Dover mortuary whistleblowers shocked by problems (AP)

WYOMING, Del. ? Three whistleblowers whose complaints about the handling of soldiers' remains led to an investigation of the nation's largest military mortuary in Delaware say they were shocked and disturbed by some of the practices they witnessed.

The workers at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary also told The Associated Press on Friday that they went outside the chain of command after supervisors failed to address the problems and retaliated against them.

James Parsons, who was fired in September 2010, says he believes it was because he had reported an incident in which a supervisor told him and another mortuary worker to saw off an arm bone that protruded from the body of a Marine so the body could be placed in a uniform for viewing before burial.

"I never ever saw anything like that," said Parsons, an embalming technician. He refused to saw off the arm, leaving the task to a probationary worker. Parsons said the worker, perhaps fearing for his job, sawed off the limb.

"It wasn't our decision to make, as far as I'm concerned," added Parsons, saying consent should have been sought first from the Marine's family.

Parsons said he was reinstated almost immediately after being fired and assured there would be no further retaliation after he contacted a lawyer for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative agency within the federal government.

"I believe that it was for retaliation and to impede the investigation," he said of his firing.

Mortuary workers Mary Ellen Spera and William Zwicharowski said they, too, faced retaliation from superiors for questioning practices and reporting problems at the mortuary, including two incidents in which portions of human remains went missing.

Spera and Zwicharowski both received letters of reprimand for what supervisors deemed to be failures on their part. Zwicharowski, who has experience in dealing with mass casualties, also was suspended for five days for showing up at the mortuary after being told his help was not needed in dealing with victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shootings. He later was placed on eight months administrative leave, for reasons he still does not know.

All three whistleblowers said the problems have since been fixed, and that the families of fallen troops can be assured that the remains of their loved ones are being treated with dignity, honor and respect.

"Please trust us when we tell you that your loved ones are taken care of at Dover," Zwicharowski said. "... Your loved ones can't speak for themselves when they come through here, but we are going to speak for them, and we're going to represent them."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that harsh criticism of the Air Force's investigation of lost body parts at Dover prompted him to order the Air Force to consider imposing stronger punishment on those responsible.

The Air Force has said it took disciplinary action ? but did not fire ? three senior officials at the mortuary. Col. Robert H. Edmondson, commander of Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations at Dover at the time, received a letter of reprimand. Trevor Dean, Edmondson's top civilian deputy, and Quinton "Randy" Keel, director of the mortuary division at Dover, were reassigned to jobs dealing with families of the fallen and are no longer involved in mortuary operations.

Spera said she has yet to see the results of an internal investigation Edmondson ordered after she reported in April 2009 that a body part she went to collect for cremation was missing.

"I was devastated, I couldn't believe it," said Spera, who said she turned the mortuary upside down looking for the missing body part.

"I spent hours rebagging everything and checking everything and couldn't find it," she recalled. "It's the first time anything like that ever happened."

Zwicharowski said that after the second incident in which a portion of remains went missing in July 2009, he wrote to Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and John McCain of Arizona, as well as Vice President Joe Biden's office, alerting them to problems at the mortuary.

"I wasn't happy," said Zwicharowski, who said he never heard back from Biden or McCain but credits Carper's office with helping initiate the inspector general's investigation.

"In-house, it was falling on deaf ears," said Zwicharowski, who said at one point he had been labeled "mentally unstable" after a run-in with Keel.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_re_us/us_mishandled_remains

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Pakistani leader vows operations against Haqqanis (AP)

ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's president promised to work with the United States to "eradicate" the militant Haqqani network, a pledge made during a meeting with visiting American congressmen, according to one of the lawmakers.

But the head of the Homeland Security delegation, Michael McCaul, downplayed the significance of the remarks, saying it was unclear whether President Asif Ali Zardari had the power to make good on his pledge, given the influence of the military in Pakistan.

According to McCaul, Zardari also appeared to brush off threats that U.S. aid spending to Pakistan could be significantly cut if Islamabad did not do more to squeeze insurgents like the Haqqanis, who are based in northwest Pakistan but attack U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

"I think he thinks it's a given that we are going to continue the aid, but I tried to tell him that it's in jeopardy," McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas, said of Zardari. "He said, 'I appreciate your assistance, but it's trade more than aid that I need.'"

McCaul and the visiting lawmakers met with Zardari in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Tuesday, and revealed details of his conversation later the same day.

Relations between the United States and Pakistan have plummeted over the last year following the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor and the American unilateral raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May. Persistent allegations that Pakistani security forces are aiding or tolerating Afghan insurgents have led many U.S. lawmakers to call for cuts in the billions of dollars in aid given to Pakistan.

The Haqqani network is an al-Qaida linked militant group with roots in eastern Afghanistan that has long been based in the Pakistani border region of North Waziristan. U.S. and NATO officials say it is currently the most deadly foe in Afghanistan.

The problem is especially acute because Washington is committed to withdrawing most of its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Seeing the country fall back into the hands of the Taliban or descend into bloody civil war would be a crushing failure for Washington.

The U.S. has been applying steady pressure on Pakistan to tackle the Haqqanis, but with little effect.

"The president, on the record, said 'I am going to work with you to eradicate them,'" McCaul said. He further quoted Zardari as saying: "I know these people very well, they are snakes and I'm going to go after all of them."

McCaul said he welcomed the president's statement, but "the real question is how much does this president control the military" and the country's spy service.

Zardari heads a democratically elected civilian government, but the military, which has ruled Pakistan for much of its existence, does not follow his orders when it comes to Afghan policy and other defense issues. McCaul said the American delegation asked to meet the Pakistani army and spy chiefs, but this was not possible.

The Pakistani military views neighboring India ? and not Islamist militants at home ? as the country's biggest threat and sees Afghanistan through that lens. Consequently, Islamabad is widely believed to be reluctant to move against the Haqqanis because it sees them as potential allies against Indian influence in Afghanistan when America withdraws.

