Iran unveils unusually colored blue submarine

The Iranian Navy's unusually colorful new Sina 7 submarine (AP)

The Iranian Navy's new blue submarine (AP)

It looks like the Iranian Navy really wanted people to see its new submarine. In a live broadcast on state TV on Wednesday, the Islamic Republic showed off a new Sina 7 submarine that is painted in an unusually bright turquoise blue hue.

So, why exactly would any military want to design its ship in a color that can be easily spotted ? TheDaily Mail speculates that the ship's designers mistakenly chose the color, believing it would help the craft blend in with the ocean's waters.

Launched from Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, the Sina 7 and two Ghadir-class submarines represent the first wave of the country's "indigenously built" warships, Iran said.

"Since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, we have learned not to ask for help from other countries and stand on our own feet in meeting our demands," Iranian Navy commander Habibollah Sayyari said during the broadcast.

"Thanks to the Islamic Revolution, Iran has acquired the know-how to build submarines. No one believed that we would reach a point where we would build destroyers capable of carrying helicopters and missiles in the Sea of Oman and oceans … because it's a very difficult task to build destroyers and submarines."

The Sina 7 is reportedly capable of firing anti-ship missiles, which the Iranian government says is a centerpiece of its new defense strategy.

Two repaired hovercraft vehicles were also showcased during the broadcast.

Read More

Russian mafia whistleblower, 44, found dead in UK

Granville Road on the St George's Hill private estate, where Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed on November 10, is seen near Weybridge in Surrey November 28, 2012. A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors uncover a powerful fraud syndicate has died in mysterious circumstances outside his mansion in Britain, in a chilling twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow's ties with the West. REUTERS/Olivia Harris

Alexander Perepilichny, 44 has also provided evidence against those linked to the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky (on the photo), a case that caused an international outcry and prompted the United States to push for a bill cracking down on Russian corruption.

Reuters/Reuters - Granville Road on the St George's Hill private estate, where Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed on November 10, is seen near Weybridge in Surrey November 28, 2012. A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors uncover a powerful fraud syndicate has died in mysterious circumstances outside his mansion in Britain, in a chilling twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow's ties with the West. REUTERS/Olivia Harris

LONDON - A Russian businessman helping Swiss prosecutors uncover a powerful fraud syndicate has died in mysterious circumstances outside his mansion in Britain, in a chilling twist to a Russian mafia scandal that has strained Moscow's ties with the West. 

Alexander Perepilichny, 44, sought refuge in Britain three years ago and had been helping a Swiss investigation into a Russian money-laundering scheme by providing evidence against corrupt officials, his colleagues and media reports said.

He has also provided evidence against those linked to the 2009 death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a case that caused an international outcry and prompted the United States to push for a bill cracking down on Russian corruption.

Perepilichny, a Russian citizen, collapsed and died abruptly outside his home on an upmarket estate in the English county of Surrey on Nov. 10, police said on Wednesday, the first time the case has come to light.

Perepilichny is the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case to have died in strange circumstances.

"It is being treated as unexplained," a police spokeswoman said. "A post-mortem examination was carried out which was inconclusive. So further tests are now being carried out."

British media reports said Perepilichny appeared to be in good health when he collapsed in the evening outside St George's Hill, one of Britain's most exclusive estates, where he was renting a house for 12,500 pounds ($20,000) a month.

Dubbed as Britain's Beverly Hills and surrounded by neatly trimmed golf courses, the sprawling leafy estate is home to many prominent magnates and celebrities, its list of one-time tenants boasting stars such as Elton John and Ringo Starr.

Far beyond Russia's borders, Magnitsky's death has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and the abuse of those who challenge the authorities there.

This month the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to "name and shame" Russian rights violators as part of a broader trade bill, brushing off warnings from Moscow that the move would damage relations.

William Browder, a former employer of Magnitsky and a prominent London-based investor, said Perepilichny had come forward in 2010 with evidence involving the Magnitsky case that subsequently helped Swiss prosecutors open their investigation.

"Alexander Perepilichny approached us in 2010 as a whistleblower with evidence about the complicity of a number of Russian government officials in the theft of $230 million which Sergei Magnitsky had uncovered," said Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital Management.

