Panel: Test every child for cholesterol by age 11

In this Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 photo, Dr. Elaine Urbina, left, examines Joscelyn Benninghoff, 10, at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. Benninghoff is taking medication to control her cholesterol. In new guidelines released Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, doctors are recommending that every child be tested for high cholesterol by around age 10 to prevent heart disease later in life. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 photo, Dr. Elaine Urbina, left, examines Joscelyn Benninghoff, 10, at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. Benninghoff is taking medication to control her cholesterol. In new guidelines released Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, doctors are recommending that every child be tested for high cholesterol by around age 10 to prevent heart disease later in life. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011 photo, Dr. Elaine Urbina, left, goes over test results with Joscelyn Benninghoff, center, 10, and her mother, Elizabeth Duruz, at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati. Benninghoff is taking medication to control her cholesterol. In new guidelines released Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, doctors are recommending that every child be tested for high cholesterol by around age 10 to prevent heart disease later in life. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Every child should be tested for high cholesterol between ages 9 and 11 so steps can be taken to prevent heart disease later on, a panel of doctors urged Friday in new advice that is sure to be controversial.

Until now, major medical groups have suggested cholesterol tests only for children with a family history of early heart disease or high cholesterol and those who are obese or have diabetes or high blood pressure. But studies show that is missing many children with high cholesterol, and the number of them at risk is growing because of the obesity epidemic.

The recommendations are in new guidelines from an expert panel appointed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

They also advise diabetes screening every two years starting as early as 9 for children who are overweight and have other risks for Type 2 diabetes, including family history.

Autopsy studies show children already have signs of heart disease even before they have symptoms. By the fourth grade, 10 percent to 13 percent of U.S. children have high cholesterol, defined as a score of 200 or more.

Fats build up in the heart arteries in the first and second decade of life but usually don't start hardening the arteries until people are in their 20s and 30s, said one of the guideline panel members, Dr. Elaine Urbina, director of preventive cardiology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

"If we screen at age 20, it may be already too late," she said. "To me it's not controversial at all. We should have been doing this for years."

Doctors recommend testing between ages 9 and 11 because cholesterol dips during puberty and rises later.

The guidelines say that cholesterol drugs likely would be recommended for fewer than 1 percent of kids tested. Most children found to have high cholesterol would be advised to control it with diet and physical activity.

And children younger than 10 should not be treated with cholesterol drugs unless they have severe cholesterol problems, the guidelines say.

The guidelines also say doctors should:

?Take yearly blood pressure measurements for children starting at age 3.

?Start routine anti-smoking advice when kids are ages 5 to 9, and advise parents of infants against smoking in the home.

?Review infants' family history of obesity and start tracking body mass index, or BMI, a measure of obesity, at age 2.

The panel also suggests using more frank terms for kids who are overweight and obese than some government agencies have used in the past. Children whose BMI is in the 85th to 95th percentile should be called overweight, not "at risk for overweight," and kids whose BMI is in the 95th percentile or higher should be called obese, not "overweight ? even kids as young as age 2, the panel said.

"Some might feel that 'obese' is an unacceptable term for children and parents," so doctors should "use descriptive terminology that is appropriate for each child and family," the guidelines recommend.

The guidance was released online Friday by the journal Pediatrics and will be presented Sunday at an American Heart Association conference in Florida.

___

Marchione reported from Milwaukee

___

Online:

Guidelines: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/site/misc/2009-2107.pdf

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2011-11-11-Kids-Cholesterol%20Tests/id-bb69f44d84fb4fc0ad47fdf8a1141f89

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Report ? Sony to produce BioShock: Infinite Move peripheral

Wed, Nov 09, 2011 | 01:15 GMT

Both Videogamer and Pushsquare reportedly caught a slip on the UK PlayStation site earlier today. the hastily-deleted message apparently read:

?A special PS Move peripheral is being produced that will draw you even deeper into this stunning vision of a parallel future.?

BioShock: Infinite?s support of the Move controller was announced at E3 2011, just months after creator Ken Levine publicly dissed motion control.

Thanks, Gematsu.

