Jackies Pro Sports News - Rumors - & Scandals: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

Education letters

Children's Manifesto, education policy, teaching challenges and local authorities

Little voices

Last week, Dea Birkett invited children to give us ideas for a new Children's Manifesto, 10 years after our competition called The School I'd Like. She wondered whether grown-ups listen to children more today.

Who cares what the kids want? Who is in charge here? You don't ask your kid his or her opinion on what car you should buy, what house you should live in. Nor do you ask them how late they want to stay up. They're kids. They don't know what they want. That's what our job is.

Joe3945 via EducationGuardian.co.uk

? Children's requests [in the competition 10 years ago] for more fast food and no dinner ladies are basically saying "we want school dinners that taste nice/ our school dinners are disgusting, we know we like fast food so can we have that?" And "our dinner ladies aren't nice to us/ we don't like them". It would be stupid to bring in fast food, but is there something in the request that the food be brought up to a higher standard and the dinner ladies/pupils relationship be worked on?

LuisaM via EducationGuardian.co.uk

Poor policy?

The article by Estelle Morris (Gove shouldn't inflict his schooldays on other people's children, 25 January) is a fine analysis of this Tory-led government's thinking on education policy. The life experiences of Cameron's cabinet, overwhelmingly rich and privileged, inform their attitude to public services, particularly for the most vulnerable. They've been raised on public bad, private good ideology. They wouldn't recognise need if it smacked them in the face.

Gordon Vassell, Hull

Manchester vibe

I have no argument with Professor Mel Ainscow's idea that "moving knowledge around" can improve schools ('We don't look the same, but we have the same vibe', 25 January). However, the suggestion that the Manchester City Challenge is responsible for improved GCSE results in inner-city secondary schools is an insult to many hardworking and dedicated teachers.

The staff and students involved in the partnership you featured have doubtless benefited enormously. However, as a teacher working in an inner-city secondary school during the birth of the challenge, I would argue that this is a fairly isolated success story, rather than the norm. GCSE results in Manchester have indeed risen. But that was down to the hard work and dedication of teachers and children, and in many cases the challenge deserves none of the credit.

Sarah Warden

Prestwich

Bonkers methods

Let us hope that teachers in other sectors read the further education section of Education Guardian last week. The article (Bonkers? Maybe. Successful? Definitely) on Harlow College shows what can and has often happened in the FE sector since the removal of a democratic element embodied in the local education authorities.

What FE colleges became years ago were in fact "academies". And that is how management can act in education when they lose LEA restraint. Beware academies, teachers.

Dave Nicholson

Windsor

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/feb/01/education-letters-childrens-manifesto

Colin Powell Vladimir Putin Muammar Qaddafi Condoleezza Rice Bill Richardson

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John McCain Evo Morales William Mountbatten-Windsor Prince William Charles Mountbatten-Windsor

Majority Tells GOP to Heed Tea Party Movement

Andrew Malcolm, LAT
Remember that Constitution-citing "tea party" rabble that puzzled the media so terribly last year and helped dump so many deaf Democrats from the House of Representatives in November?Turns out, an overwhelming percentage of adult Americans think Republicans should take heed of the upstart movement's positions and concerns as they plot to dump President Obama and even more Democrats come the 2012 election, now just 645 days away.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/01/31/majority_tells_gop_to_heed_tea_party_movement_249685.html

John Edwards Dianne Feinstein Bill Frist Newt Gingrich Rudolph Giuliani

Democrats Force Votes with Eye on 2012

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/01/31/democrats_force_votes_with_eye_on_2012_249695.html

Jimmy Carter Fidel Castro Hugo Chavez Dick Cheney Noam Chomsky

The mystery of the 'missing' News of the World emails

How about that! The Independent reports today that "missing" News of the World emails have turned up.

During the perjury trial of Tommy Sheridan in November, the NoW's Scottish editor, Bob Bird, told the court that "six months" worth of the newspaper's emails had been lost due to a decision to archive them in India.

But The Independent says it "has established that not only is the database intact but it apparently contains a full record of email traffic between the company's senior staff."

The archive evidently covers the crucial period of 2005 and 2006. The paper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, and the private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, were arrested in August 2006.

As the Indy points out, the archive will give the new police team now inquiring into the whole affair "no excuses for ignoring a data trail that may yield fresh clues to the investigation."

Bird's courtroom revelation prompted the office of the privacy watchdog, the information commissioner, to launch an inquiry in mid-December.

But News International's lawyers have since denied the claim about the Indian transfer of emails, telling the information commissioner in a letter that they were in Britain after all.

Knowing Bird, I cannot believe that he would have lied on oath, and I accept the word of a News Int source who told the Indy that Bird had "unintentionally given the court inaccurate evidence."

But the revelation that the emails exist is embarrassing for News International. Not only might it open the way for Sheridan's legal team to press for an appeal against his conviction and three-year jail sentence, it might help the Met police to cast more light on the substantive matter of phone-hacking.

There is an important, further question, too. When the Commons culture, media and sport select committee was holding its inquiry into press standards, it was told that News Int had carried out an internal inquiry in May 2007 "of emails still on its IT systems."

Does that mean that the archive was not on Wapping's IT systems?

