agniev

Today the FFII sent a letter to the European Parliament about the EP legal service?s opinion on ACTA. (pfd version, see also press release)

Dear Members of the European Parliament,

In the coming months the Parliament will have to decide whether to give consent to ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) or not. In preparation, the INTA and JURI committees asked the Parliament?s legal service an opinion on ACTA.

We welcome the decision to release this opinion. We have compared the legal service?s opinion with multiple academic opinions on ACTA and some civil society analyses.

We found that many issues pointed out by academic opinions and the study commissioned by the INTA committee are not addressed by the legal service?s opinion.

The legal service fails to see major issues with damages, injunctions and provisional, border and criminal measures. The legal service consistently overlooks known issues. Taking the issues the legal service did not address into consideration, it is clear that ACTA goes beyond current EU law, the acquis.

The legal service underestimates problems with Internet governance and access to medicine. It fails to see ACTA is not compatible with fundamental rights, international agreements and the EU Treaties.

ACTA will negatively impact innovation, start up companies, mass digitization projects, access to medicines and Internet governance. ACTA threatens the rule of law and fundamental rights.

We call upon the Parliament to say no to ACTA.

Below we will present the main conclusions. Please find attached this letter as a pdf and the full analysis.

Yours sincerely,

Ante Wessels

Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure

MAIN CONCLUSIONS

1. Compatibility with current EU law

Damages: The legal service overlooks that ACTA?s damages based on retail price lead to damages based on an imaginary gross revenue, which is way beyond actual loss suffered. This issue has been pointed out by NGOs, the European academics Opinion and the EP INTA study. In our analysis, we provide some simple examples which show that ACTA?s damages are much higher than EU law damages.

Border measures: Both the European Academics Opinion on ACTA and the EP INTA committee study had pointed out there is a serious issue with the condition ?not discriminate unjustifiably?. The Commission did not provide the justification to limit ACTA to EU law. While the legal service quotes article 13 ACTA, it leaves out this condition. Since DG-Trade and the US Trade Representative undermine the Doha Declaration in other fora, there is also a threat to access to medicine.

Injunctions and provisional measures: The legal service does not address the issues with injunctions and provisional measures, pointed out in multiple academic opinions.

Compatibility: Taking the issues the legal service did not address into consideration, it is clear that ACTA goes beyond current EU law, the acquis.

2. Criminal measures: The legal service fails to see ACTA removes the scale element from the definition of the crime. The legal service fails to notice ACTA criminalises everyday computer use. ACTA can be used to criminalise newspapers and websites revealing a document, office workers forwarding a file, people making a private copy and whistle-blowers revealing documents in the public interest.

3. Internet: ACTA?s criminal and heightened civil measures will also apply to the digital environment. This will put pressure on Internet Service Providers, who may decide to pre-emptively censor Internet communications. ACTA incites privatised enforcement outside the rule of law.

4. Fundamental rights: To establish whether ACTA violates fundamental rights, fair balance tests are needed. The legal service does not provide any fair balance test. The 61 pages Douwe Korff & Ian Brown opinion provides many such tests. These tests show ACTA is manifestly incompatible with fundamental rights. Just providing a general reference to fundamental rights is not enough.

The ARTICLE 19 organisation ?finds that ACTA fundamentally flawed from a freedom of expression and information perspective. If enacted, it will greatly endanger the free-flow of information and the free exchange of ideas, particularly on the internet.?

Korff & Brown conclude: ?Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others, equally disproportionally interferes with a range of other fundamental rights, and provides for (or allows for) the determination of such rights in procedures that fail to allow for the taking into account of the different, competing interests, but rather, stack all the weight at one end.

This makes the entire Agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and -standards.?

5. Public health: The legal service mentions references to the TRIPS agreement and the Doha Declaration in the ACTA text. But the combination of heightened measures with a non binding reference to the Doha Declaration, and undermining the Doha Declaration in other fora does not provide sufficient safeguards for access to medicine.