"He provided us with copies of many of the original bank documents. In January 2011, Hermitage filed an application to the Swiss authorities seeking an investigation. It was announced in March that the Swiss prosecutor's office opened an investigation and froze the assets in a number of accounts."

Browder, whose grandfather was the general secretary of the American Communist Party, was one of the biggest Western investors in Russia but was barred from Russia in late 2005 and most of his staff left the country as Hermitage found itself coming under increasing official pressure.

Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud, charges that colleagues say were fabricated by police investigators he had accused of stealing $230 million from the state through fraudulent tax refunds. The Kremlin's own human rights council has said Magnitsky was probably beaten to death.

MAFIA STATE

Leaked secret diplomatic cables from the U.S. embassy in Moscow once described Russia as a "virtual mafia state", and London has long been the chosen destination for Russians seeking refuge from trouble at home.

But concerns have been growing in recent years that Britain might be turning into a playground for Russian mobsters as gangland violence seems to be spilling over Russian borders.

In April, a former Russian banker was shot near London's Canary Wharf financial district, sending a chill through the immigrant community. In 2006, former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking tea poisoned with polonium-210.

Asked about Perepilichny's case, Swiss prosecutors said it started its criminal investigation in March 2011 following a complaint made by London law firm Brown Rudnick filed on behalf of Hermitage Capital Management.

"Concerning the death of Mr Perepilichny and its consequences on the criminal proceedings, we'd like to stress that our strength resides in our ability to minimise the influence of such a regretful event on our investigation," theSwiss Office of the Attorney General said in a statement.

"A good cooperation with other judicial authorities is also essential to carry on our investigation efficiently."

Perepilichny was also a witness against Russia's notorious Klyuyev Group, a murky network of officials and underworld figures implicated in tax fraud who used European bank accounts to buy luxury property in Dubai andMontenegro, Britain's Independent newspaper reported.

"Perepilichny was the guy who brought all the evidence they needed to open the investigation," a source told The Independent. "He brought with him records of shell companies, Credit Suisse accounts, property transactions. The whole lot." 

Read More

AP: Diagram suggests Iran working on nuclear bomb

AP/ November 27, 2012, 12:09 PM

The undated diagram that was given to the AP by officials of a country critical of Iran's atomic program allegedly calculating the explosive force of a nuclear weapon - a key step in developing such arms. The diagram shows a bell curve and has variables of time in micro-seconds and power and energy, both in kilotons - the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons

vIENNA

Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.

The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran's nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. The officials provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country not be named.

Nuclear Iran: Sites and potential targets

A look at the locations where Iran carries out work linked to its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons

The International Atomic Energy Agency — the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog — reported last year that it had obtained diagrams indicating that Iran was calculating the "nuclear explosive yield" of potential weapons. A senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue confirmed that the graph obtained by the AP was indeed one of those cited by the IAEA in that report. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

The IAEA report mentioning the diagrams last year did not give details of what they showed. But the diagram seen by the AP shows a bell curve — with variables of time in micro-seconds, and power and energy both in kilotons — the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The curve peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the weapon being modeled.

• Ex-CIA chief: "Only the U.S." can strike Iran nuclear sites effectively
• Israeli leader demands "clear red line" on Iran

The bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in Japan during World War II, in comparison, had a force of about 15 kilotons. Modern nuclear weapons have yields hundreds of times higher than that.

The diagram has a caption in Farsi: "Changes in output and in energy released as a function of time through power pulse." The number "5" is part of the title, suggesting it is part of a series.

David Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security is used by the U.S. government as a go-to source on Iran's nuclear program, said the diagram looks genuine but seems to be designed more "to understand the process" than as part of a blueprint for an actual weapon in the making.

"The yield is too big," Albright said, noting that North Korea's first tests of a nuclear weapon were only a few kilotons. Because the graph appears to be only one in a series, others might show lower yields, closer to what a test explosion might produce, he said.

The senior diplomat said the diagram was part of a series of Iranian computer-generated models provided to the IAEA by the intelligences services of member nations for use in its investigations of suspicions that Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any interest in such a weapon and has accused the United States and Israel of fabricating evidence that suggests it is trying to build a bomb.

Asked about the project, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said he had not heard of it. IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency had no comment.