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2011/11/09/report-sony-to-produce-bioshock-infinite-move-peripheral/

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Adobe ?Restructures,? Eliminates 750 Jobs In North America And Europe

adobeWe've been hearing rumors of Adobe layoffs all day, and the company just released a statement announcing that it is 'restructuring' its business, which will result in the elimination of 750 jobs in North America and Europe. From the release: In order to better align resources around Digital Media and Digital Marketing, Adobe is restructuring its business. This will result in the elimination of approximately 750 full-time positions primarily in North America and Europe. We expect to record in the aggregate approximately $87 million to $94 million in pre-tax restructuring charges.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6EU-r3M29Aw/

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Pink flamingo spotted on a lake north of NYC

POUND RIDGE, N.Y. (AP) ? It wasn't a lawn ornament on a suburban New York lake. It was an honest to goodness real pink flamingo.

According to the New York Post (http://nyp.st/uRuj85 ), Chris Evers spotted it last month while canoeing on Lake Kitchawan near his Pound Ridge home.

Concerned the tropical bird would die in the cold overnight, he brought it home and placed it in a water-filled bathtub.

An ID band on the bird's leg showed it had been hatched at an exotic-animal business in North Carolina.

The flamingo's owner was quickly contacted. He's a private zoo operator who lives 15 miles from Evers and has a state permit to keep a flock of flamingoes.

The bird had been missing for two days after flying the coop on Oct. 22.

___

Information from: New York Post, http://www.nypost.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2011-11-07-NY-ODD-Pink-Flamingo-NY-Lake/id-e0f7a58c5021416e9abae28c05600dc3

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Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, a Giant TV Remote

I’m loath to fetch UPS and FedEx deliveries at the office these days. On any given morning, I half expect to open up the boxes I’ve received to find the vacant, blank face of yet another Android tablet staring back at me. Tuesday was no different. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus — a mouthful [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/x7HTF2c7fjo/

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Jackson doctor to star in tell-all documentary (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? The doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson will star in a tell-all TV documentary airing this week, the company behind the film said on Tuesday.

The 50-minute documentary about Dr. Conrad Murray will air in the United States on MSNBC on Friday under the title "Michael Jackson and the Doctor," the network said.

The broadcast will come just days after Murray, 58, was found guilty on Monday of gross negligence in his care of the Jackson, leading to his death in June 2009. Murray pleaded not guilty but did not testify at his trial and is now in jail in Los Angeles ahead of a November 29 sentencing hearing.

The documentary explores the relationship between Jackson and his personal physician. It was shot before Murray's conviction and in it the doctor reveals details of his time with Jackson.

"Walking around with painful feet as a dancer, unbelievable calluses, so I brought the appropriate specialists. He was very pleased of course," Murray says in an excerpt posted on celebrity website TMZ.com.

The documentary was produced by October Films and what's it all about? productions and is distributed by British company Zodiak Rights.

They secured exclusive access to Murray in November 2009 -- following Jackson's death on June 25 of that year -- and filmmakers shot footage of the doctor over two years and during his six-week trial, Zodiak said.

The film will air on Thursday in Australia, and later this week in Britain, Zodiak said.

Medical examiners found Jackson died of an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol and sedatives, which Murray said he gave the singer as a sleep aid.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Jill Serjeant)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111108/en_nm/us_michaeljackson_documentary

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Berkeley Lab researchers ink nanostructures with tiny 'soldering iron'

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 7-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Aditi Risbud
asrisbud@lbl.gov
510-486-4861
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shed light on the role of temperature in controlling a fabrication technique for drawing chemical patterns as small as 20 nanometers. This technique could provide an inexpensive, fast route to growing and patterning a wide variety of materials on surfaces to build electrical circuits and chemical sensors, or study how pharmaceuticals bind to proteins and viruses.

One way of directly writing nanoscale structures onto a substrate is to use an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip as a pen to deposit ink molecules through molecular diffusion onto the surface. Unlike conventional nanofabrication techniques that are expensive, require specialized environments and usually work with only a few materials, this technique, called dip-pen nanolithography, can be used in almost any environment to write many different chemical compounds. A cousin of this technique called thermal dip-pen nanolithography extends this technique to solid materials by turning an AFM tip into a tiny soldering iron.