6. International agreements: The legal service does not address the global pricing problem and the right to take part in cultural life. ACTA is not compatible with article 15 of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),

The ARTICLE 19 organisation also notes issues with Article 15 of the ICESCR, and with articles 17 and 19 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

7. EU Treaties: ACTA is not compatible with article 21 Treaty on European Union (TEU): ?The Union?s action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles (?): democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms (?)?

Nor is ACTA compatible with articles 3.3, 3.5 and 5 Treaty on European Union.

Source: http://acta.ffii.org/?p=1057

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A novel high-speed, high-security computing technology will be compatible with the "cloud computing" approach popular on the web, a study suggests.

Quantum computing will use the inherent uncertainties in quantum physics to carry out fast, complex computations.

A report in Science shows the trick can extend to "cloud" services such as Google Docs without loss of security.

This "blind quantum computing" can be carried out without a cloud computer ever knowing what the data is.

Quantum computing has been heralded as the most powerful potential successor to traditional, electronics-based computing.

One of the peculiarities of the branch of physics called quantum mechanics is that objects can be in more than one state at once, with the states of different objects tied together in ways that even Albert Einstein famously referred to as "spooky".

Instead of the 0 and 1 "bits" of digital computing, quantum computing aims to make use of these mixed and entangled states to perform calculations at comparatively breathtaking speeds.

Other quantum trickery comes in cryptography, the art of encrypting data. Data is encoded in delicately prepared states - most often those of single particles of light called photons - and the data cannot be "read" without destroying them.

Quantum cryptography uses this feature to send the "keys" to decrypting messages with high security.

However, the quantum computing approach is still in its formative stages, able to carry out only simple calculations - and quantum cryptography is, for the most part, limited to the laboratory setting.

The world in which both are accessible to consumers has seemed distant.

The new work, by University of Vienna quantum computing pioneer Anton Zeilinger and a team of international scientists, combines the two.

They show that future technology need only come up with a means of making quantum bits, or qubits, at home; the heavy lifting of quantum computing can then be done in the cloud completely securely.

A user would send single qubits - each perfectly secure - to a remote computer, along with a recipe for the measurements to be made.

The process is completely clear to the user - for example, finding all the numbers that multiply together to reach the number 2,012 - but because the number 2,012 is encrypted, the instructions appear to be a series of random steps on an unknown number.

The remote computer blindly "entangles" the unknown bits, carries out the steps, and sends the qubits back down the line, solving the problem without ever decoding what is going on.

The team built a system demonstrating that the approach works, using a number of computational steps that might make up future computing scenarios.

Much remains to be developed for a cloud/quantum computing future - first of all, a means to create qubits at home, which could be done with existing technology if there were a consumer demand.

Long-distance quantum cryptography has already been demonstrated in a real-world application: the technology was put to use in elections in Switzerland in 2007 using a custom network of fibres.

More recently, researchers at University College Cork demonstrated that similar quantum information can be sent down the same fibres that bring broadband to many homes around the world.

What is still lacking, and preoccupying quantum physicists around the world, is the workhorse quantum computer itself.

The computer's complexity is steadily rising; results earlier this month suggest the juggling of some 84 qubits simultaneously.

As with the earliest days of more familiar computer technology, however, significant simplification, miniaturisation and a plunge in costs will be necessary before quantum computing becomes a resource in the cloud.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-16636580

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COMMENTARY | According to CNN , Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah, has ended his campaign ahead of the South Carolina primary, where polls had him winning less than 1 percent of likely voters. The most moderate Republican in the batch has thrown in the towel and is backing entrenched front-runner Mitt Romney for the nomination.

The failure of Huntsman to catch on with conservative voters weighs heavily on my mind. The candidate turned out to be a paper tiger, but an impressive one. He was a twice-elected and popular chief executive of a Western state and rode a Harley while clad in a leather jacket. He had a telegenic family that included two adopted children.

I was surprised his resume did not catch on with voters despite, according to ABC News, an awkward and rocky start complete with his name being misspelled during the launch of his campaign. I thought a moderate Republican with an impressive resume would garner lots of support. I was wrong.

