Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/mind_brain/child_development.xml
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Friday, March 8, 2013
ScienceDaily: Child Development News
Thursday, March 7, 2013
'Patriot' groups on the rise as gun debate continues
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) ? President Barack Obama's administration and the gun control debate after the Connecticut school shooting have led to surging numbers of anti-government "patriot" groups, according to a civil rights group that tracks extremist groups.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reported the rising numbers on Tuesday in its annual report on extremist groups.
The number of anti-government patriot groups, one category tracked by the center, rose dramatically over the past four years, from 149 groups in 2008 to 1,360 today, researchers reported. That was up about 7 percent from the 1,274 active in 2011.
The election and re-election of the nation's first black president and the rugged economy have fueled their growth, said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC.
"The anger, angst, frustration, fear surrounding the economy have very much poured fuel on this fire," Potok said.
On gun control, the debate following the Newtown, Conn., mass murder of schoolchildren has led to "a kind of white-hot rage unleashed on both the radical right and also within more mainstream political circles," he said.
In the week following the Dec. 14 school shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it conducted more background checks for firearms sales and permits to carry than it has in any other one-week period since 1998.
In a letter today to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the SPLC warned of the potential for domestic terrorism and urged the creation of a task force to assess whether there are enough federal resources devoted to the threat.
"As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns," wrote SPLC President Richard Cohen, a member of the Department of Homeland Security's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group.
The SPLC found there were 1,360 Patriot groups in 2012 - an 813 percent rise since 2008, the year before Obama took office. The groups include 321 militias. These numbers far exceed the movement's peak in the 1990s, when militias were inflamed by the 1993 Brady Bill and the 1994 assault rifle ban.
Some critics believe the SPLC is too broad in labeling hate and extremist groups, to the point of including legitimate political organizations that oppose illegal immigration, gun control, gay rights and other issues.
The center's researchers say they use a variety of methods to track anti-government groups and compile their list from field reports, patriot publications, law enforcement sources and news reports. Potok said only active groups are included.
"We are not just looking at one man and a computer," he said.
The report states: "Generally, Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the 'New World Order,' engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme anti-government doctrines."
The FBI defines military extremists as anti-government groups often organized into paramilitary groups that follow a military-style rank hierarchy and typically engage in wilderness, survival, or other paramilitary training, according to a September 2011 FBI report on domestic terrorism.
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Online:
Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/hate-and-extremism
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-report-sharp-rise-patriot-groups-170121578.html
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Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Another kind of gridlock grips D.C.: Hellish traffic
AFP - Getty Images file
Commuters move slowly during heavy traffic on a freeway in Los Angeles in 2011. California is among the states with the highest percentage of people commuting an hour or more.
By Allison Linn, TODAY
The jokes about Washington, D.C.?s gridlock usually refer to politics, but they might as well be talking about the traffic.
A new government report finds that more than one quarter of the people who work in Washington, D.C. are commuting an hour or more each way to work.
The District of Columbia has the highest rate of workers with long commutes, but it?s not that unusual for Americans to spend hours each day commuting.
Overall, a Census Bureau report released Tuesday found that 8.1 percent of American workers spent 60 minutes or more getting each way to work in 2011. That?s a little more than double the average travel time for commuters, which was 25.5 minutes in 2011.
The good news is that the people with the longest commutes are far more likely to be using public transportation. The bad news is that most of them were still driving alone in their car.
The Census report found that 23 percent of workers with travel times of 60 minutes or more were taking public transportation, compared with just 3.7 percent of workers with shorter commutes.
Still, 61.1 percent workers with travel times of 60 minutes or more drove alone. That compares with 81.5 percent of workers with commutes of less than 60 minutes. The rest were carpooling or using other means of transportation.
The majority of people who are commuting to Washington, D.C. are coming from other states, and it?s not uncommon for people with long commutes to be going from one state where they live to another where they work.
Here?s a list of the states with the highest percentage of workers who work in that state and are commuting an hour or more to work.
10. Georgia: 9.1 percent
9. Virginia: 9.4 percent
8. California: 10.1 percent
7. New Jersey: 11.1 percent
6. Illinois: 11.3 percent
5. Massachusetts: 11.7 percent
4. Maryland: 11.8 percent
3. Puerto Rico: 13.9 percent
2. New York: 18.2 percent
1. Washington, D.C.: 27.4 percent
Hate commuting? You might want to consider relocating to Nebraska, which had the lowest percentage of long commuters, or asking your boss if you can work from home.
