Worker smashes coffee pot over head of Pa. robber

PITTSBURGH (AP) ? Police say a worker at a drive-thru coffee shop near Pittsburgh smashed a glass pot over the head of a man who tried to climb through the window to rob the business.

Police in Ross Township have continued to look for the man who tried to rob the Island Bean coffee shop in Ross Township, north of the city. They also say the encounter was caught on surveillance video.

Police say workers at first fought back by throwing towels at the man Wednesday morning. When that didn't work, one worker hit him in the head with the pot.

Authorities believe the man sped away in a stolen car.

The workers were unhurt, and police are still investigating.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2011-12-14-Coffee%20Shop%20Robbery/id-6b79f1acbf984d80a716691aef0bab50

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Ancient dry spells offer clues about the future of drought

ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2011) ? As parts of Central America and the U.S. Southwest endure some of the worst droughts to hit those areas in decades, scientists have unearthed new evidence about ancient dry spells that suggest the future could bring even more serious water shortages. Three researchers speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2011, presented new findings about the past and future of drought.

Pre-Columbian Collapse

Ben Cook, a climatologist affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York City, highlighted new research that indicates the ancient Meso-American civilizations of the Mayans and Aztecs likely amplified droughts in the Yucat?n Peninsula and southern and central Mexico by clearing rainforests to make room for pastures and farmland.

Converting forest to farmland can increase the reflectivity, or albedo, of the land surface in ways that affect precipitation patterns. "Farmland and pastures absorb slightly less energy from the sun than the rainforest because their surfaces tend to be lighter and more reflective," explained Cook. "This means that there's less energy available for convection and precipitation."

Cook and colleagues used a high-resolution climate model developed at GISS to run simulations that compared how patterns of vegetation cover during pre-Columbian (before 1492 C.E.) and post-Columbian periods affected precipitation and drought in Central America. The pre-Columbian era saw widespread deforestation on the Yucat?n Peninsula and throughout southern and central Mexico. During the post-Columbian period, forests regenerated as native populations declined and farmlands and pastures were abandoned.

Cook's simulations include input from a newly published land-cover reconstruction that is one of the most complete and accurate records of human vegetation changes available. The results are unmistakable: Precipitation levels declined by a considerable amount -- generally 10 to 20 percent -- when deforestation was widespread. Precipitation records from stalagmites, a type of cave formation affected by moisture levels that paleoclimatologists use to deduce past climate trends, in the Yucat?n agree well with Cook's model results.

The effect is most noticeable over the Yucat?n Peninsula and southern Mexico, areas that overlapped with the centers of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and had high levels of deforestation and the most densely concentrated populations. Rainfall levels declined, for example, by as much as 20 percent over parts of the Yucat?n Peninsula between 800 C.E. and 950 C.E.

Cook's study supports previous research that suggests drought, amplified by deforestation, was a key factor in the rapid collapse of the Mayan empire around 950 C.E. In 2010, Robert Oglesby, a climate modeler based at the University of Nebraska, published a study in the Journal of Geophysical Research that showed that deforestation likely contributed to the Mayan collapse. Though Oglesby and Cook's modeling reached similar conclusions, Cook had access to a more accurate and reliable record of vegetation changes.

During the peak of Mayan civilization between 800 C.E. and 950 C.E., the land cover reconstruction Cook based his modeling on indicates that the Maya had left only a tiny percentage of the forests on the Yucat?n Peninsula intact. By the period between 1500 C.E. and 1650 C.E., in contrast, after the arrival of Europeans had decimated native populations, natural vegetation covered nearly all of the Yucat?n. In modern times, deforestation has altered some areas near the coast, but a large majority of the peninsula's forests remain intact.

"I wouldn't argue that deforestation causes drought or that it's entirely responsible for the decline of the Maya, but our results do show that deforestation can bias the climate toward drought and that about half of the dryness in the pre-Colonial period was the result of deforestation," Cook said.

Northeastern Megadroughts

The last major drought to affect the Northeast occurred in the 1960s, persisted for about three years and took a major toll on the region. Dorothy Peteet, a paleoclimatologist also affiliated with NASA GISS and Columbia University, has uncovered evidence that shows far more severe droughts have occurred in the Northeast.