The worst part of the demise of the Huntsman campaign is the fact Huntsman knew how to reach a hand across the political aisle. As a young man he served his Mormon mission in Taiwan, reportedly making him fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and in 2009 he received unanimous approval by the Senate as Democratic President Barack Obama's choice to be the next ambassador to China, reports ABC News. He served as ambassador in Beijing for almost two years.

With the 112th Congress being widely derided as the worst in history and bipartisanship at an all-time low, why wasn't the one Republican presidential candidate with a proven track record of working amicably with Democrats given more of a chance? I find it painful candidates like Huntsman and Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, were virtually ignored by voters despite their clean records and impressive resumes.

Americans hate that Congress can't get anything done, yet they ignore candidates who are most likely to engage in diplomatic dialogue with those who are elsewhere on the political spectrum. Republican voters nationwide, you should take a second look at what you want in a GOP presidential nominee. Would Romney put aside politics to reach out to Democrats in Congress? Would Rick Santorum do that? Or Ron Paul?

Is Washington gridlock really preferable to a moderate Republican?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120116/pl_ac/10841727_ending_of_huntsman_campaign_a_loss_for_bipartisanship

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A nasty trend of Trojans and other drive-by downloads popping up on children's online-game websites, first noticed last fall on Chinese-language sites, has spread to the West.

Researchers at the Czech security company Avast compiled more than 60 sites that dumped spam, malware and redirects upon unsuspecting underage visitors.

"Games like these require clicking, and children don't think much about what they are clicking on," Ondrej Vlcek, chief technology officer of Avast Software, said in a company press release. "This makes them ? or their parents' computers ? quite susceptible to malware."

The Avast researchers looked over the feedback data from their firm's anti-virus software clients and found that a site called CuteArcade.com had attempted 12,600 Trojan infections as of Jan. 10.

Other offenders included HiddenNinjaGames.com, Gamesbox.com and the French-language Jeux.com. There were German- and Spanish-language sites on the list as well.

The webmaster of HiddenNinjaGames.com told SecurityNewsDaily he could find no malware on his site, and suggested that Avast's software may have detected infections in third-party ads.

Sites infected with drive-by downloads can infect visitors' computers immediately. The only real defense is to have robust anti-virus software and to update it regularly.

The Avast researchers said that while most of the reported children's game sites seemed legitimate, a few seemed to have been set up primarily to deliver spam.

We tried to visit CuteArcade.com ourselves and were immediately met with a warning from our own anti-virus software.

The site's "Contact" page was completely blocked, so we checked the site's domain name registry, which showed that the site was run by a company called Two-Point-Oh based in the British Virgin Islands. When we checked, Two-Point-Oh's own website consisted of a single placeholder page.

Emails to the webmasters of CuteArcade.com, Gamesbox.com and Jeux.com were not immediately returned.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46006001/ns/technology_and_science-security/

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Tunisian gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

Tunisian gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

Tunisian gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

Tunisian holds a banner which reads " there is only one god and Mohammed is our prophet " during gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

Tunisian gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. Placard reads "Tunisians stay proud". (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

A Tunisian shouts during a gathering at Habib Bourguiba avenue in Tunis to celebrate the one year anniversary of the revolution, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012. Tunisia is marking the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) ? Thousands of Tunisians marched in peaceful triumph Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the revolution that ended the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ? and sparked uprisings around the Arab world.

Tunisia greeted the anniversary with prudent optimism, amid worries about high unemployment that cast a shadow over Tunisians' pride at transforming their country.

Now a human rights activist is president, and a moderate Islamist jailed for years by the old regime is prime minister at the head of a diverse coalition, after the freest elections in Tunisia's history.

Tunisia's uprising began on Dec. 17, 2010, when a desperate fruit vendor set himself on fire, unleashing pent-up anger and frustration among his compatriots, who staged protests that spread nationwide. Within less than a month, longtime president Ben Ali was forced out of power, and he fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, 2011.

