Monday, November 12, 2012

The Next Trillion-Dollar Stimulus? It's Immigration Reform | Dream ...

Thanks to the electoral drubbing Republicans took from Latino voters on Tuesday, it?s looking increasingly likely Congress might actually tackle comprehensive immigration reform some time this year. House Speaker John Boehner suddenly?likes the idea. Even Fox News? Sean Hannity?is a convert.

That?s delightful news for any number of reasons. If it happens, millions of hard working people will be able to step out of America?s legal shadows. But almost as importantly, it might just give the U.S. economy a trillion-dollar shot in the arm, as explained in?a report?published by the left-leaning Center for American Progress in 2010.

To get that boost, we have to be smart about reform. CAP argues that a truly comprehensive program would create a path to citizenship for people who are already here and set flexible limits for future immigration, so that annual totals rise and fall with our demand for labor. They estimate that those policies would add $1.5 trillion to the economy over ten years, or about 0.84 percent to our annual GDP. Compare that to mass deportations which, by sending millions of individuals packing, would sap trillions from consumer spending and growth.

These calculations are based partly on the impact of the Reagan administration?s 1986 immigration reforms, which gave legal status to about 3 million undocumented individuals. That, in turn, gave those workers leverage to bargain with their employers for higher paychecks, while giving them an incentive to learn English so they could advance in the workplace. Estimates vary as to exactly how much newly legal immigrants were able to earn, but they all point to an improvement in their earning power.

Extrapolating from that history, CAP believes that giving today?s 11.3 million undocumented immigrants a route to citizenship could increase their collective earning power by as much $36 billion a year. That money would funnel back into the economy and support more jobs. It might also help raise wages for American born, low-skill workers, since businesses wouldn?t be able to take advantage of cheap undocumented immigrants who lack lack legal rights or better job options.

Here?s a year by year breakdown of what immigrant stimulus might look like over a decade. The reason that a temporary worker program doesn?t give us the same kind of bang for our buck is that immigrants wouldn?t have the same sort of negotiating power on pay, and wouldn?t have much incentive to invest in their education or skills.

So that?s the deal. If we can take advantage of this moment, and give the millions of people who are already working here a chance to earn their citizenship, we get a trillion dollar prize. In this case, doing the humane thing also pays.

Source: http://adreamact.com/2012/11/10/trilliondollar-stimulus-immigration-reform-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trilliondollar-stimulus-immigration-reform-2

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The Advantages of Obtaining an MHR Degree - Business school ...

Last updated 7 hours 58 minutes ago

Even if you've already decided that your future lies in business, determining what route to take can be difficult. Some people plunge into the business world with only their bachelor's degrees, while others earn MBAs to get a more comprehensive business education. Although it may not immediately spring to mind, enrolling in a Master of Human Resources program might be the best fit for your business career.

Ensure Employment Opportunities

Human resources management is a crucial skill that all businesses require. No matter what service or product a business provides, it will need to create an infrastructure to manage hiring, compensation, morale, and interpersonal relationships. By pursuing a graduate degree in human resources, you'll ensure that you always have job prospects and opportunities.

Distinguish Yourself in the Job Market

In difficult job markets, accreditations and degrees help to distinguish you from other qualified applicants for competitive positions. Earning a degree from Lipscomb University, one of the best colleges in the South, will show prospective employers that you have the intellectual talents needed to help their business grow.

Live Your Fait

Working in human resources is an excellent opportunity for Christians who want to find careers that help them act as representatives of God in the workplace. Human resources directors mediate interpersonal relationships and possible conflicts within businesses, helping people to bridge differences and treat each other with respect. By seeking a master's degree in human resources from a Christian college and bringing your skills to the marketplace, you can work productively in the business world while simultaneously dedicating your life to treating others compassionately.

Human resources management is one of the most vital roles in an organization. If you are looking for a rewarding career path that allows you to make a measurable difference in the workplace, call Lipscomb University at (615) 966-1833 to learn more about our MHR program or our other graduate business programs.

Source: http://www.businessschoolnashville.com/587743/2012/11/11/the-advantages-of-obtaining-an-mhr-degree.html

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Thursday, November 8, 2012

Sony rolls out update to Xperia T and TX for Miracast mirroring, extra-long standby

Sony Xperia T review

Sony Xperia T and TX owners won't have to wait until the eventual Jelly Bean update to eke some new life out of their software. From this week onwards, the Bond-blessed Android phone is getting an update that adds screen mirroring through Miracast; provided the stars align and you've got a compatible TV, the high-end Xperia gets that much larger a canvas. Upgrading also introduces an extended standby mode that temporarily shuts off data, a movie app with a small video player and a photo album that makes use of Sony's full image processing engine. We're further reminded as to how much sweeter that HD Voice calling on the T (but not TX) should sound. As much as we'd prefer a full-fledged OS update, it's a welcome dose of relevancy for a smartphone that has had fierce competition almost from the start.