How long is your commute to work?
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Higher taxes seen restraining job growth in February
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. job growth likely was moderate in February as higher taxes and fears of deep government spending cuts made employers cautious, suggesting there was still not enough momentum in the economy for the Federal Reserve to scale back its monetary support.
Employers are expected to have added 160,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, barely picking up from January's 157,000 count, according to a Reuters survey of economists. That would just be enough to hold the jobless rate steady at 7.9 percent.
A 2 percent payroll tax cut ended and tax rates went up for wealthy Americans on January 1, hurting retail sales. In addition, $85 billion in federal budget cuts, known as the "sequester," started taking hold on March 1, a prospect that may have weighed on hiring decisions.
"Businesses are sitting tight and part of it reflects business caution ahead of the sequester. The underlying trend still points to a job market that is treading water," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester Pennsylvania.
The Labor Department will release the February employment report on Friday at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT).
Apart from the fiscal drag, a snowstorm that buried the East Coast during the payrolls survey week could also have kept some workers at home. But the blizzard hit during the weekend and missed many large metropolitan areas, which probably softened the blow on the jobs tally.
February's pace would be well below the 200,000 jobs per month average for the last three months, and would reflect an anticipated reversal in retail employment after sales excluding gasoline and automobiles slowed sharply in January.
The weak trend likely persisted in February. According to a Reuters survey, sales at stores open at least a year at 15 chains were up a modest 1.6 percent in February.
Retail employment had increased 32,600 in January, marking a seventh straight month of gains for the sector.
"If there is going to be one sector where there is going to be some pain, it's going to be the retail space. That would be the one thing that holds us below 170,000," said Jacob Oubina, senior U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York.
CONSTRUCTION TO THE RESCUE
Weak retail hiring was probably offset by construction employment, where double-digit job gains have been reported over the past four months. Construction jobs gains are being driven by an acceleration in the housing market recovery.
Rebuilding on the East Coast after the destruction wrought by Superstorm Sandy in late October is also helping to support employment in the sector.
With employment falling far short of the roughly 250,000 jobs per month over a sustained period that economists say is needed to significantly reduce unemployment, the report will give the Fed ammunition to continue on its very easy monetary policy path.
The U.S. central bank is buying $85 billion in bonds per month and has said it would keep up asset purchases until it sees a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook, a message Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke drove home in congressional testimony last week.
Since the 2007-09 recession ended, the economy has struggled to grow above a 2 percent annual pace. In the fourth quarter, output barely expanded.
"The economy is muddling along. The jobs market is just creating enough jobs to keep the unemployment rate steady," said Sweet. "That's not going to meet the Fed's criteria for a significant improvement in the jobs market."
Away from the retail sector, details of the February report are likely to mirror January's almost broad-based increases, with the private sector accounting for all the job gains.
Within the private service sector, courier and messenger jobs could rebound from the prior month's drop, but could also have been depressed by the bad weather on the East Coast.
Healthcare and social assistance likely recorded another month of solid jobs gains. The same is expected for leisure and hospitality.
Government payrolls are expected to have dropped by about 7,000 last month after falling 9,000 in January. Moderating local government layoffs, outside education, should help to blunt the blow from job losses related to the sequester.
Average hourly earnings are projected to have risen 0.2 percent last month after increasing by the same margin in January. That would be the fourth straight month of gains in hourly earnings.
They increased 2.1 percent in the 12 months through January after a similar advance in December. The length of the average workweek is expected to have held steady at 34.4 hours.
(Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/higher-taxes-seen-restraining-job-growth-february-164321529--business.html
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Monday, March 4, 2013
Pittsburgh caf? to serve up back pay to employees ? Business ...
The Point Brugge Caf?, in Pitts??burgh?s East End, must pay $37,719 to 39 workers that the U.S. Depart??ment of Labor says were stiffed by an illegal tip-pooling system.
According to DOL investigators, the caf??s tip pool was used to compensate kitchen workers such as dishwashers?employees who do not traditionally work for tips. The tip pooling pulled waiters? wages below the minimum wage.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay tipped personnel at least $2.13 per hour. However, the pay and tips must add up to at least $7.50 per hour to be legal.
The caf??s practice of deducting cash-drawer shortages from employees? pay also violated the FLSA.
In addition to repaying the workers, the caf? must also change its pay practices and record-keeping systems.
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
Law Blog Fireside: Law Prof (and Legal Education Critic) Paul ...