Iran has refused to halt uranium enrichment, despite offers of reactor fuel from abroad, saying it is producing nuclear fuel for civilian uses. It has refused for years to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear agency's efforts to investigate its program.

Iran's critics fear it could use the enriched uranium for military purposes. Such concerns grew this month when the IAEA said Iran is poised to double its output of higher-enriched uranium at its fortified underground facility — a development that could put Tehran within months of being able to make the core of a nuclear warhead.

In reporting on the existence of the diagrams last year, the IAEA said it had obtained them from two member nations that it did not identify. Other diplomats have said that Israel and the United States — the countries most concerned about Iran's nuclear program — have supplied the bulk of intelligence being used by the IAEA in its investigation.

"The application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear explosive is unclear to the agency," the IAEA said at the time.

The models were allegedly created in 2008 and 2009 — well after 2003, the year that the United States said Tehran had suspended such work in any meaningful way. That date has been questioned by Britain, France, Germany and Israel, and the IAEA now believes that — while Iran shut down some of its work back then — other tests and experiments continue today.

With both the IAEA probe and international attempts to engage Iran stalled, there are fears that Israel may opt to strike at Tehran's nuclear program. The Jewish state insists it will not tolerate an Iran armed with nuclear arms.

An intelligence summary provided with the drawing linked it to other alleged nuclear weapons work — significant because it would indicate that Iran is working not on isolated experiments, but rather on a single program aimed at mastering all aspects of nuclear arms development.

The IAEA suspects that Iran has conducted live tests of conventional explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear weapon at Parchin, a sprawling military base southeast of Tehran. The intelligence summary provided to the AP said data gained from those tests fed the model plotted in the diagram. Iran has repeatedly turned down IAEA requests to visit the site, which the agency fears is undergoing a major cleanup meant to eliminate any traces of such experiments.

The intelligence summary named nuclear scientists Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Majid Shahriari and Fereidoun Abbasi as key players in developing the computer diagrams, adding that Shahriari and Abbasi were also involved in the Parchin testing.

Iran has for years rebuffed IAEA attempts to question Fakhrizadeh for his suspected involvement in secret programs. Shahriari was assassinated in 2010 by what Iran says were Israeli agents. Abbasi, now the head of Iran's nuclear agency, was wounded in a separate assassination attempt the same day that Shahriari was killed.

The senior diplomat, who is familiar with the Iran probe, said the agency has not yet determined any connection between Parchin and the computer models. But Olli Heinonen, who headed the IAEA's Iran investigation until 2010, said using the results of the alleged Parchin tests would "make sense as part of the design and testing of a (computer) model."

Read More

Cholesterol Myths that May Surprise You

Life insurance companies know a surprising secret about cholesterol that most doctors never tell patients: When it comes to rating your risk for a fatal heart attack, the least important cholesterol number is your level of LDL (bad) cholesterol. In fact, life insurance actuaries don’t even look at LDL levels, because large studies show it’s the worst predictor of heart attack risk.

Instead, life insurance companies use a simple math formula to rate your heart attack risk: They divide your total cholesterol by the level of HDL (good) cholesterol.

“If the ratio is below three, and there’s no inflammation in your arteries, you’re practically bulletproof against heart attacks and strokes, even if your LDL is high,” reports Amy Doneen, MSN, ARNP, medical director of the Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center in Spokane, Washington.

Here’s a look at eight common cholesterol myths.

Myth: Cholesterol is inherently evil.

Fact: You couldn’t survive without cholesterol, since this waxy substance produced by the liver plays many essential roles in our body, from waterproofing cell membranes to helping produce vitamin D, bile acids that help you digest fat, and sex hormones, including testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone.

Cholesterol is ferried through your body by molecular “submarines” called lipoproteins, such as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

Cholesterol: The Good, The Bad, The Essential

Myth: Low cholesterol is always a sign of good health.

Fact: Although low levels of LDL cholesterol are usually healthy, a new studyreports that people who develop cancer typically have lower LDL in the years prior to diagnosis than those who don’t get cancer.

Researchers compared 201 cancer patients to 402 control patients without cancer, matched by such factors as age, gender, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes, and body mass index. None of the patients had taken statins.

