Pawlenty, Obama, Ed Schultz grace GQ???s list of ???Least Influential People Alive??? (Daily Caller)

Former Minnesota governor and Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty is the least influential person alive, according to GQ?s ?25 Least Influential People Alive? list.

Pawlenty, who abruptly (and perhaps prematurely) ended his presidential bid in August, joins the illustrious ranks of Tia and Tamara Mowry, MSNBC?s Ed Schultz, and Tila Tequila (who once had a bisexual dating show in which a bunch of men and women competed to be her true love, in case you somehow missed that).

?Every election season produces a number of hilariously pointless candidates who have no chance of winning,? writes GQ in the list in its humor section. ?Some of them have value as novelty items. ? Then there are folks like Pawlenty, who fail to register even as novelties. T-Paw (as he calls himself) spent much of 2011 as a six-foot-tall paperweight, an aggressively forgettable fellow perfectly suited to the role of debate filler. The $1 million he spent to lose the Iowa straw poll might as well have been burned in front of a group of orphans.?

Pawlenty has since said that he regrets dropping out of the race so early, as the standings of the candidates continue to be in flux.

Of course, Pawlenty?s stated irrelevance looks relatively mild compared to the lashing GQ doles out to Schultz. .

?Do you watch The Ed Show on MSNBC? Of course you don?t. No one does. The only reason people watch The Ed Show is they?re working out in a hotel gym and they can?t find a staff member to change the channel to ESPN,? GQ writes. ?Did you know MSNBC suspended Schultz this year? It did! He called Laura Ingraham a ?right-wing slut,? and he still couldn?t get noticed.?

Other political notables on the list include Marcus Bachmann, husband of Republican presidential candidate and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former California Gov. (and the Terminator) Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, rounding out the list at number 24 and 25 respectively, Speaker of the House John Boehner and President Barack Obama.

?Okay, so we?re cheating a bit with this one,? GQ writes on Obama. ?He did order the raid that wiped Osama bin Laden off the face of the earth. But then he used that surplus of political capital to let everyone in Washington stick a boot in his ass. This is a man who should be the most transformational figure of the century. Hell, he promised to be that. Instead he wields all the power of a substitute teacher at night school.?

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Tebow does it again for Denver

Denver's 16-13 OT victory vs. San Diego makes QB 5-1 as a starter

By BERNIE WILSON

updated 7:50 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2011

SAN DIEGO - Tim Tebow wasn't watching as San Diego's Nick Novak lined up to attempt a 53-yard field goal that would have given the Chargers an overtime victory over the Denver Broncos.

He was praying, of course.

Did Tebow ask for a miss?

"I might have said that. Or maybe a block. Maybe all of it," the Denver quarterback said with a laugh.

Whatever, it worked.

Novak missed wide right. Tebow moved the Broncos down the field and Matt Prater kicked a 37-yard field goal with 29 seconds left in overtime to lift the Broncos to a 16-13 victory Sunday over the Chargers, who've lost six straight games for the first time in 10 years.

The Broncos narrowly avoided the first NFL tie since Cincinnati and Philadelphia ended deadlocked at 13 on Nov. 16, 2008.

Some people have a problem with Tebow wearing his religion on his sleeve. But he has been a savior for the Broncos, going 5-1 since coach John Fox elevated him to starter in the wake of his performance in a close loss to the Chargers on Oct. 9 in Denver.

Still, Hall of Famer John Elway, the Broncos' executive vice president of football operations, won't commit to the unconventional Tebow for his passing numbers and poor third-down conversions.

The Broncos (6-5) have won four straight to trail Oakland by one game in the AFC West.

"This is a special team, a special team when you have a bunch of guys that when things aren't going good we get closer instead of pulling apart," Tebow said. "The No. 1 reason we are like that is because we believe in each other, we believe in the coaching staff."

Coach John Fox believes in his quarterback.

"Tim has outstanding ability," Fox said. "He proved it at a high level of college football in the SEC at Florida. It's (the option) something that he is comfortable with. I think our team has adapted to it. Right now it's working in the run portion of our offense. We still have some growth to do in the pass portion."

Tebow led Denver from its 43 after Novak was wide right on a 53-yard field goal attempt with 2:31 left in overtime. Novak made a 53-yarder in the first quarter, a career-best, and was wide right on a 48-yard try early in the fourth quarter.

