Sudden Epidemic

Capsule hotels are a type of economical hotels that are quite common in Japan.

The engineering staff takes care of building repairs and up keep of HVAC systems, plumbing, fire sprinkler systems, chillers, cooling towers, pool and spa if applicable, lights, breakers, door locks, C.P.R., laundry machines, kitchen walk ins, ice machines, building air handlers, room repairs and upkeep.

Myrtle Beach Hotels

Kites

Tails are used for some single-line kite designs to keep the kite's nose pointing into the wind. Spinners and spinsocks can be attached to the flying line for visual effect. There are rotating wind socks which spin like a turbine. On large display kites these tails, spinners and spinsocks can be 50 feet (15m) long or more.

The German company SkySails has developed ship-pulling kites as a supplemental power source for cargo ships, first tested in January 2008 on the ship MS Beluga Skysails. Trials on this 55 m ship have shown that, in favorable winds, the kite reduces fuel consumption by up to 30%. This system is planned to be in full commercial production late 2008. Kites are available as an auxiliary sail or emergency spinnaker for sailing boats. Self-launching Parafoil kites are attached to the mast.[citation needed]

TEHRAN (Reuters) –
Iran's top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a fierce critic of the hardline leadership who denounced June's disputed presidential election as fraudulent, has died at the age of 87.

A moderates' website said supporters of Montazeri, an architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution, were flocking to the holy city of Qom to attend his funeral on Monday. A reformist website also reported that opposition supporters were gathering in squares of Tehran on Sunday to mourn his death.

Montazeri died from a heart attack, official media reported on Sunday, and one analyst said his burial may turn into an opposition show of strength.

His death on Saturday coincides with tension rising once again in the country, six months after the presidential poll plunged the major oil producer into political crisis.

"My grandfather died in his sleep last night. People and friends are coming to express their condolences but there are no special security measures around our house," Naser Montazeri told Reuters by phone from Qom, about 125 km south of Tehran.

Monday's burial, to start at 9 a.m. (12:30 a.m. EST), could become a rallying point for the reformist opposition and this may worry the authorities, London-based Iran analyst Baqer Moin said.

"The amount of support shown to him will hearten the opposition who are mourning his loss," Moin said.

A moderates' website said Montazeri followers were traveling from other parts of Iran to Qom, a Shi'ite Muslim religious center. "Thousands of people from Isfahan, Najafabad and other cities are going to Qom to attend Montazeri's funeral on Monday," Parlemannews said.

The Tagheer website of pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi reported that Montazeri followers were gathering in Tehran.

"The social network of the reform movement has called on its supporters to gather in Mohseni square to mourn ... based on reports people have already gathered in some other squares in Tehran," it said.

Montazeri was named in the 1980s to succeed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran's top authority, but fell out with him over the mass execution of prisoners.

One of Iran's most senior clerics, he spent five years under house arrest until 2002 but remained a leading opposition voice until his death, even though he rarely left his home in Qom.

"He will be remembered as a man who sacrificed his political position for the sake of his principles," said Moin, describing him as an inspiration for other pro-reform clerics.

OPPOSITION DEFIANT

Montazeri, who was a close ally of Khomeini before the revolution and jailed several times by the U.S.-backed Shah's police, was among the government's harshest critics in a clerical establishment whose splits have widened during the turmoil triggered by June 12 vote.

In August, the ayatollah said on his web site that authorities' handling of street unrest following the election "could lead to the fall of the regime" and he denounced the clerical leadership as a dictatorship.

The pro-reform opposition says the poll was rigged to secure hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

The authorities have denied the charge and portrayed the huge opposition protests after the election, which were quelled by the elite Revolutionary Guards and Islamic militiamen, as a foreign-backed bid to undermine the clerical leadership.

Tension increased earlier this month when pro-opposition students clashed with the security forces armed with batons and tear gas in the biggest anti-government protest in months.

Iran's judiciary last week threatened legal action against senior opposition figures for fomenting post-vote unrest.

But pro-reform cleric Karoubi, who came fourth in the election, said threats of arrest would only make him and others more determined to stick to their path.

"They think that people's reform movement depends on one person ... I am determined to continue this path and with threats of arrests I will not step down," Karoubi said in a statement on his website on Sunday.

Official media initially did not give prominent coverage to Montazeri's death, but it topped state television's main afternoon broadcast.

The official IRNA news agency said "problem elements" in Montazeri's household and his statements "appreciated by enemies of the Islamic Republic" were to blame for his estrangement with Khomeini two decades ago.

Instead of Montazeri succeeding Khomeini upon the death of the Islamic Republic's founder in 1989, current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became the country's top authority.

(Writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by David Stamp)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama nominated Larry Persily, a former aide to ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, on Wednesday to be federal coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, the White House said.

Persily, a former Alaska journalist, worked for more than a decade on oil and gas issues for three Alaska governors, including Palin, who was John McCain's running mate on the Republican ticket that lost to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the 2008 presidential election.

Persily became a vocal critic of Palin after leaving her office.

Obama also nominated Patricia Hoffman as assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability in the Department of Energy. Hoffman had 14 years of experience at Energy.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Standing in the serene, sunlit galleries of Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the average art lover would never suspect that behind the sublime beauty of, say, Fra Angelico's Annunciation or Francisco Goya's Women with Two Children, roils a family dispute of such sordidness that it would make Jon and Kate look like the Waltons. But when Borja Thyssen, son of deceased multimillionaire Heinrich Thyssen and his fifth wife, Carmen (Tita) Cervera, decided to lay claim to his inheritance, he unleashed a tide of criminal accusations and ugly recriminations that has kept the editors and producers of Spain's gossip industry in paroxysms of delight. In the process, he has also imperiled the future of one of the world's most prized art collections.
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is made up of about 800 works that the government of Spain bought outright from Thyssen in 1992, and another several hundred acquired from Tita's 1,000-piece collection, which she in turn compiled with her late husband's largesse. Her part was loaned to the Spanish government in an agreement that expires in 2011. Borja says that two years ago he learned that he was co-heir of that collection, and notes that he has not as yet co-signed any agreement with the museum. It is this inheritance, which includes important works by Monet, Degas, Picasso and Kandinsky, among other A-list artists, that is now at stake. (See pictures of the Renaissance's biggest artists on exhibition.)
The latest round in the familial slugfest began when 29-year-old Borja, who was adopted by Heinrich Thyssen when the Dutch-born Swiss industrialist married Borja's mother, showed up with a notary at the Madrid museum in early November and filed notice that he was reclaiming two paintings. Borja said that the two works - Goya's Women with Two Children in Fountain and Italian Baroque painter Corrado Giaquinto's Baptism of Christ, believed to be worth 7 million euros, were promised him as gifts by his father.
If Tita was antagonized by the prospect of her son removing two valuable paintings from the museum that houses her and her husband's collections, Borja's revealing interview with Hola magazine claiming that she had "hidden his inheritance from him," turned her positively Medean. On Nov. 3, the former Miss Spain filed a lawsuit against her own son, alleging "revelation of secrets" - which, depending on gravity, can be punished by fines and prison time in Spain. (See pictures of the Louvre, France's iconic museum.)
Whatever her financial motivations may be, some observers attribute a motive more primal than economic to Tita's legal wranglings. "This is all about Borja trying to seek independence from his mother, and Tita not wanting to give it," says David Litchfield, British author of The Thyssen Art Macabre. "He was always her little prince, but ever since he married Blanca, Tita has been fighting to keep him at her side."
Fighting, and how. After first opposing his engagement to the 37-year-old Blanca Cuesta, and publicly suggesting in the gossip rags that her son's intended was a gold digger, the former Miss Spain turned baroness refused to attend the wedding. When the couple's son was born in 2008, Tita required the newborn to be DNA tested - five times - before accepting him as her legitimate grandson.
(Controversy and intrafamily feuds are part of the Thyssen dynasty fabric. The Baroness had Borja out of wedlock with a previous paramour but convinced her rich husband, who was 22 years her senior, to adopt Borja and to give him the Thyssen surname. She and Thyssen also adopted two girls. In March 2002, Thyssen, who died later that year, settled an expensive lawsuit with his eldest son over the disposition of the family's $2 billion trust.)
Borja himself realizes the root of the problem. In an interview with Hola, he said, "Blanca is the origin of all this. If I go home one day and say, 'Mom, I'm divorced,' I'm sure all this would change."
But while the Baroness awaits that happy day, one of Spain's great art collections hangs in the balance. With no apparent profession of his own, and a lifestyle that until now his mother has financed, those paintings, must be looking fairly attractive to Borja right now. "It's not my intention to sell the Goya," the young man told Hola, "But if it were necessary for the interest of my family, I would absolutely sell it."
A spokesman for the Thyssen Museum said it has no comment on the situation. But with the renegotiation of part of its collection less than two years off, its curators must surely be wringing their hands about Borja's latest statement, issued on Dec. 3. Now that his mother had sued him, Borja's lawyers wrote, the scion no longer finds any "moral impediment" to prevent him from doing the same. In which case one of the greatest collections of European art in the world could soon find itself on the auction block.
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Dog Arthritis

