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Secret Service Guards Mother Duck, Eggs
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Secret Service, which has the job of guarding the president and other dignitaries, now has a new temporary duty - protecting a mother duck and her nine eggs.
The duck, a brown mallard with white markings, has had several names suggested by Treasury Department people, including ``Quacks Reform,'' ``T-Bill,'' and ``Duck Cheney.'' It has built a nest in a mulch pile right at the main entrance to the Treasury Department on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Secret Service's uniformed division, which provides protection for the White House and Treasury building, has set up metal guard rails to protect the nest, which has attracted the notice of tourists on their way to see the White House.
The duck has been provided with a water bowl and seems oblivious to all the attention, sitting calmly on its nest on top of the mulch pile that surrounds one of the new trees planted along Pennsylvania Avenue as part of a renovation project.
Treasury Secretary John Snow stopped to pay his respects this week on the way back from a congressional hearing, Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said Friday.
``He had been briefed on the duck and he stopped to pay a visit,'' said Nichols.
The eggs are expected to hatch the last week of April at which time the duck will be relocated nearer water. But until then, the duck will occupy some of Washington's prime real estate.
``Foreign leaders, members of Congress, everybody who visits Treasury has to pass by the duck,'' Nichols said.
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Secret Service, which has the job of guarding the president and other dignitaries, now has a new temporary duty - protecting a mother duck and her nine eggs.
The duck, a brown mallard with white markings, has had several names suggested by Treasury Department people, including ``Quacks Reform,'' ``T-Bill,'' and ``Duck Cheney.'' It has built a nest in a mulch pile right at the main entrance to the Treasury Department on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Secret Service's uniformed division, which provides protection for the White House and Treasury building, has set up metal guard rails to protect the nest, which has attracted the notice of tourists on their way to see the White House.
The duck has been provided with a water bowl and seems oblivious to all the attention, sitting calmly on its nest on top of the mulch pile that surrounds one of the new trees planted along Pennsylvania Avenue as part of a renovation project.
Treasury Secretary John Snow stopped to pay his respects this week on the way back from a congressional hearing, Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said Friday.
``He had been briefed on the duck and he stopped to pay a visit,'' said Nichols.
The eggs are expected to hatch the last week of April at which time the duck will be relocated nearer water. But until then, the duck will occupy some of Washington's prime real estate.
``Foreign leaders, members of Congress, everybody who visits Treasury has to pass by the duck,'' Nichols said.
Comments
Israel?_Ts economy is a shambles. But the perks to people willing to settle in the occupied territories keep coming. Is this any way to make peace?
By Dan Ephron NEWSWEEK
May 27 issue ?_" Lisa Nhmani would have preferred to stay in Jerusalem but she couldn?_Tt afford to buy a house for her family of five. The four-bedroom homes she was seeing ran about $250,000, much more than the Nahmanis could manage. She began looking at neighborhoods beyond the Green Line?_"the border that divides Israel from the occupied West Bank?_"and at settlements deeper in Palestinian territory.
THE DIFFERENCES WERE ASTONISHING. In a town like Maaleh Adumim, the largest settlement in the West Bank, the schools and health services were better (funded more generously by the government), and the houses were cheaper, in part because the government subsidizes construction. As a bonus, she discovered, Israelis who moved to the West Bank got a 7 percent reduction in income tax. Just because they were settlers.
Nahmani, who immigrated to Israel from New Jersey in 1984 and was active for years in left-wing projects, never thought she?_Td live across the Green Line. But Palestinian violence had hardened her views and, at 38, she was more focused than ever on providing a home for her family. ?_oIt was a financial issue. We paid $100,000 less and we got a house that?_Ts big enough for our family,?__ she says, sitting in the Maaleh Adumim home she purchased last summer.
A GROWING PROBLEM
However you do the calculation, it doesn?_Tt add up to better peace prospects. Even Washington, Israel?_Ts closest ally, regards the settlements as a growing problem. Just last month President George W. Bush said, ?_oIsraeli settlement activity must stop.?__ Yet thousands of new housing units are under construction in the West Bank, and Jewish ideologues have thrown up 40 new outposts since Ariel Sharon was elected last year. Although Sharon would rather focus on Yasir Arafat?_Ts peace-deal breaches, Palestinians argue that settlement expansion fuels popular rage toward Israel and Israelis, hindering negotiations and making a final peace deal increasingly remote.