Tebow had a 12-yard gain and Willis McGahee ran 24 yards up the middle to set up Prater's winning kick, which was right down the middle.

Tebow, the talk of the NFL because he runs the read option and often struggles while passing, carried 22 times for 67 yards ? the most carries by a quarterback in a game since at 1950, according to STATS LLC.

He also threw for one touchdown and finished with a better rating than Philip Rivers, 95.4 to 77.1. Rivers was pressured all day by Elvis Dumervil, who had two sacks, and rookie Von Miller, who had one.

Tebow's first start was also an overtime win, 18-15 at Miami on Oct. 23.

Novak didn't have an explanation for his OT miss.

"I had a good warmup and hit that ball pretty decent," he said of the 53-yarder he kicked in the first quarter. "When you make the first kick of the game from 53, it gives you a lot of confidence for the next kicks to come."

The Chargers (4-7) are on their longest streak since ending 2001 with nine straight defeats and are last in the division, three games behind Oakland with five to play.

"There's nothing I can say to make it sound good," Rivers said. "It's about as rough as it gets."

Tebow got a final chance to try to win it in regulation after the Broncos forced the Chargers to punt. Starting on his own 26, Tebow kept the drive going with a 39-yard completion to Eric Decker ? which the Chargers unsuccessfully challenged ? and a 23-yarder to Dante Rosario. The Broncos had to settle for Prater's 24-yard field goal that tied it at 13 with 1:34 to go.

Referee Jeff Triplette confused the crowd and TV viewers by saying each team would get a possession in OT. He then corrected himself, saying it would be sudden-death.

The Broncos won it on their third possession in OT.

Rivers was 19 of 36 for 188 yards. Tebow was 9 of 18 for 143 yards.

The Chargers took a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter when Rivers hit Antonio Gates on a 6-yard scoring pass in the back of the end zone to cap a 15-play, 91-yard drive.

Tebow threw an 18-yard TD pass to Eric Decker just before halftime to pull to 10-7.

Novak kicked a 25-yard field goal early in the third quarter. Denver had a long drive later in the quarter before Prater kicked a 41-yard field goal to pull to 13-10.

NOTES: McGahee ran 23 times for 117 yards. A week after having a critical fumble in a loss at Chicago, San Diego's Ryan Mathews ran 22 times for a career-high 137 yards. It was his third career 100-yard game, all against Denver. ... Broncos CB Cassius Vaughn injured an ankle in the first quarter and didn't return. ... Injured Chargers were LG Brandyn Dombrowski (foot), TE Kory Sperry (ribs), LB Na'il Diggs (chest) and Corey Liuget (tibia).

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Steelers stuff Chiefs ? |? ??Highlights

Ben Roethlisberger threw a short touchdown pass to Weslye Saunders and the Pittsburgh Steelers took advantage of four turnovers by Tyler Palko to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 13-9 on Sunday night.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45456358/ns/sports-nfl/

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Paterno undergoing cancer treatment

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Former Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno has started treatment for lung cancer and is doing well, his son said.

Jay Paterno, Penn State's quarterbacks coach, said his father has been "handling it very well" since he began therapy for a cancer that doctors said earlier this month was treatable.

Paterno revealed he was stricken with the disease amid the turmoil of the sexual-abuse scandal that broke with the arrest of former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Jay Paterno told the Philadelphia Inquirer the end of the Nittany Lions season -- barring a bowl bid -- would give him more opportunity to focus on his dad's current ordeal.

"We'll meet (Sunday) and go over some things, and get ready to go do some recruiting next week," Paterno said. "I'll get to spend some time with my kids and get to kind of deal with this, because I haven't had a chance to with everything that's happened."

Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/5565306

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US judge rejects $285M SEC-Citigroup agreement

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2010 file photo, the corporate logo for Citigroup is shown, in New York. A federal judge on Monday, Nov. 28, 2011, struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he couldn't tell whether the deal was fair and criticizing regulators for shielding the public from the details of what the firm did wrong. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2010 file photo, the corporate logo for Citigroup is shown, in New York. A federal judge on Monday, Nov. 28, 2011, struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he couldn't tell whether the deal was fair and criticizing regulators for shielding the public from the details of what the firm did wrong. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

(AP) ? A federal judge on Monday used unusually harsh language to strike down a $285 million settlement between Citigroup and the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he couldn't tell whether the deal was fair and criticizing regulators for shielding the public from the details of what the firm did wrong.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said the public has a right to know what happens in cases that touch on "the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives." In such cases, the SEC has a responsibility to ensure that the truth emerges, he wrote.

