GOP Chair Reince Priebus Calls for Earlier Conventions, Expanded Minority Outreach

WASHINGTON - As the Republican Party tries to bounce back from its loss in November's presidential election, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus today outlined some of the tactical changes he feels the party must make, including expanding outreach to minority voters and holding the Party's convention earlier in the summer.

"I'm calling for a convention in June or July," Priebus said during an appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation," arguing that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a "sitting duck" in the months leading up to the Republican National Convention in August.

"We're going to set up a commission that's going to make that decision," he said. "I'm going to be a part of that, I'm going to chair that commission, but no more August conventions."

While Democrats benefited from well invested and expansive political operations in states across the country in 2012, Priebus acknowledged the Republicans faced a deficit in that area and said the GOP would combat shortfall by launching a $10 million initiative dedicated to outreach in minority communities.

"The Obama campaign lived in these communities for years. Their relationships were deep. They were authentic," Priebus said. "We're going to be announcing a $10 million initiative just this year which will include hundreds of people, paid, across the country, from coast to coast, in Hispanic, African American, Asian communities, talking about our party, talking about our brand, talking about what we believe in, going to community events, going to swearing-in ceremonies being a part of the community on an ongoing basis paid for by the Republican National Committee, to make the case for our party and our candidates."

Priebus also said he hopes to reduce the number of primary debates to a more reasonable number like "seven or eight" per election cycle.

Priebus plans to outline his modernization plan for the Republican Party, called the Growth and Opportunity Project, in a news conference Monday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Last week, the RNC announced it would restructure its digital strategy to compete with the savvy and successful technology campaign waged by Democrats in recent years.

But as the Republican Party looks to heal the wounds caused by the 2012 election, two notable Republicans hammered each other for their respective roles in the Republican Party over the weekend.

On Saturday, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a thinly veiled jab at Republican strategist Karl Rove, who many on the right are vilifying his poor track record in the 2012 election and for establishing the Conservative Victory Project, which aims to take sides in Republican primary contests to weed out potential "problem" candidates.

"If these experts who keep losing elections and keep getting rehired and getting millions - if they feel that strong about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck-up or stay in the truck," Palin said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, a reference to Rove. "Buck up or run. The Architect can head on back to the great Lone Star State and put their name on some ballot - though for their sakes, I hope they give themselves a discount on their consulting services."

But Rove fired back Sunday, defending himself and dinging Palin for her decision not to complete her term as governor of Alaska.

"I'm a volunteer. I don't take a dime from my work with American Crossroads. I even pay my own travel expenses, out of my own pocket. I thought Sarah Palin was about encouraging volunteer, grassroots activity, I'm a volunteer," Rove said on "Fox News Sunday." "I appreciate her encouragement that I ought to go home to Texas and run for office. I would be enthused if I ran for office to have her support. I will say this, though, I don't think I'm a particularly good candidate. Sort of a balding, fat guy. And second of all, I'd say if I did run for office and win, I would serve out my term. I wouldn't leave office midterm."

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-chair-reince-priebus-calls-earlier-conventions-expanded-180806739--abc-news-politics.html

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Google Drive wonky? You're not alone

Google Drive has an issue, Google says this morning. And ... that's it. Fact is it's slow as hell on the web -- if it loads at all -- and mobile's only slightly better.

The official word from Google as of 10:17 EDT:

We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Drive. We will provide more information shortly.

So hang in there for now, and sing out if you see any other Google apps acting up.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/mL99PeMnYRc/story01.htm

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U.S. aims to clinch Afghan deal on prisoner transfer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke in a call on Saturday about efforts to quickly resolve one of the most vexing issues in the two countries' relations, the delayed transfer to Afghan control of a key detention center.

The Pentagon said the two men "agreed to use the next week to conduct intensive work with a view to concluding an agreement," spokesman George Little said in a statement.

The transfer of the detention center at Bagram air base is a persistent source of tension, with Karzai's office warning in a statement on Wednesday that "any more delays could harm the bilateral relations."

U.S. commanders want to ensure that dangerous prisoners will not be released back to the battlefield. But Karzai has raised alarms by warning that any "innocent" prisoners being held at the facility will be released.

Little's statement said an agreement on the detention facility would be one that both "fully recognizes Afghan sovereignty and our mutual interests in security of the Afghan people and our respective forces."