Dip-pen nanolithography can be used to pattern features as small as 20 nanometers, more than forty thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. What's more, the writing tip also performs as a surface profiler, allowing a freshly-writ surface to be imaged with nanoscale precision immediately after patterning.

"Tip-based manufacturing holds real promise for precise fabrication of nanoscale devices," says Jim DeYoreo, interim director of Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a DOE nanoscience research center. "However, a robust technology requires a scientific foundation built on an understanding of material transfer during this process. Our study is the first to provide this fundamental understanding of thermal dip-pen nanolithography."

In this study, DeYoreo and coworkers systematically investigated the effect of temperature on feature size. Using their results, the team developed a new model to deconstruct how ink molecules travel from the writing tip to the substrate, assemble into an ordered layer and grow into a nanoscale feature.

"By carefully considering the role of temperature in thermal dip-pen nanolithography, we may be able to design and fabricate nanoscale patterns of materials ranging from small molecules to polymers with better control over feature sizes and shapes on a variety of substrates," says Sungwook Chung, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, and Foundry user working with DeYoreo.

"This technique helps overcome fundamental length scale limitations without the need for complex growth methods."

DeYoreo and Chung collaborated with a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that specializes in fabricating specialized tips for AFMs. Here, these collaborators developed a silicon-based AFM tip with a gradient of charge-carrying atoms sprinkled into the silicon such that a higher number reside at the base while fewer sit at the tip. This makes the tip heat up when electricity flows through it, much like the burner on an electric stove.

This 'nanoheater' can then be used to heat up inks applied to the tip, causing them to flow to the surface for fabricating microscale and nanoscale features. The group demonstrated this by drawing dots and lines of the organic molecule mercaptohexadecanoic acid on gold surfaces. The hotter the tip, the larger the feature size the team could draw.

"We are excited about this collaboration with Berkeley Lab, which combines their remarkable nanoscience capabilities with our technology to control temperature and heat flow on the nanometer scale," says co-author William P. King, a University of Illinois professor of mechanical sciences and engineering. "Our ability to control the temperature within a nanometer-scale spot enabled this study of molecular-scale transport. By tuning the hotspot temperature, we can probe how molecules flow to a surface."

"This thermal control over tip-to-surface transfer developed by Professor King's group adds versatility by enabling on-the-fly variations in feature size and patterning of both liquid and solid materials," DeYoreo adds.

###

Chung is the lead author and DeYoreo the corresponding author of a paper reporting this research in the journal Applied Physics Letters. The paper is titled "Temperature-dependence of ink transport during thermal dip-pen nanolithography." Co-authoring the paper with Chung, DeYoreo and King were Jonathan Felts and Debin Wang.

This work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by DOE's Office of Science and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at http://science.energy.gov/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 7-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Aditi Risbud
asrisbud@lbl.gov
510-486-4861
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shed light on the role of temperature in controlling a fabrication technique for drawing chemical patterns as small as 20 nanometers. This technique could provide an inexpensive, fast route to growing and patterning a wide variety of materials on surfaces to build electrical circuits and chemical sensors, or study how pharmaceuticals bind to proteins and viruses.

One way of directly writing nanoscale structures onto a substrate is to use an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip as a pen to deposit ink molecules through molecular diffusion onto the surface. Unlike conventional nanofabrication techniques that are expensive, require specialized environments and usually work with only a few materials, this technique, called dip-pen nanolithography, can be used in almost any environment to write many different chemical compounds. A cousin of this technique called thermal dip-pen nanolithography extends this technique to solid materials by turning an AFM tip into a tiny soldering iron.

Dip-pen nanolithography can be used to pattern features as small as 20 nanometers, more than forty thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. What's more, the writing tip also performs as a surface profiler, allowing a freshly-writ surface to be imaged with nanoscale precision immediately after patterning.

"Tip-based manufacturing holds real promise for precise fabrication of nanoscale devices," says Jim DeYoreo, interim director of Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a DOE nanoscience research center. "However, a robust technology requires a scientific foundation built on an understanding of material transfer during this process. Our study is the first to provide this fundamental understanding of thermal dip-pen nanolithography."