Note once again the relevant section of the committee's report, released in February last year (paras 434 and 435), which quoted a statement by Lawrence Abramson, the managing partner of the solicitors, Harbottle & Lewis:

"I can confirm that we did not find anything in those emails which appeared to us to be reasonable evidence that Clive Goodman's illegal actions were known about and supported by both or either of Andy Coulson, the editor, and Neil Wallis, the deputy editor, and/or that Ian Edmondson, the news editor, and others were carrying out similar illegal procedures."

As we now know, Edmondson has been sacked precisely because - according to a News Int statement - material evidence linking him to hacking has been found.

So where was it? Why didn't Mr Abramson get to see it in 2007? When were the newly-discovered emails archived? Why did the internal inquiry in 2007 fail to consider archived material?

If the police inquiry is to get to the bottom of this murky business, its officers have many questions to ask. But will they?

Roy Greenslade

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/jan/31/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking-theindependent

Viktor Yushchenko Nancy Pelosi Speaker Pelosi Tea Party Joe Biden

A Note of Warning & Encouragement

Abbas Milani, The New Republic
After days of unrest, after declaring martial law in some of the country's main cities, the authoritarian leader gave a much anticipated television speech. His tone was repentant. He promised change and reform. The people wanted democracy and he promised to bend to their wishes. For a long time, the United States had been advising him to open his political system—but had been seen publicly as his chief supporter. The U.S. president had given lofty and elegant speeches defending democracy and human rights, assuring the people of the Middle East that the United ...

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/01/31/a_note_of_warning_amp_encouragement_249686.html

Condoleezza Rice Bill Richardson Mitt Romney Karl Rove Rick Santorum

Three Days in Another Town

I am in a hotel room alone by myself, gazing out upon the ocean Atlantic.

It is a gray vista, a gray late afternoon, the bus on which I rode down for this appointment with solitude, a Greyhound.

The hotel is mostly empty. I am mostly empty. My mood can only be described as Didion-esque.

I feel a chill at my back, hear what sounds like a murmurous sigh. I turn.

It is the Ghost of Joan Didion; odd, since its earthly host is still very much alive. She is wearing a cashmere turtleneck the color of undercooked salmon. Her chapped lips move but there is a lag before the words reach me. She says:

"If you don't call Room Service, Room Service will not come. Room Service will only come if you call..."

Then like a tiny tornado her vapor funnels into the carpet and disappears, a genie returning into the bottle.

What Didion's Ghost intoned sounds self-evident, but perhaps there is a symbolic import, a dream logic that eludes me.

I decide to leave the hotel before any other ghosts show up to perplex me with possible koans.

It is a short stroll to the boardwalk, which is bereft of pedestrians, it being off-season and sad.

Up on a dune fence a plump feral cat hops; then over.

The boardwalk stores are mostly closed for the desolate winter, unpurchasable merchandise hanging in the windows.

I pause before a beach towel, one of the more curious renditions I have seen.

The model seems modeled on Estelle Warren, yet there is also a resemblance to my friend Elisabeth Eaves, whose upcoming book I've just blurbed.

But what is that bulldog doing there with Estelle-Elisabeth, what can explain this strange juxtaposition?

This is not a beach towel on which I would want to sit, or drape in the cabana.

At a nearby window hangs another future pop culture artifact, a sun-faded "gag t-shirt."

Can you read the message? The glass reflection and sun-fadedness may make legibility difficult.

It says: "I don't need an encyclopedia...MY WIFE knows it all!"

It is a shame that the store is closed for the winter, because it would be such impish fun to return home wearing this t-shirt under my winter coat, then take off my coat, very nonchalant like. Such a good laugh it would give Laura.

"Of that I would not be so sure," says the Ghost of Joan Didion, who is now standing next to me, casting no reflection in the store-window glass. She says:

"Lionel Trilling once bought such a t-shirt to wear at a faculty party and Diana was ever so cross."

This strikes me as unlikely, since I've never read such a story in the many memoirs and biographies of the Trillings, but there is so much we don't know about them, can never know.

That cold evening I visit a nearby casino hotel where a young man with a neuromuscular disorder, confined to a wheelchair, is having an animated conversation with a statuesque young woman in a mermaid costume and waist-length wig, who is handing out discount coupons. She listens and nods to what the young man in the wheelchair is saying with such animation while keeping her eyes on approaching customers, offering them coupons. I can't decide whether this is a sad tableau or a beautiful one, perhaps it is both, and that's what I decide to tell myself: it is both.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/01/-i-am-in-a.html

Rudolph Giuliani Al Gore Chuck Hagel Stephen Harper Dennis Hastert

Letters: Lack of trust in media ethics

Yes, the media need a new ethical map of the boundary between secrecy and trust, on the one hand, and transparency on the other. But Simon Jenkins (Comment, 28 January) misses an important point about the impact of corporate organisation on journalistic ethics. As long as media are owned by profit-maximising corporations, editors and journalists will be under intense pressure to invade privacy in order to run gossip and scandal, under a banner which fudges the distinction between what the mass public is interested in and what is in the public interest. The future of quality media can only be assured when owned either by a trust with a cross-subsidising cash cow (such as the Guardian's Scott Trust) or by a low-profit limited liability company. The latter makes profits, but has legal protection from shareholder demands for open-market profits.

Professor Robert Wade

London School of Economics

? Although it's very important to expose miscreants on the phone-hacking front (How TV star's suspicions were brushed aside, January 27), are you (and others) not missing the point? Given phone hacking is so widespread, is it not the mobile-phone operators who should be taken to task for allowing personal data to be so easily accessed?