By analyzing sediment cores collected from several tidal marshes in the Hudson River Valley, Peteet and her colleagues at Lamont-Doherty have found evidence that at least three major dry spells have occurred in the Northeast within the last 6,000 years. The longest, which corresponds with a span of time known as the Medieval Warm Period, lasted some 500 years and began around 850 C.E. The other two took place more than 5,000 years ago. They were shorter, only about 20 to 40 years, but likely more severe.

"People don't generally think about the Northeast as an area that can experience drought, but there's geologic evidence that shows major droughts can and do occur," Peteet said. "It's something scientists can't ignore. What we're finding in these sediment cores has big implications for the region."

Peteet's team detected all three droughts using a method called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. They used the technique on a core collected at Piermont Marsh in New York to search for characteristic elements -- such as bromine and calcium -- that are more likely to occur at the marsh during droughts.

Fresh water from the Hudson River and salty water from the Atlantic Ocean were both predominant in Piermont Marsh at different time periods, but saltwater moves upriver during dry periods as the amount of fresh water entering the marsh declines. Peteet's team detected extremely high levels of both bromine and calcium, both of them indicators of the presence of saltwater and the existence of drought, in sections of the sediment cores corresponding to 5,745 and 5,480 years ago.

During the Medieval Warm Period, the researchers also found striking increases in the abundance of certain types of pollen species, especially pine and hickory, that indicate a dry climate. Before the Medieval Warm Period, in contrast, there were more oaks, which prefer wetter conditions. They also found a thick layer of charcoal demonstrating that wildfires, which are more frequent during droughts, were common during the Medieval Warm Period.

"We still need to do more research before we can say with confidence how widespread or frequent droughts in the Northeast have been," Peteet said. There are certain gaps in the cores Peteet's team studied, for example, that she plans to investigate in greater detail. She also expects to expand the scope of the project to other marshes and estuaries in the Northeast and to collaborate with climate modelers to begin teasing out the factors that cause droughts to occur in the region.

The Future of Food

Climate change, with its potential to redistribute water availability around the globe by increasing rainfall in some areas while worsening drought in others, might negatively impact crop yields in certain regions of the world.

New research conducted by Princeton University hydrologist Justin Sheffield shows that areas of the developing world that are drought-prone and have growing population and limited capabilities to store water, such as sub-Saharan Africa, will be the ones most at risk of seeing their crops decrease their yields in the future.

Sheffield and his team ran hydrological model simulations for the 20th and 21st centuries and looked at how drought might change in the future according to different climate change scenarios. They found that the total area affected by drought has not changed significantly over the past 50 years globally.

However, the model shows reductions in precipitation and increases in evaporative demand are projected to increase the frequency of short-term droughts. They also found that the area across sub-Saharan Africa experiencing drought will rise by as much as twofold by mid-21st century and threefold by the end of the century.

When the team analyzed what these changes would mean for future agricultural productivity around the globe, they found that the impact on sub-Saharan Africa would be especially strong.

Agricultural productivity depends on a number of factors beyond water availability including soil conditions, available technologies and crop varieties. For some regions of sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers found that agricultural productivity will likely decline by over 20 percent by mid-century due to drying and warming.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/_fDwIcBdAK8/111205181917.htm

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Few parents recall doctor saying child overweight (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Pediatricians are supposed to track if youngsters are putting on too many pounds ? but a new study found less than a quarter of parents of overweight children recall the doctor ever saying there was a problem.

Does that mean doctors aren't screening enough kids, or aren't frank enough in these tough conversations? Or is the real story parent denial? The research published Monday can't tell, but makes it clear the message too often isn't getting through.

"It's tricky to say, and it's tricky to hear," says lead researcher Dr. Eliana Perrin of the University of North Carolina. She analyzed government health surveys that included nearly 5,000 parents of overweight children from 1999 to 2008.

Parents tend not to realize when a weight problem is creeping up on their children. When almost a third of U.S. children are at least overweight, and about 17 percent are obese, it's harder to notice that there's anything unusual about their own families. Plus, children change as they grow older.

The new study suggests when parents do recall a doctor noting the problem, it's been going on for a while.