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Sony rolls out update to Xperia T and TX for Miracast mirroring, extra-long standby originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/07/sony-rolls-out-update-to-xperia-t-and-tx-for-miracast-mirroring/

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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

AP sports writer's harrowing tale of Sandy

This June 2012 photo taken from Facebook shows AP sports writer Dennis Waszak Jr., his wife, Daria, and their children. Waszak and his family moved into their Staten Island "dream house" just weeks before Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the New York City borough. (AP Photo)

This June 2012 photo taken from Facebook shows AP sports writer Dennis Waszak Jr., his wife, Daria, and their children. Waszak and his family moved into their Staten Island "dream house" just weeks before Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the New York City borough. (AP Photo)

This Nov. 1, 2012, photo taken from Facebook shows a broken fence and a number of items belonging to Associated Press sports writer Dennis Waszak Jr., and his family that were cleaned out of the basement after their "dream house" was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in the Staten Island borough of New York. (AP Photo)

(AP) ? I was the first to cry.

Not my wife. Not our three kids.

I was standing in our pitch-black basement as water streamed through the broken windows like a waterfall. A bathtub drain gurgled, the slimy sewage quickly pooling in an ominous mess. Just eight weeks after we'd bought our dream house ? three bedrooms, big kitchen, pool, white fence and a finished basement ? Superstorm Sandy was ripping it apart with a fury that was hard to comprehend, along with the rest of our Staten Island neighborhood.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? AP Sports Writer Dennis Waszak and his family had moved into their Staten Island 'dream house' just weeks before Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the New York City borough. These are his recollections a week after the storm hit and upended life for Waszak, his wife and their three children.

___

At 9 p.m. Monday, I sent my sister Christina a text message saying our basement was still dry.

Minutes later that all changed. The man cave I couldn't wait to show off to my buddies, the one I'd spent hours working on, was fast being covered in rancid brown muck, beginning with what was once a white carpet. Watching it methodically swallow up the mementos that took us a lifetime to gather, I lost it.

Family photos, clothes, thousands of CDs, furniture. Thirty years of Topps baseball cards my dad gave me each and every Christmas. A copy of nearly every story I'd ever written ? as a budding sports reporter at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, from the Super Bowl and World Series, during 16-plus years with The Associated Press ? all gone.

My wife, Daria, urged me to stop, if only for the sake of our kids. I ran up the stairs toward the living room, struggling to compose myself. Behind me, all the while, the sludge kept rising. At 9:16 p.m., I texted my sister again: "The basement is completely covered in raw sewage. It's destroyed."

Some 10 hours earlier, I was on a conference call with New York Jets coach Rex Ryan, hearing him describe the challenges his disappointing team still faced. Now I was swept up in the biggest natural disaster to hit the New York area in decades, wondering how to protect my family.

It's funny the places your mind wanders sometimes, even in moments of crisis. So the fact that my mother's name is Sandy was at least good for a rueful smile. Even she can't believe now how much death and destruction will be attached to it for, well, forever.

Our neighborhood in the Eltingville section of Staten Island was designated a Zone C area, at very low risk for evacuation during a storm. That's why so few of us were alarmed earlier in the day, when the water from a creek that was part of a planned park poured out onto Arthur Kill Road and up our street at high tide. We thought that would be the worst of it.

Then the wind began whipping up, right around 4 p.m., and that picture-postcard white fence was blown to pieces. Soon after, with everything else we could tie down, board up or cover already secured, and roof tiles flying around like the occasional Frisbee, my neighbors and I headed inside to ride the storm out.

The power was on for two more hours, gone just as Daria was cooking dinner for the kids. They thought it was fun to eat and play by candlelight. But I looked out the window, saw the water from the creek halfway up the street, and it struck me that Sandy hadn't even really hit yet. Then came a frantic knock at the door.

"Dennis!" yelled a neighbor. "Your house is leaking gas!"

The hissing outside was louder than the shrill howl of the wind. A man I'd never seen before was walking around in the storm, heard the leak and smelled the gas. Out of nowhere, a neighbor showed up with a wrench and shut off the main valve. Someone else called National Grid and three minutes later, two workers from the power company turned up to make sure everything was locked down.