Boisterous marches Saturday reflected the country's new atmosphere.

On a crisp, sunny day in Tunisia's capital, Islamists shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Great." Alongside them were leftists and nationalists celebrating freedom, and mourning the more than 200 people killed in the month-long uprising.

Leading Arab dignitaries are joining Tunisia's leaders for ceremonies to commemorate the anniversary, including Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ? who faced down protests in his own country last year ? and the head of Libya's interim government, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who helped lead opposition to Moammar Gadhafi.

Tunisian media reported that the new leadership, to mark the anniversary, pardoned 9,000 convicts and converted the sentences of more than 100 prisoners from the death penalty to life in prison.

As the country that started the Arab Spring, Tunisia appears to be the farthest along in its transformation. Political analysts warn, however, that further gains will not be easy or painless.

Heykel Mahfoudh, a law professor and advisor to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Tunisia is entering its second post-Ben Ali year "in a paradoxically necessary phase of turbulence."

Mahfoudh says he is "cautiously optimistic" for Tunisia's development, but remains worried about the country's economic and social situation. It's unclear, too, what the Islamists who won the elections will do with their power.

Unemployment has risen to almost 20 percent today from 13 percent a year ago, and economic growth has stagnated as investment dries up and tourism, once a pillar of Tunisia's economy, evaporates.

Tunisia under Ben Ali was renowned among European tourists for its sandy beaches and cosmopolitan ways. But for many of its people, Ben Ali's presidency was 23 years of suffocating one-party rule.

The revolution started when 26-year-old fruit-seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of a town hall after he was publicly slapped and humiliated by a policewoman reprimanding him for selling his vegetables without a license. He suffered full-body burns, and died soon afterward. His act struck a chord in the impoverished interior of the country.

At first it was just local unrest, until clandestinely shot videos started popping up on Facebook and other social networking sites, inspiring youths across the country.

The focus of the protests soon moved to the capital Tunis as tens of thousands braved tear gas and battled police along the elegant, tree-lined boulevards.

And then on Jan. 14 it was over. After Ben Ali's army refused to shoot protesters and his security forces wavered, he fled to Saudi Arabia with his family.

Ben Ali's departure immediately reverberated across the Arab world. Within hours, protesters took to the streets in Cairo, and within weeks, longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had also been forced out of power.

Protests rose up, and were pushed down, in Bahrain. Opposition fighters took on Libya's Gadhafi and vanquished him after months of bloody civil war and with the help of NATO airstrikes.

Yemen's authoritarian president is supposed to step down as part of a U.S.-backed effort to end the country's political quagmire. And Syria is in the throes of an uprising that has seen more than 5,000 killed as protesters demand that President Bashar Assad step down.

Ben Ali has maintained a low profile since his ouster but has been convicted in absentia for corruption and other crimes during his regime.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-14-ML-Tunisia-One-Year-Later/id-3984767af49f4ba99119750ead15b09d

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) ? The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, the militant movement that poses the gravest security threat to the country, is believed to have been killed by a U.S. drone strike, four Pakistan intelligence officials told Reuters on Sunday.

The officials said they intercepted wireless radio chatter between Taliban fighters detailing how Hakimullah Mehsud was killed while travelling in a convoy to a meeting in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border.

A senior military official told Reuters there was no official confirmation that the Pakistani state's deadliest enemy had been killed. The Pakistani Taliban issued a denial. U.S. officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, could not confirm his death.

If Hakimullah did die, it could ease pressure on security forces, who have struggled to weaken the group, which is close to al Qaeda and has been blamed for many of the suicide bombings across one of the world's most unstable countries.

But it may not ease violence in the long term in Pakistan, which is seen as critical for U.S. efforts to fight global militancy, most crucially in neighboring Afghanistan.

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or see http://link.reuters.com/kac58m

Pakistan blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/

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The death of Hakimullah's predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in a drone strike in 2009 raised false hopes that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, could be broken.