Rakoff said he had spent hours trying to assess the settlement but concluded that he had not been given "any proven or admitted facts upon which to exercise even a modest degree of independent judgment." He called the settlement "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest."

The SEC shot back in a statement issued by Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami, saying the deal was "fair, adequate, reasonable, in the public interest, and reasonably reflects the scope of relief that would be obtained after a successful trial."

The SEC had accused the bank of betting against a complex mortgage investment in 2007 ? making $160 million in the process ? while investors lost millions. The settlement would have imposed penalties on Citigroup but allowed it to deny allegations that it misled investors.

Citi said it was reviewing the decision and declined to comment.

The SEC's consent judgment settling the case was filed the same day as its lawsuit against Citigroup, the judge noted.

"It is harder to discern from the limited information before the court what the SEC is getting from this settlement other than a quick headline," the judge wrote.

"In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers," Rakoff said. "Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found. But the SEC, of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency's contrivances."

He set a July 16 trial date for the case.

Khuzami said in the SEC statement that Rakoff made too much out of the fact that Citigroup did not have to admit wrongdoing. He said forcing Citigroup to give up profits, pay fines and face mandatory business reforms outweigh the absence of an admission "when that relief is obtained promptly and without the risks, delay and resources required at trial."

Khuzami added: "Refusing an otherwise advantageous settlement solely because of the absence of an admission also would divert resources away from the investigation of other frauds and the recovery of losses suffered by other investors not before the court."

Rakoff said the power of the judiciary was "not a free-roving remedy to be invoked at the whim of a regulatory agency, even with the consent of the regulated."

He added: "If its deployment does not rest on facts ? cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions or by trials ? it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression."

In the civil lawsuit filed last month, the SEC said Citigroup Inc. traders discussed the possibility of buying financial instruments to essentially bet on the failure of the mortgage assets. Rating agencies downgraded most of the investments just as many troubled homeowners stopped paying their mortgages in late 2007. That pushed the investment into default and cost its buyers' ? hedge funds and investment managers ? several hundred million dollars in losses.

Earlier this month, Rakoff staged a hearing in which he asked lawyers on both sides to defend the settlement.

At the hearing, Rakoff questioned whether freeing Citigroup of any admission of liability could undermine private claims by investors who stand to recover only $95 million in penalties on total losses of $700 million.

In his decision, he called the penalties "pocket change" to a company the size of Citigroup and said that, if the SEC allegations are true, then Citigroup got a "very good deal." If they are untrue, the settlement would be "a mild and modest cost of doing business," he said.

This wasn't the first time that the judge struck down an SEC settlement with a bank, and Rakoff has made no secret of his disdain for settlements between the government agency and banks for paltry sums and no admission of guilt.

"The SEC's longstanding policy ? hallowed by history, but not by reason ? of allowing defendants to enter into consent judgments without admitting or denying the underlying allegations, deprives the court of even the most minimal assurance that the substantial injunctive relief it is being asked to impose has any basis in fact," he wrote in Monday's decision.

In 2009, Rakoff rejected a $33 million settlement between the SEC and Bank of America Corp. calling it a breach of "justice and morality." The deal was over civil charges accusing the bank of misleading shareholders when it acquired Merrill Lynch during the height of the financial crisis in 2008 by failing to disclose it was paying up to $5.8 billion in bonuses to employees even as it recorded a $27.6 billion yearly loss.

In February 2010, he approved an amended settlement for over four times the original amount, but was caustic in his comments about the $150 million pact, calling it "half-baked justice at best." He said the court approved it "while shaking its head."

Citigroup's $285 million would represent the largest amount to be paid by a Wall Street firm accused of misleading investors since Goldman Sachs & Co. agreed to pay $550 million to settle similar charges last year. JPMorgan Chase & Co. resolved similar charges in June and paid $153.6 million.