During Hagel's visit to Afghanistan last weekend, Karzai accused the United States of colluding with the Taliban and of holding unilateral negotiations with the insurgents - allegations the United States sharply denied and which exposed deep tensions after 11 years of war.

The United States plans to pull out just over half of its 66,000 troops from Afghanistan by early next year and leave a relatively small force after 2014, focusing on training Afghan forces and conducting limited counterterrorism operations.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-aims-clinch-afghan-deal-prisoner-transfer-212149240.html

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Grieving husband pushes bill for unproven remedies

LONDON (AP) ? After the best-selling Irish novelist Josephine Hart died from ovarian cancer in 2011, her husband was so devastated he often went to her grave to have breakfast.

And even now, Lord Maurice Saatchi describes his wife's cancer treatment as "medieval." A member of Parliament, he's proposing a bill that would allow doctors to use experimental therapies even if there is no proof they work.

Hart and Saatchi were an oft-photographed celebrity couple in Britain more than a decade ago. She produced plays in London's West End and hosted poetry readings featuring actors including Ralph Fiennes and Roger Moore. Her 1991 novel "Damage" was turned into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.

Saatchi, an advertising executive who sits in the House of Lords, acknowledges his bill was driven by grief at his wife's death.

After a diagnosis in 2009 that her cancer was too advanced for surgery, Hart got chemotherapy and radiation, which Saatchi calls "degrading and ineffective."

Though ovarian cancer is one of the hardest to catch and treat early, Saatchi says Britain's current law is a serious barrier to new treatments. Theoretically doctors can be prosecuted if they try something that deviates from standard practice.

His bill is aimed at encouraging new therapies by allowing doctors to try them, including those lacking evidence of effectiveness. The decision would have to be made by several medical experts in different fields and doctors would need to tell their supervisors in advance as well as inform the patient of any opposing medical opinions.

While bills initiated by individual politicians rarely make it into law, Saatchi's proposal has raised a broader issue about British health care: Survival rates for most cancers are worse than in other European countries including France, Germany and the United States. A report released this month said Britain ranked 16th out of 19 Western countries for ovarian cancer death rates.

Access to drugs is so poor the government started a 200 million pound (US$302 million) emergency fund in 2010 to try to get patients quicker treatment; the U.K. spends about half what France spends on cancer drugs.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer in the U.S. is 89 percent. In the U.K., it is 81 percent.

After the cancer drug Avastin was approved for use in the U.S., it took nearly another year for it to become available in Britain. For Tykerb, the delay was more than two years. Avastin is used to treat numerous cancers including those of the kidney, colon, and lung while Tykerb is used to treat breast cancer in combination with other drugs.

In a debate on Saatchi's bill in the House of Lords in January, Lord Frederick Howe, a government health minister, lamented the contrast between Britain's role as a world leader in health research and its lagging approval of new treatments for patients.

"It still takes an estimated average of 17 years for only 14 percent of new scientific discoveries to enter day-to-day clinical practice," he said. "This is not acceptable."

Several other members voiced support for Saatchi, citing other problems that have slowed medical advances, including bureaucracy and slashed budgets.

Some experts suggest that if Saatchi's bill doesn't make it into law in its current form, its key planks might be rolled into a government-sponsored bill, making it much likelier to succeed. Saatchi has even been advised by the U.K.'s top medical officer."We're very sympathetic to the points that Lord Saatchi has raised," said Daniel Poulter, a minister in the Department of Health, during a televised discussion with Saatchi. "We'd certainly like to engage further."

Legal experts said current British law should be sufficient to protect doctors who try experimental procedures as long as there is some reason to think they might work and the patient agrees. But a High Court judge ruled in 1957 that doctors could be found negligent if they used treatments that strayed from common practice, setting a precedent often cited in medical negligence lawsuits. In that case, the judge ruled that doctors must act in accordance with what the majority of doctors do, even if there are opposing medical views.

According to National Health Service records, the number of medical negligence suits has jumped by about 30 percent since 2010. Though it is rare for doctors to be penalized for using new treatments, experts said many doctors are wary.

"Doctors are very fearful that if they do anything innovative, the lawyers will get them," said Charles Foster, who teaches medical law and ethics at Oxford University. "There's a culture of following guidelines where they think they will only be safe if they treat patients conservatively," he explained.

