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Spindrift: Lama and Ortner Open Alpine Testpiece
David Lama and Peter Ortner established a new route on the North face of Laserz on December 27, 2012, in the Lienzer Dolomites of Austria.
David Lama and Peter Ortner established a new route on the North face of Laserz on December 27, 2012, in the Lienzer Dolomites of Austria.Spindrift (VIII- M6 WI VI A1, 600 meters), takes a direct line through the center of the Laserz's icy North face, and involves mixed-climbing through a series of cracks and corners that provide decent ice axe placements but poor belays according to Lama's report on Planet Mountain.
Lama described the route to Planet Mountain as "outstanding, demanding, and gripping."
The Austrian duo had attempted the route last winter, but were turned back after the fourth pitch when they ran out of gear. On this attempt, the team brought two sets of camming devices, which allowed them to push to the summit. The technical difficulties of Spindrift exist mostly in the bottom half of the route, with the crux fourth pitch involving an overhanging five-meter crack. No bolts were placed on the ascent, and according to Planet Mountain, only a handful of pegs and two nuts remain fixed on the route.
"The experience was fantastic," concludes Lama in his report to Planet Mountain, "we were climbing pretty much at our limit."
The Austrian duo of Lama and Ortner make up one of the strongest teams in modern-day alpinism. Last year, they famously freed the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre, which will remain one of the greatest achievements in climbing history. This year, David Lama will return to Patagonia, but will be climbing with the Eiger speed record holder Dani Arnold.


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When it comes to feeding your family, how much should you really be spending? Shannon Clark, the mom who runs the budgeting program Affording Motherhood, created a chart with guidelines to help. Based on data from the United States Department of Agriculture's Cost of Food report, it presents an estimate of monthly grocery costs for "thrifty families" relative to their size.
Clark writes on her site that parents often "feel completely unequipped" to feed their families on "real-life budgets," and with her help, she wants them to take a closer look at how much they're spending to determine if they need to make a change.
The chart (which is a bit off from the updated 2017 guidelines — but not by much) was posted on Facebook by The Real Deal of Parenting, and it's causing mixed reactions. Take a look:
Some parents found the numbers accurate. "Family of 5 [is] pretty accurate but it also includes for us non-food items purchased in those trips. Thought I was spending a lot. Nice seeing we fall into the norm," one Facebook user commented. Another said that for her family of three, the estimate was "dead on."
One mom with a family of four, said that according to the list, they "spend less than a family of 1" and that she "couldn't imagine" spending the estimated $557 to $707.
Others pointed out that the price of food could be more expensive depending on health restrictions, which would affect the monthly budget. One parent wrote that "food for a growing preteen kid with allergies to gluten can get pretty pricey."
For a family of six with a variety of food allergies, a diabetic father with "liver issues" and two children with autism who "won't eat things that could be grown in a garden, the limitations ... are crazy."
As more people pointed out, prices could vary depending on where you live, as one mom wrote, "We live on an island with very limited choices on where to shop, and prices are a bit higher on some things." Another said that for families living in cities like San Francisco and NYC, the monthly grocery budget for a family of five could be up to $2,000, not the suggested $633 to $882.
All in all, there are many variables to factor in — not just family size — which includes age, income and dietary restrictions. But giving this a look, how does your budget compare?
[h/t Working Mother

subset: commoncrawl


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Strega Nona Entertaining: Conjuring Creative Fun
From recipes to rituals, I will kindly divine the perfect celebration for you!
An Imbolc Idea
This winter has been a harsh one thus far, to say the least. Rather than resist it, the best tactic for coping might in fact be facing it head on. Provided that February 2 does not fall into dangerous windchill temps in your neck of the woods, I recommend a meditation by skiing. Cross-country, that is. I will never forget the Saturday afternoon back in high school that I cross-country skied to my best friend's house across a barren cornfield. The weather conditions were ideal. The sun was out and making the snow on the ground glisten. It was warm enough that I could eventually unbutton my long overcoat. I was listening to Pink Floyd's, "Dark Side of the Moon," on my walkman. If that dates me, I don't care. The experience was paradisiacal.
Even if you don't own a pair of skis, there are usually inexpensive options for a daily rent at a supply shop. Or if you are a member of a nature center, such as the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee, you may check out a pair for free with your membership. Find your ideal deserted woodsy setting– preferably something straight out of a Robert Frost poem, and get skiing. If you opt for music, your really can't go wrong with the afore-mentioned Pink Floyd. Otherwise, choose something instrumental and soothing that you can clear your mind to. Karen Drucker also has some lovely selections off of her "Songs of the Spirit" CD that could help focus your meditation to the Goddess. Besides clearing your mind and enlivening your soul, your body will get a great workout. If opting for no music, tune into the sounds of wildlife creatures, the swish swish of your skis gliding along at a steady pace, and the occasional soft plump of falling or melting snow. Breathe in deep and let the fresh, clean air open up your lungs. Let the gratitude of being healthy, outside, and able to still enjoy these things fill your heart.
If for some reason you are unable to go on the actual date, look into an upcoming candlelight ski or hike at your local state park. Many of these options are available to you, especially at this time of year. When you return from your meditative exercise, relax in front of a cozy fire or at least under a comfy blankie with a big steaming mug of hot cocoa. Spice it with a pinch of cayenne and cinnamon, float the old-fashioned marshmallows, top with a decadent dollop of whipped topping, or spike it with a shot of rum. Just be sure to make it extra chocolately and creamy by adding milk or a milk alternative. Close your eyes and meditate on your experience. Imagine the light of the sun growing longer and warming us all in the days to come.
Photo: "Snowy Forest," by Evgeni Dinev from freedigitalphotos.net
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New for the 2013 football season, the Jaguars Foundation presents the Jaguars 50/50 Raffle for Charity. Each game, fans can purchase raffle tickets, with a chance to be the big winner. Half of the net proceeds will go to one winner. The other half will benefit the Jaguars Foundation and a co-recipient charity, with each game benefiting a different charity.
As part of the Jaguars Breast Cancer Awareness Game Day initiatives on Sunday, October 20th, Baptist Health's Hill Breast Center will be the beneficiary of the Jaguars Foundation's 50/50 Raffle for Charity. Jaguars fans will have the opportunity at the game to buy raffle tickets to support this cause. These dollars will aid 'crucial catch' women who have had abnormal results from their screening mammograms and need follow-up diagnostic tests at the Hill Breast Center.
Jaguars President Mark Lamping expressed, "The Jaguars are pleased to extend our partnership with Baptist Health in combating a disease that has taken far too many of our mothers, sisters, daughters and friends. Together, our combined resources will help take us one step closer to our goal of eradicating breast cancer in our lifetime." Baptist Health is the official health partner of the Jaguars and sponsor of the October 20th game.
During the game, volunteers will sell raffle tickets to fans. There will be four permanent kiosks; located on the main concourse by the Bud Zone and near the ramps at Gates 2,3, and 4; as well as mobile sellers who will be in the pregame tailgate areas and in the stadium during the game through the end of the third quarter. The winning raffle ticket number will be announced during the fourth quarter of the game. Winners do not need to be present to win. Rules and regulations for the Jaguars 50/50 Raffle can be found at www.jaguars.com/foundation-community/foundation/50-50raffle.com.
The 50/50 Raffle co-recipients for the two preseason games were First Coast No More Homeless Pets and Family Promise. The J.T. Townsend Foundation and Second Harvest of North Florida were the beneficiaries for the first two home games. Over $50,000 has been raised to-date.


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2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the first experiment to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. In 1960, astronomer Frank Drake used a radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia to listen to two nearby stars. He heard nothing interesting, but the idea of searching for life beyond Earth was born.
Fifty years of searching for signals and occasional broadcasting of messages has not detected any transmissions that require intelligent alien authors. Either intelligent life is much more rare or short-lived than we expected or we are not looking in the right places with the right tools.
Life in the Universe takes a fresh look at this fifty-year-old question, looking forward from the big bang, in search of those special places that might harbor life, including all of the planets in our solar system. It's a beautiful scenic tour of our universe through the eyes of astronomers looking for clues about the origin of life and the development of intelligence.
The vistas are breathtaking from stellar birth clouds like the Orion and Trifid Nebulas to the death throes of Eta Carinae and the mysterious surfaces of nearby planets, their moons and rings. Join the search and enjoy the adventure.
Life in the Universe is partially funded though a NASA public outreach grant directed by Dr. George Fox, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston.