All the cases have involved complex investments called collateralized debt obligations. Those are securities that are backed by pools of other assets, such as mortgages.

Rakoff's ruling Monday was the latest in a series of setbacks for the SEC under the leadership of Chairman Mary Schapiro. Rakoff has said he doesn't believe the agency has been sufficiently tough in its enforcement deals with Wall Street banks over their conduct prior to the financial crisis.

The SEC told Rakoff recently that $285 million was a fair penalty, which will go to investors harmed by Citigroup's conduct, and that it was close to what the agency would have won in a trial.

___

AP business writers Pallavi Gogoi in New York and Marcy Gordon in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-28-SEC-Citigroup/id-f0657ae43eff4823834c36c2856d61ea

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Way cleared for horse slaughter to resume in US after 5-year ban

Congress has restored funding for US inspectors to oversee horse slaughter, paving the way for slaughter and processing to resume for the first time since 2006. Animal rights groups are livid.

What to do about growing numbers of neglected and abandoned horses in the US is an ethical conundrum that Congress and President Obama quietly addressed this month via a spending bill: bring back the slaughterhouses.

Skip to next paragraph

A Department of Agriculture bill, signed into law Nov. 18, reinstates federal funding for USDA inspection of horse meat intended for human consumption, which Congress had withheld since 2006. That de facto ban on horse slaughter has now come to an end, to the outrage of the animal rights community, amid reports that US horse owners were simply shipping their animals to Mexico and Canada for slaughter and processing.?

According to a pro-slaughter group called United Horsemen, meat processors are now considering opening facilities in at least a half-dozen states, including Georgia, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana, and possibly Idaho.

The issue has galvanized the animal rights community, which contends that horses are too intelligent to be food animals, and that legal processing of horse meat will endanger wild horse populations and motivate Americans to raise horses specifically for human consumption.

The other view, accepted by Congress after a study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), is that more abandoned and neglected horses in the US ? which has 9 million equines ? are being sold and processed for meat anyway in countries that may not have the same standard of humane euthanasia that US law requires. Government statistics show that 138,000 American horses were sold and processed for meat in other countries in 2010 ? a 660 percent increase from 2007, according to the GAO report.

"We can't monitor horse slaughter in a plant in Mexico or Canada ? [a]nd so we don't know if it's being done humanely or not because the USDA obviously doesn't have any jurisdiction there,? Rep. Jack Kingston (R) of Georgia, who was instrumental in the reinstatement, told the Oklahoman newspaper's Sonya Colberg and Chris Casteel. ?Along the way, these horses are having a rough transit. USDA does not have the jurisdiction over how the animals are treated along the way."

The poor economy has been tough on horse owners and the animals themselves, leading to what Representative Kingston calls an "unanticipated problem with horse neglect and abandonment.? In Colorado alone, horse abandonment?"increased 60 percent from 975 in 2005 to 1,588 in 2009," the GAO report stated.

What's more, The New York Times reports that the law forced many breeders and owners to go out of business because their inability to sell horses for meat "removed the floor" for prices while forcing owners to shoulder costs for euthanizing and disposing of unwanted horses. Before the ban, the horse slaughter business generated some $65 million in revenues a year.

?When they closed the plants, that put more of a hardship on our horses than the people who wanted to stop the slaughter can imagine,? said John Schoneberg, a Nebraska horse breeder, according to the Times report.

Nevertheless, animal rights activists are furious over the decision to bring back horse processing plants in the US. They say that ending the de facto ban will challenge the ethics of horse ownership and undermine the sanctity of the unique bond between humans and horses.

?They're signing the death sentence for thousands of our American horses. The wild mustangs in Oklahoma and every horse in Oklahoma is at risk,? Oklahoma City horse advocate Stephanie Graham told the Oklahoman. ?Horses are going to die and it's going to be brutal.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/TmqX4XTmKYs/Way-cleared-for-horse-slaughter-to-resume-in-US-after-5-year-ban

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Cyberwar storm clouds are gathering

Has the threat of cyberwar entered a significant new phase? Unpicking the burgeoning reports of activity on the digital battlefield

CYBERSPACE. Some call it the new domain of war, after land, sea, air and space. The 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran's uranium enrichment plant, suspected to have come from Israel or the US, seemed to confirm this status.