About 30 percent of the parents of overweight 12- to 15-year-olds said a doctor had alerted them, compared with just 12 percent of the parents of overweight preschoolers. Even among the parents of very obese children, only 58 percent recalled a doctor discussing it, says the report published Monday by the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

"Many pediatricians don't worry until children are very overweight, or until they're much older," says Perrin, whose team has created stoplight-colored growth charts to help doctors explain when a problem's brewing. "If we can notice a concerning trend early, we're more likely to be able to do something about it."

That means taking a family approach, says Dr. Nazrat Mirza, medical director of an obesity clinic at Children's National Medical Center in Washington. Important changes ? such as switching to low-fat milk and water instead of sugary sodas and juice, or cutting back on fast food ? should be viewed as making the whole family healthier, not depriving everyone because Johnny needs to lose weight.

"You do not want to single out one individual in the family. That's enough to cause a lot of friction," says Mirza, who wasn't involved with the new study.

Doctors have long tracked children's height and weight during yearly checkups, but more recent guidelines urge them to calculate a youngster's body mass index, or BMI, to screen for developing obesity. Unlike with adults, one measurement alone doesn't necessarily mean children are overweight ? they might be about to shoot up an inch.

The next step is plotting that BMI on a growth chart. Youngsters are considered overweight if their BMIs track in the 85th to 95th percentile for children their same age and gender, a range that just a few years ago was termed merely "at risk." Above the 95th percentile is considered obese.

To tackle lack of awareness, Children's National has begun calculating BMIs for every child age 2 or older who is admitted for any reason. Mirza calls it "a teachable moment."

Perrin's analysis shows more parents of overweight kids are starting to get the message. Overall, 22 percent of parents reported a health professional telling them their child was overweight. But that rose to 29 percent in 2008, the latest year of the survey data and about the time guidelines changed.

So what should parents, and overweight children themselves, be told?

Perrin focuses on health, not fat. She tells them the child is at an unhealthy weight that puts them at risk for later problems ? and that she can help families learn to eat better and get more active. That's where her color-coded BMI charts (http://www.eatsmartmovemorenc.com) come in. Parents can tell at a glance if their child is in the overweight yellow zone or the obese red zone, and over time if they're moving closer to the green zone. Perrin calls the charts especially useful between ages 3 and 8, when children are growing so fast it's particularly hard to tell if they're a healthy size.

Portion size is key, too. Nutritionists define the right size as about 1 tablespoon of each food type for every year of age. Perrin's easier measure is that a serving is about the size of a child's palm, which will grow as the child gets older.

Pre-teens and teens are more independent and have to be on board, adds Mirza. Teens, for example, start to stay up late, eating more at night and skipping breakfast, not a healthy pattern. The kid who never exercises will tune out all weight advice if told to hit the gym but might agree to walk around the block. The athlete might be sabotaging physical activity with 600-calorie snacks.

The good news: As kids grow older and taller, "they can grow into a healthier weight," Perrin says. And "we know that parents with an accurate assessment of their child's weight are more likely to make weight-related changes."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

__

Online:

Journal: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/

BMI charts: www.eatsmartmovemorenc.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_he_me/us_med_healthbeat_overweight_kids

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Hidden mountains make up Antarctica's true terrain

Chelsea White, contributor

(Image: British Antarctic Survey/BEDMAP consortium)

Antarctica is hiding something. It may look like a fairly flat, snow-covered wasteland, but the BEDMAP project has pulled back the ice sheet to reveal the mountainous bed topography of the continent underneath.

Only one per cent of this concealed rock makes its way to the surface of the frozen terrain. Although some of these mountains are as tall as the European Alps, reaching 3000 metres above sea level, they're still obscured by 1000 metres of ice.

The highest elevations are marked in this image in red and black and the lowest are shown in dark blue. The light blue area shows the extent of the continental shelf.

Using radar to map the landscape, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have pooled data from decades of polar expeditions to create the most accurate and detailed map of 'the white continent' ever made.

Radar travels easily through ice, so in order to chart the terrain, planes flying above the ice send microwave pulses through the upper sheet and record the echoes that reach the plane when it bounces off the underlying rock. This gives a clear picture of the shape of the hidden landscape and also reveals the depth of the ice cover.