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Movie review: 'The Fifth Estate'
Any protagonist in any movie has got to have at least some little something that draws you to him. I mean, c'mon, even Hannibal Lecter exuded some charm when he wasn't ripping the faces off of people.
But that's not the case with Julian Assange, the founder of the "anti-secrecy" Website WikiLeaks. As played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Assange comes across as someone who's passionate about his calling in life but is also a practitioner of questionable ethics, a man without even a hint of social graces and, to put it bluntly, is a jerk. Seriously, do you really want to spend any time with this guy?
The film begins with WikiLeaks' massive 2010 leak of secret files and military records concerning U.S. activities in Afghanistan, then shoots back to 2007 when the organization was just a one-man operation in Europe.
But it was soon to have one more person working with Assange, a German computer expert named Daniel Berg (Daniel Bruhl), who fell under Assange's spell. If Assange was the leader, Berg was the willing follower. If Assange was the idea man, Berg did all of the grunt work. If Berg was just a regular fellow, Assange was a mystery man living in his own bubble.
The whole thing of WikiLeaks was to expose corruption in the world, including human rights violations, by offering anonymity to whistleblowers who would send information to the organization. That's how wrongdoings in a Swiss bank and death squads in Kenya were made public.
One of the film's problems is how director Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters," the last two "Twilight" films) shows the way things work. The WikiLeaks system is explained via some dazzling visuals that are more distracting than useful. A similar situation occurs later when Condon throws in a couple of surreal fantasy scenes about certain characters' inner thoughts. But they're so jarring, they pull you out of the film.
Yet for some viewers, these problems will be the spice that might keep them interested in watching. The movie is repetitive and draggy, constantly presenting Assange's quiet rants concerning true commitment to causes and the sacrifice that goes along with it, or keeping up the folly of telling others about the "hundreds of volunteers" in the organization, when there are only two, or the ever-building rift between Assange and Berg when, for example, Berg suggests to his boss that they are journalists, which means they have to verify their sources.
But Assange, never willing to veer from his mission, which includes protecting those sources, doesn't care about being professional. No matter what he's putting up on that website, he's convinced that it's "information the world needs to know."
While WikiLeaks involves only two people, the film is filled with lots of folks on different sides of different issues. David Thewlis plays Nick Davies, a reporter at the British daily the Guardian, and is an early supporter of getting Assange's information in print, as long as names are redacted in order to keep the people safe. The U.S. State Department (Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci, wasted in brief roles) gets involved when Assange starts to make a name for himself in Europe.
When the stakes reach new heights, as they do with the release of that Afghanistan information, some interesting turns take place with Assange growing paranoid over the idea that he's being watched by both the CIA and the KGB. "They're looking for us; they've got people everywhere!" he says in one of his very few excitable moments. But in the end, the film fizzles without ever catching fire. Even in the supposedly revelatory coda, Assange remains a total mystery, except for one thing: No one likes him.
Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.
Written by Josh Singer; directed by Bill Condon
With Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Bruhl, David Thewlis
Rated R


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When a user's password in Oracle has expired, is the only way for that user to be able to get in and change their password is by using sqlplus??
I ask this because, what I see happen is this:
When a user tries to login after his password has expired (using sqlplus), sqlplus immediately prompts for a new password. So I can see that oracle initiates a request from the user. Sqlplus seems to handle this nicely - prompts the user and waits for a response. But how can I handle this outside of sqlplus. I see that not even sqlplus worksheet handles this type of request from the database.
My users don't have sqlplus and we've setup a simple web form that allows them to change their password. This works only if their password has not expired. The web form simply asks the user to enter their username, connect_string, old password, new password (and retype new password), and when the "submit" button is pressed, all the web form does is pass the following sql:
connect username/password@connect_string
alter user username identified by new_password replace old_password;
Very simple (as you can see).
But this, again, does not work when the password is expired because Oracle immediately requests for a new password.
Has anyone addressed this? How?


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Kineme Demo
Shout Box
VJs TV presents Mapping Festival 2012
We would like to present you a short film of this year Mapping Festival in Geneva. It is also an opportunity for us to launch our new website vjstv.com with over 1000 great videos of VJs and Videos Artists with also VJ Channel channel.vjstv.com streaming videos online. If you wish to submit a project check out vjstv.com/submit and fill in the form, we will gladly take a look.
Filming, Editing, Animation by
Guillaume J. Lauzier
Music by
Rory Phillips - Chamber Music (Original Mix)
Here's a live performance using Kineme 3D and Quartz Composer
Hi! Love your channel please check out my film noir vimeo.com/41495155
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Channels are a simple, beautiful way to showcase and watch videos. Browse more Channels.


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Closing Date 2018.07.31
Information source Sunday Observer News Paper 15.07.2018
Vacancies for Assistant Managers, Assistant General Manager at National Livestock Development Board
Government job information, Vacancies at Government Ministries, Vacancies at Government Departments, Vacancies at Government Boards, Vacancies at Government Universities, Vacancies at Government Banks and all government related Jobs. Find Latest Government job information, Gazettes related to Government jobs. Latest government job information, Government Jobs related to Ministries Department Boards Universities Banks and all government related Jobs job information job cancellation notices, Job information notifications, Government job based examination information, Government Job Vacancies 2018.


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Home construction up, building permits fall
Construction of new homes rose more than expected in April but new building permits fell sharply, signaling the industry's rebound could be short-lived.
The results show builders ramped up to meet demand from buyers seeking to take advantage of federal tax incentives, but are now scaling back their plans.
Building permits, a gauge of future activity, sank 11.5 percent to an annual rate of 606,000, the lowest since October 2009, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Analysts were expecting a slight dip to a rate of 680,000.
Home sales have rebounded this year. They were helped by low mortgage rates and two government tax credits — $8,000 for new buyers and $6,500 for current owners who buy and move into another property. To receive the tax credit, borrowers had to have a signed offer by April 30 and must close the deal by the end of June.
"There is little doubt the housing numbers have been boosted," by the tax credit, wrote Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist with Miller Tabak + Co.
Without the tax credits, many experts anticipate home sales will slow in the second half of this year. In addition, high unemployment and tight standards for mortgage lending continue to keep many buyers on the sidelines.
Construction of new homes and apartments rose 5.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 672,000. The increase was from an upwardly revised March level of 635,000.
The result was the highest since October 2008 and was driven by a 10 percent increase in the single-family market. Housing construction is now up more than 40 percent from the bottom in April 2009 but down 70 percent from the peak in January 2006.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected construction to rise more modestly to a rate of 650,000.
Nevertheless, a survey Monday showed home builders are feeling more optimistic. The National Association of Home Builders said its housing market index, which tracks industry confidence, rose three points this month to 22, the highest reading since August 2007. Readings below 50 indicate negative sentiment about the market.
Sales of new homes rose 27 percent in March, the biggest monthly increase in 47 years. Still, new home sales are down 70 percent from their peak in July 2005.


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Forest Pest
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
Romans 8:22
"The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate."
Isaiah 24:5,6
Plagues, Pestilences and Diseases
Ravenous Foreign Pests Destroying National Forests*
California has been battling sudden oak death, a pathogen that is destroying oak trees in California and Oregon since the 1990s. California has spent millions trying to stop it, because the trees are a state treasure.
by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 09, 2010
Foreign pests are eating their way through our national forests, destroying majestic scenery and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. If enforcement efforts to prevent their importation aren't stepped up, irreplaceable resources will be lost forever and taxpayers can expect to fork over billions of dollars by 2019, according to a comprehensive study published in BioScience.
Researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Michigan State University, the University of Central Florida and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service analyzed the impact of invasive insects and pathogens introduced into the United States through 2007.
What they found was a staggering list of more than 455 insects and 16 pathogens that are destroying everything from oak trees in California to redbay trees in Central Florida. Based on the pattern, the researchers predict one especially destructive pest will sneak into the nation every two years.
"Entire forests are being wiped out, and it is costing taxpayers millions as the government tries to eradicate invaders that threaten industries dependent on trees and plants," said Besty Von Holle, a UCF biologist who worked on the project. "We're losing a variety of native species as a result of importing these pests. It's not just aesthetics. It's impacting our economy."
These pests and diseases sneak into the country on everything from horticultural (or plant) imports to the wooden pallets used to transport building supplies, electronic goods and toilet paper, among other products.
"Global trade has had tremendous benefits for Americans," said lead author Juliann Aukema from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara. "Unfortunately, it also has resulted in the introduction of destructive insects and other organisms that threaten native ecosystems and the services they provide."
No section of the country is immune.
Laurel wilt disease is one of the latest organisms to be spread by a foreign beetle in the southeastern United States. It is wiping out redbay trees in Georgia and last month was discovered in Seminole County, Fla. Redbay trees are important to wildlife, and certain butterflies depend on them for survival.
California has been battling sudden oak death, a pathogen that is destroying oak trees in California and Oregon since the 1990s. California has spent millions trying to stop it, because the trees are a state treasure.
The Asian longhorned beetle, which came into the United States hidden in wooden packing pallets, has ravaged all sorts of trees in New York City and Chicago. So far, those communities have spent $220 million fighting the infestation.
Another beetle, the emerald ash borer, has been destroying trees in the Midwest since 2002. It is estimated municipalities will spend more than $10 billion for landscape and tree treatments and removals in the next 10 years battling the ash borer.
"Once here, these invasive species are virtually impossible to stop," Von Holle said.
Recommendations include better screening before letting items into the country. The department within the USDA that is in charge of screening at airports and ports is now part of Homeland Security.
"These screening agents have too much to do, and right now the focus is on finding bombs and weapons," Von Holle said. "That's absolutely right, but we also need to be more aggressive about biological threats that could undermine large parts of the U.S. economy and harm our environment."