Thirteen earlier randomized clinical trials of statin therapy also found a link between low LDL and cancer, causing medical debate about whether statins raise risk. The new study suggests that an unknown biological mechanism—rather than cholesterol-lowering medication—may be the culprit. 

Myth: High LDL means you could be headed for a heart attack.

Fact: Nearly 75 percent of people hospitalized for a heart attack have LDL (bad) cholesterol levels that fall within current recommended targets, and close to half have “optimal” levels, according to a national study of about 136,000 people. The researchers also reported that levels of protective HDL (good) cholesterol have dropped in heart attack patients over the last several years, probably due to the rise in obesity, diabetes, and insulin resistance. Only 2 percent of the patients studied had ideal levels of both LDL and HDL.

Myth: All LDL particles are equally dangerous.

Fact: The size of the particles matters, says Doneen. “Think of beach balls and bullets. Some LDL particles are small and dense, making it easier for them to penetrate the arterial lining and form plaque, while others are big and fluffy, so they tend to bounce off the artery walls.”

People who mostly have small, dense LDL cholesterol are up to three times more likely to have heart attacks than those with big, fluffy particles.

Find Foods that Lower Cholesterol but Keep Flavor

Myth: Americans have the world’s highest cholesterol levels.

Fact: Contrary to the stereotype that most of us are just a few big Macs away from a heart attack, US men rank 83^rd in the world in average total cholesterol and US women 81^st, according to the World Health Organization. For both sexes, the average is 197 mg/dL, slightly below the borderline high range (200 to 239 mg/dL).

In Colombia, men average a whopping 244 mg/dL—a level that doubles heart-disease risk—while Israeli, Libyan, Norwegian, and Uruguayan women are in a four-way tie for the highest average with 232.

Myth: Triglycerides trigger heart disease.

Fact: “Triglycerides, a type of blood fat, don’t invade the artery wall and form plaque,” explains Doneen. “However, high triglycerides mark another huge problem: insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic condition that is the root cause of 70 percent of heart attacks.”

High triglycerides are also one of the warning signs of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of abnormalities that multiply risk for coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. To be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, you must have three or more of these disorders: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a large waist, high triglycerides, and low HDL.

Myth: Eggs clogs up arteries.

Fact: It’s true that eggs are high in dietary cholesterol, with upwards of 200 mg, mainly in the yolk. Research shows, however, that eating three or more eggs a day boosts blood concentrations of both good and bad cholesterol. 

The LDL particles tend to be the light, fluffy ones that are least likely to enter the arterial wall, while the increased HDL helps keep the arteries clean, suggesting that most people’s bodies handle cholesterol from eggs in a way that’s unlikely to harm the heart. The researchers say that their findings add to growing evidence that eggs are not “a dietary evil.”

Read Our Guide to Cholesterol-Free Foods

Myth: There are no visible symptoms of high cholesterol.

Fact: Some people with high cholesterol develop yellowish-red bumps called xanthomas that can occur on the eyelids, joints, hands, or other parts of the body. People with diabetes or an inherited condition called familial hypercholesterolemia are more likely to have xanthomas.

The best way to tell if your cholesterol is too high is to have it checked every three years, starting at age 20, or more often, if advised by your healthcare provider.

Read More

Sharo Milionea amefariki dunia

SHARO MILIONEA FT. DULLY SYKES - CHUKI BURE ( BONGO FLAVA -RADIO MBAO) 
Kamanda Wa Polisi Mkoa Wa Tanga Bw. Costantine Masawe amethibitisha kuwa msanii Sharo Milionea amefariki dunia baada ya kupata ajali huko Kijiji Lusanga Muheza Kilometa chache kabla hujafika Tanga mjini.

Read More

Boxer 'Macho' Camacho dies in Puerto Rico

FILE - This Sept. 13, 1997 file photo shows Hector Camacho, left, of Puerto Rico, and Oscar De La Hoya of Los Angeles exchanging blows in the first round of their WBC welterweight championship in Las Vegas. Police in the Puerto Rican city of Bayamon say they found drugs inside the car in which former champion boxer Camacho was shot and critically wounded. Camacho was in critical condition Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012, at the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. (AP Photo/Mike Salsbury, File

FILE - This June 22, 1996, file photo shows Hector "Macho" Camacho being lifted into the air after his unanimous decision over Roberto Duran in an IBC middleweight title fight at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, N.J. Police in the Puerto Rican city of Bayamon say they found drugs inside the car in which former champion boxer Camacho was shot and critically wounded. Camacho was in critical condition Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012, at the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan. (AP Photo/Donna Connor, File)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Former championship boxer Hector ''Macho'' Camacho died Saturday at the hospital in Puerto Rico where he has been unconscious since he was shot in the face in an attack in his hometown.