"It's like you've brought the whole thing now into sharp focus," Hamish Pritchard of the BAS told BBC News.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1aad8ae2/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A110C120Chidden0Emountains0Emake0Eup0Eantar0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Maoist rebels kill 11 in attacks in eastern India (AP)

PATNA, India ? Maoist rebels have killed 11 people in attacks across an eastern Indian state after their leader died in a gunbattle with security forces, police said.

The rebels blew up railway tracks at two points in Jharkhand before dawn Sunday, hours after attacking a police convoy traveling with a state lawmaker with explosives and gunfire that left 10 officers and a young boy dead, police Superintendent D.V. Sharma said.

Another officer was hospitalized with injuries. Former Jharkhand Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari escaped unharmed.

The rebels also set fire Sunday to a cellphone tower in southwest Bihar state, on the border with Jharkhand, and vowed to continue their agitation through Monday as they protest the Nov. 24 killing of Koteshwar Rao, known as Kishanji, in the neighboring state of West Bengal.

The rebels, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been fighting for more than three decades in several Indian states to demand land and jobs for agricultural laborers and the poor.

Referred to as Naxalites, after the West Bengal village of Naxalbari, where the movement began in 1967, they frequently target police and government workers.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the rebels the biggest internal threat to India's security.

Last month, security forces launched a hunt for Kishanji and other rebel leaders in the jungles of West Bengal, eventually killing the top rebel in a gunbattle and seizing large stocks of arms and ammunition.

The rebels have vowed to avenge his death.

Left-wing politicians have protested the killing as well, saying the rebel leader could have been made to surrender.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111204/ap_on_re_as/as_india_maoist_rebels

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Republican Presidential Candidates on the National Debt Crisis (ContributorNetwork)

One of the greatest challenges the next president will face is the national debt crisis. According USdebtclock.org, which provides live updates on the national debt and federal budget, the U.S. public debt is now about $15 trillion, or more than $48,000 for person in America.

To make matters worse, the debt is growing at an alarming rate and is compounded by devastating levels of interest. For these reasons, the candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination were asked what their solutions for the debt crisis are at a recent CBS News-sponsored GOP debate.

Here is what they said:

* Michele Bachmann: "We are in a terrible debt spiral, so much so that, just in the month of October, we just added another $203 billion in debt. ? So what would I cut? ?Take a look at Lyndon Baines Johnson's The Great Society. The Great Society has not worked, and it's put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. ?They don't have the modern welfare state. And China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they'd be gone."

* Mitt Romney: "Right now, we're spending about 25 percent of the economy at the federal level. And that has to be brought down to a cap of 20 percent. I'll get that done within my first term, if I'm lucky enough to get elected. How do you do that? One, it's eliminating programs. A lot of programs we like, but we simply can't afford. The first we will eliminate, however, we're happy to get rid of. That's Obamacare. Other programs we like the Endowment for Humanities and Arts. ? These are wonderful features that we have of the government. But we simply can't go out and borrow money from China to pay for them. They're not that essential. In terms of returning programs to the states, Medicaid, a program for the poor, should be returned to the states. Let the states manage it."

* Jon Huntsman: "If we're gonna get this nation moving in the right direction, we need to recognize that debt, as 70 percent of our GDP and moving up, becomes a national security problem. You look where Japan is, well over 100 percent debt to GDP. Greece, 170 percent to GDP. Italy, 120 percent. So you get a sense of where our tomorrow is if we don't tackle the debt and spending. My speech was a very short one on debt and spending. It's three words: The Ryan Plan. Medicaid. ? I'd send back to the states. Education, I wanna move closer to the states. You move education closer to the decision makers, the school boards, the families, you're a whole lot better off."