I'm still not sure who the first of those guardian angels was, but I promised myself to find out soon. When I do, I'm going to hug him. But there were still more pressing concerns first.

Around 7 p.m., our next-door neighbor, a sweet Italian grandmother named Grace, ran outside crying that the water in her basement was already a few feet high. Ours was still dry. But the water rushing faster and faster up the street now licked at the door of Daria's car in the driveway. I grabbed the keys and drove five blocks, parking it up on a hill. Then I jogged back home, with rain pelting my face, my arms over my head to protect myself from the tree branches swirling around, and moved my car. When I returned the second time, the water was even with the first step of our house. And it kept coming.

Another step, then another. Two more and the water would be level with the first floor. What then?

That reverie was broken the second the alarm system tripped in response to the water bursting through the basement windows. Soon enough, the electrical outlets were submerged and there was no chance to reach the fuse box in the corner and switch off the circuits. We were running out of options, and fast. In a panic, I started reviewing one nightmare scenario after another.

What if water fills the first floor? Do we huddle upstairs? Punch a hole through to the attic and climb up there? Do we even try to stay in the house, and if so, for how long? Could we swim to safety out the front door?

Incredibly, the longest few hours of my life ended almost as suddenly as they began. Almost too subtle to notice at first, the water lost its surging power and began to subside. Our kids, oblivious to all that was going on, were already fast asleep. Daria and I sat in the living room for hours in the dark, save for the glimmer of a few candles, listening to the splash, like clockwork every few minutes, as our possessions fell into the water. Just when we started making a list of what was lost beneath the two feet of sewage in the basement came the biggest splash of all ? our huge refrigerator.

I took a few steps downstairs and stopped. A sea of sewage was sloshing side to side and the stench ? I can still smell it. I doubt it will leave me anytime soon.

Somehow, I slept about three hours that night. When I stepped back outside, I could see the same wear and tear on the faces of my neighbors. But we quickly took stock of one another and our families and began comparing notes. The damage on every side was heartbreaking. Grace and husband, Nicky, had nearly six feet of water in their basement and lost everything, including her father's ashes. But we were all alive.

We had no power, gas, heat, even cellphones with a charge ? and no way to communicate with anyone outside our tiny corner of the world. The bakery and the deli across the street were flooded. Three 20-foot-long heavy metal box containers that sat in front of the Walgreen's were scattered down the block, one finally settling in front of a restaurant more than 100 yards away.

Finally, we turned our attention to cleaning up. A neighbor named Ben, who is Grace's son-in-law and works as a construction contractor, came over and began pulling up the carpeting in our basement, then the flooring, before turning his attention to the walls. In the "dream" kitchen we felt so fortunate to have just a few nights earlier, a FEMA inspector sat, compiling a list of the damage.

You learn a lot about people in bad times and what we learned is how neighbors opened their arms to each other, offering food, water, clothes ? anything that might help someone else. We were the new family in town, but we've forged bonds and relationships that will make exchanging "Hello" or "Have a good day" feel genuine in a way they didn't always before.

A long, tiring road lies ahead, but the doubts that crop up will be easier to deal with knowing we're going through it together. Just a few miles away, people died and homes were completely destroyed. Seeing the scale of destruction in TV reports from my parents' home in Brooklyn broke my heart all over again.

I spent three days digging through those things I'd cherished all my life. I put nearly all of them on the side of the house, saying a sort of goodbye to so many material things.

And yet, once the sun managed to peek through the clouds, it hit me: We were blessed. We turned out to be among the truly lucky ones.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-11-05-Living%20Through%20Sandy/id-d705db69e1684fcd98db608c9bfaecfa

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Old Skeletons Hold DNA Clues to TB

60-Second Science

Scientists hope to learn tuberculosis's genetic secrets by examining TB genes in old bones and comparing them with other strains from the past and present. Katherine Harmon reports.

More 60-Second Science

Tuberculosis killed 1.4 million people last year. One reason TB is so deadly is that TB bacteria mutate quickly. But some scientists are hoping to get a step ahead of TB's changes in the future by studying its past evolution.??

Remnants of TB genes can remain in an infected person's bones for centuries. A team of UK researchers has been able to isolate such TB sequences from an old skeleton using new rapid DNA sequencing. The proof-of-concept exercise was performed using the remains of a young woman buried in the 1800s.