In talks late last month with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other American officials, Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani recognized the need to "squeeze the Haqqanis," a senior U.S. official said at the time, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Greater intelligence sharing, cutting financing networks and stopping fighters from crossing the border were discussed, he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111109/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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Congress sputters on deficit cuts, spending bills (AP)

WASHINGTON ? A sputtering Congress enveloped in an atmosphere poisoned with politics and distrust enters its final weeks of the year struggling to complete a lengthy to-do list on the budget.

The so-called deficit supercommittee is hung up over taxes, raising real doubts it will succeed in its assignment of cutting deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

The once all-powerful appropriators responsible for everything from funding the Pentagon to making sure the Agriculture Department has enough meat inspectors are struggling, too, victims of a tea party revolt and indifference among congressional leaders themselves.

Together, the appropriators and supercommittee are responsible for filling in the details of last summer's budget and debt ceiling agreement between President Barack Obama and Capitol Hill Republicans.

With little more than two weeks left for coming up with a plan to wring $1.2 trillion from the deficit, the supercommittee remains hung up over taxes.

Democrats proposed a 10-year, approximately $3 trillion deficit-cutting plan, which included $1.3 trillion in new tax revenues. Republicans countered with a $2.2 trillion plan without tax increases.

Without new revenues, Democrats are unwilling to cut Medicare or impose a new inflation measure to reduce annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries.

"We have said we are very open to painful concessions and compromises if Republicans are, as well," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the co-chairman of the supercommittee. "But these concessions will only be made and only considered in the context of a balanced deal that doesn't just fall on the middle class and most vulnerable Americans."

On Tuesday, GOP aides said Republican panel members were showing more flexibility on revenues, including an idea by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would place limits on the total amount of tax deductions and credits that individuals could claim, in exchange for lower income tax rates. But Democrats said Republicans aren't going far enough.

"We've made a little bit of progress but it's not enough in our judgment," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the deficit panel. "We have some distance to go."

Failure by the supercommittee to produce a plan would trigger automatic cuts a year from now to both domestic programs and the Pentagon's budget, a prospect that has defense hawks up in arms and already working on legislation to undo the "sequester" mechanism that would force the cuts.

A sequester would reduce the Pentagon's budget by another half-trillion dollars over the next decade. That would be in addition to a $450 billion cut as part of the summer deal between Obama and congressional Republicans.

"The results of a sequester will be a hollow military," Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a letter.

Panetta himself has warned of "devastating" consequences if Pentagon spending is cut by the automatic sequester.

The appropriators, meanwhile, are supposed to be working on a parallel track to complete the 12 annual spending bills for funding the day-to-day activities of federal agencies this year.

A month into the 2012 budget year, not one of them has been completed. The House has passed its versions of six of the bills, the Senate has approved its versions of four. Those versions have to be merged and passed again before the president can sign or reject them.

A stopgap funding measure runs out on Nov. 18.

At a brief House-Senate negotiating meeting last week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., promised a speedy resolution that could get three of the 12 bills to the White House for Obama's signature before Thanksgiving. The three-bill measure will also be packaged with another stopgap funding bill funding the government into December, Rogers said.

But getting the remaining spending bills completed by year's end might not happen.

"I wouldn't be that optimistic," said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., a veteran appropriator.

At the insistence of House Speaker John Boehner, a longtime opponent of so-called earmarks, the bills are free of such pet projects, which in the past have run the gamut from new roads and bridges, grants to local police departments and historic preservation projects.

Earmarks have been criticized for creating a "pay-to-play" culture in which lobbyists and earmark recipients funnel campaign cash to lawmakers. But they also have helped build support behind appropriations bills, even from devout conservatives. Now, rank-and-file lawmakers may be less invested in the bills.

The 12 bills add up to $1.043 trillion, the spending cap agreed to over the summer. More than 50 tea party lawmakers still back an agency spending cap that's $24 billion less than that amount. The Senate measures also contain $9.5 billion for disaster aid ? as permitted by the budget pact ? that would come on top of the cap.

"We said we were going to spend less money and we're really not spending much less," Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said, referring to the $1.019 trillion budget plan passed by House Republicans in April.

"The frustration that folks back home (feel) is they don't feel we've fought enough for what we believe in," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., a tea party favorite. "What I hear is that we gave up too easily on (Budget Committee Chairman Paul) Ryan's budget. We gave up too easily on the debt ceiling, and we're getting ready to give up too easily on these appropriations bills."

Lacking tea partiers' support for the bills, Boehner would have to turn to Democrats for votes to pass them. To get those votes would likely require removing GOP policy "riders" that roll back environmental regulations and side with companies in disputes with unions.

Democrats also oppose efforts by Republicans to use the spending bills to block implementation of last year's law overhauling health care and new regulations governing banks and other financial institutions.

Kowtowing to Democrats to pass the spending legislation is an unappetizing prospect for Republican leaders and appears to be the main reason six of the bills haven't come to the House floor for votes.

Republicans were largely unsuccessful earlier this year in pressing many of the same riders. They were dumped overboard by the dozen as Obama negotiated directly with Boehner in the spring on an omnibus appropriations bill for the 2011 budget year that ended Sept. 30.

The power of the presidential veto means the White House tends to hold the upper hand in negotiations on appropriations bills.

"Those will go by the wayside," predicted Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, referring to the GOP policy riders.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111108/ap_on_go_co/us_sputtering_congress

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Cain accuser's past includes financial troubles (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Her motives and personal history under scrutiny, the woman who publicly has accused Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of groping her inside a parked car in July 1997 says she came forward out of duty.

Cain rejected Sharon Bialek's claims as "totally fabricated," with his campaign pointedly noting her history of bankruptcies, unpaid debts and legal troubles.

"I tried to remember if I recognized her, and I didn't," Cain said at a Tuesday news conference. "I tried to remember if I remembered that name, and I didn't. The charges and allegations, I absolutely reject. They simply didn't happen."