Randy Banks

University of Essex

? An internet search on Cameron Murdoch delivers a useful reminder. As you reported on 24 October 2008, "David Cameron took free flights to meet Rupert Murdoch" to hold talks with the now would-be buyer of BSkyB. Cameron's family were also flown by the Murdochs to their holiday destination at that time. These flights by private Gulfstream jet were valued by the Independent at �34,000. Whether their lunch was free as well, we can only speculate, but it may well be that when it comes to BSkyB, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Suzanne Keene

London

? The number of people said to have had their telephones hacked into suggests we now have a market for hacking, where the media may not have instructed which person was to be attacked, but are quite willing to provide a market for hacked information. Would a journalist be able to protect the secrecy of their source, even if a criminal act?

John Flowers

Neath, West Glamorgan

? The next time the Murdochs criticise the level of the BBC licence fee or salaries, I hope they will be reminded of Andy Gray's reported salary of �1.7m.

Graham Sowter

Blackburn, Lancashire

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/31/lack-of-trust-media-ethics

Rudy Giuliani Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Barack Obama George Soros

Turmoil in Egypt Risks U.S. National Interests

Jay Solomon, WSJ
DAMASCUS, Syria"”Egypt's political turmoil risks setting off shifts that undermine broad American foreign-policy goals"”and, say some U.S. and Arab strategists, could put Washington in its weakest position in the region in half a century. View Full ImageEgyptians attempted to guard Cairo's Tahrir Square against the army on Sunday. The outcome of Egypt's uprising promises to hold long-term consequences for U.S. policy in the region.The threats to American interests come on several fronts. The potential departure of Egyptian President Hosni...

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/01/31/turmoil_in_egypt_risks_us_national_interests_249670.html

Newt Gingrich Rudolph Giuliani Al Gore Chuck Hagel Stephen Harper

Feets of Fury

Dennis Perrin and Ioz are squaring off over the upcoming Jets-Steelers battlegame galactica--the most titantic clash since last week's megasaurus grudge match, in which Rex Ryan's Toes of Fury sent Bill Belichek's Scowling Hoodie into the fjord mists of playoff elimination.

Dennis Perrin is a Jets man, as am I,* because we foot fetishists must show solidarity. (I am referring of course to Coach Ryan, not Dennis, as a fellow footsie.)

Ioz is a Steelers man, and I think he makes a good case for his team's reputation-bruised QB and points out the flaws of the Jets' matinee idol once he pedals back to pass:

[The Jets] are a smart team, and they play a banging, gritty game, but they'll suffer from a poorly-manned offense and a defense geared toward quarterbacks. Yes, Santonio Holmes is a great reciever (you're welcome), but Sanchez is a mediocre passer--a talent, yes, but a bad decision-maker with accuracy problems, which is why Holmes is always getting props for tapping both toes inside the line before he bounces into the bleachers. Roethlisberger isn't actually a quarterback, meanwhile; he is a football player, or, alternately, a living sasquatch, a distinction with a difference, frustrating though that may be every time an opposing team runs him over with a truck, fits him for lead sneakers, and tosses him in a river without a yellow flag for miles. The Jets' blitz wasn't very effective against him in the regular season, but even if they manage to overwhelm our still-ragged O-line on Sunday, it won't affect his game. The Ravens sacked him thrice on every offensive down, and he still beat them. Brady used to get credit for being the most unflappable QB in the league, but the smart money says it's Big Ben, who is either too big, too strong, too smart, too dumb, or some impossible combination thereof to feel the effects of injury and single-play failure; who can go through a windshield and come to training camp anyway.

Sort of the way Charlie Sheen shows up for work at Two and a Half Men (rimshot).

*At least this week. If the Steelers win, I will be rooting for them in Super Bowl, and not just out of respect for Holly Brubach.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/01/dennis-perrin-and-ioz-are.html

Condoleezza Rice Bill Richardson Mitt Romney Karl Rove Rick Santorum

Why global trade treaties need fixing | Kevin Gallagher

A coalition of 250 economists is urging the US to relax penalties on capital controls to ensure global financial stability

? Read the economists' statement and see the full list of signatories

For better or for worse, trade policy is back in style. In its first two years, the Obama administration largely steered clear of signing trade treaties. Yet, in his state of the union address last week, the president said he would reinvigorate efforts to pass Bush-era deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama ? as well as pursue a new treaty with numerous Pacific-rim nations.

As the president and Congress evaluate the merits of these treaties, they should see to it that no deal is passed that limits the ability of the US or its trading partners to prevent and mitigate financial crises. Ironically, many of the trading partners involved in these agreements have imposed measures that the treaties would declare illegal. One particular flaw in US treaties is their outdated insistence on prohibiting the use of capital controls to slow the flow of "hot" money.

Citing an emerging consensus in the economics profession and in institutions such as the International Monetary Fund that capital controls are legitimate tools to prevent and mitigate crises, 250 economists from the United States and across the world are this Monday urging the US to reform pending and future treaties to "permit governments to deploy capital controls without being subject to investor claims".

In the wake of the financial crisis, nations such as Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have all used capital controls to stem the massive inflows of speculative investment entering their economies and wreaking havoc on their exchange rates and asset markets. South Korea, where the won has appreciated by 30% since 2008, has direct limits on foreign exchange speculation, for example, and has also levied an outflows tax on capital gains of foreign purchases of government bonds.

