Autobiographical clip, shot in various New York City locations, will premiere on E! By Jocelyn Vena
Lady Gaga Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images
On Thursday, Lady Gaga will officially "Marry the Night." The singer announced on Twitter that she'll premiere her highly anticipated video for the song on E!
Directed by Mother Monster herself, it marks the first time she's ever directed a video completely on her own. Gaga previously directed clips in collaboration with her Haus or former creative director Laurieann Gibson.
In a preview released earlier this month, a "Girl, Interrupted"-type story line was teased. In it, Gaga is rolled on a gurney through a mental ward. She goes on a long monologue about the nature of memory and art: "When I look back on my life, it's not that I don't want to see things exactly as they happened, it's just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way."
In her Thanksgiving Day TV special last week, Gaga teased another part of the "Marry the Night" video. The clip references films like "Fame," with Gaga donning leggings and a tube top and practicing a dance routine at a studio.
During a trip to India, Gaga opened up a bit about shooting the clip and being a first-time director. "It has been a wonderful experience. I worked alongside director of photography Darius Khondji, who is an absolutely amazing DP, and I worked with Gideon Ponte, who is an incredible art director," she explained. "So I'm looking forward to sharing this autobiographical video with the world. I'm very excited. It's my favorite song on the album."
Mexican Insurance Store.com, a leading provider of online Mexican auto insurance, now offers one of the most comprehensive selections of Mexican insurance on the Internet. The company recently added MAPFRE insurance to its list of offerings, which considerably expands upon what is available. ?We are always looking for additions to our insurance lineup,? says Linden Gray, the president of Mexican Insurance Store.
?At the same time, we have a commitment to strictly offering high-quality Mexican car insurance, that provides the best value and protection for our customers. It?s a balancing act, but we are confident that our selection is the best one on the Internet.?
While many online Mexican auto insurance providers only handle one or two different options, Mexican Insurance Store has been committed to offering a large assortment of insurance plans from the beginning. With the addition of MAPFRE, the popular online Mexico car insurance provider now has a robust lineup of Mexican auto insurance plans that makes it easy to people to find what they need.
?Every traveler is different,? says one Mexican Insurance Store employee. ?We know that one person?s insurance needs can be totally different from the next person?s. Our goal is to meet every customer?s needs, and our huge assortment reflects that.?
It isn?t unusual for online Mexican car insurance providers to offer policies from companies that are virtually unknown, but that is not the style of Mexican Insurance Store. ?We prefer to offer insurance from trusted, well-known names,? says Gray. ?Take MAPFRE, for instance. It is one of the most reputable and respected names in the insurance industry.
ACE is another example. We could really expand our offerings by providing insurance from random companies, but we refuse to offer anything but the best.? A quick glance at the company?s main website reveals that it offers an eclectic assortment of insurance options from many popular high quality names.
Ratings come into play when it comes to the types of Mexico car insurance policies that are offered by Mexican Insurance Store. ?People don?t always realize how important it is to purchase Mexican auto insurance from companies that have great ratings,? says one employee.
?Ratings from organizations like A.M. Best and Standard & Poor?s reflect financial stability. A low rating could mean that a provider will be unable to pay out on a claim. By sticking with us, customers can count on receiving Mexican car insurance from providers that have superior ratings.?
Mexican Insurance Store has a long list of satisfied customers, and many of them return again and again. ?I?ve been buying Mexico car insurance from Mexican Insurance Store for several years now,? says one longtime customer. ?I like that they are continually improving their website and offering new options.
They don?t just rest on their laurels, which is nice. Buying insurance from them is easy, which is definitely a bonus.? Regardless of the type of Mexican auto insurance that a customer purchases, they are greeted by a streamlined ordering process that can be handled in a matter of minutes. ?I like not having to wait,? adds the customer.
While Mexican Insurance Store has no definite plans for new additions in the near future, there?s little doubt that the company will continue to expand its Mexican car insurance offerings as time goes by. ?We always have our feelers out there for new types of Mexico car insurance,? says Gray.
About Mexican Insurance Store.com
Mexican Insurance Store is the largest provider of Mexican Auto Insurance in South California?s Inland Empire, the 3rd most populous metropolitan area in California.
Some Black Friday shoppers have been cutting in line, grabbing carts, coming to blows, and wielding pepper spray.?What the Black Friday hunt for the perfect Christmas present says about the shopper within.
Aisle-bumping, line-cutting, and parking lot rudeness is to be expected on Black Friday, the annual post-Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza. This year's event, however, saw more mayhem than usual as throngs of competitive shoppers tussled and growled over waffle irons and Xboxes, with altercations turning violent in at least seven states.
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As in years past, stories of "competitive shopping" gone bad abounded, but with a new edge.
In Los Angeles, a woman pepper-sprayed at least 20 fellow shoppers to save some money on an Xbox console, paying up and getting out before cops arrived. In Ohio and Michigan, women "came out swinging" over discounted bath towels. The results were at times serious, with several shootings reported and one confrontation ending with a grandfather lying bloodied and unconscious.
