Rick Santorum -- Not Liberal by Any Stretch of Imagination (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | In politics, just as in any other segment of society there are several differing sets of standards all operating at the same time. With the buildup to today's Iowa caucus, this has been extremely prevalent. The Republican Party is embarking on their first stop in the process of separating the wheat from the chaff to see which of the candidates they are going to pit President Barack Obama against next November.

By different sets of standards, I am speaking of the varying definition of what makes a conservative and a liberal. Surprisingly, former GOP castoff Rick Santorum has got a very good chance of getting the nod in Iowa today. According to MSBNC, Santorum's poll numbers have nearly doubled in the past month.

When he visited a pizza shop while campaigning in the state, he shut the thing down due to his number of supporters that were occupying the place. People like Santorum. In a field of who is trying to show they are more conservative, he is one that may win on that margin alone.

Which is why I sincerely do not understand the comment by fellow candidate Ron Paul. In an interview with a CNN correspondent, Paul stated that Santorum was "very liberal." Paul, of course was citing Santorum's voting for what he called too much spending during his time in Congress.

If you ever wonder why there is so much infighting in the Republican Party, this is why. Even those that call themselves conservatives branch themselves off into various sects. One group is your fiscal kind, the other your social conservative, and so on. For Paul to say Santorum is liberal on the whole is a stretch of the imagination.

According to Huffington Post, if elected Santorum stated he would invalidate same sex marriages. He would want to attempt to push forward a constitutional amendment essentially outlawing such. Santorum would push for the repeal of DADT. Just because Santorum voted for spending bill after spending bill does not make him a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. He may be part liberal, but most of his other missions if he becomes president far overshadow what little sliver of liberalism may be in his political mindset.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120103/cm_ac/10785993_rick_santorum__not_liberal_by_any_stretch_of_imagination

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Geithner to discuss Iran in China, Japan visit (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will travel to China and Japan next week to discuss U.S. sanctions on Iran and the state of the global economy with top government officials, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

Geithner will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan on Tuesday and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday.

He will travel to Japan on Thursday to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Finance Minister Jun Azumi.

Geithner's trip is the latest step in an accelerating U.S. effort to reduce Iran's oil revenue and try to force the country to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program. At the same time, the Obama administration wants to avoid a spike in crude prices that could threaten the global economy.

The Treasury Department said Geithner would "discuss our continued coordination with international partners in the region to increase pressure on the government of Iran, including financial measures targeting the central bank of Iran."

President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law new sanctions against financial institutions dealing with Iran's central bank, the main conduit for the country's oil revenues.

China, the No. 1 customer for Iran's oil, is unlikely to be swayed by the new U.S. law, analysts have said. China's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday restated Beijing's opposition to the U.S.-led push for unilateral sanctions on Iran.

In addition to the U.S. effort to tighten the financial screws, Iran faces the prospect of an outright European Union embargo on its oil. EU diplomats said on Wednesday that a preliminary agreement to ban imports of Iranian crude had been reached, and oil prices rose on the news.

Iran has warned it could choke off crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for 40 percent of the world's oil, if sanctions were imposed. Many market participants, however, say the chance Iran will follow through with its threat is remote, and security analysts question whether it has the capability to shut the Strait.

A U.S. Treasury official said the Obama administration supported the EU proposal, adding that a phased-in effort to curtail use of Iranian crude could cut Tehran's revenues without disrupting oil markets.

During his trip to Asia, Geithner also will discuss policies to promote global economic growth and efforts to support a level playing field for global trade, the Treasury said.

The United States contends an undervalued yuan currency has given China a competitive trade edge, but the Obama administration, in a semi-annual report on currency practices last week, declined to name China a currency manipulator.

In the report, it said a faster appreciation of the Chinese yuan was needed. It also chided Japan for stepping into the currency market to stem the yen's rise.

(Editing by Tim Ahmann and Andrea Ricci)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120104/bs_nm/us_usa_treasury_china

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NMAtv: @mark_yudof Taiwanese animation takes on UC's decision to favor Chinese students over Asian Americans: http://t.co/2kKeysx5

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Disappointing Vita sales spark retailer price cuts in Japan

Japanese retailers have been slashing the price of Sony's new PlayStation Vita handheld in an attempt to boost sales that took a dive after its first weekend on sale, according to reports.

Click to view larger image Opening weekend sales for the portable were a hair under 325,000, which isn't bad when compared to the 375,000 sales managed by 3DS in its first weekend on sale.

