Presidential Candidates Warn About Debt Deal

The action by Mr. Boehner, which was announced Saturday night, illustrated just how difficult negotiations had become in this political climate to reach agreement on a sweeping plan to lower the deficit without an infusion of new tax revenues.

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota seized on the issue and used the first television commercial of her campaign to highlight her opposition to raising the debt ceiling. She drew enthusiastic applause on Saturday as she amplified her position.

?It?s time for tough love,? Mrs. Bachmann told supporters at a rally. ?Don?t let them scare you by telling you that the country?s going to fall apart.?

Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, who was critical of the deal brokered this year between Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner that averted a government shutdown, said he was not convinced of the dire consequences predicted by Democrats if no deal was reached and the government lost its authority to borrow on Aug. 2.

?I hope and pray and believe they should not raise the debt ceiling,? Mr. Pawlenty told voters here last week. ?These historic, dramatic moments where you can draw a line in the sand and force politicians to actually do something bold and courageous are important moments.?

The sharp stances, which have been building for days, complicated efforts to reach an agreement by Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican; Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader; and Mr. Obama, who were scheduled to resume deliberations at the White House on Sunday evening. The Republican leaders faced the prospect that their party?s presidential candidates were criticizing their efforts, which could complicate the leaders? efforts to find the votes they would need.

With their own campaigns only a year away, many Republicans in Congress are turning to the party?s presidential candidates for an early sign of how the budget issue is playing in the minds of voters. The grass-roots conservative opposition to a deal that includes any kind of tax increase or fails to cut government spending substantially has been frequently aired at town-hall-style meetings with the candidates and in calls to talk radio programs, and it has overshadowed discussions of the potential economic fallout should the government actually default.

Fellow Republicans say Mrs. Bachmann?s position would influence House colleagues who see her as a reliable measure of the Tea Party zeitgeist.

?Michele is a good barometer,? said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia. ?The Tea Party really likes her.?

Despite the effort that Mr. Boehner had been putting into structuring a deal that Republicans could support without breaking any no-tax-increase promises, his announcement Saturday evening underscored the political reality that many Republicans in both houses were opposed to increasing the debt ceiling no matter what concessions they might win.

On the presidential campaign trail, Representative Ron Paul of Texas said Republicans should not accept any deal that includes a tax increase, calling it a ?ploy.? While Mrs. Bachmann has suggested that virtually no bipartisan deal would be acceptable, Mr. Pawlenty told voters last week that ?if it comes to a point where they feel that they must,? he said a balanced-budget amendment was an essential trade-off.

Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has said he would agree to increasing the debt limit only if a deal was ?accompanied by a major effort to restructure and reduce the size of government.? Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah, has said spending cuts must be equal or greater than the value of any debt ceiling increase but told reporters Saturday in Florida: ?I have every confidence that cooler heads are going to prevail.?

Nearly three dozen House Republicans and another dozen in the Senate have joined most of the Republican presidential candidates in signing a pledge that they will not vote to support the debt limit increase unless Congress approves a balanced budget-amendment to the Constitution, which is unlikely. (Mrs. Bachmann declined to sign the pledge, because she wanted to include a repeal of the Obama health care plan.)

Much of the freshman class that provided the party with its majority in the House has been skeptical of warnings about economic upheaval that would follow a government default, as well as of the Treasury Department?s insistence that there will be nothing more it can do to keep the government solvent after Aug. 2.

Republicans could face harsh consequences if they oppose a debt ceiling increase, the government defaults on some of its obligations and there are calamitous financial repercussions.

But many Republicans see supporting any agreement as carrying more political risk. Put into power in part by the Tea Party movement, Republicans who vote to raise the debt limit could suddenly find themselves looking at challenges from within.

The relative newcomers to Congress say they are weighing the issue extremely carefully and are awaiting the specifics of any deal. They know the hazards and are comparing it to the vote in 2008 to approve the bank bailout, a vote that has come to haunt some Republicans.