"Six to seven TTP members were talking to each other through wireless radio in the conversations we heard, talking about Hakimullah Mehsud being hit by a drone when he was heading to a meeting at a spot near Miranshah," said one of the intelligence officials.

"They referred to him by his codename."

Officials refused to disclose Mehsud's codename.

"Based on our intercepts, Mehsud was heading to a meeting in Nawa Adda," said another intelligence official. Nawa Adda is a village in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan.

PREVIOUS REPORTS OF HAKIMULLAH'S DEATH FALSE

The Pakistani Taliban said Hakimullah was still alive, but the denial was far less assertive than one issued in 2010 after media reports said he had been killed in a drone strike.

"There is no truth in reports about his death. However, he is a human being and can die any time. He is a holy warrior and we will wish him martyrdom," said TTP spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan.

"We will continue jihad if Hakimullah is alive or dead. There are so many lions in this jungle and one lion will replace another one to continue this noble mission."

The TTP launched an insurgency in 2007 after the military began a major crackdown on militants.

Fighters were particularly incensed when Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque complex run by hard-line clerics in the capital, Islamabad. The government said 102 people were killed in fighting in the incident.

The TTP delivered on threats to carry out revenge attacks in Pakistan after U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in a Pakistani town in May last year.

More recently, some senior Taliban commanders said the umbrella group had started exploratory peace talks with the government. But it is not clear if all factions were on board.

Hakimullah was not only in danger of being killed by the drone campaign that President Barack Obama has escalated, or by Pakistani military operations. He and his powerful deputy, Wali-ur-Rehman, were at each other's throats and hostilities were close to open warfare, Taliban sources say.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afganistan have been trying to sort out differences between Pakistani Taliban commanders so they can aid their fight against U.S.-led NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Any division within the TTP could hinder the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda's struggle in Afghanistan against the United States and its allies, making it tougher to recruit young fighters and disrupting safe havens in Pakistan that Washington says are used by the Afghan militants.

Hakimullah, who has a sharp face framed by shaggy hair and a disarming grin, is considered to be one of the most ruthless Taliban commanders. He is also ambitious. Under his leadership, the Taliban has vowed to expand its violent campaign overseas to hit Western targets.

A suicide bombing at a U.S. base in Afghanistan's Khost province in 2009 killed seven CIA employees. In video footage released after the attack, the bomber was shown sitting with Hakimullah Mehsud.

Shortly afterwards, the United States added the TTP to its list of foreign terrorist organizations and set rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to Hakimullah Mehsud or Wali-ur-Rehman.

A Pakistani-born American who tried to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square in 2010 told a U.S. court he received bomb-making training and funding from the Pakistani Taliban.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Peter Graff and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120115/wl_nm/us_pakistan_taliban_leader

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By msnbc staff and news services

Iran has agreed to discuss charges that it secretly worked on nuclear arms, The Associated Press, citing?unnamed diplomats, is reporting. The nation for years has said its nuclear activity was strictly for peaceful purposes.

The two diplomats told the AP?that nuclear arms?will be a main focus of talks set for Jan. 28, during a visit to Tehran by senior officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

No date has previously been mentioned for the trip. Thursday's comments by the diplomats were also the first word that Iran was ready talk about the allegations after stonewalling requests to do so for more than three years.

The diplomats spoke condition of anonymity because of confidentiality rules.

The discussion comes amid increasing tension between Iran and the West, particularly as the United States has stepped up pressure on other nations to reduce imports of Iran's oil.

Iran has threatened to disrupt Gulf oil trade by closing the Strait of Hormuz if an oil export ban is imposed.

Bloomberg News reported on Thursday that the European Union will delay an embargo on Iranian oil imports for six months to allow member countries to find alternative supplies.

Word of the talks also comes a?day after a motorcycle hitman blew up Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a 32-year-old engineer, during the Tehran rush hour, the latest in a series of hits against?Iranian nuclear scientists.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday that those behind the killing of?Roshan?would be punished, the official Irna news agency reported.