* Newt Gingrich: "There are four interlocking national security problems. Debt and the deficit's one. Energy is a second one. Manufacturing is a third one. And science and technology's a fourth. And you need to have solutions that fit all four. I helped balance the budget for four consecutive years. I'm not very concerned, if we're serious, what you wanna do is fundamentally reform and overhaul the federal government, fundamentally. While, at the same time, accelerating economic growth to bring unemployment down to four percent. That combination gets you back to a balanced budget."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111201/us_ac/10565311_republican_presidential_candidates_on_the_national_debt_crisis

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Pardoned UAE blogger vows to carry on campaign (Reuters)

DUBAI (Reuters) ? A pro-democracy blogger who was jailed for insulting UAE leaders, then pardoned and released hours later, Thursday vowed to go on with his campaign work, sounding a rare note of defiance in the Gulf Arab oil state.

Nasser bin Ghaith was one of five arrested in April on charges of disrupting public order and calling for protests.

They were sentenced to up to three years in prison Sunday and pardoned one day later along with more than 550 others given amnesty ahead of the UAE's national holiday.

The UAE, the world's third biggest oil exporter, has not seen the kind of protests that have rocked Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, partly thanks to its generous cradle-to-grave welfare system.

But the case of bin Ghaith and his colleagues has been seen as a gauge of how the state, which allows no political parties, responds to political dissent.

Bin Ghaith told Reuters in an interview he was still amazed at how they were treated for criticizing the government's moves to raise social spending in a bid to prevent the eruption of popular unrest.

"We haven't done anything against any law or rule and not even anything that constitutes a moral or legal breach," said the lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France's Sorbonne University.

"I never thought I would go through this experience and see the dark side of the country ... To stop what I do in the field of human rights, in defending personal freedoms and pushing for political reforms, I think that will be a step back in my love for my country."

The activists' unusually bold criticism of the Western-allied state's political system on UAE websites was a rare example of public protest.

Fellow blogger Ahmed Mansoor was back with his family on Thursday, celebrating the public holiday marking the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates.

"We were hoping that instead of a pardon we would get a fair trail ... It would have been a victory not just for us but for the country as a whole," he said.

He was surrounded by his sons who wore pins depicting the image of the UAE's President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

(Reporting By Warda al-Jawahiry; Writing By Nour Merza; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/wr_nm/us_emirates_activists

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Governors Chaffee and Gregoire Ask Feds to Reclassify Marijuana (Rolling Stone)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Clinton causes barely a stir in Myanmar's curious capital (Reuters)

NAYPYITAW (Reuters) ? Myanmar's new capital, Naypyitaw, translates as "Abode of Kings," fitting for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to begin historic talks that could restore some luster to one of the world's most reclusive states.

But as she arrived on Wednesday to become the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in more than 50 years, there were no crowds, no festivities, no flags and seemingly few preparations aside from some policemen outside the hotel compound where she will stay and on nearby roads.

In striking contrast, a large billboard had been strung up at a nearby hotel, welcoming the prime minister of Belarus, who is also due to visit in coming days.

Some workers were sweeping the wide but mostly deserted boulevards of the sprawling city built from scratch just five years ago, where Myanmar's leaders and powerful retired generals have isolated themselves, some 320 km (200 miles) from the largest city and former capital, Yangon.

At the airport, she was greeted by a small delegation led by Myanmar's foreign minister.

Naypyitaw is a maze of ministry buildings, government mansions, civil servants' quarters and presidential palaces complete with grand Roman-style pillars -- all rising from dusty, arid scrubland. At its heart are parliament's 31 buildings, with pagoda-style roofs.

Bestowed with manicured lawns and forbidding stone walls, it bears no resemblance to the rest of Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest countries, or even to nearby villages, where many people live in thatched wooden huts.

Attractions include half a dozen resorts and golf courses, drinkable tap water, a Western-style shopping mall, a zoo, a grand "water fountain garden," lavish mansions and 24-hour electricity in a nation beset by chronic power outages.

A laborer at a construction site next to parliament said he had no idea who was visiting.

"All I know is someone important is coming but I don't know who," said the worker, Ye Pun Naing. Told that it was Clinton, he shrugged his shoulders and said that meant nothing to him.

That's not too surprising.

Myanmar has only just begun to emerge from an extraordinary half-century of isolation. The past few months have seen the most dramatic changes in the former British colony since the military took power in a 1962 coup when it was known as Burma.

A string of reforms, breathtaking by Myanmar's standards, have been introduced by former generals who swapped fatigues for civilian clothes in March when a new parliament opened following last year's elections, the first in two decades.

