy of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Codex Edition on Xbox 360 to send out - and, yes, this competition is open worldwide.


To be in for a chance of winning, all you have to do is Follow @bit_gamer on Twitter and send us a tweet telling us which game you're most looking forward to next year.

The deadline for this competition is 5 January 2011.

We've already handed out a few unannounced prizes over Twitter too, and we expect to be giving out a lot more of as we've got a ludicrous amount of prizes to be given away. Congratulations to @darth_careful and @alastor2004, both of whom grabbed themselves copies of Diamond Dan on Steam.

We'll be bringing you a new competition after the New Year. Don't worry if you're not interested in signing up for Twitter either; you'll get a chance to win something soon!

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/3W66eQ0uJx4/

ed reed lsu football earthquakes today christine paolilla

You Know You've Played Too Many Games When?

You Know You've Played Too Many Games When?

Posted on 23rd Dec 2010 at 11:41 by Joe Martin with 55 comments

You know you?ve played too many games when you deliberately get up early on a Saturday morning, just so you can explore the new Minecraft update in peace for a few hours.

?when you hum the Monkey Island theme tune to yourself when you?re tense, and it actually makes you feel better.

?when you catch yourself thinking, ?Oh, quicksave!? when you cross the road.

?when you have recurring dreams about writing the perfect walkthrough for Baldur?s Gate 2.

?when you?re celebrating your anniversary with your girlfriend at a 1950s party on a vintage steamboat and, rather than dancing, you spend your whole time being reminded of a level in Hitman: Blood Money.

?when you?re approaching one of the aforementioned vintage steamboats and, as you outpace the others on the jetty, you're tempted to yell, ?The rescue boat is here!?

?when the doodles you draw while you're on the phone aren?t little stick men, but old Quake levels redrawn from memory.

?when you bump into things all the time and blame it on the clipping.

?when you don?t read instructions for the new microwave because you?re pretty sure all you need to do is ?Press interact?.

?when you seriously believe the only use for graph paper is to make it easier to design Minecraft levels.

?when you don?t just talk in your sleep, but actually mime killing Kleers from Serious Sam.

?when you look at the clock everyday at thirty-seven minutes paste one and think, ?Yes, I am.?

Online Business Consulting | Internet Business Consulting

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/-thFyPwUtFs/

jim brown california earthquake ipl auction live streaming ed reed