"We will continue our path with strong will ... and certainly we will not neglect punishing those responsible for this act and those behind it," Khamenei was quoted as saying.

Iran blamed its arch-enemies, Israel and the United States, for a blast which killed the nuclear scientist in his car on Wednesday, insisting the incident would not change the country's nuclear course.

Sanctions on 3 companies
The State Department on Thursday slapped sanctions on three overseas based energy companies for dealing with Iran, including China's state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp., which it said was the largest supplier of refined petroleum products to Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also imposed sanctions on Singapore's Kuo Oil Pte Ltd and FAL Oil Company Ltd, an independent energy trader based in the United Arab Emirates, the State Department said in a notice.

"Under the sanctions imposed today, all three companies are barred from receiving U.S. export licenses, U.S. Export Import Bank financing, and loans over $10 million from U.S. financial institutions," the State Department said.

"These sanctions apply only to the sanctioned companies, and not to their governments or countries."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this article.

Related stories:

Is West waging 'covert war' against Iran?

US denies killing Iran nuclear scientist?

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/12/10141198-iran-to-discuss-nuclear-arms-claims

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COMMENTARY | If you are a conservative and believe in their principles, you may be upset with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Their vicious attacks on Mitt Romney and capitalism have been relentless, and the fallout is just beginning. Perry has lost a top supporter in Barry Wynn who hates the anti-capitalism rhetoric. Gingrich has garnered sharp criticism from Republican heavy weights like Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani.

Who loses in this mud fight? Conservative voters are the big losers. While Gingrich and Perry make themselves irrelevant, Santorum is not financially able to take their places. This leaves Mitt Romney and Ron Paul; both are unpopular with Gingrich and Perry voters. Since all three conservatives are staying in the race, South Carolina voters will have no choice. They must split the conservative vote, and risk a Romney win, or bolt for fiscal conservative Ron Paul.

Who wins from the Republican chaos? President Obama wins because the GOP candidates are destroying each other. His re-election campaign must be rolling on the floor and grateful! Romney wins too, but only temporarily. He will be dirtied up in South Carolina, but some Gingrich and Perry supporters have already jumped to his side. I think Paul wins from all of the back-stabbing. He is the only one that consistently gives his message. The fiscal side of his speeches draw raves, and voters have expressed that the economy is their chief concern.

Candidates bringing out faults of other candidates is not the problem. Differences can be discussed with civility. The problem comes when the discussions turn to attacks that in turn cause flat out war. Gingrich was bombarded in Iowa with Romney PAC attack ads. The ads understandably made Gingrich irate. It was then that people wondered if the new and improved Newt would respond, or would the old Newt rear his head. Gingrich is on a crusade to bring down Romney. It is not about beating Romney; it is not about what is best for the country. It certainly is not what is best for the GOP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120113/us_ac/10830601_newt_perry_push_voters_to_romney_and_paul

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In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, a biker passes a snowplow for sale at a business during the mild winter weather in Clarence, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, a biker passes a snowplow for sale at a business during the mild winter weather in Clarence, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, people walk on a sidewalk during the mild winter weather in Clarence, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, Jordan Crandall plays a game of disc golf at a popular sledding hill during the mild winter weather in Orchard Park, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, a popular sledding hill is vacant due to the lack of snow during the mild winter weather in Orchard Park, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

In a Monday, Jan. 9, 2012 photo, trucks with snowplows are for sale at a business, during the mild winter weather in Newstead, N.Y. The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of governments and homeowners whose budgets were busted last year by the high cost of plowing and running roaring furnaces. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) ? The warm, brown winter that has disappointed snow lovers in much of the U.S. has put more green in the pockets of state and local governments that had their budgets busted last year by the high cost of keeping streets and highways clear.

Cities that normally spend millions on salt, sand and snowplows are happily saving the money for other purposes. Some are even taking advantage of the mild weather to carry on with outdoor projects that would usually have to wait until spring.

"There's a sigh of relief," said Chris Sagsveen, who manages road and bridge operations in Hennepin County, Minnesota's most populous because it includes Minneapolis.