?This, I think, will be one of the toughest votes that any member of Congress is going to have to take,? Representative Aaron Schock, Republican of Illinois, said in a recent speech.

The situation in the Senate is markedly different from the House. Senate Republicans are in the minority, which is something of a luxury because Democrats will be called upon to produce most support for a debt deal.

Seeing themselves within reach of winning the Senate majority in 2012, Republicans are eager to watch threatened Democratic incumbents forced to vote for a package that could represent a politically unappetizing trifecta: a debt ceiling increase, reductions in popular social programs like Medicare and possible tax increases.

The importance and the intensity of the budget debate was clear in interviews with Republican voters last week who came to see some of the presidential contenders speak in Iowa. Whenever a candidate spoke about the debt limit, crowds expressed dismay at the idea of raising it.

At a rally on Saturday afternoon, the crowd cheered when Mrs. Bachmann declared her intention to vote against any compromise. She referred to Congress as ?a dysfunctional family.?

?We need a new day in Washington,? she said. ?We need a new sheriff.?

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Hard Lines iPhone Review

Hard Lines iPhone Review

Posted on 26th Jun 2011 at 10:44 by David Hing with 9 comments

Back when mobile phones were still thought of as a new idea, Nokia's 3210 was highly sought after in many circles for its built in version of the highly addictive game Snake. Fast forward a decade, and Hard Lines is attempting to be a worthy successor to that classic title.

The mechanics of Hard Lines are simple. With simple directional strokes of your finger, you steer a line around the screen towards randomly spawning markers, accruing points while avoiding other lines that enter from the sides of the screen.

Slick and neatly designed, Hard Lines is clearly influenced by the Light Cycles from Tron, yet it doesn't limit itself to that one style of play; there are several variations. In some modes, you gain points by getting opposing lines to crash into you or the walls; in others you race against the clock, or just try to last for as long as possible. There are also some good bonuses, such as the occasional power up that enables you to crash through any other competing lines without killing yourself.


The gameplay is occasionally made overly complicated, however, via the addition of dialogue that bikes may utter in the middle of a match. This appears as a single line of text and, while it's often funny, it's usually just a distraction that obscures your view.

Aside from this, though, the balancing is beautiful and the game manages to be both punishing and forgiving at once. Each line is only a single pixel wide, for example, but you only need to pass near an item on the screen to collect it, avoiding any frustrating situations where you might end up circling it forever. Not only this, but the very narrow nature of your line means the game can afford to throw a lot of competing lines at you at any one time. In particular, the Gauntlet mode continually spawns large numbers of other lines rapidly, resulting in an intense session that's highly satisfying when it goes your way.

Verdict: Hard Lines is a well designed, easily controlled, multifaceted version of Snake with enough new material and creativity behind it to stop it being called a straightforward clone.

Hard Lines is available from the AppStore for 59p / 99c.

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Geithner Says Obama to Seek Biggest Deficit Cut Possible

The remarks came after House Speaker John A. Boehner released a statement Saturday night saying he was pulling back from efforts for a deal that would reduce the deficit by as much as $4 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Boehner said he would instead focus on crafting a smaller package more in line with the $2 trillion to $3 trillion in spending cuts and revenue increases negotiated earlier by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

A second round of high-level bipartisan talks is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Sunday at the White House.

On the CBS program ?Face the Nation,? Mr. Geithner said the main problem in the negotiations was the Republican insistence that any deal involve only spending cuts and no tax increases.

?And as you saw on the Ryan budget,? he said, referring to a plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, that would cut entitlement programs and end the government guarantee for certain health benefits, ?if you try to do it with just cuts, you?re putting unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for Medicare beneficiaries in the future and you can?t do that politically, and it?s unfair to do it.?

Top Republicans reiterated Sunday that they would not accept a deal that included increased taxes. On ?Fox News Sunday,? the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that he was ?for the biggest deal possible, too, it?s just that we?re not going to raise taxes in the middle of this horrible economic situation.?