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Depending on the number of days remaining before departure, the price of airfare for Chiang Mai could change by more than 99%.
Jetradar suggest buying flights to Chiang Mai in advance in order to choose the conditions for your flight based on your preferences and financial resources.


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NEW YORK, N.Y. — NBC says Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, will compete against retired boxing champion Laila Ali, singer Nick Lachey and other celebrities in an upcoming competition show called Stars Earn Stripes.
NBC announced Tuesday that retired Army Gen. and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark will co-host the series with television personality Samantha Harris.
The eight competitors will convene at a remote training facility to tackle difficult missions inspired by real military exercises. Each competitor will be paired with a trainer who has been a member of the armed forces or a law enforcement agency.
Each team will play for a military or veterans charity. A team will be eliminated weekly.
Stars Earn Stripes premieres Aug. 13.


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so again, what do you do with 30 pounds of pears..two days before the labor day holiday..when you have friends scheduled to visit each day of the weekend..and you have already planned all the menus? if you are like me, you begin adjusting fast..because a gift like this is too amazing to go to waste.
now..did you notice that earlier i described the fruit as small, round and yellow/orange? not the usual description for pears.. these are asian pears which are a bit crisper than their european counterparts..kind of a cross between a pear and an apple...and they are perfect for many types of recipes. i love them in salads..and alternated between two versions during the weekend..i do not really follow recipes for salads..just use the amount you like of each ingredient..but the basics are as follows:
fresh pear with romaine & parmesan
romaine lettuce
diced fresh pear
walnut pieces
thinly sliced red onion
shaved parmesan cheese
toss together all ingredients with vinaigrette...
1/2 c lemon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup champagne or sparkling wine vinegar
sea salt
freshly cracked pepper
combine all vinaigrette ingredients in a mason jar and shake well. lightly coat salad with dressing..leftover vinaigrette may be kept in the refrigerator..use within a few days for best taste.
another version is to substitute the walnuts for pine nuts and the parmesan for blue cheese. i use a balsamic vinegar vinaigrette on this one..same proportions..just use regular e.v.o.o. and balsamic vinegar...
i spent the weekend experimenting with pear recipes..poached them in wine, grilled them and served with fruit balsamic vinegars, made a pear tart..pear compote..pear cobbler..you name it. for inspiration i asked my twitter pals for their favorite recipes. now, if you are not familiar with twitter, i describe it as an on-line social network..where you answer the question "what are you doing?" in 140 characters. fellow twitterers sign up to "follow" you..and you sign up to follow people that interest you. one day soon i will write a post about twitter..i find it very interesting..and incredibly educational... the folks i follow are primarily foodies..chefs, food bloggers, home cooks, and people involved in green, eco-friendly lifestyles. they are an extremely knowledgeable bunch of people..and very, very generous with their help, tips and advice. suggestions for my pears came pouring in..i have so many recipes to try i can write another pear story..pear vinegar, pear brandy, roasted pears, pear appetizers..you name it... my absolute favorite came from @davina. she lives in italy and has sent me a number of delicious sounding recipes. her pear idea is for raviolis filled with sheep ricotta, grated parmesan, a bit of brie and tiny cubes of peeled pears... the raviolis are served topped with dots of butter and a parmesan cheese sauce...how great does that sound?? i plan to make this dish soon and promise to post the actual recipe once i figure it out..she just sent me the ingredients. for those of you on twitter, i invite you to follow me. ..and check out the people i follow..they are terrific..
so back to my richard story..we were talking about the pears and he suggested i add some pear items to my list of gourmet food items i will soon be making and selling on my website. i told him that only produce grown at the farmhouse could be used...so, what did he do? the next day, i came home to find a pear tree on my front porch..he actually bought me a pear tree! who does that? i told you..my world after corporate life is more interesting then i could ever have imagined...
now..after planting a pear tree this weekend (!!)..and experimenting with countless pear recipes..i realized that it is fruit week at the food fests for everyday food and away to garden..how timely is that? i decided to post the recipe that garnered the most raves this weekend.... i love combining pears with chocolate..so i created a recipe for spiced pear cupcakes with a chocolate glaze...this is the kind of recipe that..based on the quantity eaten..you know is a hit... friends and family ate multiple cupcakes..and asked for more to take home...yes..i baked a lot this weekend..but it was so worth it..give the cupcakes a try..and please let me know what you think...and don't forget to check out the everyday food and away to garden blogs this week for tons of terrific fruit recipes..
fresh pear cupcakes with chocolate glaze
4 cups fresh pears (cored and roughly chopped)
1 cup walnuts (chopped)
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups unbleached flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
chocolate glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp melted butter
3-4 tbsp boiling water
1/8 tsp instant coffee crystals
combine pear, white and brown sugar and walnuts in a medium sized bowl. let stand about an hour. (do not skip this step..this adds to the incredible moistness of these cupcakes).
preheat oven to 350 degrees. spray cupcake pan with cooking spray..add paper cupcake liners and spray again.
meanwhile, in a separate bowl, sift together the remaining dry ingredients. add to the pear mixture and stir until just combined. add the eggs, oil, and vanilla and stir until combined. **note, i use a wooden spoon..not a mixer for the recipe..if you use a mixer, be careful not to over beat***
fill cupcake sections until even with the top. bake 30-35 minutes until tester inserted in center of cupcakes comes out clean. remove from pan and cool on rack. whisk together all chocolate glaze ingredients in small bowl until glaze is smooth and shiny. place a dollop of chocolate glaze on the top of each cupcake.
so..one last time..what do you do with 30 pounds of pears..and more on their way? happily..i love the process of figuring out the answer to the question..but i could use your help..please add your favorite pear recipes to the comments section of this post...i will keep adding additional recipes too...so check back often..
napa farmhouse 1885™
"live a green life of style"™


text: I love the design of this MP3 player! It seems a bit big if you compare it with the popular devices, but when placed next to a book (as below) it is not too bad. Anyhow, you cannot really go wrong for $23. A nice present for a book lover, I would think.