DNA sequencing showed that her strain matched one that circulated in the U.S. a century ago. That match was based on tissue samples collected from a TB patient in upstate New York in 1905. The findings are in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Abigail Bouwman et al, Genotype of a historic strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis]

Once older bones can be studied for these telltale genes, scientists might be able to get new insights into TB?s deadly moves. And perhaps anticipate its next one.

?Katherine Harmon

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]


Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=e610f2a66f4548a19ecca6edd1b6d22a

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Ex-Penn St. president charged in Sandusky case

FILE - In this March 7, 2007, file photo, Penn State University president Graham Spanier speaks during a news conference at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Spanier is accused of perjury, endangering children and other charges in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal. According to online court records charges were filed, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, against Penn State's ex-president and two other administrators in what prosecutors called ?a conspiracy of silence." (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

FILE - In this March 7, 2007, file photo, Penn State University president Graham Spanier speaks during a news conference at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Spanier is accused of perjury, endangering children and other charges in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal. According to online court records charges were filed, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, against Penn State's ex-president and two other administrators in what prosecutors called ?a conspiracy of silence." (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly announces new criminal charges related to an ongoing child sex crimes investigation against former Penn State President Graham Spanier and added charges against two former underlings, Timothy Curley and Gary Schultz during a news conference Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. Spanier was charged with perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected abuse and conspiracy. Curley and Schultz face new charges of endangering the welfare of children, obstruction and conspiracy. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower)

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011, file photo Penn State president Graham Spanier, left, and head football coach Joe Paterno talk before an NCAA college football game against Iowa in State College, Pa. Spanier is accused of perjury, endangering children and other charges in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal. According to online court records charges were filed, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, against Penn State's ex-president and two other administrators in what prosecutors called ?a conspiracy of silence." (AP Photo/Gene Puskar, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011, file photo Penn State president Graham Spanier, left, and head football coach Joe Paterno talk before an NCAA college football game against Iowa in State College, Pa. Spanier is accused of perjury, endangering children and other charges in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal. According to online court records charges were filed, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, against Penn State's ex-president and two other administrators in what prosecutors called ?a conspiracy of silence." (AP Photo/Gene Puskar, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2011 file photo, Penn State President Graham Spanier presents head football coach Joe Paterno with a plague commemorating his 409th collegiate win after an NCAA college football game against Illinois in State College, Pa. Spanier is accused of perjury, endangering children and other charges in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal. According to online court records charges were filed, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, against Penn State's ex-president and two other administrators in what prosecutors called ?a conspiracy of silence." (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? Former Penn State President Graham Spanier was charged Thursday with hushing up child sex abuse complaints against Jerry Sandusky, taking the allegations of a "conspiracy of silence" to the highest level of the university and marking another chapter in the dramatic downfall of a once-renowned administrator.

Prosecutors also added counts against two of Spanier's former underlings, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, who were already charged with lying to the grand jury that investigated the former Penn State assistant football coach.

"This was not a mistake by these men. This was not an oversight. It was not misjudgment on their part," said state Attorney General Linda Kelly. "This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials to actively conceal the truth."

Spanier's lawyers issued a statement that asserted his innocence and described the new charges as an attempt by Gov. Tom Corbett to divert attention from the three-year investigation that began under his watch as attorney general.

"These charges are the work of a vindictive and politically motivated governor working through an unelected attorney general ... whom he appointed to do his bidding," the four defense lawyers wrote.

Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said the defense statement "sounds like the ranting of a desperate man who just got indicted."

Curley and Schultz have repeatedly asserted they are innocent. A spokeswoman for their lawyers said they planned to respond later to the new charges.

At a Capitol news conference, Kelly said all three men "knowingly testified falsely and failed to provide important information and evidence."

Spanier was charged with perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected abuse and conspiracy. Curley and Schultz face new charges of endangering the welfare of children, obstruction and conspiracy.

The charges were filed with a suburban Harrisburg district judge, whose office said Curley and Schultz were expected to be arraigned Friday afternoon and Spanier tentatively scheduled to appear Wednesday.

Sandusky, who spent decades on the Penn State staff and was defensive coordinator during two national championship seasons, was convicted in June of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. He has maintained he is innocent and was transferred to a maximum security prison on Wednesday, where he is serving a 30- to 60-year sentence.

Curley, 58, the athletic director on leave while he serves out the last year of his contract, and Schultz, 63, who has retired as vice president for business and finance, were charged a year ago with lying to the grand jury and with failing to properly report suspect child abuse. Their trial is set for early January in Harrisburg.