Bialek was flanked by prominent celebrity attorney and Democratic activist Gloria Allred Tuesday as she appeared on the morning TV news shows, recounting her story of how Cain harassed her when he ran the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. Her details connected the first face to a trail of anonymous accusations from at least three other women, marking a potentially dangerous turn as Cain seeks the GOP presidential nomination.

But just as details unfolded about Cain's alleged behavior, so have specifics about Bialek's personal life as a 50-year-old, single, stay-at-home mother in Chicago.

Bialek has a 13-year-old son and lives with her fiance, Mark Harwood, in a two-story, suburban Chicago home. Harwood, 50, who works in the medical-device industry, told The Associated Press in an interview that he supported Bialek's decision to come forward.

Fourteen years ago, Bialek worked for the restaurant association's educational foundation in Chicago. As a foundation manager, she helped oversee an outreach program for teenagers who wanted careers in the hospitality business. By 1997, she was dismissed for not raising enough money, a charge she disputes.

Partly on the advice of her then-boyfriend, a pediatrician not publicly identified, Bialek said she contacted Cain for help finding another job. She met him in Washington, where Bialek said he ran his hand under her skirt as they sat in a parked car on a downtown street after having dinner.

Bialek remained silent about the encounter and later took a job at WGN Radio. Her marketing job there for five years was a brisk 15-minute commute from her 41st-floor luxury condo along Chicago's famed Lake Shore Drive.

Meanwhile, Bialek filed for bankruptcy, according to court records, and claimed few personal assets while owing $4,500 in unpaid rent and at least $13,000 to four credit card companies. As of July 2009, Bialek owed more than $5,100 in federal back taxes.

Bialek acknowledged money problems. "I have had bankruptcy and it was after the death of my mother, to help my father pay for medical bills, and a custody battle. Like millions of other people out there, I was struggling," she said.

She said she had no financial motivation to come forward, wasn't offered a job and wasn't being asked by Allred to pay a legal fee.

"I'm just doing this because it's the right thing to do," Bialek said. She said she waited this long to speak out because "I was embarrassed ... and I just kind of wanted it to go away."

Two years after her alleged encounter with Cain, Bialek went to court over a paternity petition between her and West Naze, an executive with News Corp.-owned News America Marketing. Naze did not return calls from the AP seeking comment late Tuesday.

Cain's campaign quickly pounced Tuesday on her background, detailing for reporters a hodge-podge of county and federal court cases. The campaign drew a contrast between Cain's "four decades spent climbing the corporate ladder" and Bialek's financial woes. Bialek said her son was one of the reasons she came forward. "My biggest fan is my son. .... I called him and I said, `Nick, what do you think I should do?'" He said, `Mom, you have to do the right thing. I think you need to tell on him.'"

"That confirmed it for me," Bialek said. "If my son is saying it, I want to be the role model for him and for other kids growing up that this is not appropriate behavior."

"I could have sold my story," she said. "But I didn't."

____

Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

____

Follow Jack Gillum at http://twitter.com/jackgillum

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111109/ap_on_el_ge/us_cain_accuser

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Cain bow out? 'Ain't gonna happen' (Star Tribune)

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N-security US report motivated

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan on Sunday described as ?pure fiction? a US media report about possible American plans to secure the country?s nuclear arsenal in the event of any extremist threat, saying no one should ?underestimate? its capability to defend its national interests.
A statement issued by Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said the article ?The Ally From Hell? in The Atlantic journal was ?baseless and motivated?. She dismissed the article as ?pure fiction, baseless and motivated?.
?It is part of a deliberate propaganda campaign meant to mislead opinion. The surfacing of such campaigns is not something new. It is orchestrated by quarters that are inimical to Pakistan,? she said.
Janjua said: ?No one should underestimate Pakistan?s will and capability to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests.?
The Atlantic article details contingency plans involving hundreds of US commandos specially trained in securing weapons of mass destruction who would swoop in and disable or seize Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal in the event of the collapse of the state or a jihadist coup.
That fear explains perhaps the most startling allegation: that Pakistani authorities transport assembled nuclear weapons in civilian vans without heavy security, moving in regular traffic to avoid being noticed.
This, the authors said, makes Pakistan?s nuclear weapons ?vulnerable to theft by jihadists,? compromising security in a country where numerous militant organizations of various stripes are believed to be headquartered.
The Pakistani statement rejected these fears. ?No one should underestimate Pakistan?s will and capability to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests.?

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Video: No verdict yet for Jackson doctor

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93% Take Shelter

All Critics (107) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (100) | Rotten (7)

Shannon wonderfully modulates Nichols' portrait of a man whose mind and life seem to unravel before our eyes.

There's a strong, unsettling sense of disease that runs through Take Shelter, the best drama of the year so far.

Shannon is astounding, playing a good man pushed to the brink of sanity, maybe beyond. He portrays a sense of quiet desperation -- a feeling recognizable to many.

A work of hushed and persuasive emotional veracity.

The movies have long been mad about the onset of madness.

The chilling genius of "Take Shelter'' isn't that the threat is never specified but that it doesn't need to be.

Rod Serling would have been proud.

Nichols takes this 21st century fear of losing everything you have and makes it physical. It's a portrait of destructive behavior that is motivated by the purest of intentions: wanting to protect your family.

Regardless of how things play out, you'll leave the movie feeling Curtis' twisted worldview eating away at you.

This unsettling, hypnotic drama boasts a quietly powerful performance by Michael Shannon as Curtis, a man succumbing to apocalyptic visions.

Nichols builds unease from small, repeated details, and he has a terrific asset in Shannon: No modern actor seems as likely to snap and explode.

As a portrait of a man on the verge of losing everything, Shannon is remarkable. His stoicism feels environmental, rendering his withdrawal naturalistic rather than manufactured.

On rare occasions, a movie comes along that does genuine honor to Alfred Hitchcock. Take Shelter is such a movie. It could be subtitled "Take Shelter with Hitch."