Stuxnet raised the spectre of cyber-sabotage. The recently discovered Duqu trojan, which contains some Stuxnet code, is built to steal information about computers controlling industrial plants. IT security analysts such as Symantec suspect Duqu came from the same source as Stuxnet, and may be seeking vulnerable points for future sabotage.

October saw a glut of talk about cyberwar. News reports in the US claimed that Barack Obama's administration chose not to launch a cyberattack against Libyan air defences in March. Also in October, the Pentagon announced that the joint chiefs of staff, the country's highest military officers, were reviewing the rules of engagement for cyberwar. A few days later, another report suggested China may have launched a cyberattack against two US civilian satellites.

Despite all this activity, the nature of cyber-threats remains poorly defined. Analysts have been warning for years about vulnerabilities in US government and private computer networks. In 2009, Obama launched a 60-day cyberspace security review to assess the threats. It concluded they were dire, and urged government-wide coordination to fight the threat under the direction of the US National Security Council, along with cooperation with other countries and private industry.

Firewalls guarding US military information are attacked relentlessly, sometimes successfully. "Over the past decade, terabytes of data have been extracted by foreign intruders," then US deputy defence secretary William Lynn said in July. A single intrusion in March saw 24,000 files stolen.

Yet cyberwar goes far beyond this activity. There is industrial espionage; criminal attacks, including stealing military secrets; and selling counterfeit military parts on the internet, which can damage or destroy equipment. Insurgents and opposition groups pose their own threats. Thus security must go far beyond protecting government documents and facilities.

In May 2010, the Pentagon established the US Cyber Command to fight the threat. So far its budget is a relatively lowly $2 to $3 billion. Given this, its strategy, announced in July, stressed defence.

Inevitably offence is studied too, covertly. But governments are reluctant to attack openly. The US decision not to target Libya was largely political, says James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. "The US wanted to be seen as in the background in that conflict," he says. Also, he adds, the Obama administration did not want to be the first to openly launch a new form of warfare.

Caution and a focus on defence make sense. Computer technology spreads fast. It does not pay to attack if your weapons can be turned against you.

Duqu's intelligence gathering is troublesome, but more extensive Stuxnet-like sabotage could tip the scales to a real cyberwar.

Jeff Hecht is a New Scientist consultant

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Cluster munition talks reject US proposal (AP)

GENEVA ? A group of 50 nations led by Norway, Austria and Mexico has defeated a U.S. effort to enact a worldwide ban on cluster munitions produced before 1980.

Two weeks of diplomatic talks ended late Friday night with the U.S. government saying it was "deeply disappointed by the failure."

The U.S. mission to the U.N. in Geneva said in a statement Saturday its proposal would have reined in about 85 percent of the world's stockpiles of cluster bombs, artillery shells and missiles.

But opponents including activist groups say that would undermine an international law that took effect last year to phase out cluster weapons, which are packed with "bomblets" that scatter indiscriminately and often harm civilians.

More than 60 nations have adopted the law so far.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_eu/eu_un_cluster_munitions

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Congo opposition to defy meeting ban ahead of vote

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi are caught between tear gas fired by Congolese riot police and armed Presidential guardsmen at Kinshasa Airport in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi are caught between tear gas fired by Congolese riot police and armed Presidential guardsmen at Kinshasa Airport in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi are caught between tear gas fired by Congolese riot police and armed Presidential guardsmen at Kinshasa Airport in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday, Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A supporter of Congolese President Joseph Kabila lays dead during clashes with supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi on the airport road in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday, Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A dead supporter of Congolese President Joseph Kabila is carried away from the clash scene with supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi on the airport road in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday, Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi are caught between tear gas fired by Congolese riot police and armed Presidential guardsmen at Kinshasa Airport in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011. Two people were killed in pre-vote clashes Saturday in Congo's capital before the critical Presidential poll Monday, Nov. 28 that observers say could re-ignite conflict in the vast central African nation. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

(AP) ? Four bodies were recovered Sunday after clashes in Congo's capital ahead of a critical national poll, a police official said Sunday, as the top opposition leader vowed to hold a public meeting in defiance of a ban imposed after the violence.

