Ackerman: Dump Mubarak

Rep. Gary Ackerman, the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on the Middle East, says it's time for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to go.

 "It has become clear that it's time for America to step off of the rhetorical tightrope and stand clearly with the people of Egypt in their struggle for freedom," Ackerman said in a statement. "The Egyptian people are in the midst of a crisis, and like anyone in crisis, they need to know who their friends are.
"While initially it may have been prudent for the Obama administration to walk that rhetorical tight rope to keep the confidence of regional leaders, that moment has surely passed," Ackerman argued. "By their passion, courage and sacrifice in the streets, Egyptians have proven beyond question that they are taking their government back and that the Mubarak era of rule is ending." The administration's tone has been shifting away from Mubarak, with Secretary of State Clinton taking a much tougher stance over the weekend.

Ackerman says the Egyptian leader has been a valuable ally to the United States, but has only himself to blame for his current straits.

"He has, by his own decisions and successive phony elections, shorn his rule of any mandate or legitimacy beyond that provided by force and arms," Ackerman said. "His last act of service to Egypt should be to facilitate a fast transfer of power to a transitional government that can prepare for free and fair elections.

"Accordingly, I believe the United States must suspend its assistance to Egypt until this transition is underway," said Ackerman, who tends to be a hawk on foreign policy matters, especially where Israel is concerned. Share

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GOP Forgets Its Role in Debt Debate

Republican leaders and others on the right were quick to pounce on the alarming news that the federal budget deficit this hear is headed to a stunning $1.5 trillion. But few had anything to say about their role in jacking that number up by $409 billion in this year alone. http://bit.ly/eiYupT

"It’s clear the President and his team haven’t gotten the message the American people sent in November: we can’t spend and borrow our way to prosperity," Speaker John Boehner said after the debt numbers came out.

The National Republican Congressional Committee blasted e-mails hammering numerous Democrats, including Long Island's Carolyn McCarthy and Tim Bishop, blaming them for the alaming number.

"Unfortunately for those Americans craving fiscal sanity from their leaders in Washington, Tim Bishop [fill in the blank] on Tuesday joined the Democratic Party establishment in opposing efforts to reduce federal spending to 2008 levels," the NRCC said. "Just hours later, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced Wednesday morning that the federal budget deficit widened to $1.5 trillion, mounting additional debt upon the backs of already struggling middle-class families. Bishop and his fellow Democrats have demonstrated they lack the commitment necessary to halt the impending fiscal catastrophe."

Even more adamant were the outside groups, like the Americans for Limited Government.

"Once again, the budget deficit is growing under Obama's watch, this time to $1.5 trillion, mostly because of the unpaid-for $56 billion extension of unemployment benefits and a $120 billion cut in payroll taxes on employees from December's tax deal," said the group's president, Bill Wilson. "Because there were no offsetting spending cuts for these items, we are just digging ourselves deeper into a hole of a debt that surely will hinder the economy for some time to come."

Wilson is just plain wrong, according to the CBO numbers. The tax-cut deal that the GOP insisted on at the end of last year adds $409 billion to the deficit this year. The numbers he mentions are accurate, but at $176 billion, that's much less than half.  He is ignoring the impact of extending the Bush-era tax cuts, as well as a number of small business and corporate tax breaks. Mind you, Democrats wanted some of those, too.
But Wilson concludes, "It is now up to House Republicans to put serious spending cuts on the table."

Perhaps. But CBO boss Douglas Elmendorf also offered an estimate of how much Congress could save by rolling back spending to 2008 levels -- $82 billion. That doesn't come close to balancing out $409 billion in deficit hikes that the GOP voted for just a month ago.

And Elmendorf noted that the problem is probably worse than the CBO can say. Under current law and tax policy, the federal debt would grow by about $7 trillion over 10 years. But Elmendorf noted that it is very likely lawmakers will vote for more by trying to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts, fix the adjusted minimum tax that gets adjusted itself every year, and keep on fixing the too-low Medicare payments to doctors. If they do, it would hike the federal debt by more like $12 trillion.