(Director) Nichols creates the kind of quiet malevolence that Roman Polanski used to excel at.

Take Shelter is a deeply unsettling movie.

Michael Shannon's spectacular performance grounds Take Shelter with a haunting realism.

Are his dreams a sign of things to come or are they simply the creation of an individual who is teetering on the brink of insanity?

In an era of empty entertainments, "Take Shelter" is built to last.

Life is a double-edged sword. Be careful how you hold it.

Powerfully emotional and extremely tense, this is an impressively directed and superbly written drama with a riveting central performance from Michael Shannon.

Take Shelter is paced slowly and deliberately, which is necessary to make believable whatever is tormenting Curtis.

Those who've never understood [anxiety] could do to see Take Shelter as a total immersion virtual reality experience.

With that frowning face - including a right eye that looks sleepy and a left one that looks crazed - Michael Shannon could play Jekyll and Hyde at the same exact time.

More Critic Reviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/take_shelter/

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Isolated crew completes 520-day mock Mars mission

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian researcher Sukhrob Kamolov leaves a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian researcher Sukhrob Kamolov leaves a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems French researcher Romain Charles poses for a picture after completing a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian researcher Sukhrob Kamolov greets his relatives after completing a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian researcher Alexey Sitev, left, Chinese Wang Yue, center and Italian-Colombian Diego Urbina, right, are given flowers after the completion of a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

In this photo released by Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems Russian researcher Alexey Sitev, left, seen posing after the completion of a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars, Friday, Nov. 4 2011. The all-male crew of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese successfully completed the experiment intended to simulate constricted and isolating conditions of space travel. (AP Photo/IMBP, Oleg Voloshin, Pool)

MOSCOW (AP) ? It seemed more like a bizarre reality TV show than high-tech international space travel experiment: Six men lived in cramped, windowless compartments for more than 17 months to simulate a mission to Mars.

When they emerged from their claustrophobic capsules Friday in western Moscow, the researchers in blue jumpsuits looked haggard but were all smiles ? dreaming of lying in the sun at the beach, taking long strolls and driving fast cars.

Organizers said the 520-day experiment was the longest mock space mission ever, measuring human responses to the confinement, stress and fatigue of a round trip to Mars ? minus the weightlessness, of course. They describe it as a vital part of preparations for a future mission to the Red Planet, even though it may be decades away because of huge costs and daunting technological challenges.

The facility at Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems, Russia's premier space medicine center, included living compartments the size of a bus, connected with several other similarly sized modules for experiments and exercise.

There have been other confinement experiments, including Biosphere 2, a giant glass-and-steel facility in Arizona in the 1990s that housed four men and four women in self-sustaining two-year isolation. That project was dogged by controversy and technical problems.

Scientists who organized the mock Mars mission said it differed from the other experiments by relying on the latest achievements in space medicine and human biology.

Emerging from their isolation, the crew of three Russians, one Frenchman, an Italian-Colombian and a Chinese carefully descended a metal ladder to a greeting from crowd of officials and journalists Friday.

"The international crew has completed the 520-day experiment," team leader Alexey Sitev told Russian space officials. "The mission is accomplished. The crew is in good health and is ready for new missions."

Organizers said each crew member will be paid about $100,000, except for the Chinese researcher, whose compensation hasn't been revealed by officials from his country.

The crew will spend three days in quarantine before holding a news conference. They spoke to relatives and friends from behind a glass panel to minimize the risk of infection.

Sitev, who led the team into the quarters in June 2010 ? just a few weeks after getting married ? said he dreams of going to the beach.

"I want to go somewhere to the warm sea as we have missed two summers here," he said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency shortly before wrapping up the mission. "My thoughts are drifting toward swimming at sea and basking on warm sand."

His Italian-Colombian crewmate Diego Urbina told RIA Novosti that he would also like to have a vacation in the Caribbean and would spend his earnings on a sports car and a pilot training course.

Sukhrob Kamolov, the Russian mission doctor, said he thought the $100,000 was a lot of money when they went in, but after a year and a half in the confined space, it didn't sound so big.

During the simulation, the crew members were under constant surveillance by scientists and communicated with their families and space officials via the Internet, which was delayed and occasionally disrupted intentionally to imitate the effects of space travel. They showered only several times per month ? once every 10 days or so ? pretending to conserve water. Their food was similar to what is on the International Space Station.

Midway through the mission, the crew even conducted a mock landing, venturing from their quarters in heavy space suits to trudge into a sand-covered room and plant the flags of Russia, China and the European Space Agency on a simulated Martian surface.

Scientists say that long confinement without daylight and fresh air put team members under stress as they grew increasingly tired of each other's company.

Psychological conditions can be even more challenging on a mock mission than a real one because there would be none of the euphoria or danger of space travel.

"If anything, the make-believe nature of this exercise's goal ? a simulated Mars walk ? would have made it even harder psychologically than a real mission," said James Oberg, a space consultant and NASA veteran. "So the team's success is even more impressive, not less so, because it was 'only a game.'"

In an email to The Associated Press, Oberg said he was particularly impressed with the crew's ability to overcome the language barrier, but added that the absence of women in the experiment was a major flaw.

"Aside from the absence of physiological factors such as weightlessness and cosmic radiation, the most glaring shortcoming of this exercise was the all-male composition of the crew," he said. "Psychological studies of frontier life and extended expeditions suggest that aside from specific skills they contribute, the presence of women in an isolated group is a positive, 'civilizing' effect, not a stress-inducing distracting influence."

The organizers said they had considered women for the experiment but left them out for various reasons. They denied deliberately forming an all-male crew because of the failure of a similar simulation in the past.

A 1999-2000 experiment ended in acrimony after a Canadian woman complained of being forcibly kissed by a Russian team captain following a fistfight between two Russian crew members. Russian officials attributed the incidents to cultural gaps and stress.

There was no sign of strain Friday as the crew flanked each other, smiling and waving to cameras.

"We hope that we can help in designing the future missions to Mars," Frenchman Romain Charles said.