Camacho went into cardiac arrest in the pre-dawn hours and he was then taken off life support and died shortly thereafter, said Dr. Ernesto Torres, the director of the Centro Medico trauma center in San Juan.

Camacho's mother, Maria Matias, said Friday night that she had supported removing him from life support after his three sons had arrived from the U.S. mainland and had a chance to see their father for the last time. They managed to visit him before he died, said former pro boxer Victor ''Luvi'' Callejas, a longtime friend.

''The family is destroyed,'' Callejas said outside the hospital.

Doctors had declared Camacho brain dead on Thursday. Matias had said she decided it was time for doctors to disconnect life support over the objections of the boxer's eldest son, Hector Jr., because there was no chance of recovery.

''I lost my son three days ago. He's alive only because of a machine,'' she said Friday night. ''My son is not alive. My son is only alive for the people who love him,'' she added.

Torres said that none of the boxer's organs could be donated because of the time between when he was declared brain dead and his death after going into cardiac arrest for the second time since the shooting.

Callejas lamented the inability to donate the organs. ''It's unfortunate that five more lives could not have been saved,'' he said. ''This could have been avoided.''

Camacho was shot as he sat in a car with a friend, 49-year-old Adrian Mojica Moreno, who was killed in the attack. Police spokesman Alex Diaz said officers found nine small bags of cocaine in the friend's pocket and a 10th bag open inside the car.

Police reported no arrests and said investigators continued to look for potential witnesses. Capt. Rafael Rosa told reporters they were following several leads, but declined to say whether police had identified any suspects. He said very few witnesses were cooperating.

Hector Camacho Jr. decried the violence that grips Puerto Rico, a U.S. island territory of nearly 4 million people that reported a record 1,117 homicides last year.

''Death, jail, drugs, killings,'' he said. ''That's what the streets are now.''

Camacho's sisters have said they would like to fly Camacho's body to New York and bury him there. Camacho grew up mostly in Harlem, earning the nickname the ''Harlem Heckler.''

He won super lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight world titles in the 1980s and fought high-profile bouts against Felix Trinidad, Julio Cesar Chavez and Sugar Ray Leonard while compiling a career record of 79-6-3. He knocked out Leonard in 1997, ending the former champ's final comeback attempt.

Camacho battled drug, alcohol and other problems throughout his life. He was sentenced in 2007 to seven years in prison on burglary charges, but a judge eventually suspended all but one year of the sentence and gave Camacho probation. He wound up serving two weeks in jail after violating that probation. A wife also filed domestic abuse complaints against him twice before their divorce

Read More

6 Reasons to Be Thankful About the Economy Today

Falling unemployment, resurgent housing, a resilient euro zone, and more reasons for economic hope this holiday season

It's admittedly trite to use the occasion of Thanksgiving to look on the bright side, but given how rarely we cast an optimistic outlook these days, it's as good a reason as any. With Chapter LXXII of the Middle East conflict playing out in Gaza and the daily soap opera of Washington politics oscillating between sex scandals and fiscal fearmongering, we are once again subsuming the bigger picture to the smaller one and privileging fear.

So, in no particular order, here are six economic points to be thankful for, or at least mindful of, this Thanksgiving:

U.S. housing is on the mend. It took four years, but the long swoon in housing has come to an end. Every housing market metric - new sales, new permits, existing home sales, housing starts and prices - has shown steady and consistent improvement over the past few months. Perhaps the most favorable trend:  The inventories of new and existing homes have fallen sharply and is about half what it was at the housing bubble's peak in 2007. Of course, there are regional variations, and average prices are far lower than at the peak of the bubble. That is likely to be the case for many years. But a fluid U.S. economy requires a functional housing market that allows people to take new jobs or retire. Housing should not be a pillar of economic growth, as it was in the mid-2000s, but it cannot be an obstacle to growth. The housing market has been a barrier. It no longer is.

