Genes Play Role In Selecting Friends, Study Finds

Birds of a feather flock together. The age-old adage now carries scientific weight. A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests genes may influence how people pick their friends. James Fowler, professor of medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego, is the author of the study and he tells host Guy Raz there's biology in social chemistry.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/29/133334338/Genes-Play-Role-In-Selecting-Friends-Study-Finds?ft=1&f=1007

john mccain al gore bill clinton newt gingrich sarah palin

Not many House GOPers rejecting health benefits

Washington (CNN) -- It's now official. Starting Tuesday, members of Congress may receive generous health care benefits -- subsidized by Uncle Sam.

Most lawmakers accept this insurance -- the same perk afforded to some 8 million federal employees and their families.

But Democrats are crying hypocrisy, saying Republicans who want to repeal the health care law for Americans should not accept similar benefits for themselves.

"It's hypocritical when they all voted to undo the bill we did, to repeal the bill that we enacted -- that the president signed into law -- to provide for the first time for many Americans in 2014 access to what we as members of Congress have," employer-provided health care, Representative Joseph Crowley, D-New York, told CNN in an interview in his Capitol office.

Some 16 House Republicans are in fact opting out of health care benefits, including freshman Representative Joe Walsh, R-Illinois.

He told CNN his reason is "philosophical" -- saying that he campaigned against the health care law, and on a promise not to accept health care benefits.

"I think that this piece of legislation that we passed is so critical and it will do such harm to our country, that I think we need a few of us to lead by example to point out some of its flaws," Walsh said.

The Federal Employees Health Benefit Program provides federal employees a wide range of private health care plans to choose from.

Though the benefit is subsidized by the government, the cost of the plans are relatively low because the pool of federal workers is so big.

That's the same theory behind the so-called exchanges being set up for most Americans as part of the new health care law.

Unlike most of Walsh's congressional colleagues who are turning down government benefits, the Illinois freshman did not have alternative health insurance, so he says he bought his own insurance coverage, which has a $5,000 deductible.

Walsh says his wife has a pre-existing condition, so insurance would not cover her. Therefore, he says they will pay for the treatment for her ailment, which he declined to disclose, out of pocket.

He says that cost is "sizeable."

"If I would of taken the congressional plan, I'd taken the group policy, and my wife would have been covered and life would have been a heck of a lot easier. But this is the pledge that I made, it's something my wife and I have thought long and hard about, and it's a principle, and it's important to both of us," Walsh said.

Representative Bobby Schilling, another GOP freshman from Illinois, is also declining coverage from the Federal Employees Health Benefit plan out of principle, saying he too ran on that promise.

Unlike Walsh, Schilling already has insurance that he will keep through his pizza parlor business back home.

But in conversations with aides to nearly all the 16 known Republicans not taking health insurance for lawmakers, most are doing so not because of philosophical opposition to government-subsidized health care, but instead because it is most practical for them.

Representative Richard Nugent, R-Florida, has COBRA with the help of his state government, since he is a retired sheriff.

Others, like Representative Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, are veterans and already receive government benefits through the Veterans Affairs department.

And some, like Representative Mike Kelly, R-Pennsylvania, and Representative Daniel Webster, R-Florida, are not accepting the congressional health care benefit because they already have insurance through their own businesses back home.

But that decision is costing people like Webster a lot more money.

According to his chief of staff, Webster pays $1,200 a month for health insurance for his family, and would only be paying about $400 monthly if he accepted government benefits offered to him as a congressman.

"They all have Plan Bs," noted Democrat Joe Crowley. "The 46 million Americans who don't have insurance today don't have a Plan A."

Still -- regardless of their reasoning -- only a fraction of Republicans who voted to repeal the health care law are forgoing government-subsidized insurance for themselves.

Florida Representative Allen West, a Republican freshman elected with significant Tea Party support, is accepting the federal health care benefit. He dismisses Democratic accusations that he and other lawmakers like him are hypocrites.

West calls that Democratic "propaganda."

GOP leadership aides insist there is nothing wrong with lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, accepting government-subsidized health care benefits, since the government is their employer.

"The speaker, like President Obama, Senator Harry Reid and tens of millions of other Americans, gets his health coverage through his employer. That has nothing to do with opposition to Washington Democrats' unconstitutional, job-destroying health care law," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

They may be small in number, but some of Boehner's freshmen GOP colleagues disagree. They say their opposition to the health care law is in fact connected to the government-subsidized insurance offered to them.

Representative Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, is a freshman declining the federal benefits for philosophical reasons.

According to spokeswoman Stephanie Zimmerman, Gosar has a health savings account for his family, and has seen his premiums increase 30% in the last year.

Zimmerman said if Gosar were to opt in to federal health benefits, he would be able to cover his entire family for about $300 a month. Under his current plan, he has to pay approximately $1,700 a month out of pocket.

"He made a promise to his constituents that he would not take members' health benefits because he wanted to live like everyone else in his district," Zimmerman said.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/cZNE3rLetro/index.html

fox news hamid karzai barak obama hillary clinton george w bush

Will Massey Buyout Make For Safer Mines?