MCLEAN, Va. — On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.
In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”
“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.
“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”
Obama administration officials have complained ever since taking office that they face a series of unpalatable — if not impossible — national security decisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of the Bush administration’s unwavering insistence on focusing on Iraq.
But Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.
Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. “I basically don’t,” he replied without elaborating.
Obama will announce a troop buildup in Afghanistan in a speech Tuesday at West Point, and he’s expected to send at least 30,000 more U.S. troops to the country. The White House also has said that Obama will outline a general time frame for the United States to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan.
But Cheney said the average Afghan citizen “sees talk about exit strategies and how soon we can get out, instead of talk about how we win.
“Those folks ... begin to look for ways to accommodate their enemies,” Cheney said. “They’re worried the United States isn’t going to be there much longer and the bad guys are.”
During the interview, Cheney laced his concerns with a broader critique of Obama’s foreign and national security policy, saying Obama’s nuanced and at times cerebral approach projects “weakness” and that the president is looking “far more radical than I expected.”
“Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing,” Cheney said. “I think our adversaries — especially when that’s preceded by a deep bow ... — see that as a sign of weakness.”
Specifically, Cheney said the Justice Department decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in New York City is “great” for Al Qaeda.
“One of their top people will be given the opportunity — courtesy of the United States government and the Obama administration — to have a platform from which they can espouse this hateful ideology that they adhere to,” he said. “I think it’s likely to give encouragement — aid and comfort — to the enemy.”
The former vice president is splitting his time among his houses in Virginia, in Wyoming and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, with a place at each for working on his memoir, to be published in the spring of 2011. His eldest daughter, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney, is collaborating on the writing and overseeing research.
During the campaign, Cheney recalled, he saw Obama as “sort of a mainline, traditional Democrat — liberal, from the liberal wing of the party.” But Cheney said he is increasingly persuaded by the notion that Obama “doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism — the idea that the United States is a special nation, that we are the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known.”
“When I see the way he operates, I am increasingly convinced that he’s not as committed to or as wedded to that concept as most of the presidents I’ve known, Republican or Democrat,” he said. “I am worried. And I find as I get out around the country, a lot of other people are worried, too.”
Cheney said his worries extend to Obama’s domestic agenda: “He obviously has a very robust agenda of change — health care system, cap and trade, redistribution of wealth. I rarely hear him talk about the private sector.”

Cheney charged that Obama’s plans for Afghanistan are based on political calculations by “a guy who campaigned from one end of the country to the other, saying Afghanistan was the good war ... so that he could come across as somebody who’s not against all wars.”

“Now, things have changed. Iraq’s going significantly better because of the decisions we made in the Bush administration — the surge and so forth,” the former vice president added. “And he’s having to deal, sort of up close and personal, with the Afghanistan situation. And it’s tough — it’s hard. ... Sometimes I have the feeling that they’re just figuring that out.”

Looking ahead to 2012, Cheney said the likely midterm congressional losses for Democrats next year “point in the direction of a very competitive situation in 2012 — a very respectable shot for the Republicans of taking back the presidency.”

“There’s a lot of churning and a lot of ferment out there in the party today, and that’s basically a healthy thing,” he said. “Our adversaries — our Democratic adversaries — like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts — narrow based, always have some agenda that’s not attractive to the public. ... That’s easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.”

Cheney said “it’s far too soon to be handicapping” his party’s presidential nominee. “We’ve got a lot of folks, I’m sure, who will want to pursue it. I haven’t committed and don’t expect to anytime soon,” he said. “I think we’ve got a lot of interesting people in the Republican Party.”

Cheney at first declined to make any comment about Sarah Palin, but finally said: “I like her, personally. ... She’s charming, engaging. She’s got as much right to be out there as anybody else. Will she be a candidate at some point? How would she do as a candidate? Those are all questions that only time will tell.”

And what does he think about the movement to draft him to seek the top job himself?

Cheney says he sees no such scenario. “Why would I want to do that?” he replied. “It’s been a hell of a tour. I’ve loved it. I have no aspirations for further office.”