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The Law-School Scam
For-profit law schools are a capitalist dream of privatized profits and socialized losses. But for their debt-saddled, no-job-prospect graduates, they can be a nightmare.
David Frakt isn't easily intimidated by public-speaking assignments. A lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve and a defense attorney, Frakt is best known for securing the 2009 release of the teenage Guantánamo detainee Mohammad Jawad. He did so by helping to convince a military tribunal that the only evidence that Jawad had purportedly thrown a hand grenade at a passing American convoy in 2002 had been extracted by torture.
By comparison, Frakt's presentation in April to the Florida Coastal School of Law's faculty and staff seemed to pose a far less daunting challenge. A law professor for several years, Frakt was a finalist for the school's deanship, and the highlight of his two-day visit was this hour-long talk, in which he discussed his ideas for fixing what he saw as the major problems facing the school: sharply declining enrollment, drastically reduced admissions standards, and low morale among employees.
But midway through Frakt's statistics-filled PowerPoint presentation, he was interrupted when Dennis Stone, the school's president, entered the room. (Stone had been alerted to Frakt's comments by e-mails and texts from faculty members in the room.) Stone told Frakt to stop "insulting" the faculty, and asked him to leave. Startled, Frakt requested that anyone in the room who felt insulted raise his or her hand. When no one did, he attempted to resume his presentation. But Stone told him that if he didn't leave the premises immediately, security would be called. Frakt packed up his belongings and left.
What had happened? Florida Coastal is a for-profit law school, and in his presentation to its faculty, Frakt had catalogued disturbing trends in the world of for-profit legal education. This world is one in which schools accredited by the American Bar Association admit large numbers of severely underqualified students; these students in turn take out hundreds of millions of dollars in loans annually, much of which they will never be able to repay. Eventually, federal taxpayers will be stuck with the tab, even as the schools themselves continue to reap enormous profits.
There are only a small number of for-profit law schools nationwide. But a close look at them reveals that the perverse financial incentives under which they operate are merely extreme versions of those that afflict contemporary American higher education in general. And these broader systemic dysfunctions have potentially devastating consequences for a vast number of young people—and for higher education as a whole.
These investments were made around the same time that a set of changes in federal loan programs for financing graduate and professional education made for-profit law schools tempting opportunities. Perhaps the most important such change was an extension, in 2006, of the Federal Direct PLUS Loan program, which allowed any graduate student admitted to an accredited program to borrow the full cost of attendance—tuition plus living expenses, less any other aid—directly from the federal government. The most striking feature of the Direct PLUS Loan program is that it limits neither the amount that a school can charge for attendance nor the amount that can be borrowed in federal loans. Moreover, there is little oversight on the part of the lender—in effect, federal taxpayers—regarding whether the students taking out these loans have any reasonable prospect of ever paying them back.
This is, for a private-equity firm, a remarkably attractive arrangement: the investors get their money up front, in the form of the tuition paid for by student loans. Meanwhile, any subsequent default on those loans is somebody else's problem—in this case, the federal government's. The arrangement bears a notable resemblance to the subprime-mortgage-lending industry of a decade ago, with private equity playing the role of the investment banks, underqualified law students serving as the equivalent of overleveraged home buyers, and the American Bar Association standing in for the feckless ratings agencies. But there is a crucial difference. When the subprime market collapsed, legislation dedicating hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to bailing out the banks had to be passed. In this case, no such action will be necessary: the private investors have, as it were, been bailed out before the fact by our federal educational-loan system. This situation, from the perspective of Sterling Partners and other investors in higher education, comes remarkably close to the capitalist dream of privatizing profits while socializing losses.
From the perspective of graduates who can't pay back their loans, however, this dream is very much a nightmare. Indeed, it's easy to make the case that these students wind up in far worse shape than defaulting homeowners do, thanks to two other differences between subprime mortgages and educational loans. First, educational debt, unlike mortgages, can almost never be discharged in bankruptcy, and will continue to follow borrowers throughout their adult lives. And second, mortgages are collateralized by an asset—that is, a house—that usually retains significant value. By contrast, anecdotal evidence suggests that many law degrees that do not lead to legal careers have a negative value, because most employers outside the legal profession don't like to hire failed lawyers.
How much debt do graduates of the three InfiLaw schools incur? The numbers are startling. According to data from the schools themselves, more than 90 percent of the 1,191 students who graduated from InfiLaw schools in 2013 carried educational debt, with a median amount, by my calculation, of approximately $204,000, when accounting for interest accrued within six months of graduation—meaning that a single year's graduating class from these three schools was likely carrying about a quarter of a billion dollars of high-interest, non-dischargeable, taxpayer-backed debt.
And what sort of employment outcomes are these staggering debt totals producing? According to mandatory reports that the schools filed with the ABA, of those 1,191 InfiLaw graduates, 270—nearly one-quarter—were unemployed in February of this year, nine months after graduation. And even this figure is, as a practical matter, an understatement: approximately one in eight of their putatively employed graduates were in temporary jobs created by the schools and usually funded by tuition from current students. InfiLaw is not alone in this practice: many law schools design the brief tenure of such "jobs" to coincide precisely with the ABA's nine-month employment-status reporting deadline. In essence, the schools are requiring current students to fund temporary jobs for new graduates in order to produce deceptive employment rates that will entice potential future students to enroll. (InfiLaw argues that these jobs have "proven to be an effective springboard for unemployed graduates to gain experience and secure long-term employment.")
As for those InfiLaw graduates who actually have full-time, long-term legal jobs—approximately 36 percent of the 2013 graduating classes—how many of them have a salary large enough to justify having taken on more than $200,000 in educational debt? Financial advisers often caution students not to take on more educational debt than the anticipated annual salary of their first post-graduation job, and they almost universally agree that taking on debt levels that are more than double one's anticipated salary is a very bad idea. Although the InfiLaw schools make very little of the salary data they collect public, they do publish statistics regarding what types of jobs their graduates obtain, so it is possible to come up with some rough estimates.
In recent years, legal jobs for new law-school graduates have fallen into a markedly bimodal salary distribution. Most such jobs pay between $40,000 and $65,000, with the exception of associate positions at the largest law firms, which generally pay about $160,000. (The high-five-figure-salary jobs that many prospective law students imagine they will settle for if they aren't hired by a big firm basically do not exist.)
One can estimate how many of a school's graduates got jobs with six-figure salaries—that is to say, jobs that make the accrual of a six-figure educational debt a reasonable investment—by adding together the number who were hired on a full-time, long-term basis by firms of more than 100 attorneys and the number who obtained federal judicial clerkships, which are often precursors to such jobs. At Columbia Law School—an exceptional school by any measure—this number amounted to 78 percent of the 2013 graduates, according to the school's report to the ABA. Nationally, the figure for graduates of ABA-accredited schools is about 16 percent, but at low-ranked law schools that figure is sometimes radically lower.
Among students who graduated from InfiLaw schools in 2013, for instance, the percentage who obtained federal clerkships or jobs with large law firms was slightly below 1 percent—0.92 percent, to be exact. In other words, the odds of a graduate of one of these schools getting a job that arguably justifies incurring the schools' typical debt level are essentially 100 to 1.
InfiLaw does not disclose its finances, but law schools have traditionally been highly profitable enterprises. The reasons are straightforward: law schools are, or at least ought to be, relatively cheap to operate. The traditional lecture method of teaching allows for a high student ratio, and there is no need for expensive lab equipment or, at free-standing law schools like InfiLaw's, other costly features of university life, such as sports teams, recreational centers, esoteric subjects pursued by an uneconomical handful of students, and so forth. Indeed, until relatively recently, many universities treated their law schools as cash cows whose surplus revenues helped subsidize the institutions' other operations.
Thus, Sterling Partners seems to have calculated a decade ago that all it needed to make its new law-school venture profitable was large numbers of prospective law students eligible for federal student loans. What the firm must have seen at the time was, from the perspective of a profit-maximizing enterprise, a very large untapped market. Only slightly more than half of the almost 101,000 people who applied to ABA-accredited law schools in 2004 were admitted to even one of these schools. With unlimited federal educational loans available to cover the full cost of attendance at any accredited school, this meant billions of dollars of taxpayer-supplied law-school tuition revenue were being left on the table.
Over the next few years, the InfiLaw schools did their best to obtain as much of that revenue as possible. Florida Coastal, which had existed for eight years prior to its purchase by InfiLaw, nearly doubled in size, growing from 904 students in 2004 to 1,741 in 2010. Phoenix—now Arizona Summit—grew at a still faster rate, increasing from 336 students in 2008 to 1,092 just four years later. Charlotte likewise expanded, from 481 students in 2009 to 1,151 in 2011. Despite across-the-board declines for the past few years, all three schools remain among the largest law schools in the country.
The InfiLaw schools achieved this massive growth by taking large numbers of students that almost no other ABA-accredited law school would consider admitting. InfiLaw was—and remains—up-front about this. Its self-described mission is to "establish the benchmark of inclusive excellence in professional education," by providing access to a traditionally underserved population consisting "in large part of persons from historically disadvantaged groups." Yet this means accepting many students who, given their low LSAT scores, are unlikely to ever have successful legal careers. In 2010, for example, two of the three InfiLaw schools admitted entering classes with a median LSAT score of 149, while the third had an entering class with a median score of 150. Only 10 of the other 196 schools fully accredited by the ABA had an entering class with a median LSAT score below 150. (By 2013, some 30 additional institutions had joined these schools.) An LSAT score of 151 is approximately the average among everyone who takes the test. A score of 149 puts test-takers in the 41st percentile. And it is worth noting that a large number of those who take the LSAT do not end up enrolling in law school. (InfiLaw says it does not rely as heavily on the LSAT as other schools do, because "it is not the best determinant of success as a lawyer and clearly has racial bias." The company says it has instead developed a tool that is "demonstrably superior to the LSAT." Called the AAMPLE program, it involves applicants' passing two classes prior to admission.)
The InfiLaw schools' rapid expansion was greatly aided by the fact that, until two years ago, the vast majority of law schools published essentially no meaningful employment information. Schools reported "employment rates" that included everything from a six-figure post at a large firm to a part-time job at Starbucks. They revealed little or nothing about what percentage of their graduates were working as lawyers, let alone what salaries they were earning.
This began to change when, inside and outside legal academia, the law-school reform movement began to demand that schools disclose accurate employment information, as stories of desperate law-school graduates, saddled with enormous debt and no way to pay it off, filled the national media. Dozens of Web sites dedicated themselves to exposing what came to be called "the law-school scam." (In August 2011, I started a blog to bring attention to these efforts; within 19 months, it received more than 40,000 comments, many from unemployed and underemployed recent graduates.)
In 2011, Senators Barbara Boxer and Chuck Grassley each sent polite but pointed letters to the ABA implying that the Senate was watching. Before long, the traditionally torpid organization's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar began energetically backing a proposal to publish meaningful school-specific employment data. Meanwhile, many individual schools began posting such data on their Web sites unilaterally, in anticipation of the ABA's new requirements.
Not surprisingly, the sudden availability of something resembling actual employment information contributed to a collapse in the number of law-school applicants, from nearly 88,000 in 2010 to approximately 55,000 this year. And that collapse led to, among many other things, David Frakt's aborted presentation to the Florida Coastal faculty this April.
The drop-off in applications hit the InfiLaw schools hard. In total, the three schools received 12,754 applications in 2010; three years later that total had fallen by 37 percent, to 8,066. At Florida Coastal the decline was particularly severe, with applications falling by more than half. In his presentation to the faculty, Frakt made clear that the school's administration—by which he meant the management of InfiLaw, and ultimately that of Sterling Partners—had reacted by drastically cutting the school's already very low admissions standards.
Florida Coastal's 2013 entering class had a median LSAT score of 144, which was in the 23rd percentile of all test-takers. Fully a quarter of the class had a score of 141 or lower, which meant that they scored among the bottom 15 percent of test-takers. (The entering classes of Charlotte and Arizona Summit had identical median and bottom-quarter LSAT scores, suggesting that these numbers were chosen somewhere high up on the corporate ladder.)