Although Republican presidential candidates like Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, have said that raising the debt ceiling would be a mistake no matter what deal is struck, Mr. McConnell said on Sunday that ?nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven?t heard that discussed by anybody.?

Mr. McConnell said that he had a ?contingency plan? for raising the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury Department has said the government would begin defaulting on some debt. He said he would reveal his plan later this week if negotiations with the White House fail.

On the CNN program ?State of the Union,? the House Republican whip, Kevin McCarthy of California, said that ?Boehner has been very clear that there are no votes for a tax increase.? Instead, Republicans are asking the president to include only the spending cuts that have been identified in negotiations with Congressional leaders, Mr. McCarthy said.

Referring to the earlier bipartisan negotiations headed by Mr. Biden, which is said to have produced more than $2 trillion in savings, Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Boehner: ?What he?s saying is, let?s go there. There?s no taxes. There are cuts right there, but why don?t you also get a balanced budget??

The White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, said on ?This Week? on ABC that Mr. Obama would continue to push for a major deal to reduce the deficit. ?Everyone agrees that a number around $4 trillion is the number that will make a serious dent in our deficit,? Mr. Daley said. ?He didn?t come to this town to do little things. He came to do big things.?

Mr. Daley accused Republicans of being ?concentrated on trying to bring continued tax relief to the wealthy.?

Although some Republicans have questioned whether the United States would truly run out of borrowing authority on Aug. 2, Mr. Geithner repeated Sunday that the date is a true deadline.

?I have to write 80 million checks a month to Americans, including 55 million Americans who depend on their Social Security check,? Mr. Geithner said on ?Face the Nation.? ?We have to make principal payments or roll over $500 billion of debt in the month of August, about $87 billion in that first week in August.?

?If they don?t act, then we face catastrophic damage to the American economy and the leadership, to their credit, and I mean Republicans and Democrats, fully understand that,? Mr. Geithner added.

He said the outlines of a deal would need to be completed by this week ?and certainly by the end of next week? in order to provide enough time for Congress to pass legislation before the deadline.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, said on ?Face the Nation? that negotiators were running out of time. ?We?re not just going to ratify some secret deal even if our good leaders plop it down on the floor of the Senate,? Mr. Sessions said. ?We need at least seven days to review something as historic as this. So I?m really worried about all of that.?

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Geithner Says Obama to Seek Biggest Deficit Cut Possible

The remarks came after House Speaker John A. Boehner released a statement Saturday night saying he was pulling back from efforts for a deal that would reduce the deficit by as much as $4 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Boehner said he would instead focus on crafting a smaller package more in line with the $2 trillion to $3 trillion in spending cuts and revenue increases negotiated earlier by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

A second round of high-level bipartisan talks is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Sunday at the White House.

On the CBS program ?Face the Nation,? Mr. Geithner said the main problem in the negotiations was the Republican insistence that any deal involve only spending cuts and no tax increases.

?And as you saw on the Ryan budget,? he said, referring to a plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, that would cut entitlement programs and end the government guarantee for certain health benefits, ?if you try to do it with just cuts, you?re putting unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for Medicare beneficiaries in the future and you can?t do that politically, and it?s unfair to do it.?

Top Republicans reiterated Sunday that they would not accept a deal that included increased taxes. On ?Fox News Sunday,? the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that he was ?for the biggest deal possible, too, it?s just that we?re not going to raise taxes in the middle of this horrible economic situation.?

Although Republican presidential candidates like Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, have said that raising the debt ceiling would be a mistake no matter what deal is struck, Mr. McConnell said on Sunday that ?nobody is talking about not raising the debt ceiling. I haven?t heard that discussed by anybody.?

Mr. McConnell said that he had a ?contingency plan? for raising the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury Department has said the government would begin defaulting on some debt. He said he would reveal his plan later this week if negotiations with the White House fail.