Read More Stories from POLITICODems 'nervous' about Afghan planCLICK: Salahis: 'Truth will come out'GOP establishment scorns purity testParty crashers called to testifySharp tones kick off Senate debate

WASHINGTON – After months of debate, President Barack Obama will spell out a costly Afghanistan war expansion to a skeptical public Tuesday night, coupling an infusion of as many as 35,000 more troops with a vow that there will be no endless U.S. commitment. His first orders have already been made: at least one group of Marines who will be in place by Christmas.
Obama has said that he prefers "not to hand off anything to the next president" and that his strategy will "put us on a path toward ending the war." But he doesn't plan to give any more exact timetable than that Tuesday night.
The president will end his 92-day review of the war with a nationally broadcast address in which he will lay out his revamped strategy from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He spent part of Monday briefing foreign allies in a series of private meetings and phone calls.
Before Obama's call to Britain's Gordon Brown, the prime minister announced that 500 more U.K. troops would arrive in southern Afghanistan next month — making a British total of about 10,000 in the country. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose nation has more than 3,000 in Afghanistan, said French troops would stay "as long as necessary" to stabilize the country.
Obama's war escalation includes sending 30,000 to 35,000 more American forces into Afghanistan in a graduated deployment over the next year, on top of the 71,000 already there. There also will be a fresh focus on training Afghan forces to take over the fight and allow the Americans to leave.
He also will deliver a deeper explanation of why he believes the U.S. must continue to fight more than eight years after the war was started following the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida terrorists based in Afghanistan. He will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. combat backup to be up to the job on their own, and he will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
"This is not an open-ended commitment," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "We are there to partner with the Afghans, to train the Afghan national security forces, the army and the police so that they can provide security for their country and wage a battle against an unpopular insurgency."
On a few of the bigger questions most on the minds of increasingly restive members of Congress and the public, such as how much the additional $30 billion to $35 billion cost will balloon the already skyrocketed federal deficit, how long the U.S. commitment will continue and how it will wind down, Obama was expected to make references without offering specifics.
Gibbs said detailed discussions on costs would be held later with lawmakers.
Even before explaining his decision, Obama told the military to begin executing the force increases. The commander in chief gave the deployment orders Sunday night, during an Oval Office meeting in which he told key military and White House advisers of his final decision.
At least one group of Marines is expected to deploy within two or three weeks of Obama's announcement and will be in Afghanistan by Christmas, military officials said. Larger deployments will begin early next year.
The initial infusion is a recognition by the administration that something tangible needs to happen quickly, officials said. The immediate addition of Marines will provide badly needed reinforcements for those fighting against Taliban gains in the southern Helmand province, and also could lend reassurance to both Afghans and a war-weary U.S. public.
Obama's overall review was launched Aug. 31, when Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the newly minted top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, delivered to Pentagon brass his assessment of the situation on the ground and what was needed to turn it around. McChrystal produced a separate resource request, first seen by Obama on Oct. 1. The president's review was anchored by 10 extensive war council meetings, starting on Sept. 13, that featured a debate between a counterinsurgency strategy focused on protecting the local population and building up the Afghanistan government or a more limited counterterrorism strategy.
The final product is neither, though it leans more toward counterinsurgency.
The length of the process drew sharp barbs. Less than two months in, Vice President Dick Cheney accused Obama of "dithering," beginning a drumbeat of criticism from Republicans. The White House shot back that the administration Cheney helped lead had given inordinate attention to Iraq while turning its back on Afghanistan.
But with U.S. casualties in Afghanistan sharply increasing and little sign of progress, the war Obama once liked to call one "of necessity," not choice, has grown less popular with the public and within his own Democratic Party. In recent days, leading Democrats have talked of setting tough conditions on deeper U.S. involvement, or even staging outright opposition.
The displeasure on both sides of the aisle is likely to be on display when congressional hearings on Obama's strategy get under way later in the week on Capitol Hill.
Obama spent much of Monday and Tuesday on the phone, outlining his plan — minus many specifics — for the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China, India, Denmark, Poland and others. He also met in person at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

A briefing for dozens of lawmakers was planned for Tuesday afternoon, just before Obama left for New York to give his speech against a military backdrop.

He also was to call Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari — two leaders on whom the success of the plan will depend heavily.

In Afghanistan, rampant government corruption and inefficiency have made U.S. success much harder. Obama was expected to place tough conditions on Karzai's government, along with endorsing a stepped-up training program for the Afghan armed forces in line with recommendations this fall by U.S. trainers.

That schedule would expand the Afghan army to 134,000 troops by next fall, three years earlier than once envisioned.

The president faces a tricker task in talking tough on Pakistan.

Though extremist fighters and al-Qaida leaders are believed to be based in its western region near the border with Afghanistan, public scoldings from Washington can hurt as well as help Pakistani efforts because of pervasive anti-American sentiment. The U.S. cannot send troops into Pakistan, and rarely discusses the anti-terrorist missile strikes conducted inside Pakistan from U.S. drones.

Military officials said the speech is expected to include several references to Iraq, where the United States still has more than 100,000 troops. The strain of maintaining that overseas war machine has stretched the Army and Marine Corps and limited Obama's options.