Urbina said the crew was proud to complete the longest space flight simulation so that "humankind can one day greet a new dawn on the surface of distant but reachable planet."

A real flight to Mars is a distant prospect due to challenges such as creating a compact and relatively lightweight spacecraft that would shield the crew from deadly cosmic radiation.

Vitaly Davydov, a deputy head of the Russian space agency, said the simulation will help pave the way for a real Mars mission. He added that it's not expected until the mid-2030s and should be done in close international cooperation.

NASA is aiming for a landing on an asteroid around 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-11-04-EU-Russia-Mission-to-Mars/id-1f09c85202c8461ab0dd7414a2257eab

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Embryonic signal drives pancreatic cancer and offers a way to kill it

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Pancreatic cancer is a particularly challenging one to beat; it has a tendency to spread and harbors cancer stem cells that stubbornly resist conventional approaches to therapy. Now, researchers reporting in the November issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, have evidence to suggest there is a way to kill off those cancer stem cells. The target is a self-renewal pathway known for its role not in cancer but in embryonic stem cells.

"I don't think the cancer stem cells have any direct link to embryonic development, rather they are using this developmental pathway for their uncontrolled self-renewal capacity," said Christopher Heeschen of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid. "This pathway is completely inactive in adult tissue. We've checked many tissues and there is zero ? no detectable expression at all."

The so-called Nodal/Activin pathway's embryonic ties and absence from other tissues present a real opportunity. It suggests you could target the molecular pathway without harming other adult cells. Heeschen's team has now shown that approach to therapy does seem to work in mice.

They first demonstrated the important role of the Nodal/Activin pathway in cancer stem cells derived from human pancreatic cancer. When that signal was blocked, normally resistant pancreatic cancer stem cells became sensitive to chemotherapy.

The researchers then moved on to experiments in mice with established tumors seeded from human cancer cells. Treatment of those animals with the pathway inhibitor plus standard chemotherapy eliminated those stem cells.

"The dual combination therapy worked strikingly well," Heeschen said. "The mice responded with 100 percent survival after 100 days." That's compared to mice not receiving the therapy, which bore large tumors and died within 40 days of implantation.

That two-part treatment wasn't enough to tackle pancreatic cancer when intact tumor tissue was implanted into mice as opposed to just cancer cells, the researchers found. Heeschen says that's because those cells were nestled within a supportive "stroma." That protective tissue delivered the Activin signal and prevented the drug combination from reaching the cells.

To get around that, Heeschen and his colleagues added a third ingredient to therapy, an inhibitor intended to target the stroma. The three-pronged approach translated into long-term, progression-free survival for the mice.

Interestingly, Heeschen says the animals' tumors didn't show signs of shrinking even as they were defeated. "They were more or less dead tissue. They were senescent with no cancer stem cells ? just sitting there," he said.

Those tissues apparently had no ability to form new tumors. The findings suggest that tumor regression isn't always the key thing to look for. It also shows that drugs designed to target cancer stem cells alone are promising, but only in combination with other drugs.

"The concept that you can hit cancer stem cells and tumors will melt away must be abandoned," Heeschen said. "You have to treat the entire cancer - the stroma, cancer stem cells and differentiated cells - as a complex. "

Heeschen says there are hints that this embryonic pathway might have important roles in other forms of cancer, including breast, lung and colorectal cancers. That's something they will now test in further studies.

###

Cell Press: http://www.cellpress.com

Thanks to Cell Press for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114924/Embryonic_signal_drives_pancreatic_cancer_and_offers_a_way_to_kill_it

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Ex-Giant Matty Alou, 72, dies in Dominican Rep.

/

By JANIE McCAULEY

updated 4:46 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2011

Matty Alou, once part of an all-Alou outfield for the San Francisco Giants with brothers Felipe and Jesus, died Thursday in his native Dominican Republic. He was 72.

He died of diabetes complications, according to his former Dominican team, Leones del Escogido. The Giants also confirmed his death and said Alou had been sick for several years with a variety of health issues.

Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda said he knew his "great friend" had been ailing.

"We roomed together a few times with the Giants," Cepeda said by phone. "Very funny guy, hell of a ballplayer. When Matty was playing with the Giants, he was a dead fastball hitter, he could pull anybody, I don't care how hard they threw."

A two-time All-Star, Alou became the 1966 National League batting champion with the Pirates when he hit .342. He spent his first six years with San Francisco from 1960-65 and also played for St. Louis, Oakland, the New York Yankees and San Diego.

"Although he played for six different teams, Matty remained a part of the Giants family as a longtime employee and will be forever linked with his brothers, Felipe and Jesus,? as the first all-brother major league outfield, the Giants said.

Alou was a career .307 hitter with 31 home runs, 427 RBIs, 1,777 hits and 236 doubles in 15 major league seasons.

"He went to Pittsburgh and switched from a light bat to a heavy bat, and he hit .340 one year," Cepeda recalled.

The Alou brothers made history in 1963 when they appeared in the same outfield for several games. Felipe Alou, who managed the Giants for four seasons from 2003-06, takes pride in how the Alou name has endured in baseball.

"It's a family legacy," Felipe said during his time managing the Giants. "The Alou legacy is a legacy in itself. I see all of us together being a force going through this game, and still going. The respect, I'm proud of that, and length of service."

Leones President Luis Manuel Bonetti added: "Dominican baseball in general and Leones in particular, has lost one of its most emblematic figures and an extraordinary human being."

Felipe Alou still believes he cost the Giants a championship in 1962 when he failed to get down a bunt in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. It would have moved Matty from first to second. The Giants lost the game 1-0 and the Series to the New York Yankees.

In 2010, San Francisco finally captured the city's first title since moving west in 1958.

____

Associated Press writer Dionisio Soldevila in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this story.

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

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??HBT Extra: Tiffany Simons and Craig Calcaterra look at the top 5 free agents in?baseball, predicting Prince Fielder will land with the Cubs.