In this study, DeYoreo and coworkers systematically investigated the effect of temperature on feature size. Using their results, the team developed a new model to deconstruct how ink molecules travel from the writing tip to the substrate, assemble into an ordered layer and grow into a nanoscale feature.

"By carefully considering the role of temperature in thermal dip-pen nanolithography, we may be able to design and fabricate nanoscale patterns of materials ranging from small molecules to polymers with better control over feature sizes and shapes on a variety of substrates," says Sungwook Chung, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, and Foundry user working with DeYoreo.

"This technique helps overcome fundamental length scale limitations without the need for complex growth methods."

DeYoreo and Chung collaborated with a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that specializes in fabricating specialized tips for AFMs. Here, these collaborators developed a silicon-based AFM tip with a gradient of charge-carrying atoms sprinkled into the silicon such that a higher number reside at the base while fewer sit at the tip. This makes the tip heat up when electricity flows through it, much like the burner on an electric stove.

This 'nanoheater' can then be used to heat up inks applied to the tip, causing them to flow to the surface for fabricating microscale and nanoscale features. The group demonstrated this by drawing dots and lines of the organic molecule mercaptohexadecanoic acid on gold surfaces. The hotter the tip, the larger the feature size the team could draw.

"We are excited about this collaboration with Berkeley Lab, which combines their remarkable nanoscience capabilities with our technology to control temperature and heat flow on the nanometer scale," says co-author William P. King, a University of Illinois professor of mechanical sciences and engineering. "Our ability to control the temperature within a nanometer-scale spot enabled this study of molecular-scale transport. By tuning the hotspot temperature, we can probe how molecules flow to a surface."

"This thermal control over tip-to-surface transfer developed by Professor King's group adds versatility by enabling on-the-fly variations in feature size and patterning of both liquid and solid materials," DeYoreo adds.

###

Chung is the lead author and DeYoreo the corresponding author of a paper reporting this research in the journal Applied Physics Letters. The paper is titled "Temperature-dependence of ink transport during thermal dip-pen nanolithography." Co-authoring the paper with Chung, DeYoreo and King were Jonathan Felts and Debin Wang.

This work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by DOE's Office of Science and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Molecular Foundry is one of five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs), national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale, supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit http://science.energy.gov

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit the Office of Science website at http://science.energy.gov/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit www.lbl.gov


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/dbnl-blr_1110711.php

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Tracey Richter Trial: Jury Decides Whether 2001 Death Was Shooting Murder Or Self-Defense

FORT DODGE, Iowa -- A prosecutor told jurors Friday that a woman killed her 20-year-old neighbor during a staged home invasion as part of a plot to frame her ex-husband, but her defense lawyer said it was prosecutors who made up evidence to cover up a failed investigation.

Jurors heard wildly different versions of what happened Dec. 13, 2001, during closing arguments at the first-degree murder trial of Tracey Richter, who is charged in the shooting death of Dustin Wehde at her home in Early, a small town in northwest Iowa.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for more than three hours Friday in a case that could send Richter, 45, to prison for life after what prosecutors have described as two decades of fraudulent and sometimes dangerous behavior from Colorado to Chicago. When they meet again Monday, they'll have to decide which story is more believable: that she killed a man as part of an elaborate plot involving a phony home invasion or that she somehow warded off two intruders and shot one to protect her children.

Prosecutor Doug Hammerand said Richter "used and manipulated" Wehde, a troubled man who lived in his parents' basement and had been befriended by Richter's second husband. He told jurors Richter lured Wehde to her home, forced him to write in a pink spiral notebook that he'd been hired by her ex-husband to kill her and her 11-year-old son and then shot him nine times using two guns because she "could not take a chance that he would tell law enforcement that she put him up to it."

Hammerand said Richter planted the notebook in Wehde's car so police would find it and she'd get an advantage in an upcoming hearing where she risked losing physical custody of her son and $1,000 a month in child support payments.

Hammerand suggested Wehde took part in staging the home invasion while Richter's children were locked in one of the bedrooms, but "the problem is, Dustin didn't know what the final outcome was going to be." Richter fired the final shot in the back of Wehde's head after her son had called 911 and emergency responders were on the way because she wanted to be sure he did not live, Hammerand said.