The ongoing saga of coal mine giant Massey Energy took a much-rumored turn this weekend with an agreement to merge with Alpha Natural Resources, a Virginia-based company, which already owns 26 underground coal mines in Appalachia and Wyoming.

Alpha will absorb Massey and its 61 underground mines in a deal valued at $8.5 billion. Approval by the boards of both companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department will result in a coal mining behemoth that will dominate production of metallurgical coal in Appalachia.

Met coal, as it's called, is used to make steel and demand right now is very high.

The new company will retain the Alpha name, management team and board of directors.

The Massey name will be gone. But what about the company's aggressive resistance to federal regulation and a safety record that is one of the worst in the industry?

 

"Massey has been historically pretty aggressive in its dealings. Maybe even contentious would be the right word," says Meredith Bandy, the coal equity analyst at BMO Capital Markets. "Alpha's management team tends to be professional and sort of restrained. They're much more low key."


An NPR analysis of federal records finds that Massey violates mine safety regulations at a rate that is a third higher than the violation rate for Alpha. And when compared with violations nationwide, Alpha is 20 percent lower than the national average.

"I think that we've demonstrated through our track record that we've created a fair amount of credibility," said Alpha CEO Kevin Crutchfield in a conference call with industry analysts Monday.

Alpha also has a senior safety and production executive who once worked at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and has been buddies with MSHA coal mine safety chief Kevin Stricklin. Neither Stricklin nor Allen Dupree, Alpha's Vice President for Running Right and Business Excellence, would talk Monday about their working relationship.

"Running Right" is an Alpha program that makes the company's miners and managers responsible for safety problems. The company says the program encourages mine workers to report problems.

"I know that some top management at Alpha has better relationships than Massey management does, less confrontational relationships," says Tony Oppegard, a former MSHA official who represents coal miners suing mining companies. "I hope that that would help when the two sides sit down to discuss safety problems."

Some of Alpha's mines are union mines so the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) represents about 1,500 of the company's miners. That experience has UMWA spokesman Phil Smith cautiously optimistic about the merger.

"I don't think there's a coal company that likes regulation and… the enhanced regulations that have been the hallmarks of the last several years," Smith says. "That said, Alpha has not been out front trying to wipe out increased enforcement and also not trying to run away from their record like Massey has been trying to do."

Massey insisted it put safety first in its mines even as it amassed thousands of safety citations, violations and fines. The company's Freedom Mine in Kentucky was considered so dangerous federal regulators sought a first-ever federal court injunction that would have put the mine under a judge's supervision. Massey agreed to that supervision in a settlement and announced it would close the mine.

A federal grand jury has been investigating the explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia last April. Company officials and board members are also targets in wrongful death suits filed by relatives of two of the disaster's 29 victims.

But that financial and public relations liability did not deter Alpha.

"There's a worldwide scarcity of metallurgical coal," notes Bandy. "And so when you put these two companies together you get a pretty powerful met coal platform."

Oppegard says the kind of company that emerges will depend on what Alpha does with Massey's management team.

"If Alpha keeps the Massey management team intact in the Appalachian coal fields, then I think we're going to continue to see safety problems at those mines," Oppegard says. "It's hard, but not impossible, to change the thinking of long-time managers just because there's been a corporate change."

Alpha CEO Crutchfield told industry analysts that the company has yet to determine what the combined management team will look like.

Massey's stock skyrocketed Monday, rising nearly 10 percent. It has completely recovered from a 50 percent loss in the aftermath of the April explosion and is now valued higher than the price quoted the day before the blast.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/31/133386586/will-massey-buyout-make-for-safer-mines?ft=1&f=1003

john mccain al gore bill clinton newt gingrich sarah palin

ElBaradei Reignites Egypt's Democracy Movement

As the protests continue in Egypt, and the departure of President Hosni Mubarak looks imminent, one man is emerging as a transitional leader: Mohamed ElBaradei. The soft-spoken 69-year-old is a Nobel laureate and long-time diplomat.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/01/133395312/Mohamed-ElBaradei-Profile?ft=1&f=1004

barak obama hillary clinton george w bush nancy pelosi harry reid

Watching Egypt With a Wary Eye

David Warren, Ottawa CitizenThe surprising success of demonstrations in Tunisia -- a despised president fled the country, but leaving his despised government largely intact -- has inspired "us, too!" demonstrations around the Arab world. Clamouring continues in Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon. No one can predict what will come of it, though my guess is that little will, until fresh factors come into play.In Egypt, for instance, the "dog that does not bark" is the Muslim Brotherhood. The Mubarak regime fears them much more than it fears the children of the middle classes, whom it is patiently...

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/31/watching_egypt_108713.html

nancy pelosi harry reid john mccain al gore bill clinton

LISTEN: White House Spokesman Gibbs Walks Difficult Line On Mubarak

Asked if the U.S. wants the Egyptian leader to step down, he says that's not for America to say ? but that the administration wants to see a "transition" to greater democracy in Egypt.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/31/133379474/listen-white-house-spokesman-gibbs-walks-difficult-line-on-mubarak?ft=1&f=1004

hamid karzai barak obama hillary clinton george w bush nancy pelosi