While in South Korea earlier on Wednesday, Clinton expressed cautious optimism that Myanmar's tentative democratic reforms could develop into a movement for change to the benefit of the people.

PUZZLINGLY WIDE ROADS

Unarmed policemen were seen in pairs or small along some roads, along with occasional trucks carrying riot police armed with shields, baton and guns.

"A number of foreign dignitaries are due to arrive here in a day or two," said Ma Nyein, 26, as she tended roadside plants. She said she had never heard of Clinton, although she knew who U.S. President Barack Obama was.

Much of Naypyitaw was built by workers like Ma Nyein, toiling in searing heat with basic equipment. When Reuters journalists visited early last year, women were hauling stacks of bricks balanced upon their head and men cleared land with wooden-handled scythes. Ox carts transported wood.

Diplomatic sources say the construction of Naypyitaw would have cost billions of dollars, drawing criticism from aid groups over the priorities of a country where a third of the population lives in poverty and where infrastructure is in tatters due to trade-crippling sanctions and mismanagement.

The city's rise reflects the riches reaped by its rulers as Southeast Asia and China tap its natural resources, from timber and natural gas to precious gems, despite the Western sanctions imposed in response to rights abuses.

It may have amenities but there's no lively city centre thronged with people, even five years after the government moved nearly all its workers there. Officials put its population at about 1 million, including outlying townships.

Its roads are puzzlingly wide, including one 20-lane boulevard, but they are largely empty. Civilian cars are rare. The city centre, a roundabout where five roads meet, is populated mostly by palm trees and potted flowers.

One person the former ruling junta were happy to leave in Yangon was opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate freed from years of detention last year.

But Suu Kyi has since visited several times and could even enter parliament when her political party contests by-elections expected early next year.

(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111130/wl_nm/us_myanmar_capital

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Cutting and pasting to the Constitution (Politico)

To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, the U.S. Constitution is the guiding light of democracy, a bedrock document so perfect and precise that it shouldn?t be challenged, interpreted or besmirched by modern-day judges.

Except for all the parts the GOP candidates themselves want to change.

Continue Reading

The same candidates promising to appoint strict constructionist judges clearly think the Framers, for all their wisdom and foresight, forgot a few things, which they now want to tack on with an array of proposed constitutional amendments that would bulk up the document.

A balanced budget amendment, measures banning abortion and gay marriage, and eliminating the income tax and birthright citizenship ? the Republican White House contenders want to see all these added.

None of the candidates, though, have gone as far as Perry, who at a speech Monday in Bettendorf, Iowa proposed limiting Supreme Court justices to 18-year terms.

That?s directly at odds with the Constitution?s Article III, Section 1, which reads: ?The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.?

Perry said his hope was to spark a deeper revolution in the federal government.

?It is time to tear down the monuments to bureaucratic failure, and in their place build a smaller, more efficient federal government that puts the American people first,? Perry said. ?Too many federal judges rule with impunity from the bench, and those who legislate from the bench should not be entitled to lifetime abuse of their judicial authority.?

That?s a less reverential view of the Supreme Court than the one Perry expressed in his 2010 book ?Fed Up!?, where he outlined a guiding philosophy more in line with the mainstream conservative originalism.

?The Court should be revered as the guardian of the rule of law and of our most basic founding principles,? Perry wrote. ?It should be particularly protective of our founding structure ? a unique structure of dual sovereigns that placed power as close to the people as was practical so that the people could govern themselves.?

But Perry also used the book to back amendments to require balance budgets, to ?clarify the scope and intent of the 14th Amendment,? repealing the 16th Amendment and one to allow Congress to override the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote.

The Bettendorf speech also called for a congressional pay cut, which would violate the 27th Amendment ? or require a new amendment ? if it were to take effect before the next Congress is seated. Perry is also seeking legislation that would require a two-thirds majority for any tax increase.

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said the founding fathers expected the Constitution to be altered.

?Gov. Perry?s call for ending lifetime judicial appointments by constitutional amendment is consistent with the processes and protections build into the Constitution by the original framers,? he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1111_68720_html/43715866/SIG=11mncuj3a/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68720.html

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