Foster said Saatchi's bill could be important in addressing doctors' misconceptions of what the law allows. "It could change the zeitgeist of the medical profession and make them more willing to try new things," he said.

Still, some aren't convinced Saatchi's bill would help speed new treatments. Dr. Karol Sikora, director of CancerPartners U.K., a network of treatment centers and dean of the medical school at the University of Buckingham, thinks the proposal is superfluous.

"If the doctor wants to do it and the patient consents, people can do wacky things," Sikora said, citing the alternative medicine industry, where there is little evidence treatments work. He also said the bill could encourage false hope among terminal patients.

Saatchi doesn't know whether his bill would have helped his wife. Ultimately, he said, it's about giving patients and doctors new opportunities in the future. "This bill is not going to cure cancer, but it will encourage the man or woman who will," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/grieving-husband-pushes-bill-unproven-remedies-075146559.html

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Poet Alice Notley gave AroarA a haunting vision

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Andrew Whiteman and Ariel Engle take care to maintain a sense of space in AroarA?s music. ?After 10 years with Broken Social Scene, I?m content to take a break from the wall of sound,? Whiteman says.

Photograph by: Adrienne Amato and Michael Baumgart , Pop Montreal

MONTREAL - As Andrew Whiteman of Montreal duo AroarA explains it to the audience each night on their current western Canadian tour, the EP In the Pines is a series of poems by Alice Notley set to their music. Avant-gardist Notley was undergoing a treatment for hepatitis C when she wrote the poems, ?and so she experienced a bunch of crazy visions.?

Given Whiteman is suffering through a miserable flu, he?s feeling closer to the material than ever. ?Yeah, it?s difficult to imagine doing the show until you?re actually doing the show,? he says. ?And when you are, it?s an out-of-body experience.?

First, the flu experience. Whiteman and wife Ariel Engle are dream-minimalist duo AroarA, currently opening for ? and playing with ? Martha Wainwright. ?Generally during Martha?s set I?m not too worried, because I don?t do too much singing. For the AroarA set, I might change the setlist a bit.?

You?d also want to avoid sharing the mic. The tour, Canadian dates following Euro dates, has gone exceedingly well for a duo playing songs that haven?t really been released. ?It?s kind of interesting to be playing this music to people who have absolutely no clue what?s going to happen, and getting such a good response.

?Yeah, nobody knows the music,? Whiteman says, but that?s been the defining characteristic of the project: the unknown experience.

Whiteman is better (or previously) known as a member of Broken Social Scene (and Apostle of Hustle, but that project is mothballed). He and Engle had been ?major fans of (Notley). I mainly got into modern experimental avant-garde American poetry through podcasts. The Internet is so great for that.? Notley now lives in Paris, but was a key figure on the Lower East Side poetry scene of the ?70s and ?80s, a prolific and independent writer who was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998. In the Pines ?was one of her books I hadn?t read. And I noticed a few lines very quickly ? like ?Them that don?t like me can leave me alone.? I knew that line comes from The Wagoner?s Lad, this really old American hillbilly song!?

He notes that Notley?s pagination ?looked like she was writing lyrics,? and the married pair were determined to return this ?gothic Americana? to a musical state. However, they wanted Notley?s approval, which was anything but guaranteed. ?She had already turned down a modern classical composer in California who wanted to use her voice. Alice is very intense.?

While in Paris on a tour with Broken Social Scene, Whiteman was fooling around on Google and realized he?d found Notley?s address. He called Engle and asked for her advice. ?She said, ?OK, don?t freak her out or anything ? just go there and leave her a note.? ? Sound thinking. ?I was gonna drink 17 espresso shots in a row and leave her the best note in the world.?

But fate stepped in and when Whiteman went, Notley happened to be arriving in a cab. ?She was staring at me and I was staring at her.? He panicked, and began jabbering ?in this robot voice. But she was kind enough to let me walk her to the local grocery.? When he finally revealed the project, ?she looked at me steely-eyed, straight on and said, ?Oh. How are you gonna do that??

?It wasn?t ?Oh, I?m so flattered.? She was skeptical right away. And I said, ?I don?t know.? Because at the time, I didn?t.?