SportsTalk: Look for Marlins to spend big

??SportsTalk: After his struggles in the playoffs, should C.J. Wilson be avoided on the free agent market? Craig Calcaterra tackles this question and more in a Hot Stove lookahead.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45155315/ns/sports-baseball/

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Scientists design experimental treatment for iron-overload diseases

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Iron overload is a common condition affecting millions of people worldwide. Excess iron in the body is toxic, and deposits can cause damage to the liver, heart and other organs. Current treatments, researchers say, are not ideal and have significant side effects.

Iron in the body is regulated by a hormone called hepcidin, and a deficiency in this hormone can cause the iron overload seen in genetic disorders like hereditary hemochromatosis and Cooley's anemia.

In the hopes of finding a treatment for iron overload, UCLA researchers have developed a new type of therapy based on small molecules that mimic the effects of hepcidin in mice. Published online Nov. 1 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Investigation, their findings could lead to new drugs to help prevent the condition.

Hepcidin works by fitting into a receptor protein known as ferroportin, which causes a change in iron flow in the body. The UCLA team systematically worked with the hormone?receptor interface to learn how the two pieces fit together and which part of hepcidin is the most important for binding to ferroportin.

"Like with jigsaw puzzle pieces, we tried to find the best fit," said Dr. Elizabeta Nemeth, the study's senior author and an associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Nemeth, co-director of the UCLA Center for Iron Disorders, noted that this is the first attempt to develop medications that mimic hepcidin. Because hepcidin contains 25 amino acids and numerous disulfide bonds, it would be expensive and difficult to reproduce the hormone as a medication.

The UCLA team zeroed in on the areas of hepcidin and ferroportin that provided the best fit to generate iron-regulating activity. Surprisingly, they found that the first third of the

hepcidin molecule had an effect similar to that of the whole molecule. They then re-engineered this portion of the molecule to make it even more effective and named the resulting new molecules "minihepcidins."

"We found that just a few amino acids were enough to provide an effective scaffold for the minihepcidin design," said Piotr Ruchala, a visiting assistant professor of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine.

The team confirmed that the minihepcidins were effective in healthy mice and demonstrated that they could prevent iron overload in mouse models of hereditary hemochromatosis.

"Using this structure and function analysis, we were able to develop minihepcidins that were even more effective than the naturally occurring hormone," said study author Dr. Tomas Ganz, a professor of medicine and pathology and co-director of the Center for Iron Disorders at the Geffen School of Medicine.

Ganz added that the UCLA findings built on previous research by the team and collaborators around the world that originally helped identify the role of hepcidin and ferroportin in iron regulation.

The next step is to identify the optimal form of minihepcidin for human trials. According to UCLA researchers, if the molecules' safety and efficacy is confirmed, minihepcidins could be used alone or together with current treatments for iron-overload diseases.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Will Rogers Fund.

UCLA is currently negotiating a license to this technology with a biotechnology company that will take the minihepcidins through pre-clinical development and into clinical trials.

###

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences: http://www.uclahealth.org/

Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 55 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114824/Scientists_design_experimental_treatment_for_iron_overload_diseases

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NYTimes circulation up as it restricts Web access

NEW YORK (AP) ? Circulation at The New York Times soared in the latest six-month reporting period because the Times now charges for access to its website and people who sign up are counted as subscribers.

The Times had print and digital circulation of 1.2 million on average from Monday through Friday. The figures released Tuesday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations cover the six months that ended Sept. 30.

The latest figures represent a gain of 25 percent from the October-March period, when average circulation was at about 917,000. However, the comparison does not factor in seasonal fluctuations.

Circulation figures affect advertising rates at newspapers, which count print ads as their main source of revenue. Print ad revenue has declined in recent years as readers and advertisers shift to the Internet. The economic downturn has worsened the decline. Some newspapers have seen growth in the digital ad revenue they derive from their websites and mobile apps, but it hasn't been enough to offset losses in print advertising. The New York Times' digital subscription model is being closely watched as a possible solution to the industry's revenue shortfalls.

The Times is the third-largest U.S. newspaper on weekdays. The Wall Street Journal is No. 1 with average weekday circulation of 2.1 million, and Gannett Co.'s USA Today ranks second with 1.8 million.

The Times had the highest Sunday circulation with 1.6 million. Neither the Journal nor USA Today publishes on Sunday.

The Times' circulation grew after it started charging fees to readers of its digital content. That began just before the start of the latest circulation reporting period. Digital subscriptions are included in the circulation totals. Newspapers aren't allowed to count visitors to free websites as circulation.

The Times' circulation might have fallen were it not for the digital subscriptions. The Times had about 771,000 print subscribers in the latest period, compared with about 816,000 in the October-March period. Still, the Times said Sunday home delivery subscriptions grew slightly from last year; many people bought or kept a print subscription because it comes with free digital access.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations did not release industry-wide totals that could be compared with last year because of major rule changes in how circulation is counted.

In recent years, circulation has been declining at newspapers in part because readers are shifting from printed editions to free news sources on the Web and on mobile devices. For most newspapers, digital subscriptions have not caught on. The exceptions are primarily publications with national clout.

During the April-September period, the Times had average weekday digital circulation of 380,003 and Sunday circulation of 371,933. News Corp.'s Journal also offers digital subscriptions and had a weekday average of 537,469.

Outsell Inc. media analyst Ken Doctor said that if the Times continues to persuade people to buy digital subscriptions, it could bring in $50 million to $75 million per year in additional circulation revenue. That will be important, he said, as print advertising revenue keeps falling.