The European Union's election observation mission on Sunday criticized police for their actions during Saturday's clashes. Violence erupted at and near Kinshasa's main airport as rival political supporters gathered there to see their candidate before Monday's vote. Main opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi later arrived; the president did not pass through as expected.

At the airport, security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition into the burgeoning crowd.

Scuffles erupted on the road to the airport, and two dead bodies were seen on that road. Police inspector general Charles Bisengimana said four bodies were taken to a Kinshasa morgue on Sunday. It was not known if the two men seen on the road were among the four at the morgue.

The EU mission said it "considers the police operation that took place last night at (Kinshasa's) airport against the convoy of a presidential candidate and the arrests that were made as a serious breach of the right to campaign and the principle of equality that should prevail."

Saturday's violence prompted officials to ban political rallies and gatherings before the election.

A defiant Tshisekedi said Sunday that he planned to hold an afternoon public meeting at Kinshasa's Martyrs' Stadium.

"No one can stop me from holding my meeting," he said.

He also said more than 10 people were killed in Saturday's violence and 68 were wounded. He said three of the dead were members of his office and were killed by police, but he did not give details on the other dead or wounded.

Bisengimana, the police inspector, said opposition supporters attacked supporters of the president during Saturday's clashes. He also blamed Tshisekedi for refusing to leave the airport where his supporters had gathered to greet him. Riot police manned the airport late Saturday to prevent Tshisekedi and his convoy from leaving the scene.

The EU mission also said it "regrets that the last days of the electoral campaign were spoiled by many serious incidents and violent clashes which unfortunately cost human lives, especially in Kinshasa. The mission deplores the chaotic and improvised management of the last political meetings by many presidential candidates, by the Kinshasa authorities which restrained freedom of opinion, meetings and demonstrations."

On Sunday, African Union chairman Jean Ping also expressed concerns about the poll.

In a press release issued Sunday, he said he "deplores the violence that took place in Kinshasa (Saturday), which resulted in loss of life, as well as the various other incidents that marred the election campaign."

Human rights groups had expressed fears about an atmosphere of spiraling violence and hate speech ahead of the vote. The outcome of the vote is almost certain to keep President Joseph Kabila in power.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-27-AF-Congo-Election/id-0d5be92110b44afd8104930be50480c6

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Yemen sets date for presidential vote

Yemen scheduled early presidential elections for early next year on Saturday in line with a power-sharing deal aimed at ending a nine-month political crisis, according to the country's official news agency.

The agreement would make President Ali Abdullah Saleh the fourth dictator pushed from power this year by the Arab Spring uprisings, although it has been rejected by many protesters because it would grant the reviled leader immunity from prosecution and does not include far-reaching political changes like those brought about by the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The U.S.-backed Gulf Arab proposal signed Wednesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh calls for Saleh to pass power to his deputy within 30 days, after a new government sworn in by the vice president passes a law protecting Saleh and his associates from prosecution. Presidential elections also were to be held within 90 days, well ahead of the original date in 2013.

It came after months of resistance by the leader of 33 years despite massive protests calling for him to step down. Saleh had agreed to sign the deal at least three previous times only to back out at the last minute.

Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said Saturday that the vote will be held on Feb. 21 and no party has the right to annul or change the decree, SABA reported. He made the announcement after Saleh gave him "the constitutional authorities to carry out dialogue with the parties that signed the Gulf initiative."

While it was welcomed by the U.S., which fears instability in the country that's home to one of the world's most active al-Qaida branches, the agreement has failed to end the mass protests that have rocked Sanaa and other cities since February.

Thousands took to the streets on Saturday to demand that Saleh face trial for allegations of corruption and the killing of hundreds of protesters as his security forces brutally tried to end the uprising against him.

The deal doesn't explicitly ban Saleh from the country's political life ? raising fears he could continue to play a political role.

Violence also continued, with Yemeni warplanes killing 80 anti-government tribesmen who overran part of a military camp in the Arhab region north of the capital.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said that warplanes and artillery had pounded the armed tribesmen for the past two days.

The number of deaths was not confirmed. But a soldier from Yemen's 63rd Brigade who fled the camp said tribesmen had overrun it several days ago. He spoke by telephone from Arhab, asking not to be identified for fear of government reprisal. The soldier said the tribesmen killed about 20 soldiers.