In the runup to the financial crisis, Colombia's 2007 capital controls required foreign investors to park a percentage of their investment in the central bank, which helped that nation escape some of the damage from the global financial crisis. Chile and Malaysia, two nations that form part of Obama's newly-planned trade deal with Pacific rim nations, successfully used capital controls in the 1990s to avoid the worst of the damages during crises in that decade.

US trade treaties, however, require that capital be allowed to flow between trading partners "freely and without delay". Restrictions on the entry and exit of capital violate this standard in absolute terms. Measures that withhold the ability of US investors to move investment out of nations ? such as through an outflows tax (South Korea), or by being required to keep capital with a central bank for a minimum period (Colombia) ? are of particular concern. Language in US treaties would allow room for such actions to seen as expropriating US investments.

It's bad enough that the US trade deals outlaw important and prudent financial management. But the agreements also give the enforcement of such bans new teeth by allowing banks and other investors to sue governments directly if the capital controls reduce their profits or restrict their ability to continue speculating.

In response to pressure from members of Congress such as Barney Frank and Carl Levin, a few recent US trade agreements put some limits on the amount of damages foreign investors may receive as compensation for certain capital control measures, and require an extended "cooling off" period before investors may file their claims. In the end, however, nations are still liable under treaty for actions they may take to mitigate crises.

The coalition behind the economists' statement attests to the fact that there is broad support for reforming US trade treaties' terms on capital controls. The list includes prominent academic economists who have been supportive of free trade deals, former IMF officials, and some economists affiliated with the pro-trade Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The economists should be listened to: US trade treaties should not be tools for US financial policies that are not only outdated, but actually helped cause the financial crisis in the first place. Allowing flexibility for the use of capital controls to prevent and mitigate crises now has broad support. Our trading partners have been requesting such flexibility for years; granting it would represent one small step toward a more stable financial system.

US banks and investment houses played a role in nearly destroying the global economy. Why should the Obama administration ban the measures that prevent contagion, while giving those same firms the right to sue foreign governments for damages?

Kevin Gallagher

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/31/economy-economics

Hugo Chavez Dick Cheney Noam Chomsky Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton

Ricky Tikki Tacky

Tom Shone, whose forthcoming novel In the Rooms I recommend you put on your pre-order list (I'll be writing more about it closer to pub date), has morning-after reflections on the Golden Globes Awards. Among the lowlights:

Weirdest speech: Robert De Niro. He doesn't say anything for 40 years, doesn't crack a smile let alone a joke, and when he does finally open his mouth he launches into a rusty old Rupert Pupkin monologue stocked with leering, year-late references to Megan Fox's hotness? The promo reel looked suitably mythic; the speech lanced the myth.

Worst Speech: David Fincher. Some teenage breast-beating about how"misanthropic" and "pitch-black" he usually is, together with some unconvincing snarls about how little public approbation means to him. Stay home, then.

A lot of them should have stayed home, including DeNiro and host Ricky Gervais. From Lou Lumenick's NY Post wrap-up report:

"We're all in this together,'' Robert DeNiro said. "The filmmakers who make the movies, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association members who in turn pose for pictures with the movie stars.''

DeNiro, who pointedly declined to thank his hosts, joked that some of the HFPA members couldn't attend "because they've been deported, along with the waiters and Javier Bardem.''

There seemed to be some discomfort in the audience, especially when Gervais introduced the HFPA's embattled president, Philip Berk, by saying he had to pull him off the toilet and "pop in his teeth.''

Illegal immigrant jokes, denture jokes?--There's nothing edgy about mocking the Golden Globes whether from on stage at the dais, in the blogosphere, or in print the next day. It's the softest of soft targets, an annual pinata for lazy whackers.* The Golden Globes have been a joke for decades (insert obligatory Pia Zadora reference here), and at this point just be gracious and go along with the gag, especially if you're one of the presenters or winners. Caryn James wrote somewhere online that Gervais "was targeting the hypocrisy of Hollywood and the inanity and self-importance of awards themselves" and another film blogger said Gervais was "voicing the things we dare not say." Yes, making fun of the nomination for The Tourist is really speaking truth to power, and introducing Tom Hanks in a manner purposely meant to humiliate his co-presenter Tim Allen, that's really stickin' it to The Man. If you hold the Golden Globes awards and their voters in that much smirky contempt, if you look down on the foreign press representatives as freebie moochers and celebrity leeches (oh as if Hollywood and filmblogdom don't supply their own domestic surplus of junket deadbeats), then don't show up and accept a possible award, especially you're the sort of actor who prides himself on being a Brandoesque rebel. Do you think Brando would have left his island for a Golden Globe? No, he would stayed home drawing disturbing faces on coconuts, because that's what legends do.

And critics/bloggers/tweeters who act glibly superior to the Globes are just flattering themselves--the very fact that they're watching it makes them part of the charade, complicit bystanders, no matter what UV shade of attitude they adopt for the evening. I watched the conclusion of the Miss America Pageant on Saturday night and I was impressed with the mental poise of the finalists answering questions about Wikileaks and universal health coverage--they were more cogent than John McCain!

And, almost needless to add, DeNiro, who should stick to what he does best: scowling.