Second week sales of the Vita have, however, come in at a measly 72,479, dropping it to fifth place in Media Create's hardware charts for the week, way below 3DS (482,200) and even PSP (101,121).

In its respective second week, the 3DS managed 210,000 sales - a drop, yes, but not as drastic. Yet a decline in sales still lead Nintendo to cut the price of its handheld by almost a third in less than six months after launch. Could Sony be forced to do the same? Apparently, retailers aren't waiting to find out.

According to GamesRadar, sales of the 3G-capable model are particularly poor, prompting many Japanese retailers to enforce their own discounts on the hardware, with as much as 20 percent off Sony's original RRP.

Sony said before the Christmas holidays that retail software sales were "a figure in accordance with expectations", while sales of the PSN digital versions of games were "exceeding expectations". Software figures for the same week (December 19-25) however, only list four Vita titles in the top-50.

There has been much debate over Sony's pricing for Vita and its games, which are almost in line with full home console releases and way higher than that of smartphone offerings - the emergence of which threatens to dominate the handheld gaming market.

The platform holder recently confirmed charges for its device and accompanying peripherals for Europe.

Vita hits US and EU shelves on February 22.

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/330983/disappointing-vita-sales-spark-retailer-price-cuts-in-japan/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS

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Al-Qaida, Taliban seek Pakistani militants' help

FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 file photo, new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with his comrade Waliur Rehman during his meeting with media in Sararogha of Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border. Prominent al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban fighters held recent meetings with Pakistani militants to ask them to set aside their differences and step up support for the battle against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, militant commanders said Monday, Jan. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Ishtiaq Mehsud, File)

FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 file photo, new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with his comrade Waliur Rehman during his meeting with media in Sararogha of Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border. Prominent al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban fighters held recent meetings with Pakistani militants to ask them to set aside their differences and step up support for the battle against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, militant commanders said Monday, Jan. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Ishtiaq Mehsud, File)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) ? Prominent al-Qaida and Afghan Taliban fighters asked Pakistani militants in a pair of rare meetings to set aside their differences and step up support for the battle against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, militant commanders said Monday.

The meetings were held in Pakistan's tribal region in November and December at the request of the Afghan Taliban's leadership council. They could indicate the militants are struggling in Afghanistan, or conversely, that they want to make sure they hit U.S. forces hard as the Americans accelerate their withdrawal this year. That could give the Taliban additional leverage in any peace negotiations.

"For God's sake, forget all your differences and give us fighters to boost the battle against America in Afghanistan," senior al-Qaida commander Abu Yahya al-Libi told Pakistani fighters at a meeting on Dec. 11, according to a militant who attended.

Pakistani militants have long been split over where they should focus their fighting. The Pakistani Taliban have concentrated on toppling their own government, although they have sent some fighters to Afghanistan. Other Pakistani groups based in the tribal region have almost exclusively directed their attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella organization set up in 2007 to represent roughly 40 insurgent groups, has also been split by infighting over turf and leadership positions after commanders were killed by the Pakistani military and U.S. drone strikes.

The group has fractured into more than 100 smaller factions, a process that some analysts have suggested would take a toll on militants fighting in Afghanistan by making it increasingly difficult for them to find recruits, as well as restricting territory in Pakistan available to them.

Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud attended the two meetings on Nov. 27 in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and Dec. 11 in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told The Associated Press.

Other prominent Pakistani militant leaders who attended included Mehsud's deputy, Waliur Rehman, and two commanders who have focused on fighting in Afghanistan, Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur, Ehsan said. Also there was Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan militant based in North Waziristan who leads one of the most feared groups fighting in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban fighters at the meetings included Zabiullah Mujahid, a well-known spokesman, and Maulvi Sangin, who claims to have custody of U.S. Army Pvt. Bowe R. Bergdahl, captured in Afghanistan in 2009.

The four Pakistani commanders and Haqqani agreed to form a council to resolve differences, said two Pakistani Taliban commanders who attended the meetings. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A pamphlet handed out in North Waziristan over the past two days announced the formation of the five-member committee, saying it was established in consultation with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name given to the country by the Taliban. It called on Pakistani militants to coordinate with each other and "avoid unwarranted killings and kidnappings for ransom."

"If any holy warrior is found involved in an unjustified murder or crime, he will be answerable to the committee and could face Islamic punishment," said the pamphlet, a copy of which was obtained by the AP.