Frakt pointed out to the faculty that the LSAT scores of entering students correlate fairly strongly with the probability that those students will eventually pass a state bar examination, which is of course a prerequisite for actually becoming a lawyer. He noted that according to statistics from the Law School Admission Council—the organization that administers the LSAT—scores higher than those in the 60th percentile correlate with a low risk of failing to eventually pass a bar exam. Scores ranking from the 60th to the 40th percentile, by contrast, correlate with a moderate but rapidly increasing risk of failure. Scores below the 40th percentile correlate with a high risk of failure, and scores below the 25th percentile correlate with an extreme risk of failure, to the point where it is quite unlikely that someone with an LSAT score below 145 will ever pass a bar exam.
In the class Florida Coastal had just admitted, then, more than half the students were unlikely to ever pass the bar. But Frakt emphasized that the actual situation the school's eventual 2017 graduates would face was likely to be even worse than this. In each of the past two years, about 20 percent of Florida Coastal's first-year class transferred to other law schools. These students essentially made up the top fifth of their classes in terms of law-school grades. This is significant because high law-school grades have an even stronger correlation with passing the bar than high LSAT scores do. In other words, if only half an entering class had a decent chance of eventually passing the bar, and nearly half of those students wound up transferring elsewhere …
Lawyers may be notoriously bad at math, but this equation was simple enough. The ABA requires schools to maintain certain bar-passage rates, or they risk losing their accreditation. Indeed, the ABA's standards state that "a law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of … being admitted to the bar." By admitting so many students who, upon graduation, seemed unlikely ever to pass the bar, Frakt pointed out, Florida Coastal was running a serious risk of being put on probation and eventually de-accredited, which would put the school in a financial death spiral. (A loss of accreditation would make it impossible for students to receive federal loans and, crucially, would prevent students from taking the bar exam in many states.)
It was at about this point in Frakt's presentation that Dennis Stone, the school's president, entered the room and told Frakt that if he didn't leave immediately, security would be called. (When The Atlantic reached out to InfiLaw for comment, the company said that Frakt's presentation was "based upon clearly erroneous information about the school's accreditation status and key data points," and that Stone decided "to end the presentation rather than put up with further insults to the faculty and school from a candidate who had no chance to obtain the position.")
But the salience of Frakt's analysis is hard to deny, and his conclusions appear to apply equally well to the other InfiLaw schools, which are also admitting hundreds of students that no law school would have admitted until very recently. For the reasons Frakt noted, moving to a de facto open admissions standard is the law-school equivalent of eating the seed corn, since even the generally feckless ABA will not tolerate the sort of bar-passage rates that the InfiLaw schools seem likely to produce.
So why has InfiLaw—or, more accurately, Sterling Partners—gone down this route? A Florida Coastal faculty member who is familiar with the business strategies of private-equity firms told me that, in his view, the entire InfiLaw venture was quite possibly based on a very-short-term investment perspective: the idea was to make as much money as the company could as fast as possible, and then dump the whole operation onto someone else when managing it became less profitable. (As of this writing, InfiLaw is attempting to acquire the Charleston School of Law, which could be read as evidence either of its commitment to stay the course long term or of a hedge against the possibility that one or more of its current schools might lose accreditation.) For its part, Sterling Partners notes that it has been an investor in InfiLaw for more than 10 years, and that this can "hardly be described as short-term compared to industry standard." The firm says that it takes a long-term view of its investments in higher education because "producing quality outcomes for students takes time," and it notes that InfiLaw funds are reinvested in the schools rather than being used to subsidize a university.
Whatever InfiLaw's intentions, one advantage of this sort of investment is that it features very few long-term capital costs. A law-school building can easily be converted into something else, and the only other significant operating cost—the school's labor force—can be eliminated overnight. Indeed, last summer, in the face of declining enrollment, Florida Coastal essentially fired 20 percent of its faculty in one stroke, according to a faculty member familiar with the terms of the arrangement. The school offered the faculty members a buyout package and implied, according to sources, that if they declined it, the school would declare a financial exigency, allowing it to fire them without any compensation. When I asked, around the time of the buyouts, about what had taken place, InfiLaw's former general counsel, Chidi Ogene—who had just been named Florida Coastal's interim dean—explained to me that "some of our faculty members have indicated their interest in resigning, retiring, or continuing in a different role with the school." Around the same time, I was told by a different faculty member that the school is negotiating to buy out the contracts of another 10 percent or so of the remaining faculty. (InfiLaw declined to comment, based on confidentiality agreements, but it denied any coercion.)
It is important to note that while InfiLaw's abuse of the student-loan system may be egregious, it is far from unique. Ultimately, this story is about not only for-profit law schools, or law schools, or even for-profit higher education. It is about the problematic financial structure of higher education in America today. It would be comforting to think that the crisis is confined to for-profit schools—and indeed this idea is floated regularly by defenders of higher education's status quo. But it would be more accurate to say that for-profit schools, with their unabashed pursuit of money at the expense of their students' long-term futures, merely throw this crisis into particularly sharp relief. To see why, consider the regulatory and political mechanisms that have allowed InfiLaw to make such handsome profits while producing disastrous results for so many of its "customers."
Students at the InfiLaw schools are able to receive federal loans and take the bar exam after they graduate because the schools have been accredited by the ABA. But why would this organization accredit such brazenly profit-driven ventures, which seem to have so little regard for whether the level of debt students incur has any rational relationship to their future job prospects?
The answer is that the accrediting committee purports to certify only the educational quality of the experience provided by these institutions, not whether they are rational investments from the perspective of their students. And the reason for this level of circumspection is evident if we consider the identity of those behind the accreditation process. The ABA's accreditation arm was historically dominated by law-school deans and faculty. For tax purposes, almost all law schools are nonprofits. But apart from their tax status, many low-ranking ones are almost indistinguishable from for-profit schools such as Florida Coastal, Arizona Summit, and Charlotte.
What, after all, is the difference between the InfiLaw schools and Michigan's Thomas M. Cooley, or Boston's New England Law, or Chicago's John Marshall, or San Diego's Thomas Jefferson? All of these law schools feature student bodies with poor academic qualifications and terrible job prospects relative to their average debt. In recent years, as law-school applications have collapsed, all of these schools have, just like the InfiLaw schools, cut their already low admissions standards. And, like Florida Coastal, Arizona Summit, and Charlotte, all of these schools now have a very high percentage of students who, given their LSAT scores, are unlikely to ever pass the bar. Ultimately, what difference does it make that none of these schools produce profit in the technical (and taxable) sense, because they are organized as nonprofits?
The only real difference between for-profit and nonprofit schools is that while for-profits are run for the benefit of their owners, nonprofits are run for the benefit of the most-powerful stakeholders within those institutions.
Consider the case of New England Law, a school of modest academic reputation that for many years produced a reasonable number of local practitioners at a non-exorbitant price. Like many similar schools, New England Law has spent years jacking up tuition and fees by leaps and bounds—after nearly doubling its price tag between 2004 and 2014, the school now costs about $44,000 a year—and graduating invariably large classes, even as the demand for legal services, and especially the legal services of graduates of low-ranked law schools, has contracted radically.
A glance at New England Law's tax forms suggests who may have benefited most from this trajectory: John F. O'Brien, the school's dean for the past 26 years, whom the school paid more than $873,000 in its 2012 fiscal year, the most recent yet disclosed. This is among the largest salaries of any law-school dean in the country. (By comparison, the dean at the University of Michigan Law School, a perennial top-10 institution, was reported to make less than half as much, $420,000, in 2013.) Meanwhile, the school's graduates are burdened with crushing debt loads and job prospects only marginally less terrible than those of InfiLaw graduates. Approximately 41 percent of the students in New England Law's 2013 graduating class had jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation, and nearly 20 percent were unemployed. (Patrick Collins, a spokesman for New England Law, said in an e-mail that, while the school does not publicly discuss its employees' salary amounts, O'Brien "has voluntarily reduced his salary by more than 25 percent." Collins also noted that, among last year's employment statistics for the eight law schools in Massachusetts, New England Law's ranked "in the middle" in terms of graduates who were "employed in full-time, long-term, JD-required positions within nine months of graduation.")
O'Brien's résumé reveals that he has served recently as the chair of both the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which oversees the ABA's accreditation standards, and of the Section's Accreditation Committee. In short, a better example of what economists and political scientists refer to as "regulatory capture"—the takeover of administrative oversight mechanisms by the very interests those mechanisms are supposed to be regulating—would be hard to find.
To be fair, O'Brien is far from the only recent example of a dean who has played a prominent role in debates about law-school regulation and reform while at the same time pulling down a gargantuan salary as the head of a law school with catastrophic employment outcomes for its graduates. For instance, Richard A. Matasar, a former dean of New York Law School, was, until his resignation in 2011, quoted regularly in the national press about the need to reform the structure of legal education, even as he collected more than half a million dollars a year from a school with employment statistics nearly as poor as those of New England Law and the InfiLaw schools.
None of this is to claim that greed and other selfish motivations are the only—or even the principal—drivers of the problematic trends in American higher education. Across the ideological spectrum, it is almost universally assumed that more and better education will function as a panacea for un- and underemployment, slow economic growth, and increasingly radical wealth disparities. Hence the broad support among liberal, moderate, and conservative politicians alike for the goal of constantly increasing the percentage of the American population that goes to college. Behind that support seems to lurk an inchoate faith—one that is absurd when articulated clearly, which is why it almost never is—that higher education will eventually make everyone middle-class.
That faith helps explain many economic features of American higher education, such as the extraordinarily inefficient structure of federal loan programs, the non-dischargeable status of student debt, and the way in which rising college costs that have far outstripped inflation for decades are treated as a law of nature rather than a product of political choices.
This past April, the Congressional Budget Office projected that Americans will incur nearly $1.3 trillion in student debt over the next 11 years. That figure is in addition to the more than $1 trillion of such debt that remains outstanding today. This is the inevitable consequence of an interwoven set of largely unchallenged assumptions: the idea that a college degree—and increasingly, thanks to rampant credential inflation, a graduate degree—should serve as a kind of minimum entrance requirement into the shrinking American middle class; the widespread belief that educational debt is always "good" debt; the related belief that the higher earnings of degreed workers are wholly caused by higher education, as opposed to being significantly correlated with it; the presumption that unlimited federal loan money should finance these beliefs; and the quiet acceptance of the reckless spending within the academy that all this money has entailed. These assumptions enabled InfiLaw's lucrative foray into the world of for-profit education. But they have just as surely shaped the behavior of nonprofit colleges and universities.
The result is a system that has produced an entire generation of overcredentialed, underemployed, and deeply indebted young people. Just as the law-school reform movement has exposed the extent to which law schools have overpromised and underperformed, similar reform movements are calling into question the American faith in higher education in general, and all its extravagant promises regarding the supposed relationship between more (and more expensive) education and increased social mobility.
Two aphorisms from economists sum up how the story of InfiLaw, despite its idiosyncrasies, illustrates in a particularly sharp way why American higher education cannot continue down the path it has been on for more than half a century—a path of endlessly increasing costs, enabled by an unlimited supply of federal student loans. The first is Herbert Stein's insight: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." The second is Michael Hudson's observation: "Debts that can't be paid, won't be."
The applicability of these almost Zen-like adages to the structure of higher education in America helps explain why the Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen predicted in 2013 that as many as half of the nation's universities may go bankrupt in the next 15 years. And it also helps explain why Florida Coastal kicked a dean candidate off campus in the middle of his presentation to the faculty. The alternative was to let him discuss frankly the ways in which the school, like so many of America's institutions of higher education, is based on a fundamentally unsustainable social and economic model.