The euro zone crisis has receded. Between the spring of 2010 and the middle of this year, the escalating sovereign debt crisis in Europe - epitomized by Greece and equally destabilizing for Spain and Italy - seemed poised to create a global crisis at least on the order of what happened in the fall of 2008. That didn't occur. Partly, this is because of the efforts of the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, who labored to guarantee the solvency of the financial system. The result has been a dramatic decline in bond yields for troubled nations like Italy and Spain and a degree of relative calm. Make no mistake, the waning of the crisis is not a cure for the euro zone's ills. Europe still faces a recession that may even engulf Germany. But the worst-case scenarios of market meltdowns, sovereign defaults and global panic are, for now, off the table.

China is resuming its growth trajectory. After a contraction in 2012 that may cause growth to slow to 7 percent, China completed its once-a-decade leadership transition this month with relative ease. Yes, the leadership is confronting public unease over the corruption and venality of many officials, and yes, the path of spend, spend, spend on infrastructure and housing is not sustainable. Yet there are signs that China's leaders and hundreds of millions in the middle class understand this; hence the aggressive push to reform the party, build a new social safety net, encourage small businesses and ease the grip of state-owned companies to invigorate the domestic economy. No one knows how this will evolve, but growth next year looks to be stronger and more balanced than it has been in many years.

Unemployment has crested in the United States. For much of 2012, the unemployment situation in the United States has been stable. Far fewer jobs have been created than many had hoped. The 140,000 or so jobs added on average per month barely keep pace with labor supply and new workers joining the workforce. The unemployment rate hovers at 8 percent, which is wonderful compared with Spain's 25 percent rate, but far higher than Americans expect it to be. The job market, however, is steadily stabilizing, even though there is a structural unemployment challenge that is connected to education levels, globalized labor, and technology efficiencies. Americans are still in some denial of the portent of these changes, and political debate suggests a disturbing belief that the U.S. is only one set of good policies away from massive job creation. The truth may be more complicated, with a generation of unemployed and underemployed workers whose skills are mismatched to an evolving world. This is an issue that will not fade anytime soon, but it is not likely to get worse, barring further global deterioration.

There is a consensus about what needs to be done. A vast gulf may separate America's political parties - not to mention euro zone nations - but there is less fundamental debate than meets the eye. Almost everyone in the United States agrees that the long-term trends of healthcare spending and defense spending need to be tamed, and there is increasingly less debate about the need for more revenue. Yes, in both Europe and the U.S., there is a divide between those who argue for more pro-growth spending and those who advocate for austerity, and that will keep the fires of debate burning. Yet few disagree about the nature of the challenges.

People outside the media and the Beltway are going about their lives. The echo chamber of politics and the media ratchet up conflict. Stories of compromise and the rolling up of sleeves are inevitably less gripping than stories of brinkmanship and posturing. Conflict is the ultimate drama. So we attend more in our public space to conflict and problems. But people in America are far more focused on families, careers and passions. That provides a foundation for the economy that is often more stable than the forces assailing it. Any journalist can find stories of crippling economic uncertainty forestalling business creation or crimping investment. But it is equally easy to find stories of small business owners getting $100,000 loans to open bakeries or cafés or design firms, or college grads developing niche apps, or retirees adding meaningfully to their communities for modest or no pay. Those stories aren't usually "news," but they provide essential ballast.

It's easy to say, "Yes, but ..." to each point above. None of these points negates the well-known risks ahead. There is a list of events that could go wrong, which most of us can recite, from runaway inflation to recession to collapse. In our culture today, however, a litany of problems is met with an "amen" chorus, with people piling on other issues. A listing of the positives is often met with anger. There is no denying the troubling economic prospects for millions of people in many communities. But we can appreciate strengths without ignoring weaknesses, and on Thanksgiving at least, we can genuflect to the former and celebrate what we have.