The incentives are all the more bewildering against the backdrop of Israel?_Ts crashing economy. At a meeting earlier this month, Sharon?_Ts cabinet passed emergency measures to contain an exploding deficit, including new taxes?_"already among the highest in the world?_"and deep cuts in government spending. Though the cuts will affect Israelis on both sides of the Green Line, no one in the government thought to revoke hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits bestowed on settlers. ?_oWe?_Tre in the worst economic situation we?_Tve known in a long, long time,?__ says Arie Arnon, an economist at Ben-Gurion University. ?_oSo it?_Ts really mind-boggling that these incentives aren?_Tt cut.?__
Mind-boggling until you factor in the politics. For years Sharon was the patron of Israeli settlement expansion, both as Agriculture minister and later as the minister of Housing. He was dubbed ?_othe Bulldozer,?__ in part for his determination to plow new construction sites in the territories. The 200,000 Israelis who now live in the West Bank and Gaza still form a key support base for Sharon (though many now prefer the harder-talking Benjamin Netanyahu). ?_oSharon?_Ts government relies on settlers for its support. So it?_Ts silly to think he would be the one to limit their development,?__ says Avraham Shochat, who served as Finance minister under the Labor Party?_Ts Yitzhak Rabin.
Bibi's Plan: No PLO state
ROUND THE CLOCK PROTECTION
Throughout the current uprising, militants have ambushed settlers on roads and fired at their homes, causing some families to leave. But the fighting and the resulting economic downturn have also acted as a boon for some communities in the West Bank. The larger ones are relatively safe, and offer some of the most attractive deals. The smaller and more ideological ones, like Neguhot, south of Hebron, are recruiting new residents from a pool of fervent right-wingers. The 25 families that live in Neguhot, at the end of a narrow, dusty road, are surrounded by Palestinian villages and guarded round the clock by a platoon of soldiers. ?_oWe?_Tve absorbed 12 new families in the past year,?__ says Naama Leibner, surrounded by religious books in the living room of her hilltop trailer home. ?_oI think people feel this is an important time to join us and strengthen us.?__
Construction is also underway 20 miles north at Tekoa, the site of a grisly double murder a year ago. Two teenage boys who had ventured to a cave in the area were stoned to death; Israel suspects the killers were Palestinian militants. Although Tekoa hasn?_Tt grown during the current Palestinian uprising, it hasn?_Tt lost members either, despite numerous shooting attacks on the road to Jerusalem, where most residents work. ?_oI think the murder strengthened us,?__ says Arieh Haskin, who moved to Tekoa 10 years ago. ?_oMaybe some people thought about leaving, but overall we became a tighter-knit group.?__
Expansion at Tekoa, a diverse community of religious and secular Jews, had been stalled for years after a Labor government under Yitzhak Rabin froze much of the government-initiated West Bank construction in 1992. The freeze didn?_Tt halt settlement expansion. In fact, during the peace-negotiating years of the 1990s, the number of Israelis living in the West Bank doubled from 100,000 to 200,000. But Haskin could begin building his house only six months ago?_"he?_Ts been living in a trailer home with his wife and three children?_"and an additional 19 residents have recently been granted permits. The government is charging residents only a few thousand dollars for the land (compared with tens of thousands or more for similar parcels inside the Green Line) and subsidizing its development.