Richter's defense claims Wehde and another man broke into Richter's home and choked her with pantyhose before she was able to break free, unlock her gun safe in the dark, grab two guns and shoot Wehde. Her son, Bert Pitman, now 21, gave vivid testimony about the alleged attack Thursday after his mother declined to take the witness stand.

But Hammerand urged jurors to reject what he called a "bizarre story." He said Richter's claim that Wehde was trying to get up when the ninth shot was fired wasn't possible since medical experts had testified that two earlier shots were instantly fatal.

Displaying a photo of three gunshot wounds to the back of Wehde's head as he closed his case, Hammerand said, "This is not someone trying to protect their family. This is intentionally killing someone, shooting him multiple times because you want him dead."

Defense attorney Scott Bandstra described Richter as a model stay-at-home mother who was making lamb for her husband, who was on his way home from a business trip, and watching her children when the break-in happened. He said prosecutors failed to prove Richter forced Wehde to write in the notebook and charged her after a sloppy investigation failed to find the alleged second intruder.

"They didn't want to find a second intruder," Bandstra said. "They were staging the evidence."

He urged jurors to send a message to the public that "people who protect themselves in their own house" are not guilty of murder.

Richter's and Wehde's relatives packed the courtroom in Fort Dodge, where the case was moved so Richter could get a fair trial. The audience included Early farmer Mary Higgins, who was once close friends with Richter but came forward this year with information that helped prosecutors charge her with murder.

Higgins testified that Richter told her months after the shooting that police found the pink notebook and it would prove her ex-husband was behind the attack. Police said they had not told anyone about the contents of the notebook because they believed anyone with that knowledge had committed a crime. Higgins testified Richter warned her in 2004 to forget what she was told about the notebook.

Bandstra tried to discredit Higgins by calling her "the government's best friend," pointing to Sac County Attorney Ben Smith. Higgins testified she made calls for Smith's election campaign last year at the request of her husband, who goes to Smith's church.

Jurors could find Richter guilty of first-degree or second-degree murder or acquit her. Richter, who moved to Omaha, Neb., after the shooting, has faced a long line of accusations of fraud and troubling behavior but never served time in prison.

She was convicted of unlawful discharge of a firearm after shooting a weapon during a domestic dispute with her first husband in 1992 in Colorado. Her second ex-husband, Michael Roberts, has accused her of trying to kill him at least twice, but authorities declined to file charges.

Richter has more recently been convicted of welfare fraud in Nebraska and vehicle-licensing perjury in Iowa and received probation in both cases.

SEE PHOTOS FROM THE CASE:

This Sept. 22, 2011 file photo shows Tracey Richter speaking with Karmen Anderson, one of her attorneys, during a motions hearing in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The Iowa mother is charged with first-degree murder for the death of a 20-year-old neighbor shot to death in the woman's bedroom more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Ryan Foley, File)

MORE SLIDESHOWS NEXT?> ??|?? <?PREV

Tracey Richter

This Sept. 22, 2011 file photo shows Tracey Richter speaking with Karmen Anderson, one of her attorneys, during a motions hearing in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The Iowa mother is charged with first-degree murder for the death of a 20-year-old neighbor shot to death in the woman's bedroom more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Ryan Foley, File)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/05/tracey-richter-trial_n_1077579.html

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SPIN METER: GOP flips on job creation for defense

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., left, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., right, and others, walk to the floor of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011, to deliver a defeat to Democrats and President Obama on the stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., left, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., right, and others, walk to the floor of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011, to deliver a defeat to Democrats and President Obama on the stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(AP) ? The same Republicans who insist that federal spending doesn't create jobs and should be cut in the face of staggering deficits are leading the charge against smaller military budgets because about a million defense jobs would be lost.

Pentagon accounts are coming down, and Republicans who repeatedly reject the idea that an infusion of federal dollars can produce new jobs now say the government should keep billions flowing to the makers of guns, tanks, aircraft and ships for the sake of sparing jobs in home districts and states. It's the newest of several arguments against reducing Pentagon budgets.

The contradiction undercuts the GOP's anti-government spending mantra that proved successful for the party in 2010 congressional races in which Republicans reclaimed the House ? a pitch sure to be repeated by candidates in 2012 contests.