*By which I intend no innuendo, not on Martin Luther King Day, which would be inappropriate.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/01/tom-shone-whose-forthcoming-novel.html

King Abdullah Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Omar al-Bashir Gloria Arroyo Joe Biden

Pawlenty Confronted Steel Company Over Ties to Iran

Erin McPike, RCP
If former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty decides, as expected, to run for president in 2012, he likely will talk about a unique national security qualification from 2007 in which he nudged an Indian company to drop its plans to invest in Iran.The 50-year-old Republican embarked on a trade mission to India in late October of 2007 to meet executives from Essar Group, a Mumbai-based international conglomerate that had just acquired Minnesota Steel the week before. Essar was moving forward with plans to construct North America's first mine-to-steelmaking plant in Minnesota's Iron Range, a...

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/31/steel_deal_reveals_pawlentys_priorities_on_security_jobs_108711.html

Vladimir Putin Muammar Qaddafi Condoleezza Rice Bill Richardson Mitt Romney

Obama's 2012 campaign unofficially starts

"Our Mann in America" is a weekly column discussing the big talking points in the U.S. for an international audience. Jonathan Mann is an anchor for CNN International and the host of Political Mann.

(CNN) -- U.S. President Barack Obama urged Americans to "win the future" this week, while moving ahead in the effort to do that himself as well.

Obama delivered the State of the Union address, an annual constitutional obligation which has become an opportunity for the White House to praise its accomplishments and sketch-out its plans.

In that ritual speech to lawmakers, judges, ambassadors and guests, Obama advanced a range of initiatives but passed-over one crucial item on his personal agenda: beginning his campaign for re-election.

Americans voted just a few months ago in Congressional elections that punished Obama's Democratic Party. His own job will be on the line the next time they go to the polls, in November of 2012.

Despite the severe 'shellacking' that even he concedes he suffered in the November, his prospects are now looking up.

With the American economy continuing to recover from recession and unemployment slowly reducing, Obama is rising in public opinion polls. In some respects, he's doing better than even some of his supporters say they'd expect.

"Right now, you have the president with 55 percent job approval at nine percent unemployment, which is quite frankly fairly remarkable," said Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher. "The policies are working and I think the Americans are feeling it."

Obama has started staffing his re-election headquarters in his hometown, Chicago, and has shuffled his White House staff as well.

His potential Republican opponents aren't moving quite as fast. Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin continues to be the most prominent potential figure in the race, but she hasn't said publicly whether she'll run.

Recent public opinion polls put Obama ahead of her and every other potential candidate the Republicans are likely to put forward.

But the race hasn't really begun and it promises to challenge the president. Republicans now control the House of Representatives and are planning a series of confrontations over the Obama administration's policies and practices.

Unemployment is still high and government spending is still setting records. Both are serious problems for Obama's prospects.

"He's not a new president anymore," said former Republican White House aide Ari Fleischer. "It's time to judge him on results."

Americans seem to be doing that and increasingly, they are once again rallying behind Barack Obama.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/pYmV_Iq0ZkI/index.html

Wu Yi Viktor Yushchenko Nancy Pelosi Speaker Pelosi Tea Party

Biggest risk to NHS is doing nothing, says David Cameron

PM defends overhaul of NHS ahead of second debate on health and social care bill as protesters opposed to the reforms plan to demonstrate outside parliament

The prime minister waded into the row over controversial NHS reforms this morning with a stark warning that the health service will become "increasingly unaffordable" unless government plans are implemented.

David Cameron took to the airwaves to argue that the "biggest risk" to the NHS would be to "do nothing". The government's health and social care bill, which MPs debate today, would hand GPs �80bn of the NHS budget to commission patient care and see NHS hospitals compete with charities and private companies to provide services.

He said the demand for NHS services was outpacing the cash available. "If you look at the growth of the elderly population, look at the new drugs that are coming on stream, the new treatments, if we keep the system we have now and don't make changes to cut bureaucracy and waste, I think it will become increasingly unaffordable," he told BBC Breakfast. "The risk is doing nothing."

Cameron's remarks came as protesters opposed to the reforms planned to demonstrate outside parliament as ministers begin a second debate on the controversial bill.

A YouGov poll, commissioned by Unison, the UK's largest public sector union, showed that only 27% support GPs using private companies to provide NHS services and 50% oppose the measure, In an article for the Times (paywall), Cameron took ownership of the reforms, which are being taken through parliament by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, saying the blueprint for the NHS was an "evolution not revolution" and built on the work of previous administrations.

He dismissed the argument offered by critics that the sick would suffer, saying the "freedom of GPs to choose whatever is best for their patients" represented "progress", not "privatisation".

He also claimed that Britain's "health outcomes lag behind the best in Europe. Without modernisation, the principle we all hold dear ? that the NHS is free to all who need it, when they need it ? will become unaffordable".

However, last week John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund thinktank, cast doubt over this argument, saying that the NHS compares more favourably to the rest of Europe than ministers claim.

In the British Medical Journal, Appleby said deaths from heart attacks and cancer were actually falling, despite lower spending on health than other European countries.

The economist also challenged a ministerial briefing for the government's health bill which claimed that the number of deaths in Britain from heart disease was double that in France. Britain, he said, had seen the largest fall in death rates from heart attacks of any European country between 1980 and 2006.

"Comparing just one year ? and with a country with the lowest death rate for myocardial infarction in Europe ? reveals only part of the story," he said. If trends from the past 30 years continue, the UK will have a lower death rate from heart attacks than France as soon as 2012.

Other experts worry that the government is going "too fast". They point out that at the same time as implementing the reforms, which envisage a cull of 24,000 managers, NHS leaders need to deliver �20bn of efficiency savings to bridge the gap between rapidly increasing demand and limited rises in the health budget.