On the CNN program ?State of the Union,? the House Republican whip, Kevin McCarthy of California, said that ?Boehner has been very clear that there are no votes for a tax increase.? Instead, Republicans are asking the president to include only the spending cuts that have been identified in negotiations with Congressional leaders, Mr. McCarthy said.

Referring to the earlier bipartisan negotiations headed by Mr. Biden, which is said to have produced more than $2 trillion in savings, Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Boehner: ?What he?s saying is, let?s go there. There?s no taxes. There are cuts right there, but why don?t you also get a balanced budget??

The White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, said on ?This Week? on ABC that Mr. Obama would continue to push for a major deal to reduce the deficit. ?Everyone agrees that a number around $4 trillion is the number that will make a serious dent in our deficit,? Mr. Daley said. ?He didn?t come to this town to do little things. He came to do big things.?

Mr. Daley accused Republicans of being ?concentrated on trying to bring continued tax relief to the wealthy.?

Although some Republicans have questioned whether the United States would truly run out of borrowing authority on Aug. 2, Mr. Geithner repeated Sunday that the date is a true deadline.

?I have to write 80 million checks a month to Americans, including 55 million Americans who depend on their Social Security check,? Mr. Geithner said on ?Face the Nation.? ?We have to make principal payments or roll over $500 billion of debt in the month of August, about $87 billion in that first week in August.?

?If they don?t act, then we face catastrophic damage to the American economy and the leadership, to their credit, and I mean Republicans and Democrats, fully understand that,? Mr. Geithner added.

He said the outlines of a deal would need to be completed by this week ?and certainly by the end of next week? in order to provide enough time for Congress to pass legislation before the deadline.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, said on ?Face the Nation? that negotiators were running out of time. ?We?re not just going to ratify some secret deal even if our good leaders plop it down on the floor of the Senate,? Mr. Sessions said. ?We need at least seven days to review something as historic as this. So I?m really worried about all of that.?

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Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

Posted on 8th Jul 2011 at 14:20 by Paul Goodhead with 4 comments

It's been a while since our last podcast so James, Paul, Antony and Harry had plenty to talk about when they took their seats in the studio this week.

First on the agenda was James and Paul's trip to Computex in Taiwan, where they got to see what the industry had planned for the next six months. Certain things were of particular interest to us though such as the LGA2011 boards being shown at the exhibition.

The other big slice of news that's hit since our last podcast is the launch of AMD's new desktop Lynx processors. The APUs (as AMD calls them) are potentially interesting for those looking for a low cost rig that's also capable of gaming.

Finally, we sneak in a little discussion about Intel's new 50-core maths co-processor card and attempt to answer a reader question about thermal compound.

As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, the lucky winner of which will walk away with a brand new Corsair VX550W PSU.

Hardware 25 - What, no Tanks?

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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Weekend Open Forum: Is spam still a big problem for you?

Have you noticed any less spam in your inbox lately? You should, according to Symantec Intelligence, which claims the volume of junk mail sent worldwide has dropped around 80% over the past year. A large part of this came from the demise of affiliate networks paying for spam campaigns, such as Spamit, and coordinated efforts between the tech industry and law enforcement to kill major spam networks such as Rustock.

To be honest, Gmail's spam filter does a highly effective job of filtering out the garbage from my personal email account, so spam hasn't been a huge problem for me in a while -- though my TechSpot inbox still lets a few shady messages slip by. 

But we want to hear your experience: is spam a big issue for you? If so, how much of your daily email comes from unsolicited sources? Do you use custom filters or special software to keep your inbox free of junk?

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44613-weekend-open-forum-is-spam-still-a-big-problem-for-you.html

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Weekend Open Forum: Is spam still a big problem for you?