Then and now, Republicans fill the campaign airwaves, news releases and stump speeches with the argument that Democratic spending ? and specifically President Barack Obama's $825 billion stimulus package in 2009 ? doesn't create jobs. Just this August, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said they were wrong, estimating that in the second quarter of this year alone, the spending package increased the number of people employed by between 1 million and 2.9 million.

Consider the latest argument from Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee as lawmakers stare down at least $450 billion in cuts from projected defense spending over the next 10 years.

Running for re-election, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said in February 2010 that the stimulus package did not create new jobs. In a statement about the economy and jobs now on his website, McKeon says "congressional Democrats and the administration continue to insist that we can spend our way out of this recession and create jobs, but the numbers just don't add up."

But at a hearing last week, McKeon, now the committee chairman, argued against cuts to the military, saying, "We don't spend money on defense to create jobs. But defense cuts are certainly a path to job loss, especially among our high-skilled workforces. There is no private sector alternative to compensate for the government's investment."

He later added, "While cuts to the military might reduce federal spending, they harm national security and they definitely don't lead to job growth."

Asked about the competing statements, a spokesman for McKeon, Claude Chafin, said they were "not inconsistent" because the defense industry is a unique recipient of federal dollars.

The Pentagon is facing reductions of nearly half a trillion dollars, stemming in large part from the limits set in the debt accord reached this summer between Obama and congressional Republicans. Republicans and Democrats, as well as the Pentagon, fear that the special bipartisan panel looking to slash the deficit won't be able to come up with a plan in three weeks to cut at least $1.2 trillion in spending over 10 years. If they can't, automatic, across-the-board cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in, with half coming from defense.

McKeon's remarks came at a hearing in which the GOP-led panel had invited three economists to testify about the potentially dire consequences of defense cuts.

One of the witnesses, Stephen S. Fuller, a professor at George Mason University, had conducted an analysis of defense cuts and the economic impact for the defense industry. He told the Armed Services Committee that an estimated 1 million jobs would be lost if defense spending cuts totaled $1 trillion. Hardest hit would be California, with 125,800 jobs lost, and Virginia, with 122,800. The two states have a significant number of aerospace and defense workers.

That prompted Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., to echo McKeon in warning about potential job losses if the federal spigot of defense dollars is turned down.

"We need to put those costs on the table when we're saying, OK, over here you're going to save all this. We need to let all these states and people know we're not saving it; we're just passing it on to you, because basically you're going to lose a lot of jobs in making this decision," Forbes said at the hearing.

It was Forbes who wrote on Oct. 24: "The government has tried its hand at job creation by pouring money on the problem, picking winners and losers in the industry, and imposing stifling regulations. It has not worked."

Questioned about his comments, Forbes said in an interview that federal spending does create jobs, but his argument ? and that of other Republicans ? is "the federal government never creates jobs as efficiently as the private sector creates jobs."

The Defense Department's budget has nearly doubled to $700 billion in the 10 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Those numbers do not include the trillion-plus dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, money that wasn't paid for with tax increases or offsetting spending cuts.

Robert Pollin, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who has compared job creation from military spending to other sectors, said dollars for defense certainly would create jobs.

"It's no surprise to say, with $700 billion ... you better be creating a lot of jobs," Pollin said.

The issue, however, is how many jobs.

A study that Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier conducted in 2009 found that spending $1 billion on health care, education or clean energy, or cutting taxes, created more jobs across all pay ranges than spending the equivalent amount on the military. Investment in education generated about 29,100 jobs from $1 billion in spending compared with 19,600 jobs from health care, 17,100 from clean energy and 11,600 from the military, according to the analysis.

"Channeling funds into clean energy, health care and education in an effective way will therefore create significantly greater opportunities for decent employment throughout the U.S. economy than spending the same amount of funds with the military," the two wrote.

Pollin said Thursday that an updated study is forthcoming ? and the conclusions are the same.

Said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.: "Defense spending is a poor way to create jobs. You can create more jobs investing in other areas."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-04-Government-Job%20Creator/id-1fcd595b379a45d4ad703b3e0bf5c271

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