Al-Libi, the al-Qaida commander, asked the Pakistani militants to provide additional fighters to the Afghan Taliban in March, when the snow melts from the passes connecting Pakistan and Afghanistan and the spring fighting season begins.

Ehsan, the Pakistani Taliban spokesman, said the militants agreed, but that did not mean the group would end its fight against the Pakistani government.

"We will continue our jihad against Pakistani security forces," Ehsan pledged.

____

Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-02-AS-Pakistan-Afghanistan/id-6257860600ea4931ba1ed553ce73df3a

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NASA probe circling the moon on New Year's Eve (AP)

PASADENA, Calif. ? As planet Earth rang in the new year, a different kind of countdown was happening at the moon.

After a 3 1/2-month journey, a NASA spacecraft flew over the moon's south pole, fired its engine and dropped into orbit Saturday in the first of two back-to-back arrivals over the New Year's weekend.

Mission control at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory erupted in cheers and applause after receiving confirmation that the probe was healthy and circling the moon. An engineer was seen on closed-circuit television blowing a noisemaker to herald the New Year's Eve arrival.

"Everything went just as we hoped. The burn was spot-on," chief scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a post-mission interview with The Associated Press.

The team toasted sparkling cider, but the celebration was brief. Despite the successful maneuver, the work was not over. Its twin still had to enter lunar orbit on New Year's Day.

The Grail probes ? short for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory ? have been cruising independently toward their destination since launching in September aboard the same rocket on a mission to measure lunar gravity.

Hours before revelers in Times Square watched the ball drop, Grail-A approached the moon and fired its engine for about 40 minutes to get captured into orbit. Deep space antennas in the California desert and Madrid tracked every move and fed real-time updates to ground controllers

About 270 family members and friends of the mission team descended on the NASA campus to watch the drama unfold on a live feed.

"This is great, a big relief," deputy project scientist Sami Asmar told the jubilant crowd.

Grail is the 110th mission to target the moon since the dawn of the Space Age including the six Apollo moon landings that put 12 astronauts on the surface. Despite the attention the moon has received, scientists don't know everything about Earth's nearest neighbor.

Why the moon is ever so slightly lopsided with the far side more mountainous than the side that always faces Earth remains a mystery. A theory put forth earlier this year suggested that Earth once had two moons that collided early in the solar system's history, producing the hummocky region.

Grail is expected to help researchers better understand why the moon is asymmetrical and how it formed by mapping the uneven lunar gravity field that will indicate what's below the surface.

Previous lunar missions have attempted to study the moon's gravity ? which is about one-sixth Earth's pull ? with mixed results. Grail is the first mission devoted to this goal.

Once in orbit, the near-identical spacecraft will spend the next two months refining their positions until they are just 34 miles above the surface and flying in formation. Data collection will begin in March.

The $496 million mission will be closely watched by schoolchildren. An effort by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, will allow middle school students to use cameras aboard the probes to zoom in and pick out their favorite lunar spots to photograph.

Despite the latest focus on the moon, NASA won't be sending astronauts back anytime soon. The Obama administration last year nixed a lunar return in favor of landing humans on an asteroid and eventually Mars.

A jaunt to the moon is usually speedy. It took the Apollo astronauts three days to zip there aboard the powerful Saturn V rocket. Since NASA wanted to economize by launching on a small rocket, it took Grail a leisurely 3 1/2 months to make a roundabout trip.

NASA's last moonshot occurred in 2009 with the launch of a pair of spacecraft ? one that circled the moon and another that deliberately crashed into the surface and uncovered frozen water in one of the permanently shadowed lunar craters.

___

Online:

Mission: http://grail.nasa.gov

___

Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120101/ap_on_sc/us_sci_nasa_moonshot

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Ford : Explorer XLT 1997FordExplorer

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Price:

$ 4,200

Make: Ford
Model: Explorer
Body type: Suv
Condition: Used
Mileage: 97000
Engine: 4.0l V6 Cylinder Gasoline...
Exterior Color: -
Interior Color: Gray
Fuel type: Gasoline
Location: 98601, Amboy, Wa
#VIN: 1fmdu34x8vub67099

Seller's Notes:

1997FordExplorer...

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Source: http://cars.i-newswire.com/car-detail/caravan/Ford-Explorer-XLT-1997FordExplorer_200695139139.html

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Another Free Web-Hosted Personal Finance App

I've written about a couple of web-based personal finance managers recently, so here's a final one to round off the trilogy.