CITING THE BIBLE
Nowhere is the building surge more evident than in Ariel, a massive community of 17,500 in the northern West Bank. Billboards at the entrance to the settlement advertise apartments as low as $75,000. Ron Nachman, the town?_Ts ambitious mayor, says 4,000 units are under construction and more are planned. ?_oWe want to become a city of 60,000 residents,?__ he says, using his finger to draw the future boundaries of his town on a map. Ariel sits on about 1,500 acres but has already appropriated 6,000 more for expansion. ?_oIn the Bible,?__ says Nachman, ?_othere is no West Bank, there is no Green Line and no occupied territory.?__
Ariel?_Ts schools have resources not usually seen in Israel. It also has wireless broadband in homes and offices, computers in the pre-schools, and elementary schools that teach Web design and robotics. (According to the Adva Institute for Equality and Social Justice, the government provides settlement municipalities with a budget per resident that is 50 percent higher than what it allocates inside the Green Line.) A boy who has cancer in this town and can?_Tt get to school watches his class in streaming video on the Web. Shlomo Roimi, who directs education in Ariel, says some of the extras are paid for with the added funds Ariel gets as a settlement. But much of it is a matter of priorities, he says. ?_oWe emphasize education and we also have our own fundraising arm. So we can do things other towns can?_Tt do.?__
Shochat, the former Finance minister, estimates government subsidies to settlers at $300 million a year, about 10 percent of the amount Israel wants to slash from its deficit. Instead of eliminating the incentives, the government has proposed deep cuts in Israel?_Ts social programs and a re-evaluation of the deficit target. But economists say the $300 million is only a fraction of what the settlements really cost. Israel has raised its defense spending by $1.5 billion in the past year, in part to defend the outposts in the territories. ?_oThe real price of settlements is that they prevent Israel from reaching a political agreement with the Palestinians,?__ says Arnon, the economist. ?_oAnd that causes Israel to lose untold billions in tourism, industry and everything else.?__
Many Israelis argue that Palestinian violence, not Israeli settlement activity, is the real problem with the peace process. As proof, they point to Israel?_Ts offer two years ago to dismantle many settlements and consolidate the rest. But can large numbers of settlers really be transferred back into Israel? Arnon believes the vast majority of settlers?_"up to 80 percent?_"moved to the West Bank to improve their standard of living, not to spoil the chances for peace with the Palestinians. He says Israel will realize eventually that it is cheaper to resettle them inside the Green Line than continue paying the cost of their presence in the West Bank and Gaza. ?_oIt would take $6 billion to build houses for them inside Israel. That?_Ts a lot of money but it?_Ts not unfeasible,?__ Arnon says. Lisa Nahmani, who will mark a year in Maaleh Adumim this summer, would not object to resettlement. ?_oI like this place but I?_Td rather be in Jerusalem,?__ she says. Even for many settlers, a peace dividend might be the best incentive of all.
With Joanna Chen in Jerusalem
Ac 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
www.gao.gov/archive/1998/he98030.pdf
It lays out data from 1995 showing that US households headed by illegal aliens received $1.13 billion in AFDC and Food Stamps alone during that year.
This report acknowledges that illegal aliens were also receiving SSI and HUD benefits, but says that information to develop accurate estimates was unavailable.
C&P:
http://www.fox16.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=d9295de1-2695-4c8c-b219-4bebf209ef79
HOPE, Ark. (AP) - The number of FEMA trailers in this southwestern Arkansas town is nearly double the number of people who live in Hope, essentially turning the birthplace of former President Bill Clinton into one big trailer lot.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed a $25,000-per-month lease with the city to use 453-acres at the Hope Municipal Airport as a staging area for trailers.
But 16 months later, about 12,000 travel trailers and 8,300 mobile homes still sit at the airport in this town of 10,467 residents. Many of them were never used by the victims of Hurricane Katrina or other emergency.
Now, FEMA is putting up the thousands of trailers for sale at auction, saying they are too damaged to be repaired and put back into service. The travel trailers will be sold "as-is," and most include the appliances and furniture inside.
"Obviously, as these trailers come back, our sites are getting full around the country," says Deborah Wing, a FEMA spokeswoman in Washington. "We need to auction off those we no longer have a use for."
FEMA will use the 8,300 mass-produced mobile homes on the northwest side of Hope Municipal Airport for future disasters, said Jerry Hall, FEMA's site manager in Hope.
But that still leaves the travel trailers in Hope - and 46,000 nationwide - that need to be sold. And those numbers are only increasing as more and more trailers are returned to the government.
Additionally, FEMA has so many trailers in Arkansas and other states that selling all of the units at once could bankrupt the nation's travel-trailer industry, Wing said.
"We don't want to flood the market," she says. "We're well aware of the economic effects selling these trailers could have."
Already, the government has auctioned 1,700 travel trailers and sold 900 mobile homes in previous auctions. The trailers were auctioned in batches of 300 through the General Service Administration's Web site.