One of the most radical cost-saving measures in the package of reforms is that hospitals will be allowed to undercut each other on the price they charge for treating NHS patients. The Royal College of Surgeons says this may compromise standards of patient care if doctors focus on low prices rather than quality.

But even those who are not against the principle of competition said the quality of care could suffer. "There are risks to quality associated with price competition, where quality cannot be measured in a way that is clear and easily comparable," said a briefing paper by the NHS Confederation, which represents 95% of the health service.

Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the independent membership body, said the debate over the use of markets in healthcare had been "unhelpfully polarised" and warned the issues had been "poorly understood".

He added that opportunities to improve care could be missed without a proper debate. "The idea of harnessing the power of markets and competition to create change has underpinned much of recent healthcare reform in the UK and other countries. But in this country the debate is unhelpfully polarised, characterised more by assertion and dogma than by evidence."

Randeep Ramesh

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/31/biggest-risk-nhs-doing-nothing-david-cameron

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Middle Britain's tax rates 'could rise to 83%'

Moderately high earners to suffer most, says Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis

Nearly a million people will see their tax rates soar as the government's austerity package kicks in this spring, potentially to as high as 83%.

Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies today reveals that changes in April will drag 750,000 people into the 40% tax bracket. Meanwhile, little-publicised tax credit cuts will push the marginal rates of 175,000 working parents up above 70%. In theory, effective tax rates in Middle Britain could reach 83%, the rate that Labour levied on Britain's top earners before 1979.

A few days after the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, warned that wages were set for their longest continuous squeeze since the 1920s, the IFS exposes how the tax changes will compound the misery.

Moderately high earners with children to support will suffer particularly. For example, a worker on �45,000 with a non-working spouse and two children will be worse off by about �1,000 per year after 6 April. This is on top of the extra VAT which families at all income levels have been paying since the start of the year.

With Conservative backbenchers growing restive about the tax burden on middle Britain, Tory high command will receive the analysis nervously.

Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the Treasury select committee, said it would want "to look carefully at the distributional impact and the effect on work incentives right across the income range and will be taking evidence from the IFS".

The coalition is planning �18bn of benefit cuts that will chiefly hit the poor ? the first round, a �2.3bn reduction, comes into effect this spring. However, the impact on middle managers and junior professionals will be more immediate, due to a mix of measures inherited from Labour and decisions by the coalition government. From 2013, the effect of rising marginal tax rates will be compounded by the complete withdrawal of child benefit from anyone who tips into the 40% tax band.

Gavin Kelly, of the Resolution Foundation thinktank which concentrates on low- to middle-income households, said: "Looking at these changes in the round, there is no doubt there is a group of working parents on wages of around �40,000 who will soon find that a pay rise leaves them little better off ? or possibly even worse off".

James Browne of the IFS warns the number of higher-rate taxpayers could continue to grow when the tax-free personal allowance is raised towards the �10,000 promised in the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

In order to claw back gains from the well-off, the first tranche of this allowance increase was coupled to a reduction in the higher-rate threshold.

If the coalition takes the same tack in future, Browne calculates that 850,000 more people ? in addition to the 750,000 this year ? will be dragged into the 40% band, some earning as little as �36,000 in today's terms. That is still above the average wage for an individual worker, but Kelly points out that large families reliant on such earnings can be "below the national average in terms of standard of living".

A Treasury spokesman described the government's approach as "a matter of fairness". He added: "Tax credits will be targeted at those who need them most. At the same time, personal tax changes will remove nearly a million of the lowest earners out of tax altogether and around 23 million basic rate taxpayers will gain by �170 per annum."

But with so many offsetting tax increases, few may notice a boost. The IFS is clear that the overall effect will be an average reduction in disposable income of about �200.

Tom Clark

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/31/tax-rates-middle-britain

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Biggest risk to NHS is doing nothing, says David Cameron

PM defends overhaul of NHS ahead of second debate on health and social care bill as protesters opposed to the reforms plan to demonstrate outside parliament

Cameron's remarks came as protesters opposed to the reforms planned to demonstrate outside parliament as ministers begin a second debate on the controversial bill.

He dismissed the argument offered by critics that the sick would suffer, saying the "freedom of GPs to choose whatever is best for their patients" represented "progress", not "privatisation".

However, last week John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund thinktank, cast doubt over this argument, saying that the NHS compares more favourably to the rest of Europe than ministers claim.

In the British Medical Journal, Appleby said deaths from heart attacks and cancer were actually falling, despite lower spending on health than other European countries.

Randeep Ramesh

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/31/biggest-risk-nhs-doing-nothing-david-cameron

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Tuition fee waiver scheme 'too complex' to help poorest students

Million+ thinktank warns that coalition's university plan risks making bursary and grant system even more complicated

A scheme to waive university fees for poor students is unlikely to help the most deprived, a thinktank warned today.

Last month, the coalition announced that clever students from low-income homes would be eligible for up to two years of free university tuition. The announcement was made days before MPs voted to raise fees from �3,290 a year to up to �9,000. It was perceived to be a concession to wavering Lib Dems.

Under the �150m scheme, students would have their first year of university paid for by the state if they had been eligible for a free school lunch. This would mean their parents' joint annual income was �16,040 or less.