Spanier, 64, of State College, had been university president for 16 years when he was forced out after Sandusky's November 2011 arrest. He remains a faculty member but was placed on paid leave Thursday.

Prosecutors said Spanier, Curley and Schultz knew of complaints involving Sandusky showering with boys in 1998 and 2001.

"They essentially turned a blind eye to the serial predatory acts committed by Jerry Sandusky," Kelly said.

The grand jury report included with the charges said "the actual harm realized by this wanton failure is staggering," and listed instances of abuse detailed at Sandusky's criminal trial that happened after 1998.

"The continued cover-up of this incident and the ongoing failure to report placed every minor child who would come into contact with Sandusky in the future in grave jeopardy of being abused," jurors wrote.

Spanier has said he had no memory of email traffic concerning the 1998 complaint made by a mother after Sandusky showered with her son, and only slight recollections about the 2001 complaint by a team assistant who said he stumbled onto Sandusky sexually abusing a boy inside a campus shower.

The grand jury report indicates Curley, Schultz and Spanier told the university's lawyer they had no documents that addressed Sandusky having inappropriate contact with boys.

But Schultz did retain a Sandusky file in his office, the jury concluded, and he told his administrative assistant Joan Coble never to look at it.

"She said it was a very unusual request and was made in a 'tone of voice' she had never heard him use before," according to the jury report.

Another Schultz assistant took the file from his office at the time of Schultz's arrest, made a copy and gave the file to him, the grand jury said. Kelly said it was eventually obtained by the grand jury.

A large section of the presentment concerns Spanier's concealing details about the investigation from the Penn State board of trustees after his grand jury testimony last year. At a May 2011 trustees meeting, he was asked by the board about the matter and did not tell them it involved the school and Sandusky, the jury said.

"Spanier specifically informed the board that the investigation had nothing to do with Penn State and that the investigation was regarding a child in Clinton County without affiliation with Penn State," the jury wrote. "Spanier also told the board that he could say little more about the matter" because of grand jury secrecy.

The three men's actions were criticized in a report commissioned by Penn State and issued over the summer by former FBI Director Louis Freeh. That report concluded Spanier, Curley, Schultz and then-coach Joe Paterno concealed Sandusky's activities because they were worried about bad publicity.

Kelly sidestepped the question when asked if Paterno, who died of lung cancer in January, would have faced charges were he alive. Paterno had said he knew nothing of the 1998 complaint, but email traffic indicates he was in the loop.

"Mr. Paterno is deceased," she said. "The defendants who have been charged in this case are Curley, Schultz and Spanier, and I'm not going to speculate or comment on Mr. Paterno's relationship to this investigation."

State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said he was not backing off his assertion last year that Paterno had a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to tell police what he knew.

"What he did, what he didn't do, Joe Paterno, you guys can decide," Noonan told reporters. "Most of this stuff is in the presentment. But that's not the point here. The point is, we have the president, the athletic director, I mean the actual top people and that's who we have charged."

Freeh's investigators uncovered emails in which the administrators discussed the 1998 complaint, including a May 5 email from Curley to Schultz and Spanier, with "Joe Paterno" in the subject line. It read: "I have touched bases with the coach. Keep us posted. Thanks."

Spanier told Freeh's team that he believed in 2001 that the encounter witnessed by graduate assistant Mike McQueary amounted to "horseplay," although an email sent by him to Curley at that time reflected a much more somber tone.

In that email, Spanier was reacting to a proposal by Curley in which they would not report Sandusky to authorities but instead tell him he needed help and that he could no longer bring children into Penn State facilities.

"The only downside for us is if the message isn't 'heard' and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it," Spanier wrote in 2001. "The approach you outline is humane and a reasonable way to proceed."

Spanier's lawyers have called the Freeh report a myth, and said he would have acted in 1998, 2001 or any time if he knew a predator like Sandusky was on campus.

In July, Spanier revealed in a letter to the board of trustees that he had been physically abused by his father as a child.

"It is unfathomable and illogical to think that a respected family sociologist and family therapist, someone who personally experienced massive and persistent abuse as a child, someone who devoted a significant portion of his career to the welfare of children and youth ... would have knowingly turned a blind eye to any report of child abuse or predatory sexual acts directed at children," Spanier wrote.

___

Associated Press writers Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Peter Jackson in Linglestown, and Maryclaire Dale and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Attorney general news release with link to grand jury report:

http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/press.aspx?id=6699

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-11-01-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-159aa9e7988f4c239c26eaea02889860

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