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RUF Large Group Worship
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
7:30 pm -
Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) is a place for the convinced and the unconvinced, the churched and un-churched, the burned, the bored, the run-down, or the refreshed. It is a place to bring your doubts and your questions to understand more about Christianity and what the radical love of Jesus is all about. No matter who you are or what you believe you are welcome to join us as we gather to love God, to love people, and to love the University of Houston. RUF is also the official Christian campus ministry of the Presbyterian Church of America. Since its founding in 1971 RUF is now present on over 150 college campuses across the country, reaching students for Christ, and equipping them to serve Him.
- Location
- A.D. Bruce Religion Center, University Chapel
- Cost
- Free
- Contact
Location: AD Bruce, Main Office Suite 113
Phone: 615-405-0040


text:
Stock Futures Rise as Congress Starts Work on Debt Measures
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures rose on expectations President Obama and lawmakers will agree on an interim plan to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.
The Senate resumes its work today after breaking for Christmas. Obama returned to Washington yesterday after taking vacation in Hawaii with his family.
After the stock market closed Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) that the federal government will reach its $16.394 trillion statutory debt limit on Dec. 31.
Geithner said the Treasury is planning "extraordinary measures" to postpone defaulting on $200 billion in bond payments and create some "headroom" for Washington beyond New Year's Day.
The president now has four days before a deadline that would trigger tax increases and spending cuts. Economists say going off the fiscal cliff could lead to a recession, as growth is sluggish and business owners are cautious about hiring.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 18 points to 13,066. Futures for the S&P 500 were up 2.9 points to 1,416.40. Futures for the Nasdaq were up 6.5 points to 2,635.
The economic calendar in the U.S. Thursday includes jobless claims, new-home sales and consumer confidence.
Gold for February delivery was down $2.60 at $1,657 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, while February crude oil contracts were down 4 cents to $90.94 a barrel.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury was trading at 1.77%. The U.S. dollar index was at 79.43.
-- Written by Parris Kellermann
>To submit a news tip, send an email to: firstname.lastname@example.com.


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ATLANTA – Fewer U.S. teenagers are smoking cigarettes, fighting or having sex, but texting while driving is prevalent among high school students, according to a survey released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.
In 2013, 15.7 percent of teenagers reported smoking cigarettes, the lowest rate recorded since the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey began in 1991, the CDC said.
But more than 40 percent of students who had driven a car in the previous 30 days said they sent text messages or emails while driving, putting themselves and others on roadways at risk, health officials said.
Last year's survey was the first to collect such data on texting and emailing while driving.
Health officials said they were encouraged by the drop in teen smoking but worried that the growing popularity of electronic cigarettes could offset gains made by anti-smoking campaigns.
"We're particularly concerned about e-cigarettes re-glamorizing smoking traditional cigarettes and maybe making it more complicated to enforce smoke-free laws that protect all non-smokers," said CDC Director Tom Frieden.
In the 1991 survey, 27.5 percent of high school students said they smoked cigarettes. The rate increased to 36.4 percent in 1997 before beginning a steady decline, the CDC said. In 2011, 18.1 percent of teenagers reported smoking.
The rate of students using smokeless tobacco increased from 7.7 percent in 2011 to 8.8 percent in 2013, the CDC said.
In response to the survey, anti-smoking advocates urged federal regulators to ban the marketing of all tobacco products to children.
"These survey results are a powerful reminder that the fight against tobacco is an entirely winnable battle, but the job is still far from done," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The CDC survey showed the percentage of students who reported ever having sexual intercourse dropped slightly from 47.4 percent in 2011 to 46.8 percent in 2013.
Fighting also declined, the survey showed. In 2013, 24.7 percent of students reported having been in a physical fight at least once during the prior 12 months, down from 32.8 percent in 2011.