He is expected to at least implicitly pledge not to return to the worst days of the Iraq war, when the Army was resorted to 15-month tours with little time at home between deployments and when National Guard and reserve troops were subjected to lengthy tours.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan, Pamela Hess and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Read Brandon Perkins's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com

It's almost impossible to translate Lil Wayne's lyrics into the written word. With nearly every syllable on every one of his nearly 1000 songs of this past decade, Weezy is surly and snarly, croaking and crawling, urgent and erstwhile. But there are no accent marks for "Someone should've warned you/R-E-L-A-X like fuckin' California/Or get cornered, or get tortured, or get slaughtered/In that order." The words out of Wayne's mouth somehow sound like an artist beyond his time, even if the words on a page are about as non-sensical as they come.

In the thrillingly intimate documentary, Tha Carter (DVD in stores today), director Adam Bhala Lough however finds a way to make Lil Wayne's lyrics translate into actual words. By subtitling entire mixtape verses -- DJ drops sometimes included -- the New Orleans lyricist is put on a pedestal that was once reserved only for Bob Dylan and John Lennon. And why not? Lil Wayne was one of the three most important rappers of the '00s, a decade where hip-hop inherited and then maintained its place atop the music world.

It's a lofty declaration, but the Quincy "QD3" Jones III-produced film has the artistic and integrity-filled chops to make the premise a compelling one. Whether Wayne's lyricism is spelled out over grainy black and white photographs from live performances or in a quiet hotel room like the video below, The Carter keeps the focus on the music and away from the scandals and constantly retold ... kind of.

The "kind of" comes about because of the honest way in which Wayne's surreal-ly serious addictions -- drugs, recording and himself -- are shown in the film, and in turn will be the easiest to sensationalize. (No doubt, the very reason why Lil Wayne pulled his support from the project at the last minute.) Lough's camera is given an unparalleled pass into Wayne's guarded world, one that the many journalists shown interviewing him can only hope to glimpse in 15 minutes slots.

But Lough, and certainly with the aid of DVD-Mixtape luminary QD3's co-sign, gets weeks with Wayne in at least a dozen locations. The camera gets a guided tour through backstage worlds, tour bus sleeping quarters, endless press junkets, and sleepy-eyed viewings of Sports Center. Even more impressive, is the tour through Wayne's omnipresent Louis Vuitton bag, whose contents include a six inch stack of cash, a container of liquid codeine cleverly camouflaged in a grape Vitamin Water bottle, and a coffee-table book praising the form of the naked female body. It's the most physical example of the trust Lil Wayne bestowed upon the process, but perhaps not the most telling. That example isn't even allowing his daughter to be interviewed -- and her rap about "stuntin like her daddy" may be one of the film's most precious moments -- but it's the access to the New Orleans rapper's recording process.

While it's not discussed at any length in The Carter, it's hard not to think about Wayne's impending prison sentence when watching the film. The only time that Lil Wayne doesn't seem to be recording in his travel studio -- which literally goes everywhere he goes -- is when he's in a proper studio. He sets it up in hotel rooms and on the tour bus and puts in hours and hours every single night. It's what the man does. And while he has an affinity for the liquid codeine charmingly known as "syrup," it's easy to imagine that he'll be okay without it when he serves his time. And a little infliction of the real world might help tame his ghastly addiction to self...but this man is going to go insane without a studio. His passion for the process borders on a physical addiction and he says in the film that he has to record so often just to release the pressure in his head from all the rhymes building up throughout the day.

While the quotables and memorable scenes in The Carter are endless -- from grouchily ending an interview after only 90 seconds to Cortez Bryant's tears recounting the story that got the embittered manager kicked off the tour bus -- it's Lil Wayne's commitment to his art that truly resonates. And that The Carter found a way to translate that beyond the headphones makes it one of the top-five greatest hip-hop documentaries of all-time.

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LOS ANGELES – The first interview with Rihanna about Chris Brown's assault on her is airing this week on ABC.
The network says the pop star's one-on-one with Diane Sawyer will air Thursday and Friday on "Good Morning America" and Friday evening on the news magazine "20/20."
Brown's attack on then-girlfriend Rihanna occurred in February. He was sentenced in August to five years' probation, six months of community labor and a year of domestic violence counseling after he pleaded guilty to felony assault.
Rihanna's ABC interview coincides with the debut of her new single, "Russian Roulette," from her upcoming album, "Rated R." It's her first CD since 2007's multiplatinum "Good Girl Gone Bad."