"The Edgy Optimist" column is initially published at Reuters.com, an Atlantic partner site

Read More

Pope Benedict Disputes Jesus’ Date of Birth

Pope Benedict XVI holds a copy of his book "Jesus' Childhood" as he meets RCS publisher Paolo Mieli and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, in the Vatican on Nov. 20, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI has revealed in the third installment of his trilogy, dedicated to the life of Christ, that Jesus may have been born earlier than previously thought. The calendar we use today, which commences with the birth of Christ and was created by a Dionysius Exiguus, a 6th century monk, may be mistaken. According to the Telegraph,the Pope explains in his book that Exiguus, who is considered the inventor of the Christian calendar, “made a mistake in his calculations by several years. The actual date of Jesus’ birth was several years before.” The suggestion that Jesus wasn’t actually born on Dec. 25 has been tirelessly debated by theologians, historians and spiritual leaders, but what makes this case different is that now the leader of the Catholic Church is the one asking the questions.

Pope Benedict’s book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, was published on Tuesday. Like the previous two installments, it’s predicted to be a best seller, and a million copies of the book have already been printed. It is expected that the book will be translated into another 20 languages for publication in 72 countries. The Infancy Narratives follows the life of Jesus from conception to his presentation in the temple at the age of 12. The Pope describes this third book as a “small antechamber” to the trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth, reports the Vatican Press Office.

Pope Benedict makes some controversial statements in the book. He writes of how the Gospel of Matthew claims that Jesus was born when Herod the Great ruled in Judea. However, given that Herod died in 4 B.C., Jesus must have been born earlier than Exiguus originally documented. Arguments surrounding Jesus’ exact date of birth have confounded scholars for centuries. Even the Gospel of Luke contends that the birth took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria in A.D. 6.

The author takes the opportunity not only to dispute the date of Jesus’ birth, but also to reaffirm the doctrine of the virgin birth as an “unequivocal” truth of faith. Reuters writes that Benedict reminds his readers that sexual intercourse did not play a part in the conception of Jesus. He states that a belief in the Immaculate Conception of Christ is a “cornerstone of faith” and a sign of “God’s creative power.” “If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God,” the Pope argues. “But he does have this power, and through the conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has ushered in a new creation.”

Pope Benedict also examines the “question of interpreted history,” referring in particular to the attempts of the Gospels, like those of Matthew and Luke, to make sense of events after they had occurred, notes Reuters. “The aim of the evangelists was not to produce an exhaustive account,” the Pope explains, “but a record of what seemed important for the nascent faith community in the light of the word. The infancy narratives are interpreted history, condensed and written down in accordance with the interpretation.”

There have been countless interpretations of the birth, life and death of Christ throughout history. One such interpreter is Bill Darlison, former Unitarian Church minister and current vice president of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the United Kingdom. Like others before him, he asks whether Christ was actually born on Dec. 25 or whether perhaps he was born “on one of about 150 other dates which have been proposed down through the centuries. Was he born in Nazareth or in Bethlehem and, if Bethlehem, was it Bethlehem in Judea or Bethlehem in Galilee?” He also argues that the spiritual birth, or Immaculate Conception, “is always a virgin birth, because it is not related in any sense (except symbolically) to physical birth.” In 2004, TIME asked the same question, with David Van Biema wondering if “one might be tempted to abandon the whole Nativity story as ‘unhistoric,’ mere theological backing and filling.”

The historical revisionism continues with the Pope raising the issue of the presence of animals at the birth of Christ. He reveals in Jesus of Nazareth that “there is no mention of animals in the Gospels.” This may come as a shock to the thousands of schools currently preparing their Nativity plays. But Pope Benedict reassures his readers not to worry — that “no one will give up the oxen and the donkey in their Nativity scenes,” notes the Telegraph. Even if animals did not feature at the birth, the Vatican seems happy to keep up the myth as it presents an elaborate life-size Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square this Christmas.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives is available in English and published by Image Books. It follows the first two books, which dealt with Christ’s adult life and death.

Read More

Obama Campaign Polls: How The Internal Data Got It Right

President Barack Obama, with his daughter Malia, waves toward the crowd at his reelection night party on Nov. 7, 2012, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

WASHINGTON -- Summing up the lessons learned from a massive investment in data and technology, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has a blunt messagefor pollsters: "We spent a whole bunch of time figuring out that American polling is broken."

At a Politico forum on Monday, Messina spoke about the campaign's "three looks at the electorate" that gave him a deeper understanding of "how we were doing, where we were doing it, where we were moving -- which is why I knew that most of the public polls you were seeing were completely ridiculous."