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February 1st, 2012
Is Obama losing the Catholic vote?
By Eric Marrapodi and Brianna Keilar, CNN
(CNN)–After years of bridge building with the Catholic Church, the Obama administration may have damaged some of the good will it built up with the nation's 70 million Catholics, which could have steep consequences at the polls in November.
Some rank and file Catholics are beginning to express the same frustrations as clergy about a new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policy requiring all employers, including religious ones, to pay for FDA-approved contraceptives, such as the birth control pill and Plan B, through health insurance plans. Churches are exempt but hospitals and schools with religious affiliations must comply. The new policy goes into effect August 1, 2012, but religious groups who oppose contraception have been given a yearlong extension to enforce the policy.
"What's offensive is that we're being told, our Catholic institutions which serve this nation well, are being told you who find these things offensive, you should pay for them, in fact you must pay for them," Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, told CNN.
Catholic teaching opposes the use of contraceptives. Wuerl acknowledged the clergy and the faithful have been at odds over the teachings on contraceptive use. But on this policy he said both are in lockstep over what is being perceived as a violation of religious liberties.
"This time around what people are seeing this isn't a question of one moral teaching or another, it's being able to teach at all. Our freedom, and everyone has a stake in freedom in this country, and I think that's why this resonates across the board," he said.
CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories
Wuerl is calling his congregants to action, asking them to call congress and the White House to express their displeasure.
"We're beginning to say to our people this is what the issue is, it's wrong, we've never experienced this in the history of our country before, this is a violation of the basic rights of conscience and religious liberty. So you need to know that and you need to speak up," he said.
The timing of the administration's announcement has drawn criticism for being tone deaf, coming just three days before tens of thousands of protesters, many of them Catholics who oppose abortion rights, came to Washington for the annual March for Life on the anniversary of Roe vs Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.
"In my estimation it's a huge misstep politically," said Stephen Schneck a political scientist from Catholic University who has consulted with the administration on Catholic issues. In 2009, Schneck also worked with pro-abortion rights Democrats in Congress on the president's signature health care reform measure to find language that ensured government funds did not pay for abortions.
"The way in which the narrative is being developed is that the administration is at odds with the Catholic Church fundamentally. What I'm seeing in the pews is something of a waking up, a Catholic solidarity. That I think could very well carry over into their political activities" Schneck said. "There's nothing like having a sense of opposition to you to rally the troops and I suspect that's going to happen here."
Schneck pointed particularly to states with large Catholic populations where this new solidarity could have a far-reaching political impact.
"If you look at where those Catholics are, they're in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida, which are of course critical states for anyone who wants to become president of the United States," he said.
In 2008, President Obama won 54% of the Catholic vote, according to the Pew Research Center. Early on in his presidency, Obama reached out to Catholics. He appointed prominent Catholics to several cabinet positions and ambassadorships.
In May 2009, the president delivered the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, where he spoke of working together on abortion.
"Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women. Those are things we can do," the president said to rousing applause from the crowd in South Bend, Indiana.
In shaping the new Health and Human Services policy, the administration reached out to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the public policy arm of the church in the United States, and other Catholic leaders in November to seek their input in the process. Many of the same Catholic leaders received a heads up on January 20 several hours before the administration announced the policy.
"This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in the statement about the policy.
On Tuesday in the White House briefing room, Press Secretary Jay Carney again defended the administration's decision when pressed by reporters.
"After very careful consideration the administration believes that this strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concern," Carney said.
The administration is extremely concerned this will affect Catholic voters' support.
As the opposition grew this week, the administration noted to reporters there were Catholics in and out of government who support the measure, as well as interfaith groups.
Late Wednesday night the White House launched the first part of an information campaign to spell out what the policy change does and does not do.
An administration official also pointed to nearly $2 billion in federal grants that have gone to Catholic-related charities since the beginning of the administration as a sign of the willingness to work together.
James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, which hasn't taken a position on the HHS policy, said there could be a silver lining for both Catholics and the administration on this issue. He said with more women able to access contraceptives there could be a reduction in abortions stemming from unplanned pregnancies as a result of the policy.
"More needs to be done on both sides. It's not just a question for the administration, it's a question for the pro-life community and the pro-choice community to put aside their heated rhetoric and find common ground," Salt said.
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About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.


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Concerns continue to mount as the plane carrying head of the family business, Vittorio Missoni, along with his wife Maurizia Castiglioni, is still missing since its departure from the Los Roques islands on Friday. According to ABC, the Venezuelan government is increasing its search forces, which includes the National Civil Aviation Institute, the Coast Guard, and the Navy.
"All [of] the organizations involved will not diminish the intensity of the search and also will not discard any hypothesis that could lead us [to] the location of the plane," said Venezuela's air transportation ministry in a statement late Sunday, as reported by CNN.
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The additions will amplify the large amount of manpower already active, which according to WWD, includes over 385 people, a small plane, and two helicopters.
As the search heightens, rumors as to what happened are circulating. One theory is that there was a kidnapping, which has been providing the Missoni family with some hope. "It's better to be kidnapped than at the bottom of the sea," Angela Missoni, Vittorio's sister, told reporters on Monday via The Daily Beast. "We hope all four are alive and well. We also hope that the searches go in all directions."
The site also reports that the son of Guido Foresti, who was on the plane with Vittorio, received a mysterious text message in Italian which read, "Call now, we are reachable." Unfortunately, the Italian telephone company Telecom Italia Mobile could only confirm that message was sent, and not its time.
Business Insider offers an alternative circumstance theorized by a pilot who witnessed the plane take off. "I saw them right in front of me as they were swallowed up by a huge cumulus cloud," said pilot Enrique Rada in an interview with La Stampa, according to Business Insider. "It was a lightning bolt. It must have been a lightning bolt."
Through it all, the Missoni family has stayed optimistic and used Twitter as a vehicle for spreading the word in hopes of obtaining valuable information in return. The hashtag #FindVittorioMissoni has populated the Twitter sphere thanks in large part to Vittorio's niece Margherita Missoni.
The Missoni head's eldest son Ottavio Missoni Jr., tweeted an Instagram photo with a special message which stated, "Anyone in Venezuela with any information is invited to contact the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by calling the Crisis Unit or emailing the Ministry firstname.lastname@example.com. Please help us bring Vittorio, Maurizia and their friends home safely. #findvittoriomissoni."
We wish the rescue teams and the Missoni family the best of luck during this stressful time, and we'll continue to update this story as more news emerges.


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(CNN) -- Young, athletic and troubled -- NFL player Chris Henry might have been a football cliché.
After being arrested four times, suspended by the league three times and released once by the Cincinnati Bengals, the wide receiver appeared to be on a personal and professional comeback.
But all that ended in December 2009. Henry died after falling from the bed of a moving pickup during a fight with his fiancée. His death was considered a tragic and bizarre end to a life plagued by behavioral problems.
This week, findings from Henry's brain examination reverberated through the sports world, raising questions about head injuries and safety in high-contact sports.
Doctors found evidence of brain damage, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, that has been observed in retired players who've had many concussions. Unlike those older players, Henry was 26 when he died.
CTE is also known as dementia pugilistica, because career boxers who've suffered repeated blows to the head have been known to develop the syndrome. Sudden stops and collisions can cause the brain to slosh inside the skull.
Its effects are mainly neurobehavioral. These symptoms include poor decision-making, behavioral problems, failure at personal and business relationships, use of drugs and alcohol, depression and suicide.
"The effect on the brain appears to be damages to the emotional circuitry of the brain," said Dr. Julian Bailes, chairman of neurosurgery at West Virginia University.
"We think Chris exhibited some of the characteristics of the neurobehavioral syndrome of CTE," he said at a news conference Monday. "We don't know if there is a cause and effect."
The neurologists at the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University did not draw any association between Henry's actions and the disease.
"His case highlights the fact there is documented damage in someone young and actively playing," said Bailes, a former doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Bengals coach: Henry 'beacon of hope' before death
The syndrome is believed to be caused by large accumulations of tau proteins in the brain that kill cells in the regions responsible for mood, emotion and executive functioning. Tau proteins are also found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
The findings regarding Henry's brain raised unsettling questions: Could CTE contribute to misbehavior of football players? If Henry, a seemingly healthy athlete in his mid-20s, had signs of CTE, could other young athletes have this syndrome, too?
Dr. Jon Weingart, professor of neurological surgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, said extrapolating from one case, like Henry's, would be a "big leap."
"That would be misleading," he said. "There's not enough data. ... To think that this is something brewing in many players -- there's no data to support that statement."
Weingart said the relationship between multiple traumas and head hits and CTE is not a proven cause and effect. At this point, it's a correlation.
Sports Illustrated: Concussions and football: Is the game too dangerous for our kids?
In 2009, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine reported that an 18-year-old multisport athlete who suffered multiple concussions also had CTE, a finding that a neuropathologist described as "shocking."
MRIs and CAT scans are unable to detect CTE. Detecting the syndrome requires brain samples, which cannot be given until a person is dead.
The samples are colored with special microscopic stains. In Henry's brain, doctors found a tau protein accumulation, inflammatory changes and white matter changes that were significantly abnormal.
The fibers in the brain had brown discoloration and showed significant damage.
In previous findings of former NFL players, the brown tangles flecked throughout the brain tissue resembled what might be found in the brain of an 80-year-old with dementia.
Dead athletes' brains show damage from concussions
Henry could've had a genetic predisposition for the type of brain injury, because a majority of the brains with CTE contained the gene called the apolipoprotein E3 allele.
"We may be seeing a genetic trend that Chris is in the 70 percent of those diagnosed with CTE, who have a special genetic sign," said Bailes, the West Virginia University neurosurgery chairman. "Perhaps that may be a clue as to who's at risk for this to develop."
Genetic factors could make some people less able to tolerate subtle trauma to their brains. For example, some high school athletes get a concussion and struggle afterward, while others who experience the same degree of head bump recover without a hitch.
"There's some variability of how someone is able to handle and recover from trauma to the brain," Weingart said.
Henry's case has "sparked a lot of social debate and reflection and was scientifically valuable," Bailes said.
"We want to continue to study. We don't have all the answers. We're also looking, as soon as we can, to find treatment and prevention," he said.
NFL medical heads and Goodell convene on brain injuries
The NFL has recently pledged to step up its efforts on head injuries and named new co-chairs and members to its medical committee. The league has also changed guidelines prohibiting a player suffering a concussion to practice or play.