Universities that charge more than �6,000 a year could be forced to pay students' fees for a second year, David Willetts, the universities minister, said. The government believe up to 18,000 students could benefit from the scheme. But Million+, a thinktank and lobby group for modern universities, said the scheme risked "adding another layer of complexity" to the already complicated system of student bursaries and grants.

In a report on the scheme, which is known as the National Scholarship Programme, the thinktank argues that EU legislation would make it impossible for universities and the government to only pay for the tuition fees of UK students. EU students would have to have their fees paid for too, if they were eligible. This would mean the government would have to set up a complex means-testing system for all EU students.

The thinktank said it was unfair to use free school meals as a way of judging whether a student was eligible for the scheme. A quarter of university students are older than 21 and it would be difficult to trace whether they had ? or could have been ? entitled to a free school meal. Since 1980, only students from low-income families have been entitled to the benefit.

Million+ also argue that it is unfair on disadvantaged students if only teenagers with excellent academic records are allowed free university tuition. Professor Les Ebdon, the thinktank's chair, said it was well known that disadvantaged students had "lower pre-entry qualifications" and some mature students were accepted onto university courses with "fewer formal qualifications".

Ebdon said: "Any attempt to link the National Scholarship Programme with prior attainment will disadvantage many students from poorer backgrounds who will nonetheless go on to do exceptionally well at university."

The thinktank said that if universities had to pay for the tuition of the poorest teenagers, it would disadvantage those institutions that took the highest number of students from low-income families.

"It is already well-known that the complexity of the current bursary and student support system can deter students from non-traditional backgrounds," said Ebdon, who is also vice-chancellor of Bedfordshire University.

"The National Scholarship Programme risks adding another layer of complexity, unless it is a national scheme, nationally administered with clear individual benefits identified for eligible students."

Gareth Thomas, Labour's shadow universities minister, said the government's plans had "created confusion, concern and a perverse incentive for universities not to take students from low-income households".

Jessica Shepherd

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/31/tuition-waiver-scheme-too-complex

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White House to launch job-creating start-up effort

Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.

NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/PoliticsNews/~3/EPMKXI6PfEw/us-obama-economy-startups-idUSTRE70U2BY20110131

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Judge may escalate battle over healthcare reform

By Tom Brown

MIAMI | Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:01am EST

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida judge could on Monday become the second judge to declare President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

The judge, Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Florida, was expected to rule on a lawsuit brought by governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans. Obama is a Democrat.

The plaintiffs represent more than half the U.S. states, so the Pensacola case has more prominence than some two dozen lawsuits filed in federal courts over the healthcare law.

No specific time has been given for Vinson's ruling, which was unlikely to end the legal wrangling over the contentious reform law, which could well reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

But an aide said he was determined to issue his opinion in the course of Monday on the suit filed on March 23, 2010, just hours after Obama signed the reform into law.

The healthcare overhaul, a cornerstone of Obama's presidency, aims to expand health insurance to cover millions of uninsured Americans while also curbing costs. Administration officials insist it is constitutional and needed to stem huge projected increases in healthcare costs.

Two other district court judges have rejected challenges to the "individual mandate," the law's requirement that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

But a federal district judge in Richmond, Virginia, last month struck down that central provision of the law in a case in that state, saying it invited an "unbridled exercise of federal police powers."

The provision is key to the law's mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured. Officials argue it is only by requiring healthy people to purchase policies that they can help pay for reforms, including a mandate that individuals with pre-existing medical conditions cannot be refused coverage.

'WITHOUT PRIOR PRECEDENT'

Vinson has suggested strongly that he too will rule the individual mandate oversteps constitutional limits on federal authority. He may also move to invalidate the entire law, by granting the plaintiff states' request for an injunction to halt its implementation.

"The power that the individual mandate seeks to harness is simply without prior precedent," Vinson wrote in an earlier opinion in October.

Speaking during another hearing last month, he added that it would be "a giant leap" for the courts to encroach on the freedom of citizens to buy or not buy a commercial product.

The 70-year-old appointee of President Ronald Reagan even noted that he himself had been uninsured, paying out of pocket when the first of his five children was born.

Vinson's comments did not necessarily conclusively signal how he might rule on the full merits of the case.

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/PoliticsNews/~3/GDTqdbaIHs8/us-usa-healthcare-states-idUSTRE70U0T220110131

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Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/01/tom-shone-whose-forthcoming-novel.html

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Mascots of the Self-Congratulatory Elites

Thomas Sowell, Detroit News

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/30/mascot_politics_108420.html

Rev. Al Sharpton Than Shwe Aung San Suu Kyi Yulia Tymoshenko Elizabeth Windsor

Climate Change Claims Melt Away

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/01/30/climate_change_claims_melt_away_249647.html

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Interest raters: a risk to bank on | Martin Weale

A small rise in interest rates now would cost us less in the long run than higher ingrained inflation

As we cast our votes at the January meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee ? ahead of last week's GDP figures ? I saw a compelling case for an increase in the bank rate. My concern is that, if businesses and pay-bargainers come to regard an inflation rate of 3%-4% as normal, it will become more costly for the MPC to keep inflation close to the government's 2% target. The longer inflation stays above the target and the further it rises, the greater the risk that inflationary expectations will become built in.

Much of the increase in inflation has been a consequence of sterling's depreciation, sharply rising commodity prices, and increased VAT. It has not been generated by rises in domestic costs. Sterling's exchange rate has been fairly stable for some time and the effect of the most recent VAT increase will pass out of the inflation figures in 12 months' time. Given the potential consequences for the economy of trying to return inflation to the target rapidly, there is a powerful argument that such "one-off" influences on the inflation rate should simply be accommodated, and inflation allowed to rise temporarily above the target. This is consistent with the MPC's mandate.