WASHINGTON – Frustrated by court decisions that blocked the suspension of two football players who tested positive for banned substances, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is asking Congress for help.
"We believe that a specific and tailored amendment to the Labor Management Relations Act is appropriate and necessary to protect collectively bargained steroid policies from attack under state law," Goodell said in testimony prepared for a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
Recent court decisions "call into question the continued viability of the steroid policies of the NFL and other national sports organizations," Goodell said. A copy of his testimony was obtained by The Associated Press.
The NFL had attempted to suspend Minnesota Vikings Pat Williams and Kevin Williams for four games, but the players sued the league in state court, arguing the league's testing violated Minnesota laws. The case was moved to federal court, and the NFL players union filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of the Williamses and New Orleans Saints players who were also suspended.
In May, a federal judge dismissed the union's lawsuit and several claims in the Williamses' case but sent two claims involving Minnesota workplace laws back to state court. A judge there issued an injunction prohibiting the NFL from suspending the players and has scheduled the trial for March 8. In September, a federal appeals court panel agreed with those decisions, essentially allowing the Williamses, who are not related, to continue playing while the case proceeds in state court.
The Vikings players tested positive in 2008 for the diuretic bumetanide, which is banned by the NFL because it can mask the presence of steroids. The players acknowledged taking the over-the-counter weight loss supplement StarCaps, which did not state on the label that it contained bumetanide. Neither player is accused of taking steroids.
The court ruling led the NFL to allow New Orleans defensive ends Charles Grant and Will Smith, who had also been issued four-game suspensions, to continue playing. Both players tested positive after using StarCaps.
DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL players union, said this case differs from others. He said Dr. John Lombardo, who oversees the league's steroid policy, learned that StarCaps contained bumetanide but did not inform the players.
"Frankly, the fundamental failure of that doctor to ensure immediate disclosure of the fact that StarCaps included bumetanide violated his paramount duty as a doctor — to protect patients, in this case, our players," Smith said in his prepared testimony, also obtained by The AP. Smith called for changes to the league-union steroid policy that would mandate the NFL notify players when it learns that a product contains a banned substance.
Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's executive vice president of labor relations, also discussed a legislative remedy in his testimony, saying "a narrowly drafted statute could solve the problem faced by professional sports" while preserving the role of collective bargaining in drug programs without interfering with states' prerogatives.
But Michael Weiner, general counsel at the Major League Baseball Players Association, said that legislation is unnecessary. A bill to pre-empt state law, he argued, "would stand for the unusual proposition that parties to a collective bargaining agreement can contract for that which is illegal under state law."

WASHINGTON – The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.
While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.
Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over a decade for coverage.
Asked about the higher estimate, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the measure not only insures 36 million more Americans, it provides critical health insurance reform in a way that is fiscally sound.
"It will not add one dime to the deficit. In fact, the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years," Daly said.
Democrats have been intent on passing legislation this year to implement Obama's call for expanded coverage for millions, curbs on industry abuses and provisions to slow the rate of growth of health care costs nationally.
"Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years," the president said in a nationally televised speech in early September.
Whatever the final cost of legislation, the calendar is working increasingly against the White House and Democrats. While a House vote is possible late this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may not be able to begin debate on the issue until the week before Thanksgiving. Additionally, the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has hinted at efforts to extend the debate for weeks if not months, a timetable that could extend into 2010.
One casualty of the time crunch and threatened Republican delaying tactics may be formal House-Senate negotiations on a final compromise. An alternative is a less formal hurry-up final negotiation involving the White House and senior Democrats.
Pelosi and her lieutenants worked on last-minute changes in the measure to ease concerns among opponents of abortion and a contentious provision relating to illegal immigrants. Conservative Democrats have expressed concern about the cost of the bill, and an evening closed-door meeting gave Pelosi and her lieutenants their first chance to hear their response.
The bill includes an option for a government-run health plan.
The leadership can afford more than two dozen defections and still be assured of the votes to prevail on the bill, one of the most sweeping measures in recent years.
Republicans put the cost of the bill at nearly $1.3 trillion.
"Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for" Democrats to pass it, House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference. "We believe it is the wrong prescription."
One day after announcing Republicans would have an alternative measure, Boehner offered few details. He said it would omit one of the central provisions in Democratic bills — a ban on the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, he said the Republicans would encourage creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals and take other steps to ease their access to coverage.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the third-ranking leader, said that Democrats looked at their bill as a way to advance universal coverage. In contrast, he said, Republicans "believe the real issue back home is cost" of insurance, and said their alternative would be designed to tackle it.
Democrats have made elimination of the industry's practice a linchpin of their drive to overhaul the health care system. The industry has said it would not fight the change, and an accompanying restriction on its ability to charge higher premiums for certain groups, as the legislation includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance. Lacking that, the industry says millions of relatively healthy individuals would refuse to pay for coverage until they became sick, and the cost of premiums would rise sharply for everyone else.