___

Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef contributed to this report from Cairo.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45443968/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure

Brain imaging, behavior research reveals physicians learn more by paying attention to failure

Thursday, November 24, 2011

When seeking a physician, you should look for one with experience. Right? Maybe not. Research on physicians' decision-making processes has revealed that those who pay attention to failures as well as successes become more adept at selecting the correct treatment.

"We found that all the physicians in the study included irrelevant criteria in their decisions," said Read Montague, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. "Notably, however, the most experienced doctors were the poorest learners."

The research is published in the Nov. 23 issue of PLoS One, the Public Library of Science open-access journal, in the article, "Neural correlates of effective learning in experienced medical decision-makers," by Jonathan Downar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital; Meghana Bhatt, Ph.D., assistant research professor at Beckman Research Institute, the City of Hope Hospital, Duarte, Calif.; and Montague, who is also a professor of physics in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brain activity of 35 experienced physicians in a range of non-surgical specialties as they made decisions.

The doctors were instructed to select between two treatments for a series of simulated patients in an emergency room setting. "First they had a chance to learn by experience which of two medications worked better in a series of 64 simulated heart-attack patients, based on a simplified history with just six factors," said Bhatt.

Unknown to the test subjects, of the six factors, only one was actually relevant to the decision: diabetes status. One medication had a 75 percent success rate in patients with diabetes, but only a 25 percent success rate in patients without diabetes. The other had the opposite profile. The physicians had 10 seconds to select a treatment. Then they were briefly presented with an outcome of "SUCCESS: (heart attack) aborted" or "FAILURE: No response."

"After the training, we tested the physicians to see how often they were able to pick the better drug in a second series of 64 simulated patients," said Bhatt. "When we looked at their performance, the doctors separated into two distinct groups. One group learned very effectively from experience, and chose the better drug more than 75 percent of the time. The other group was terrible; they chose the better drug only at coin-flipping levels of accuracy, or half the time, and they also came up with inaccurate systems for deciding how to prescribe the medications, based on factors that didn't matter at all."

In fact, all the doctors reported including at least one of the five irrelevant factors, such as age or previous heart attack, in their decision process.

"The brain imaging showed us a clear difference in the mental processes of the two groups," said Montague. "The high performers activated their frontal lobes when things didn't go as expected and the treatments failed." Such activity showed that the doctors learned from their failures, he said. These physicians gradually improved their performance.

In contrast, the low performers activated their frontal lobes when things did go as expected, said Bhatt. "In other words, they succumbed to 'confirmation bias,' ignoring failures and learning only from the successful cases. Each success confirmed what the low performers falsely thought they already knew about which treatment was better." The researchers termed this counterproductive learning pattern "success-chasing."

"The problem with remembering successes and ignoring failures is that it doesn't leave us any way to abandon our faulty ideas. Instead, the ideas gain strength from each chance success, until they evolve into something like a superstition," said Downar.

The fMRI showed that a portion of the brain called the nucleus accumbens "showed significant anticipatory activation well before the outcome of the trial was revealed, and this anticipatory activation was significantly greater prior to successful outcomes," Montague said. "Based on the outcome of the training phase, we were actually able to predict results in the testing phase for each low-performing subject's final set of spurious treatment rules."

The authors state in the article that the formation of spurious beliefs is universal, such as an athlete's belief in a lucky hat. "But the good news is that physicians can probably be trained to think more like the high performers," said Downar. "I tell my students to remember three things: First, when you're trying to work out a diagnosis, remember to also ask the questions that would prove your hunches wrong. Second, when you think you have the answer, think again and go through the possible alternatives. Third, if the treatment isn't going as expected, don't just brush it off ? ask yourself what you could have missed."

"These findings underscore the dangers of disregarding past failures when making high-stakes decisions," said Montague. "'Success-chasing' not only can lead doctors to make flawed decisions in diagnosing and treating patients, but it can also distort the thinking of other high-stakes decision-makers, such as military and political strategists, stock market investors, and venture capitalists."

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Virginia Tech: http://www.vtnews.vt.edu

Thanks to Virginia Tech for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115461/Brain_imaging__behavior_research_reveals_physicians_learn_more_by_paying_attention_to_failure

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