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Patients & Families
For Health Professionals
Many people who have asthma have some kind of allergy, too. With allergy-triggered asthma, a person's asthma symptoms (like coughing and trouble breathing) occur when the person comes in contact with an allergen. But not all asthma is caused by allergies, and not all allergies cause symptoms of asthma.


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By Silvia Ognibene
FLORENCE Italy (Reuters) - The Italian court that found American student Amanda Knox guilty of murder in January, said on Tuesday she had killed her British flatmate because of a domestic argument, rather than during a sex game, and that she herself had wielded the knife.
Knox spent four years in an Italian jail after a court found that she and her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, had murdered 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher in 2007.
That conviction was overturned on appeal and Knox returned to the United States in 2011, but both were found guilty again at a retrial of the appeal.
Knox and Sollecito both proclaim their innocence. They are appealing again, and Knox has said she will not return willingly to Italy to serve the rest of her more than 28-year sentence.
A third person, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, who was tried separately, is serving a 16-year sentence for his part in Kercher's murder at the university town of Perugia.
In its lengthy explanation of the January verdict, the Florence court said the theory that was initially used to convict the pair - that they had killed Kercher in a sex game gone wrong - was not plausible.
It was not "credible that the four young people began a group sex activity that Meredith Kercher later suddenly no longer wanted to pursue further," the court said in the "motivations" to its ruling, a document commonly issued by an Italian court many weeks after its verdict.
"This hypothesis is not compatible with the personality of the English girl," it said.
Instead, the murder occurred because Kercher and Knox did not have a good relationship and had an argument about flatmate issues on an evening when Knox and Sollecito had taken drugs, which then escalated, it said.
Knox, Sollecito and Guede attacked Kercher together and pushed her into her bedroom, the court said. Guede assaulted her to "satisfy his sexual instinct" while Sollecito and Knox participated "in a desire to abuse and humiliate the English girl."
The three then killed Kercher so that she could not report the sexual assault, the court said.
A knife discovered in Sollecito's house "was one of the two weapons used in the murder, and was the one that was held by Amanda Marie Knox, who wounded Meredith Kercher on the left part of her neck, causing the only fatal wound," it said.
Knox in a statement maintained her innocence and took issue with the findings of the court in its document outlining what it holds to be the motivations in the crime.
"The recent motivation document does not ? and cannot ? change the fact that the forensic evidence still does not support my participation and the circumstantial evidence still remains unreliable and contrary to the conclusion of guilt,"
Knox said.
Knox and Sollecito - who is free on bail but is not allowed to leave Italy - are fighting their convictions in a final appeal process expected to conclude in 2015.
"I remain hopeful that the Italian courts will once again recognise my innocence," Knox said.
(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Writing by Naomi O?Leary; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


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Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskait, invited by Chinese President Xi Jingping, will arrive on Friday afternoon in China's major cities and seventh largest cities.
The president hopes that this visit will open new opportunities for Lithuanian businessmen to get to the giant Chinese market.
Anchois's scheduled meeting is chairman of Lithuania and China. Heads of state in the billionaire Chinese market discuss bi-directional rice, new export opportunities for our products. China-EU cooperation, climate change and global trade, as well as the efforts of the international community, receive messages to ensure peace and stability in the world.
Mrs. Grybauskai is also attending the first international Chinese import exhibition and will hold Xi Jinping for a dinner party. It is planned that 16 foreign government and government leaders will attend the exhibition at opening events.
The President of Lithuania opens one of the three major trade fair and exhibitions and speaks speculatively about the financial technique at the Fintech enlargement event.
The exhibition presents its products in 130 countries and more than 2800 languages.
China's first international import of China launches a new stage for the world's largest exporter, China is now taking concrete steps to open its market to other countries. This is a new opportunity to export Lithuanian products and expand Lithuanian business, which is discussed in the Presidential report.
At the exhibition, the president visits the national Lithuanian pavilions and meets with his business. In this exhibition, there will be two pavilions in Lithuania, where 18 products will be presented: A pavilion will be destined for food products. Chinese consumers are given the opportunity to get acquainted with the Lithuanians with bread, milk, pastries and other foods. The second pavilion introduces Lithuanian textiles, garments, textiles and interior design products.
Lithuanian manufacturers are already very successful in competing in the Chinese market. In addition, Lithuanian laminated producers account for 12% of total exported aluminum to China. Three laser manufacturers have established their own representation in this area, completing the report.
The two-way trade between Lithuania and China amounted to billions of euros last year, Lithuania has grown rapidly, while our exports exported only 50% last year.
Economy Minister Giedrius Surplys visits China this week saying that this huge business is interested in importing Lithuanian products to the free market of beekeepers, broilers and animals for the Lithuanians and the Chinese prefer organic and higher added Lithuanian products.
The chairman's report suggests that Ancho's exhibition, which includes the president, opens up new opportunities for the Lithuanian Fintech sector as well. Mrs Grybauskait will speak on a separate financial technology development event, which will hold 50 contacts with Lithuania and the EU concerned with the EU.
During the Fintech event, the agreement between the National Bank of Lithuania and the Bank of China is about cooperation in banking supervision and the promotion of innovation in the financial sector.
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Take Away Lena Dunham's Spoiled, Vicious Dog Before It Attacks Again
Lena Dunham, the Brooklyn-based film director and television star, posted this picture to her Instagram last night. It apparently shows a bleeding wound on her rear end, caused by a bite from her dog, Lamby. Dunham seems to believe this is cute ("#therewillbeblood" she hashtagged it).
Bloody bite wounds are not cute. Lena Dunham is unfit to own a dog, and Lamby should be taken away from her immediately.
It's no secret that Dunham has trouble maintaining boundaries in her human-dog relationships. We last heard from Lamby when a tipster reported seeing Dunham ordering a portion of salmon and a side salad at a restaurant and feeding the meal to her dog.
That, by itself, is just bad manners. (It was an outdoor section.) But if you are going to take your dog around to spaces meant for humans, and have it engage in human-style activities, the dog must be able to follow certain human norms of behavior. Humans do not bite other humans. A human that bites other humans gets locked up.
A dog that bites humans is likewise a serious problem. This is not the first time Dunham has documented an attack by Lamby. In a tweet today, she wrote that the dog has bitten her twice. In a New Yorker essay about Lamby published last year, Dunham described how her boyfriend (whose dog allergies did not dissuade her from getting a dog) was the target of the dog's viciousness:
But the minute we arrive home it gets weird: Lamby picks up a stuffed toy in his mouth and shakes it hard, as if to break its neck. He's growling. My boyfriend reaches his hand out to calm him and Lamby lunges, biting him. Whether it's aggression or play is unclear, but we back out of the room all the same.
In the bathroom a little while later, we are brushing our teeth when Lamby saunters in, calm, like your college roommate the day after an acid trip, acting like everything is normal. My boyfriend tenses and, ever the Lady Macbeth, I encourage him to reëngage:
"Pick Lamby up! He'll be sweet now. I promise."
He picks the dog up awkwardly, so that his feet flail. I know this wouldn't feel good if it were me, but I keep quiet. Lamby tries, desperately, to bite at any part of my boyfriend's body he can reach, then hurls himself onto the tile floor. He bounces slightly, shocked, then curls his tail around one crooked leg and heads for the front door, where he barks loudly at no one.
By most traditional standards of human-dog relations, a dog that has bitten people three times would be put down. We live in a more tolerant age, in which it is considered possible to reform dogs.
Lamby is, as Dunham described in the New Yorker, a rescue dog, adopted from a shelter. But the thing about rescue dogs—sometimes overlooked in the vogue for them—is that they need rescuing. It is not enough to take an anxious, defensive dog home and tell it you love it, and then go about your business. A rescue dog needs intense attention and supervision.
Lena Dunham is clearly not willing to do that work. She does not care enough about Lamby to keep him from going around biting people. She does not regard the fact that her dog bites people as anything worth doing something about. She presents it as one more devil-may-care rough edge on her free and easy urbane life. The New Yorker presented it as such; her friends endorse that worldview:
A dog that bites its owner (and its owner's boyfriend) is a dog that will certainly bite an unfamiliar person. Such a dog has no business walking around a city full of noisy, bustling, unpredictable strangers. Lamby is not a particularly big dog, but the amount of force required to open a bleeding wound in Lena Dunham's backside is enough force to rip open a toddler's face.
Until someone puts in the effort to get Lamby under control, Lamby needs to be kept away from people. He especially needs to be kept away from Lena Dunham.


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Established in 1735, Richard Ginori is one the oldest porcelain manufacturers in the world. Known as the Ferrari of tableware, the company has established itself as the gold standard in the world of luxury goods. Ginori porcelain has graced the museums and tables of many European fine homes and luxury hotels, including the Vatican. Known for quality, craftsmanship and Italian design, Richard Ginori was acquired in 2013 by the Gucci fashion house.
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