Citigroup analyst Leo Kulp believes the Times won't collect enough from digital subscriptions to offset a decline in print ads. As a result, he downgraded the Times Co.'s stock last week.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-01-Newspaper-Circulation/id-a7333f2b90e94c74a5584ebbcd77be68

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Jay-Z, Kanye, More Up For First Sucker Free Awards

Inaugural awards show, hosted by MTV News' Sway and featuring a YMCMB performance, airs December 4 at 11 p.m. ET on MTV2!
By Gil Kaufman

Kanye West and Jay-Z
Photo: Daniel Boczarski/ Getty Images

Your holidays just got hotter. On December 4, MTV2 will cap a monthlong celebration of hip-hop history month with the inaugural Sucker Free Awards. The show will take place at the historic LIV Fontainebleau in Miami Beach and will feature a special performance from YMCMB. It will air at 11 p.m. ET on MTV2 and be hosted by none other than MTV News' own Sway Calloway.

"Sucker Free Countdown," MTV2's longest-running franchise and #1 weekly hip-hop show, will work up to the awards program with a special "Countdown," "Sucker Free Daily" episodes and the second installment of "Sucker Free Road to Release" chronicling the journey of Maybach Music Group artist Wale.

The Sucker Free Awards will honor the year in hip-hop with a unique look back at the music, moments and personalities that made 2011 so memorable. Seven categories will be determined by a combination of online and social-media voting and tallies from tastemakers throughout the music and entertainment industry.

Starting Tuesday (November 1), fans can vote on the Must Follow Person in Social Media, Rookie of the Year and the Best Crew of 2011 categories at SuckerFreeAwards.MTV2.com. Among the other categories at the show: Like a Boss: The Artist That Ran 2011, Certified Classic: Best Album of the Year, Club Banger: Song of the Year and Who's Got Next: Best Artist Without an Album.

Among the most-nominated artists are Tyler, the Creator and his Odd Future crew, who have three nods, including Rookie of the Year, Best Crew of 2011 and Follow Me Like Twitter: The Must Follow Person in Social Media. The rookie category will find Tyler facing off against Big Sean, J. Cole and Wiz Khalifa, while the crew battle includes Rick Ross' Maybach Music Group, YMCMB, Slaughterhouse/Shady 2.0, G.O.O.D. Music, Roc Nation and Taylor Gang.

Tyler will take on 50 Cent, Fabolous, Chris Brown and Lil Duval for the Twitter crown.

The tastemakers will pull their votes for the following categories:

Like a Boss: The Artist That Ran 2011
» Jay-Z and Kanye West
» Lil Wayne
» Rick Ross
» Nicki Minaj
» Chris Brown

Certified Classic: Best Album of the Year
» Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
» Lil Wayne, Tha Carter IV
» Lupe Fiasco, Lasers
» MMG, Made, Vol. 1
» Big Sean, Finally Famous

Club Banger: Song of the Year
» DJ Khaled (featuring Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne), "I'm On One"
» Meek Mill, "Ima Boss"
» Jay-Z and Kanye West, "N---as in Paris"
» Drake, "Headlines"
» Y.C. (featuring Future), "Racks"

Who's Got Next: Best Artist Without an Album
» Meek Mill
» Kendrick Lamar
» Mac Miller
» Big K.R.I.T.
» ASAP Rocky

Vote for your favorites now on SuckerFreeAwards.MTV2.com, and don't forget to tune in December 4 at 11 p.m. ET on MTV2 for the first Sucker Free Awards!

Related Videos

• Sucker Free Road To Release: Wale

Related Artists

• Jay-Z
• Kanye West

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1673550/sucker-free-awards-2011-jay-z-kanye-west.jhtml

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#scio11 - Standing Out: Marketing Yourself in Science

By Bora Zivkovic?| October 31, 2011?|

Share ?Email

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Standing Out: Marketing Yourself in Science from NASW on Vimeo.

This is a recording of a session from ScienceOnline2011, the fifth annual conference on Science and the Web. Join us for the sixth ? bigger and better edition ? next January at ScienceOnline2012.

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

More??

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=5e9a35ee9d6c73283192c35d49c8a06c

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Ricki Lake says J.R. "hard to beat" on "Dancing" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? She's been atop the leader board on TV contest "Dancing With the Stars" several times, but Ricki Lake still doesn't believe she'll end up with the mirror ball trophy. The winner, she thinks, will be J.R. Martinez.

"The war hero is going to be hard to beat. He's a better dancer than I am," Lake told Reuters. "I want to win, but if I'm second, that's okay."

Lake, who parlayed a starring role in the 1988 John Waters film "Hairspray" into a successful career as a talk show host, is on a roll on the TV dance contest. She's lost more than 20 pounds, gone from a size 10 in September to nearly a size 4, and says she has a newfound respect for professional dancers.

"They are machines," she said, "If you look at my body, I look like a Dalmatian! I'm bruised from head to toe. I'm falling apart in some ways."

But all that practice has paid off. Lake started slow in the first week, but topped the leader board by her second performance. She and professional partner Derek Hough have consistently wowed the judges since then with a tango and, in another week, a quickstep which both scored a 29, just one point less than a perfect 30.

But Martinez, an Iraq war veteran and daytime drama actor, has not been far behind, and in fact, he and partner Karina Smirnoff have consistently performed ahead of the pack.

Lake said her favorite dance so far has been a rumba from week three, which she described as a celebration of love after having met a new man, Christian Evans, whom she met over a year ago. She announced their engagement in August.

NEW "BUSINESS OF BEING BORN"

Lake also has a new project launching November 8, "More Business of Being Born," a DVD follow-up to her documentary series, "The Business of Being Born," which she executive produced alongside director Abby Epstein.

The original DVD looked at childbirth and maternity care in the United States and explored options women have for giving natural childbirth.

Lake, 43, has two sons, ages 14 and 10, and gave birth in a hospital the first time around before opting for natural delivery the second time.

"I wanted to be more in control with my body. One wasn't necessarily better than the other, although I felt much more empowered by the second," she said. "After that, I wanted to do a project that talked about" the issues involved.

Lake called the response to the first DVD "incredible," but not lucrative. She said making money was not the goal and that the DVDs helped many women consider natural childbirth.

"More Business of Being Born" is a four-DVD set that, on one disc, looks at midwifery through the eyes of The Farm Community in Tennessee and pioneering midwife Ina May Gaskin.