And it would almost certainly be completely bipartisan -- not that you would know that from the GOP.

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Obama SOTU Speech: We're Killing Lots And Lots of Evildoers Everywhere

We won the Iraq War. Al Qaeda still slobbers over killing lots of us. Their leadership lives in Pakistan -- our ally. And we're going to pull some troops out of Afghanistan this summer no matter what.

Those are the entirely predictable themes President Obama will spout at tonight's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.

The details:

IRAQ: Most of our troops "have left with their heads held high," and with violence there way down, "the Iraq War is coming to an end."

AL QAEDA: Osama Bin Laden's thugs "continue to plan attacks against us," and, despite a surge in homegrown terrorism plots the past two years, "American Muslims are a part of our American family." (Is Obama slyly addressing Rep. Pete King, Republican of Long Island, who's stirred controversy with plans to hold radicalization hearings in the House Homeland Security Committee?)

AFGHANISTAN: The fight's far from over, but "this July, we will begin to bring our troops home."

PAKISTAN: They're our pals, but Al Qaeda’s leadership still lives there despite being "under more pressure than at any point since 2001," when the Twin Towers fell.

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UK Centre for Bioscience and Subject Centres to close by 2012

15 November 2010

On 10th November 2010 the Board of the HEA agreed a revised, narrower focus for the HEA’s work, which will concentrate on activity that supports institutions and their staff in improving teaching in higher education. This will be built around three aspects of the student learning experience – teacher excellence, developing academic practice, and institutional strategy. The HEA will continue to work with institutional leaders and with academics in their disciplines.

The future of the HEA’s work at the discipline level has been clarified; Subject Centres will be phased out by summer 2012. From 2012 work at discipline level will be led and coordinated centrally (from a restructured York office and smaller offices in Cardiff, Edinburgh and possibly, Northern Ireland), and delivered with the support of a network of associates, including subject experts, drawn from academic staff based in or linked to a wide range of higher education institutions.
Subject Centres including the UK Centre for Bioscience will be funded for the remainder of the current academic year (to July 2011) and we are committed to completing all projects or activities already announced for 2010/2011. From 1 August 2011 reduced funding will be provided for several months to support the involvement of Subject Centres in the development and delivery of services and projects for the Academy, and the transition to the new structure.

From 2011-12, the subject-level support from the Higher Education Academy will include support for new academic staff and graduate teaching assistants, teaching development grants, specialist CPD workshops and the provision of subject-specific resources.

During the last 10 years the UK Centre for Bioscience has worked closely with colleagues throughout the UK in the development of a strong, vibrant and supportive bioscience learning and teaching community, committed to meeting the needs, and enhancing the learning experience, of bioscience students around the UK. We believe that nationally, bioscience teaching and learning has benefited considerably from the close collaboration between colleagues in Departments and Schools and the Centre and we hope collaborations will continue once the new structures are in place.

We will provide further information and updates as plans emerge. In the meantime, please direct any questions or comments to heabioscience@leeds.ac.uk

We would like to thank members of the UK bioscience learning and teaching community for their involvement and encouragement over the years and for recent messages of appreciation and support. We welcome any suggestions or help you can offer us as we look to a different future.

Regards,
The UK Centre for Bioscience Team

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Effective Learning the Biosciences - call for contributions extended

     Home    Centre for Bioscience homepage    Events    Bioscience and L&T events organised by the Centre, Academy or elsewhere Resources & Publications Imagebank and Knowledgebase plus Bioscience Education journal, bulletins and other publications Funding & Recognition Funding, competitions, professional recognition and other opportunities Networks & Links Bioscience network of practitioners: details and how to join News & Information News from the centre, academy, bioscience and teaching and learning    About us    Centre aims and remit, staff details and ways to contact us

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Madeira’s Calheta coast: rare sighting of seal

January 31, 2011 By: abbo Category: Madeira & General News

Portugal and Madeira news from Paul Abbiati:

The whalewatch boat that operates from Calheta marina “Ribeira Brava” (Lobosonda) “had a nice encounter with the rare monk seal.” The animal has been identified from the photographs and film by the Madeira Natural Park and was filmed and photographed by the boat’s skipper Claudia Gomes. Thanks Claudia for contributing this.

The Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus)

“The Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus) is a pinniped belonging to the Phocidae family. At some 450-510 (fewer than 600) remaining individuals it is believed to be the world’s second rarest pinniped (second only to the Saimaa Ringed Seal),[1] and one of the most endangered mammals in the world”

Source: Wikipedia

“Ribeira Brava” (Lobosonda) have a new site with lots of information on Madeira’s marine mammals and their services

www.madeirawhalewatching.com

or call Claudia Gomes on +351 96 8400 980

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Quickie Tourist Information thanks to Sue:

Just to get back into the swing of things here are a couple of things that might be interesting to residents and visitors alike.

15th International Gymnastics Tournament of Madeira

The Gymnastics Association of Madeira organizes the International Gymnastics Tournament for the 15th time. Considered by many as one of the best in the world, it has the particularity of being the only one that simultaneously combines two competitions: Men’s Artistic Gymnastics and Rhythmic Gymnastics.  In recent years this tournament has attracted the presence of numerous delegations from the five continents, including New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, USA and Brazil. For further information see: www.agim-madeira.com

The Magic Forest Carnival Festivities in Madeira – 4th to 8th March

The Carnival Festivities, one of the main attractions of Madeira, have for 30 years livened up the streets of the city centre. During one week, the city will be involved in colour, glow, joy, frolic, creativity, imagination and music to the sound of brass bands and carnival marches that will bring joyfulness to tourists and locals.

The "Magic Forest" theme will serve as the motto for the creativity of the eight floats and groups that will be participating this year in the Carnival parade on Saturday evening, March 5th, going out to the streets and showing the creativity of the different groups that will perform in this colourful and lively parade, totalling more than 1,100 participants – in a journey of unique beauty. At the end of the procession, the participants will gather at the Town Hall Square, where, in a magical atmosphere of sound and costumes, there will be animation by a dance amongst the participating groups and the public.

The Trapalhao Parade will be held on Carnival Tuesday, on the 8th of March. It is a typical Madeira Parade, open to the participation of individuals or groups, including tourists, where humour and social satire are the favourite themes of the participants.   Many "trapalhoes" (bunglers) entertain and interact with the public, thereby justifying the term "it’s Carnival – nobody takes it badly".

The Madeira Carnival festivities include the Children’s Carnival Party to be held on the morning of the 4th of March, with the participation of children from Funchal’s schools, in a show of their own. The "Solidarity Carnival”, an initiative by the Association for Community Development of Funchal, is held on the afternoon of that same day and culminates with a show held at the Municipal Garden. On this day, the downtown area is flooded with carnival and brass bands that play out specific themes and animation theatre groups that will interact with the public, apart from other carnival musical performances.

On Sunday night, March 5th, three Troupes will liven up the downtown area with the "Carnaval das Avenidas" a performance to be held in the main streets of the city centre.

Tourism in Madeira now on Facebook

The year 2011 marks the turning point for the ‘Tourism of Madeira’ with a bet on the new web platforms and, in particular, on social networks, as a way to assist the promotion of Madeira across borders. Currently, of the tourists who visit Madeira, 38.3% used these interactive technologies as a tool of choice for planning their vacation, and about 45% carried out their travel reservations through this channel.  With the increased demand and appetite for social networking, from YouTube to Facebook, the ‘Tourism of Madeira’, in alliance with the Association for Promotion, developed efforts and shared responsibilities in managing the information and content on these networks, sharing a common image.
Share this experience on: http://www.facebook.com/turismodamadeira

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