Have you noticed any less spam in your inbox lately? You should, according to Symantec Intelligence, which claims the volume of junk mail sent worldwide has dropped around 80% over the past year. A large part of this came from the demise of affiliate networks paying for spam campaigns, such as Spamit, and coordinated efforts between the tech industry and law enforcement to kill major spam networks such as Rustock.

To be honest, Gmail's spam filter does a highly effective job of filtering out the garbage from my personal email account, so spam hasn't been a huge problem for me in a while -- though my TechSpot inbox still lets a few shady messages slip by. 

But we want to hear your experience: is spam a big issue for you? If so, how much of your daily email comes from unsolicited sources? Do you use custom filters or special software to keep your inbox free of junk?

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44613-weekend-open-forum-is-spam-still-a-big-problem-for-you.html

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Do you run, cycle or walk to work? There?s a new type of members club just for you

Founded by cyclist commuter Piers Slater, H2 is a club located in Soho, London with an awesome twist. Founded with commuters who run, cycle or walk to work, H2 Soho is the first club of its kind in the city, and the first of many to come.

H2 was born out of Slater?s personal need to find a place that accommodated his own on-the-run lifestyle, and rather than continue to put up with facilities that didn?t really cater to the health conscious commuter, he decided to come up with a solution himself. The gym has been custom designed, and its features well thought out, ensuring everything that an active commuter might need is at their disposal.

H2 provides shower and changing facilities, bike parking and much more. Commuters can freshen up in style, without having to worry about where they?re going to park their bikes in tight-quartered Soho. And the space is not only an oasis for commuters, it?s also a fully fledged gym with Spinning, personal training, massage and sports injury treatments and even bike service and repair.

The existence of a gym like H2 could be all the encouragement that some might need to ditch their car or public transport in exchange for a healthier, more environmentally way of getting to work.

There are tons of advantages to be had when getting to work with a healthy commute. Not only are you making a positive contribution to your surrounding environment, it will do wonders for your health.

Studies have shown that excercising first thing in the morning can kick in your metabolism and keep it up there for hours, helping you burn calories long after you?ve sat down at your desk. Getting to work in the morning on your bike or with a morning run will also help you throughout your work day. Starting your day with exercise can keep you energised, motivated, keep you in a good mood, and can even help you concentrate.

H2 provides three membership options, Individual, Corporate or Pay as you use, with a range that is flexible enough to suit any kind of lifestyle. H2 is all that?s needed to spend your day at the office smelling like roses, no matter how you chose to get there.

To find out more about H2, check out the video below:

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/07/10/do-you-run-cycle-or-walk-to-work-theres-a-new-type-of-members-club-just-for-you/

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Namco Bandai files suit over Witcher 2's European publishing rights

Namco Bandai has filed suit against Optimus SA, the parent company of CD Projekt Red, for breaching its contract agreement over the publishing rights to The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Having served as the European publisher of the PC version, Namco believes it should distribute the upcoming Xbox 360 copy. Much to the company's dismay, THQ recently announced that it secured the EU publishing rights to The Witcher 2 for the Xbox 360.

That's further complicated by the fact that Atari will distribute the Xbox 360 version in the US, as Namco Bandai acquired Atari Europe a few years back. As a side issue, Namco also claims that CD Projekt Red violated its contract by removing the DRM from PC copy of The Witcher 2 without Namco's approval. CD Projekt Red eliminated the DRM in a patch earlier this year after it was determined to reduce in-game performance by up to 30%.

While the suit is pending, Namco is withholding a payment of ?1.255 million (roughly $1.8 million). Unfortunately for the disgruntled publisher, CD Projekt has dismissed the claims, asserting that it hasn't done anything wrong. Based on Google Translate, the developer says it won't be bullied over a couple million bucks and by delaying the payment, Namco is only setting itself up to dish out the interest later. CD Projekt hopes to settle out of court but says it will win if the case goes before a judge, and then Namco will have to eat the attorney's fees too.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44619-namco-bandai-files-suit-over-witcher-2s-european-publishing-rights.html

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