Wing said FEMA trailers normally sell for about $5,500 on average, or about a quarter of the price the government paid for them after the 2005 storm. Most have something wrong with them, like stained carpets or missing batteries and propane tanks, as well. Only trailers requiring $1,500 or more in repairs are on the auction block, FEMA said.
In addition to the physical flaws, the Sierra Club's Mississippi chapter found that some of the trailers also had formaldehyde levels that exceeded those recommended by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Found in wood and glues in travel trailers, the colorless gas can cause eye irritation and headaches. In excessive levels, formaldehyde can be toxic.
Last August, the Environmental Protection Agency began to test air quality in FEMA trailers, and though the test results aren't available, FEMA has advised people living in travel trailers to increase ventilation, keep inside temperatures cool and lower humidity levels.
Hall said some of the travel trailers being auctioned off are "Plain Jane" trailers, or mass-produced trailers that all use the same parts and are easy to repair and reuse, while most are the high-end consumer models purchased from trailer lots at retail prices.
He said FEMA distributes the plain trailers after emergencies, but Hurricane Katrina forced the agency to purchase any kind of trailers available, including luxury travel trailers with surround-sound audio systems and slide-out compartments that create a larger living space when parked.
Many times one family received a Plain Jane model while their neighbor was given a $20,000 unit with the stickers still attached, Hall said. Hurricane victims repeatedly called FEMA with requests for an upgrade, he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/06/13/us.zimbabwe/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States will provide $73 million in aid to Zimbabwe, President Obama announced Friday after meeting with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at the White House.
President Obama (right) praised Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at the White House on Friday.
"I obviously have extraordinary admiration for the courage and tenacity that the prime minister has shown in navigating through some very difficult political times in Zimbabwe," Obama said.
"There was a time when Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa, and [it] continues to have enormous potential. It has gone through a very dark and difficult time politically."
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe "has not acted oftentimes in the best interest of the Zimbabwean people and has been resistant to the democratic changes that need to take place," Obama said. "We now have a power-sharing agreement that shows promise, and we want to do everything we can to encourage the kinds of improvement not only on human rights and rule of law, freedom of the press and democracy that is so necessary, but also on the economic front."
The U.S. aid will not be going to the government directly "because we continue to be concerned about consolidating democracy, human rights and rule of law," Obama said. "But it will be going directly to the people in Zimbabwe."
In a CNN interview following his meeting with Obama, Tsvangirai said he is grateful for the generosity. "Whether it is humanitarian aid or transitional support, it adds up to the relief that Zimbabwe is seeking," he said. Watch Tsvangirai discuss importance of aid to Zimbabwe ?
Tsvangirai said he told Obama he would like the United States to use its global influence to assist Zimbabwe in dealing with the challenges it faces.
Sen. John Kerry tacked on $18M for the Edward Kennedy Policy Institute in Massachusetts. He justified this being part of our defense budget by describing it as 'a tribute to the late Senator's leadership on military technology and safety for our troops'.
Could someone explain where Ted excelled in this area?
Petrobras' new Tupi well confirms massive size of oil field
October 7, 2010
By Phaedra Friend Troy
Brazilian major Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) has confirmed the massive size of the Tupi oil field in the ultra-deepwaters of the Santos Basin offshore Brazil.
The Iracema Norte well, 3-BRSA-839A-RJS (3-RJS-675A), was drilled in the Tupi formation, and information obtained from the well confirms the previous estimate of size of the pre-salt field, -- 5 to 8 billion barrels of recoverable light oil and natural gas.
Drilled on Block BM-S-11 in waters measuring 2,247 meters deep about 240 kilometers from the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, the Iracema Norte well is located about 6 kilometers northeast of the Iraceme well, 4-RJS-647 (4-BRSA-711).
The new well was drilled in a lower structural position than its predececor, confirming the depth of oil/water contact and proving through cable test samples the discovery of 29-degree API light oil.
The Tupi evaluation plan has already been approved by the ANP, and future drilling on the reservoir is planned. Declaration of marketability is expected by December 2010.
Petrobras serves as the operator of the block with 65 percent interest. Project partners include BG Group with 25 percent and Galp Energia with 10 percent.
This why the military is having so many problems. Money and time spent on this is not spent on training and that is why I beleive we are seeing so many issues with troops not being prepared for the job they are assigned.