The trouble is that only with hindsight can one judge how far some of these effects are truly "one-off". There is a risk that continuing rapid economic development in China and elsewhere will lead to persistent upward pressure on commodity prices. And even if that does not happen, there remains a risk that inflationary expectations become ingrained as a result of continued high inflation, whatever its cause.

These arguments make a powerful case for a modest rise in the bank rate ? not because it should or would reduce inflation immediately (it would not), but because it would reduce the chance of high-inflation expectations becoming ingrained. The costs of a small rise now would be lower than the eventual price of addressing higher ingrained inflation.

However, the most recent GDP data shows the economy appreciably weaker than expected. Without the effects of bad weather it is estimated output would have stagnated late last year. This is alarming ? a faltering economic recovery implies human misery and a waste of resources ? but not surprising. All recoveries from recessions since the first world war have been uneven, although in only two (1930-33 and 1973-76) was there a clear "double dip". If growth resumes shortly, my concerns about inflationary expectations would remain. But were the recent weakness to mark the start of a sustained new downturn, inflationary pressures would be likely to fade without a bank rate increase.

This dilemma illustrates the problem policy-makers face. Economic policy needs to respond to the facts; to ignore them would be absurd. But how much weight should be placed on the most recent data, which may be erratic and subject to revision? Too great an emphasis on the latest numbers creates the risk of policy movements that are erratic and inappropriate. But placing too little weight risks falling behind the curve, which could be even more detrimental to economic prosperity.

The natural response to that dilemma is pragmatic: monetary policy must be made, month by month, based on a judgment about the balance of risks and how they have evolved. A major risk is that the longer inflation remains above target and the more it exceeds its target, the greater the adverse effects on output of bringing it down. Each month's MPC decision needs to be made on its own merits, but this risk is a substantial one that I will continue to balance against others over the coming months.

Martin Weale

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/30/interest-rates-rise-ingrained-inflation

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

It's a two-horse race over who should be the next chairman of the BBC Trust

Lord Patten and Sir Richard Lambert have to prove they are the big figure that the BBC needs

Sometime in the next week or two, a peer, a professor and a permanent secretary will propose two names to Jeremy Hunt to become the next chairman of the BBC Trust. And unlike that other decision where Jeremy Hunt has to pretend he is all "quasi-judicial", the culture secretary is actually allowed to discuss the two names with David Cameron and presumably little Nick Clegg too. It may pay �110,000 a year for a four day week, which is apparently considered modest these days, but it is the single most important appointment that will be made in the media business this year.

Yet, it is a race that has barely excited any public debate (although there have been other distractions). Which is interesting, because who knows what the candidates could be proposing in interview. Will they get extra marks for supinely agreeing that the BBC Trust needs to become a roll over and die "licence fee payers' trust"? The kind of outfit that sees its job as ensuring that the BBC responds to some rightwing newspaper agenda aimed at reducing the public broadcaster's scale and ambition? A certain bloody-minded independence needs to be at the heart of the mission.

Which brings us to the individual candidates. There's no point dressing this up ? this is a two-horse race between Tory grandee Lord Patten and Sir Richard Lambert, who edited the Financial Times when it was fashionable for the business press to support the Labour party. Richard Hooper, a veteran regulator, has a slight chance, if both of those two blow up ? but it would be hard to bet on Dame Patricia Hodgson, whose appointment would prompt unnecessary conflict with Mark Thompson, or Anthony Fry, an urbane investment banker who has done well to reach this phase.

The conventional thinking here is to conclude that Patten's candidacy is flawed because he is a former Conservative cabinet minister. Which takes the focus on to Lambert. Now, Sir Richard has a lot to recommend him. A serious FT lifer, he edited the title for 10 years from 1991, a golden sort of period if that is possible for a Pink 'Un. Lambert's generation of proteges dominate the media, from Robert Peston to Will Lewis, while a good relationship with Robert Thomson, now the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, gives him an entree to Rupert Murdoch.

His other advantage, from a Tory point of view, is that he is not a Tory. His appointment would allow ministers to say they have not adopted a partisan approach ? and Lambert's parting shot as CBI director general last week would reinforce that impression. That was the one where he accused ministers of lacking "vision" for the economy and being without a "strategy" for growth. Well, we all got the message there, but it is hard to get past a few nagging questions about his candidacy ? Lambert is a cautious man, not brilliant at confrontation ? at a time when what the BBC needs is a tough cookie at the top able to rebuke the super-confident Thompson when he gets it wrong, and do battle with politicians and the tabloid press when the corporation has got it right.

All of which takes you back to Patten. He may be a Tory, but so was Sir Christopher Bland, and the BBC prospered under him. Interestingly, Labour is not militantly against Patten ? while, if anything, his real foes are on the right of the Tory party. Patten's former chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, is nicely ensconced in David Cameron's office, which is a handy place to have a friend. And it was Patten who showed he could stand up to Thatcher, Major and Murdoch (the last two over Hong Kong), which shows he is very much his own man.

The BBC needs a big figure at a time when its funding is under pressure. Lambert could do the job more than competently, but Patten has the edge.

Dan Sabbagh

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/31/bbc-trust-chairman-dan-sabbagh

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