Out Of The Dark (OOTD) is an online service designed to help you manage your money. ?Just enter details of what comes in, and what you spend it on, and the site's rich collection of reports and visualisations will help to ensure that you know where all your money is going.

You can reach the site at www.myootd.org. ?Access is free, and you simply need to enter an email address and password in order to register. ?Like most online services of this kind, there's no facility to initiate bank transfers or store details of bank accounts, so your money remains safe. ?As should your data too, of course, though I was slightly disappointed to see that my "welcome to OOTD" email contained a reminder of my password in plain text. ?Quite how the system knows this, if ?it's encrypting passwords before it stores them, is something that I intend to find out.

Still, OOTD seems like a useful system, especially as it's also available to use on smartphones so that you can track your finances from wherever you are. ?My thanks to user?Hareiana for telling me about it.

?

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Source: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/another-free-web-hosted-personal-finance-app.htm

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Nomura Narrowly Tops Goldman in Japan Merger Advice in 2011

December 30, 2011, 12:35 AM EST

By Takahiko Hyuga

(Updates with closing share price in fifth Paragraph.)

Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Nomura Holdings Inc. pulled ahead of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to hold on to the top spot for mergers and acquisitions advisory work in Japan in 2011, after the two competed neck and neck during the last two months.

Nomura, the nation?s largest brokerage, this year advised companies on 134 transactions worth $65.4 billion, including Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.?s $13.7 billion acquisition of Swiss drugmaker Nycomed, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Goldman Sachs came in second after handling 24 deals worth $62.3 billion, according to the data.

Retaining the No. 1 position will require Nomura to harness Japanese demand for overseas assets. Bolstered by a strong yen, Japan?s companies spent about $88.3 billion on overseas acquisitions in 2011, the most in any of the twelve years for which Bloomberg data is available. Nomura ranked fourth among advisers of such deals, behind Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG, the data show.

?Japanese companies will increase their presence even further next year as acquirers in cross-border mergers and acquisitions as they are in a relatively strong position in business and financial performance,? Nomura?s Joint Head of Global M&A Kentaro Okuda said in an interview. ?We are already seeing this trend in our pipeline of deals which will keep our M&A bankers busy through the New Year break.?

Nomura?s shares were unchanged at 235 yen at the 3 p.m. close of Tokyo Stock Exchange trading.

Left Out

Nomura competed with Goldman Sachs for the top position since October, when the New York-based bank took first place in the rankings after advising Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. in its $22.5 billion acquisition by Nippon Steel Corp. Nomura wasn?t involved with that deal, Japan?s biggest in at least five years.

Japan saw 2,261 transactions valued at $195.9 billion this year to Dec. 29, a record for the equivalent period, data compiled by Bloomberg show. A total of 795 Japanese firms, including Mitsubishi Corp., Kirin Holdings Co., Terumo Corp. and Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., made acquisitions overseas.

Nomura and Goldman Sachs were followed by Bank of America Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. in the rankings, according to the data. Goldman Sachs?s Tokyo-based spokeswoman Hiroko Matsumoto declined to comment on the advisory ranking.

Tapping Koizumi

Nomura has held the top position for five years. The Tokyo- based brokerage had a 33.4 percent market share this year, the lowest in three years, according to Bloomberg data.

Among the purchases on which Nomura offered advice this year was its own acquisition of affiliate Nomura Tochi Tatemono Co. for $11 billion. It also advised on Toshiba Corp.?s acquisition of nuclear-plant designer Westinghouse Electric Co. and Tokyo Stock Exchange?s merger with Osaka Securities Exchange.

Goldman Sachs, which hasn?t been No. 1 in Japan since 2006, is the top adviser for global mergers and acquisitions this year. It also advised Nycomed on its takeover by Takeda as well as with Hitachi Ltd. on its sale of a hard disk drive business to Western Digital Corp. for $4.3 billion.

As part of its efforts to secure business after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. bank tapped former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to speak to 300 investors and company executives at a forum in Tokyo in June.

The U.S. bank has donated at least 520 million yen ($6.7 million) to help with emergency relief efforts in the wake of Japan?s largest earthquake on record, the biggest donation among 161 financial firms in Japan, according to research conducted by Bloomberg News in April.

Nomura is ranked twelfth among acquisition advisers globally.

--Editors: Mohammed Hadi, James Gunsalus

To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chitra Somayaji at csomayaji@bloomberg.net

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-29/nomura-narrowly-tops-goldman-in-japan-merger-advice-in-2011.html

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