David Simas, the Obama campaign's director of opinion research, provided The Huffington Post with more details about those three sources of polling data:

• Battleground Polls. The Obama campaign never conducted a nationwide survey. For a broad overview of public opinion, it relied on lead pollster Joel Benenson to survey voters across 11 battleground states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin) at regular intervals throughout the campaign.

Benenson conducted the aggregated battleground polls once every three weeks during the spring and early summer of 2012, every other week during the late summer, and twice a week for the final two months of the campaign. These surveys were used to test messages and to glean overall strategic guidance, but not to make individual state assessments.

• State Tracking Polls. To gauge the battleground states, the campaign conducted state-specific tracking polls on a similar schedule, shifting to three-day rolling-average tracking in each state after Labor Day, with sample sizes ranging between 500 and 900 likely voters every three days. The surveys were conducted by a team of Democratic pollsters: John Anzalone, Sergio Bendixen (among Latino voters), Cornell Belcher, Diane Feldman, Lisa Grove and Paul Harstad. These surveys helped drive message testing and strategy but also tracked the standings of Obama and Mitt Romney in each state.

• Analytics. Overseen by its internal analytics staff, the campaign also conducted parallel surveys in each state to help create and refine its microtargeting models and to provide far more granular analysis of voter subgroups. These surveys used live interviewers, very large sample sizes and very short questionnaires, which focused on vote preference and strength of support, with no more than a handful of additional substantive questions. During September and October, the campaign completed 8,000 to 9,000 such calls per night.

The call centers that completed these analytics surveys typically specialize in "voter identification," the process of contacting most or all individual voters in a state to identify supporters who can then be targeted in subsequent "get out the vote" efforts. But the Obama campaign's approach to voter targeting was different. It called very largerandom samples of voters to develop statistical models that generated scores applied to all voters, which were then used for get-out-the-vote and persuasion targeting.

The Obama campaign preferred such modeling over traditional brute-force voter ID calling, according to a member of the analytics staff, "because our support models more efficiently (and quite accurately) told us who supported us and who opposed us."

The analytics staff also routinely combined all of their data sources -- Benenson's aggregate battleground survey, the state tracking polls, the analytical calls and even public polling data -- into a predictive model to estimate support for Obama and Romney in each state and media market. Their model had much in common with those created by Nate Silver for The New York Times and by Simon Jackman for HuffPost Pollster. It controlled for the "house effects" of each pollster or data collection method, and each nightly run of the model involved approximately 66,000"Monte Carlo" simulations (a number frequently cited by Messina and others in recent weeks), which allowed the campaign to calculate its chances of winning each state.

The massive scope of its polling effort helped guide the Obama campaign in ways that would be impossible with conventional polling. In late October, for example, its tracking detected a roughly 5 percentage point drop in support for Obama in the Green Bay, Wis., media market. A typical tracking survey in a market that size might have only 100 interviews (with a margin of error of +/- 10 percentage points), but the Obama campaign had far more data at its disposal. "Because we were conducting close to 600 interviews in the market every three days," Simas explained, "we had confidence in the market-level decision making."

The internal polling and modeling also told the Obama campaign a different story about voter trends than that emerging from the public polls. Simas said that from April through the conventions, the race was "fixed" in the battleground states at a 3-to-4 point margin (50 percent for Obama, 46 or 47 percent for Romney). There was "a bit of erosion for Romney right after the [Democratic convention] and in the midst of the 47 percent video period" in mid to late September, during which Obama's advantage expanded to roughly 6 points (50 percent to 44 percent), Simas said.

Within 48 hours after the first presidential debate in early October, those voters returned to Romney and the race "settled back" into the same 3-to-4 point lead for Obama across the 11 battleground states that the campaign's polling had shown all along. "Our final projection was for a 51-48 battleground-state margin for the president, which is approximately where the race ended up," Simas said.

The most recent results compiled by HuffPost Pollster for the 11 battleground states show Obama leading Romney by a 3.6 point margin (51.1 percent to 47.5 percent), although many provisional ballots have yet to be counted and only two of the states has produced final certified results so far.

National public polls showed bigger shifts toward Obama in September and back to Romney in early October. They also indicated a late mini-surge to Obama that his campaign's internal polling and models did not detect

Read More