They began working at a friend?s house ?in the forest,? exploring ideas, plunging into the dark. The result, in the five tracks on the EP, is a disarmingly oneiric song cycle that lingers spectrally with the listener. ?Esthetically, Ariel likes things minimal so you can hear what each part is doing. And after 10 years with Broken Social Scene, I?m content to take a break from the wall of sound.?

In seeking distinctive instrumentation, they?d used a ?virtual Mellotron that Sabbath and Zeppelin used. You play the keys and it plays back tape loops. One of the patches I had was Black Sabbath ? so I used that liberally? to cast the spell.

While in Paris on this tour late last year, two years after the first fateful meeting, ?Alice came to the show and saw us play it. It was so lovely. The three of us ? me, Ariel, Alice ? stood there tearing up.? The poem comes full circle.

In the Pines is released Tuesday, March 12. AroarA will officially launch the EP with a Montreal show in early April; details to be announced.

markjlepage@yahoo.com

? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

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Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/Poet+Alice+Notley+gave+AroarA+haunting+vision/8080723/story.html

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Perry nuclear power plant was vulnerable to sabotage, says Union of Concerned Scientists

The Union of Concerned Scientists today said operators at the Perry nuclear power plant discovered a vulnerability in the plant's security in early 2012.

The weakness apparently had something to do with underground piping or trenching, the watchdog group said in a report issued Thursday.

The revelation of the potential security weakness that could have allowed outsiders into secure areas of the Perry plant -- possibly through underground tunnels -- is one of 14 "near misses" included in a report on nuclear safety issued annually by the watchdog group.

The UCS defines a near-miss as a situation or problem that could have led to a serious incident endangering public safety or worker health.

"Perry's owner informed the NRC that its security program for monitoring underground pathways and other unattended openings were insufficient to detect and prevent unauthorized access to the protected area," the report states.

Protected by heavily armed guards, surrounded by prisonlike fencing and in locked buildings, these areas include the reactor and emergency safety equipment, such as the plant's diesel generators.

The group believes the vulnerability -- had it not been discovered -- would have made Perry more vulnerable to sabotage.

Although there is no public record of the discovery of the security issue, plant owner FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron reported the problem to the the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 25, 2012, according to the UCS report.

The federal agency sent a special inspection team to Perry, which then issued a security violation, again not available in the agency's public files.

FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said federal security rules prevented her from fully responding to the charge.

But she insisted, "This was not an event or near-miss. At no time was plant security breached."

In a statement responding to a request for comprehensive explanation, Young also wrote:

"U.S. nuclear facilities, including the Perry Nuclear Power Plant, employ many layers of robust security measures, including physical barriers, trained site protection forces, access restrictions and other procedures to protect the health and safety of the plant, its personnel and the public from any security related event.

"Our nuclear plant security measures are continually inspected, assessed and exercised to look for opportunities to make our safe, secure facilities even safer. When Perry self identified a potential vulnerability, it took prompt and immediate action to report its discovery to the regulator and correct the issue.

The NRC had no immediate response to the UCS report.

UCS is a nuclear watchdog organization. It is not opposed to nuclear power, and the author of the annual near -miss report, David Lochbaum, is a nuclear safety engineer who worked for 17 years in a nuclear power plant.

Lochbaum seemed more critical of the NRC than FirstEnergy because, he said, such problems were identified by other nuclear power plant operators 30 years ago, well before the 9/11 attacks.

"While the security veil hides some information about this problem and its resolution, the available information strongly suggests that the NRC is requiring that the owner fix the identified problems of uncontrolled access into the plant's protected area," he wrote in the report.

"That's good, but there is no evidence that the NRC is also requiring that the owner fix its testing and inspection regime shortcomings that allowed this security problem to remain undetected for so many years. Both fixes are equally important and yet the NRC seems willing to accept half measures. That is fully wrong."

FirstEnergy has spent millions of dollars in the last decade on physical security and a police force at its three nuclear power plants to meet federal security regulations.

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/03/perry_nuclear_power_plant_was.html

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Help for your Gordian knot of cables

Do you have a jumbled mess of cables and power cords behind your desk or entertainment center? ?When you need to unplug something, do you have to try unplugging everything until you find the right one? ?I was reading Oprah’s O Magazine recently (found in my Next Issue subscription!), and they featured some fun cable [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/03/07/help-for-your-gordian-knot-of-cables/

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