Republicans oppose any government requirements for individuals to purchase insurance or for businesses to provide coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office is seen by lawmakers as the arbiter of claims about the costs and effects of proposed legislation, and the agency has been under intense pressure in recent weeks to compete assessments on several bills circulating in House and Senate.

In a letter last week, the agency's director, Dr. Douglas Elmendorf, said the net cost of expanding coverage in the House measure was estimated at $894 billion over 10 years, a figure reflecting a gross total of $1 trillion in federal subsidies as well as other spending.

The letter contained no similar assessment for the balance of the legislation and it was not clear when or whether one would be forthcoming.

In a letter last week to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on the general subject of health care, Elmendorf cautioned that some provisions in legislation have elements that raise costs and elements that lower costs.

"Tabulating all of the aspects of the proposal that would, in isolation, increase federal outlays would be complicated and would require somewhat arbitrary judgments" about calculating overall costs, Elmendorf said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Shortly after his father died three years ago, Clark Hunt realized he wasn't fully prepared to be an NFL owner.
He thought he would be. He and the late Lamar Hunt, the founder of the Kansas City Chiefs and an iconic figure in professional sports, had planned carefully for the day.
But in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, Hunt said he quickly realized he was not quite ready for the demands of the media and the obligations to the public. Quiet and decidedly non-flamboyant by nature, he had always preferred working in the background.
But suddenly, he was thrust onto center stage. Cameras and microphones were thrust into his face. Fans were clamoring to know how he intended to get the team to the Super Bowl.
"The first year after my father passed away was a challenge for me because I was just not used to it," said Hunt, at 44 the youngest owner in the NFL. "There's both the media side as well as public speaking engagements. There's a fair amount of both. That's just part and parcel of the job responsibility."
Now finally, he's feeling much more comfortable, and enjoying his ownership like never before.
"I like to think I've gotten a little more comfortable, which comes with the experience," he said.
He also figures that knowing the trouble he had adjusting to the demands of ownership has given him an appreciation for what his first-year management team of GM Scott Pioli and coach Todd Haley are experiencing.
The three of them are practically the same age. And like their owner, Pioli and Haley had little experience dealing with the media and public.
"This is a natural reaction for someone who's a first-time coach in the National Football League, a first-time general manager in the National Football League, and I could even say a first-time owner in the National Football League," Hunt said.
"The transition from the background to the media spotlight is one that's awfully, awfully hard. It's hard to make that leap, particularly when it's not something that you've done a lot and you don't have that kind of personality."
The business side of the team still commands most of Hunt's time. In the next 12 months, more than $300 million in renovations to Arrowhead Stadium and the grounds will be completed and he is very active overseeing it all. But Hunt is also frequently on the phone with Pioli discussing player moves and possible transactions.
"In terms of leading the organization, I have a much clearer vision of things that I need to be doing to help us," Hunt said. "I'm enjoying the entire responsibility more than I expected. In a lot of ways, I'm much more involved in the football operation than I was before Scott came. But at the end of the day, Scott's still the guy who makes the decisions. He's very, very deep in his thought process."
The boss of the Chiefs will never be the sort of owner who dashed from news conference to news conference.
"It may be different from Dan Snyder or Jerry Jones, but something that's been a pleasant surprise for me is how Scott Pioli likes to keep me in the loop on all of his roster moves," Hunt said. "He'll call and ask what I think. I'm enjoying working with Scott and Todd, trying to help them and give them the resources they need to get the franchise turned around and back to where we want to be."
Toward that end, there is much ground to cover. Last week's victory over the Washington Redskins was just the third in 31 games for the Chiefs and made Pioli and Haley 1-5 in Kansas City. But the schedule figures to soften a bit in the second half and Hunt is optimistic the Chiefs are doing things right.
Unless the program simply blows up in his face, Haley can count on several years to construct a winner.
"When you bring in a new coach you have to give him three or four years to build his program. And we've gone through a double change of coach and general manager," Hunt said.

"I don't think that extends the time, but it may make the transition more difficult. I believe that continuity is incredibly important to being successful in any professional sport, especially the NFL. The last thing we want to get into is a cycle like some teams do where they're changing coaches every couple of years."

The amount of make-up used on a dancer depends on the venue, lighting, and the distance of the audience. To enhance the dancer’s face and make it visible from a distance, the face’s bone structure should be emphasized, there should be a space between the eyebrows, and the eyes should stand out. The further away the audience is the bolder make-up required (Cooper 78).