The set's second and third DVDs feature star moms such as Cindy Crawford, Alanis Morissette and Gisele Bundchen, and explore options such as utilizing doulas, who provide non-medical support, and birthing centers, as well as delivery via caesarean section. The fourth DVD covers the possibility of vaginal birth after a C-section.

"There's a lot of misconceptions: that (natural childbirth) is unsafe, that midwifes aren't well-trained or that they are only trained in natural birth," Lake said. "The idea is to alleviate a lot of the fear that is out there."

More information is at www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111031/people_nm/us_rickilake

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The Peak Oil Crisis: The Energy Trap: US gas bill to reach a new high of Half a Trillion this year. ilc.v, tnr.v, czx.v, rm.v, lmr.v, abn.v, asm.v, btt.v, bva.v, bvg.v, epz.v, fst.v, gbn.v, hao.v, jnn.v, ks.v, ktn.v, kxm.v, mgn, mxr.v, rvm.to, svb, ura.v,

? There is a solution - Electric Car, but we need the Manhattan Project for Electric Cars in order to make its happen on a mass scale and we need it now. There is NO cheap Oil left and we do not have a plan.

Sprott: Oil or Not, Here They Come - Major Oil Companies? Production in Decline

"We have a very insightful report from Sprott Asset Management on the Oil Supply and Demand picture and the pricing outlook. There is NO cheap Oil left any more and the competition for the declining supply is rising by the day.?

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FCNP.com:

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Energy Trap

BY TOM WHIPPLE

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26 2011

While waiting to see how far the Europeans can kick their can of financial Armageddon down the road, let's revisit the damage being caused by high oil prices to life here in America.

Although the price of gasoline so far this year has not reached the rarified levels that we saw three years ago, neither has it plunged as far as in did in the fall of 2008. The price of a barrel of oil on the London futures exchange, which more accurately reflects what refiners must pay for oil, rose above $100 a barrel last January, and has essentially remained there ever since -- averaging about $25 a barrel higher than last year.

The Energy Trap is a project of the New America foundation, a non-partisan think tank funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which recently conducted a survey on just how the American public is holding up under the high cost of energy. The idea of the trap is that an increasing number of Americans are caught between the cost of gasoline and a systemic inability to stop driving their cars. In the last 60 years America has become a "motorized society" in which most of our citizens have become totally dependent on daily travel by car for their existence. Take away our cars and most of us would be hard pressed to reorganize our lives to provide for the essentials of life - earn an income, and provide food, shelter, and education for ourselves and our families.

The current recession has compounded the troubles, forcing many to travel further afield to find employment - often in more than one underpaying job.

The Energy Trap study found cases in which more than 50 percent of a family's income was going into paying for and fueling the car. What is most alarming is that 30 years ago the spike in gasoline led to a 12 percent reduction in the demand for gasoline as consumers drove less, switched to smaller cars, and sort of adhered to the 55 mph speed limit that had been put in place to save gasoline. It is now more than three years since the $4+ price spike of 2008 and demand has only fallen some 3 percent.

The problem starts with the nation's collective gasoline bill which is on track to reach a new high of nearly $500 billion this year. This, of course, is only for gasoline; if we add in the other oil products we burn here in America each year - diesel for trucks and trains, jet fuel for planes, propane for heating, and numerous other uses the total is in the vicinity of $1 trillion.

Take away our cars and most of us would be hard pressed to reorganize to provide for the essentials of life.

It is looking as if this year's fuel bill will be on the order of $100 billion higher than last for gasoline and another $100 billion for other oil consumption. If we have to spend an additional $200 billion just to keep even, it is not hard to understand that the $200 billion increase in the cost of energy is coming out of other family expenditures.

There are geographic and income level differences in the impact the energy trap is having on families with rural and lower income families bearing more of the burden.

When gasoline was over $4 a gallon three years ago the average family in NY and Connecticut was spending 8 percent of its incomes on transportation, while in Montana it was over 19 percent. Drivers in Mississippi go twice as far each year as those in NY where many have easy access to buses, commuter trains and subways. As could be expected, families earning under $25,000 a year are spending around 9 percent of their incomes on transportation vs. 3.6 percent for those earning $75-85,000 per year.

The Foundation notes that most government policies aimed at helping with energy costs - tax rebates on efficient vehicles, subsidized public transit and telecommuting, benefit mainly those with higher incomes while the lower paid jobs such as those in the retail and service industries require lengthy and costly commutes just to earn a living.

If there is a way out of the energy trap, it is going to be hard to find. For now most of us are muddling along. Long vacation trips are down a bit but commuting, shopping, visiting, moving the kids about is going along about as usual. Those who can't afford driving, shopping, recreation, and eating are cutting back as much as necessary to keep the gas tank full.

The long term solution to all this is rather straight forward -- better public transit, far more efficient cars, housing closer to work. But these are all long term solutions, expensive and years to implement. All indications are that the energy trap can only get worse, perhaps much worse, in the next few years.

Within the next 18 months we are likely to see: either a steep economic downturn or much higher oil prices; major cuts in U.S. government spending; a deepening European debt crisis; and perhaps export-threatening political troubles in the Middle East.

Anyone of these factors would be enough to tighten the screws on the price and perhaps even the availability of gasoline and other forms of oil in the U.S. Taken together the diverse nature of the threats suggests that the situation will become far more serious for many American families over the next year or two.

The Energy Trap study suggests two possible short term actions that could mitigate the problem. The number of families that are hurting badly from high gas prices says there may more willingness than is generally believed to leave the convenience of the private automobile for some form of cost-reducing shared transport be it public transit, carpools or employer van pools. A second suggestion is that some geographic areas are being affected by the energy trap worse than others.

Concentration on bringing alternative forms of transport to these areas could bring big dividends in form of a more efficient and effective workforce."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sufiy/~3/d8YjeTgUApU/peak-oil-crisis-energy-trap-us-gas-bill.html

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