In 2011, his department spent its entire snow-removal budget for the year by the end of March. He dreaded the potential for another fearsome winter. But the county barely spent a penny in the final months of 2011. So far this year, it hasn't tapped the snow budget once.

For virtually the entire season, cold air has been bottled up over Canada. La Nina, the cooling of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that affects weather worldwide, has nudged the jet stream farther north. And air pressure over the northern Atlantic has steered storm systems away from the East Coast.

In Minnesota and North Dakota, crews have parked their snowplows and are patching roads and highways instead. Chicago spent just $500,000 on plowing in December, down from $6 million a year earlier. In Buffalo, N.Y., public works overtime is down by 25 percent, and the city has saved more than $300,000 on salt.

Syracuse, N.Y., one of New York's snowiest cities, has had 13 inches this winter compared to an unusually heavy 77 inches by this time last year. Public Works Commissioner Pete O'Connor said he's saved $500,000 in salt, overtime and fuel.

"This is Mother Nature's way and a lot of praying on my part," O'Connor said. Instead of plowing, his crews are out collecting discarded Christmas trees, which in some years don't emerge from snow banks until spring.

In St. Paul, where a few meager snowfalls have melted within days, the temperature hit a record 52 on Tuesday ? a reading more appropriate for April.

The story is the same across most of the country. Marathon County, Wis., spent half as much to plow snow last month as the $600,000 it forked out in December 2010. North Dakota's snow-removal costs fell by nearly half, to $1.6 million through November. And overtime at one state shop in Bismarck plunged from almost 6,000 hours last winter to almost nothing.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., street division manager Galynn Huber was so concerned he would go over his $5.7 million budget that he asked the city council in November for an additional $1.8 million. It was approved but never spent.

"South Dakota would have all sorts of people moving here if our winters were always like this," Huber said. The season's cost so far? Less than $200,000.

In Michigan's Oakland County, north of Detroit, officials hope the savings will let them spend more on new equipment and gravel to fill in roads. At the Minnesota Department of Transportation, machine-maintenance costs are plunging because plows have barely been used.

The savings extend beyond government budgets to family households.

Jim Cusick, a state employee in St. Paul, has been able to run his radiators less and catch up on an out-of-control home heating bill aggravated by the big, drafty old house where he lives with five of his six kids.

By last winter, Cusick said, he owed his utility more than $3,000 in back payments. As of this month, he said, his negative balance is down to $650.

"It's a bummer for the kids. They miss the skating and stuff. But if winter stays mild, life will be better," Cusick said.

At businesses that rely on heavy snow and ice to attract customers, the mild weather is most unwelcome.

Before the season began, Chicago hardware store owner Steve Lipshutz put in big orders for snow shovels and other supplies. He bought sleds for the first time. Hardly any of it has sold.

In Farmington, Conn., Karl Westerberg ? whose KDM Services sells ice-melting products ? tries to stay hopeful.

"I'm not panicking," he said. "We've got plenty of winter left."

At Buffalo Small Engine Repair, a mom-and-pop shop that gets through most winters by repairing snow blowers, the phone has "hardly been ringing," owner Joseph Busalachi said. His normally snowy city is 24 inches below average this winter, and Busalachi said he lost $4,000 in December. January is off to an equally dismal start.

"We've just got to hope and pray for snow," he said.

One man's prayer is another man's nightmare. Several state and local road officials shared a pessimism that the mild conditions would last.

Steve Lund, maintenance engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, didn't even like to talk about the run of good weather for fear of jinxing it.

"We're saving a lot of money," he said. "But we better not be spending it yet."

___

Associated Press writers Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee; Karen Hawkins and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago; Amber Hunt in Sioux Falls, S.D.; James MacPherson in Bismarck, N.D.; Corey Williams in Detroit; George Walsh in Albany, N.Y.; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-11-US-Broken-Budgets-Warm-Winter-Savings/id-fd25bb5b09714d51b1192c7bd867d48c

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