Women appear blusher, and have stronger eyes and lips (Cooper 78). Men apply a browner shade for their lips and have a stronger shadow for their jaw line. Dancers should also dust their faces with color and lightly add blush to their knuckles so it doesn’t contrast with their face (Art of Production 125).

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TOPEKA, Kan. – The memory still bothers Ken Keller: A panicked ambulance crew had a critically ill patient, but the man weighed more than 1,000 pounds and could not fit inside the vehicle. And the stretcher wasn't sturdy enough to hold him.
The crew offered an idea to Keller, who was then an investigator with the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services. Could they use a forklift to load the man — bed and all — onto a flatbed truck? Keller agreed: There was no other choice.
"I'm sure it was terribly embarrassing to be in his own bed, riding on the back of a flatbed with straps tying him down, going to the hospital, and then have a forklift at the hospital unload him," Keller said.
As the nation battles the obesity crisis, ambulance crews are trying to improve how they transport extremely heavy patients, who become significantly more difficult to move as they surpass 350 pounds. And caring for such patients is expensive, requiring costly equipment and extra workers, so some ambulance companies have started charging higher fees for especially overweight people.
The move to modify ambulances is just the latest effort to accommodate plus-sized patients. Some hospitals already offer specially designed beds, wheelchairs, walkers and even commodes.
Ambulance companies say it's time for insurance providers, Medicaid and Medicare, or patients themselves to begin paying the added costs, which are cutting into their razor-thin profit margins.
In the past, ambulance companies often absorbed the extra expense of serving the obese. Now they are adding charges similar to those already imposed on intensive-care patients, people requiring multiple medications and patients on ventilators.
"In order for these systems to survive and continue to provide their service, there has to be some way to recover those costs," said Jim Buell, a director at the American Ambulance Association.
Transporting extremely heavy people costs about 2 1/2 times as much as normal-weight patients. It takes more time to move them and requires three to four times more crew members, who often must use expensive specialty equipment, Buell said.
Keller, now an operations manager for the American Medical Response unit in Topeka, successfully petitioned the Shawnee County Commission last summer to raise ambulance fees from $629 to $1,172 for critical-care patients and people who are 500 pounds or heavier.
In Colorado Springs, Colo., and the Nebraska cities of Omaha and Lincoln, the fees are $1,421 for an extremely obese patient, compared with $758 for a typical patient.
Before those ambulances had heavy-duty equipment, crews just had to make do, often calling in burly firefighters to help lift patients.
"I've heard stories of people moved by U-Haul trucks and sides of mobile homes having to be removed to move patients out, things of that nature," said Ted Sayer, a general manager for the American Medical Response unit.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long said that nearly a third of Americans are obese. About 5 percent of the population is morbidly obese, meaning they are more than 100 pounds heavier than their ideal weight.
Some critics say the higher fees are a form of discrimination.
"Ambulance services are a critical public service and should accommodate the needs of all of those who require them at a fair cost," said Joseph Nadglowski, president of the Obesity Action Coalition, a group that advocates for the obese.
Higher payments for heavy patients are commonplace in Oregon and Washington because the insurance industry there acknowledges the additional costs, said Liz Merritt, a spokeswoman for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Rural/Metro Corporation, an ambulance provider.
Ambulance companies say the insurance industry is their best hope for closing the financial gap.

As with any medical service, ambulance companies bill private insurers or government health care programs. Medicare and Medicaid do not pay extra for transporting the extremely obese, although that's something the ambulance industry wants to change. The uninsured are charged directly, but many of them cannot pay.

"It's really an emerging area," said Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for the America's Health Insurance Plans, an insurance industry trade group. "It is one more way that obesity is contributing to health costs."

Proponents of the extra fees say obese patients are grateful for equipment that eliminates the need for flatbed trucks and forklifts.

"We've noticed that people who are heavy know that they are heavy, and they don't want to impose on others, and they don't want someone injured while moving them," Sayer said.

Like many ambulance companies, Keller's unit in Topeka recently spent about $10,000 to retrofit an ambulance with equipment that accommodates patients weighing up to 1,600 pounds. Ambulance services with helicopters also are creating larger patient compartments and adding stronger gurneys.

Sales of specialized lift systems nationwide are expected to reach $193 million by 2012, up from $75 million in 2004, according to EMS Insider, an industry newsletter. The sale of specialized stretchers is expected to nearly double to $50 million in 2012.

Keller is hopeful more companies add the equipment so the very obese will receive better care. He recently went out on a call involving a severely overweight woman.

"The family was there, and we brought the cot in and helped her onto the cot. And she said, 'I appreciate it so much, you looking out for our needs,'" Keller said. "And I thought that was pretty cool."