By Jennifer Smith
A prominent legal education education critic is putting?Inside the Law School Scam, his widely-read blog on the problems afflicting U.S. law schools, out to pasture. (Not to worry, LBers, the old posts will remain up for your perusal.)
Paul Campos, a professor at?University of Colorado Law School, launched the blog in the fall of 2011. Back then, law school enrollment was just starting to dip after hitting an all-time high of 147,525 the previous year, and complaints about the system were often regarded by those inside the academy as grumbling from students who couldn?t hack it in the legal job market.
That?s no longer the case, as WSJ has reported. As law school applications plunge to their lowest level in at least a decade, Law Blog talked with Mr. Campos about law school economics. . . . .
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Friday, March 1, 2013
Lincoln Mitchell: Fiscal Ultimatum Fatigue
The possibility of a range of spending cuts beginning automatically on March 1st due to the sequester remains very real with only a few days remaining until the deadline. The sequester will cut spending, but also likely impact economic recovery and growth. While some may laud the sequester for finally reducing spending, it is also a clumsy tool for making policy relying upon broad, but moderate, cuts rather than more well thought out cuts to specific programs. Despite this, few ordinary Americans are too concerned about the potential sequester.
During the last several years the American people have become increasingly familiar with this kind of government blackmail, where the politicians tell us that if they cannot make a deal, one kind of fiscal calamity or another will hit the country. Congress seems to no longer debate spending or propose budgets, but rather they lurch from one spending related crisis to another, each with more dire consequences. Debt ceilings, defaults and sequesters have replaced rational, or even irrational, discourse about how to raise and spend that revenue.
The political system in Washington has evolved from one where meeting the political opponent halfway has been replaced with waiting to see who will blink first. This is not only an ineffective way to make policy, but it contributes to the frustration many Americans feel towards Washington. Ordinary Americans are regularly having to learn about a new budget disaster facing the country that is the result of both years of poor fiscal policy and an inability of the people in Washington to govern.
In an environment like this it is easy to blame both the White House and the congress, as well as both political parties. There is some truth to this. In recent decades, both parties have contributed to the budget problems. The Democrats and Republicans have both supported expensive, although occasionally different, spending programs. Both have, for the most part, been reluctant to confront the seriousness of the budget problem, particularly when they are in office, and have been comfortable borrowing substantial sums of money.
In the last several years this dynamic has changed because the Republicans in congress have begun to address the budget issue, something about which they for the most part only became concerned since Barack Obama became president, not by proposing concrete fiscal solutions, other than, of course, calling for tax cuts, spending cuts and magic. Instead, the party has sought structural remedies, or more accurately, gimmicks, to draw attention to the deficit. The debt ceiling debate, for example, is not a real problem, but one that was created by the Republicans, seemingly to draw attention to the deficit. These gimmicks, however, often present genuine danger to the financial health of the country. While most agree that running large deficits is bad, almost everybody would agree that defaulting on loans would be worse, but this is the position in which the Republican in Congress have been willing to put the country.
This reflects an asymmetry of concern around the debt. The Republicans, at least publicly, see the debt as an enormous crisis and threat to the safety and future of the country. In their view, presumably, the debt could lead to the financial and general collapse of the United States. Thus solving this problem requires every possible approach, except, naturally, raising taxes. The Obama administration has not evinced a concern about the budget that is comparably alarmist. Instead, the administration appears to see the debt as one of several problems, such as joblessness and a stagnant economy, which require attention and solutions.
Because the parties see the problem differently, finding a solution has been difficult. The pattern of budget talks throughout Obama's time in office has been that Obama offers compromises drawing ire from his base for offering too much and from his opponents for offering too little. The Republicans invariably respond to Obama's offers with a counteroffers that concede nothing, forcing the two sides to see who will give in first. There is then a standoff which, in one manner or another, Obama usually wins, albeit usually in a way that does not help him very much. This is invariably followed by the next manufactured crisis and deadline.
The result of this is that many Americans are losing faith that the government is able or interested in doing anything about the budget or about creating a financial plan for the country. The threats, inevitably, are less meaningful over time as people grow accustomed to this pattern. Right now, few people outside of Washington care about the sequester because most of them, and us, think that the crisis will be averted at the last minute and replaced by a new one in a few months; and they, and we, are probably right.
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Follow Lincoln Mitchell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LincolnMitchell
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/fiscal-ultimatum-fatigue_b_2778499.html
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