RECOMMENDED:?Top 6 weird Black Friday discounts
With economic growth still moribund and unemployment uncomfortably close to double digits, the growth in Black Friday mayhem hints at both desperation and hope on the part of corporations and consumers looking to bust out of the pseudo-recession and salvage Christmas. Stores pushing start times up to midnight for the first time helped to dial up the emotions and the stress, which inevitably find occasional outlets in shoving and screaming.
"People are putting in all this effort getting up early, cutting out coupons ... then they get there and they find out the goods are gone because they are out of stock or because there were not very many to begin," Sharron Lennon tells TheStreet.com website. "They are?going to be angry, and some of them might be the ones who engage in the consumer misbehavior."?
Cue YouTube. One short clip depicts a huddle of shoppers climbing over each other, tossing around boxes of a $2 waffle iron, with, as Reuters reports, "one woman seemingly unaware that her pants were sliding down her backside."
For some, such scenes prompt existential musings about the state of humanity.
"There is a point in our culture beyond which camp and kitsch no longer make the least ironic sense, where consumerism loses its last mooring to civilization, where even seemingly legitimate protest devolves into farce.?That point is Black Friday," writes Andrew Leonard in Salon.
But the focus on snippets of consumer deviance doesn't quite give the event a fair shake.
Only eight percent of people in an ebates.com poll said they cut in line, for example, and given that 158 million people said they were heading out on Black Friday ? compared to 138 million people last year ? the sheer crush of humanity has only grown as retailers like Wal-Mart and Kohl's extended the start hour to 12:01 Friday morning, quite a stretch from when 6 a.m. starting times were seen as outrageous.
BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Turkey and Arab powers kept up pressure on Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to end the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators on Friday but longtime ally Russia warned against any foreign intervention.
A deadline set by the Arab League for Syria to sign a deal allowing monitors into the country expired on Friday without any Syrian response.
Arab foreign ministers had said in Cairo on Thursday that unless Syria agreed to let the monitors in to assess progress of an Arab League plan to end eight months of bloodshed, officials would consider imposing sanctions on Saturday.
These could include halting flights, curbing trade and stopping deals with the central bank.
"The deadline has already ended, but the Arab League leaves the door open for Syria to reply by the end of the day and if a positive Syrian response comes on Friday, then the Arab League has no objection to agreeing to it," an Arab source said.
Under the November 2 Arab League initiative, Syria agreed to withdraw troops from urban centers, release political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and allow monitors and international media into the country.
But since then hundreds of people, including civilians, security forces and army deserters, have been killed as the unrest which the United Nations says has claimed at least 3,500 lives since March continued.
Turkey on Friday said it could not tolerate any more violence and it was ready to take action with Arab powers if Assad failed to take steps toward ending the repression.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference in Ankara he hoped the Syrian government would give a positive response to the Arab League plan.
"If it doesn't, there are steps we can take in consultation with the Arab League," he said. "I want to say clearly we have no more tolerance for the bloodshed in Syria. The attitude of friendly and fraternal countries on this subject is clear."
The increased pressure followed France's proposal on Thursday for "humanitarian corridors" to be set up through which food and medicine could be shipped to alleviate civilian suffering.
But some a measure of comfort for Assad came from Russia, China and other countries, who expressed opposition to sanctions
and warned against a foreign military intervention.
"At the current stage, what is needed is not resolutions, not sanctions, not pressure, but internal Syrian dialogue," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a news conference in Moscow.
NO TO INTERVENTION
Moscow has urged the Syrian government to implement reforms but has rejected pressure from opposition groups to join international calls for Assad's resignation. It has accused Western nations of trying to set the stage for armed intervention, as they did in Libya.
Lukashevich repeated those positions, saying Russia supported the Arab League's call for a halt to the violence but that "radical opposition" groups with foreign support shared the blame. Outside military intervention was "absolutely unacceptable."
But he did not shut the door on the French call for humanitarian corridors, saying Moscow needs more information about the proposal.
After a meeting in Moscow on Thursday, diplomats from Russia, China and the other three emerging-market BRIC countries -- Brazil, India and South Africa - also warned against foreign intervention without U.N. backing.
A Western diplomatic source said the French plan, with or without approval from Damascus, could link Syrian civilian centers to the frontiers of Turkey and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.
Its aim would enable transport of humanitarian supplies or medicines to a population that is suffering.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the plan fell short of a military intervention but acknowledged that humanitarian convoys would need armed protection.
"Of course...by international observers, but there is no question of military intervention in Syria," he told French radio.
The Arab League suspended Syria's membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of Turkey - a NATO member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation - told Assad to quit and said he should be mindful of the fate of fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya's deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Possible sanctions, which were not intended to affect ordinary Syrians, included suspending flights to Syria, stopping dealings with the central bank, freezing Syrian government bank accounts and halting financial dealings.
They could also decide to stop commercial trade with the government "with the exception of strategic commodities so as not to impact the Syrian people," the statement said.
Syria's economy is already reeling from the eight months of unrest, aggravated by U.S. and European sanctions on oil exports and several state businesses.
MILITARY TARGETS
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition group, said at least 47 people were killed in Syria on Thursday, including 16 soldiers and 17 army deserters, mostly around the city of Homs and Rastan to the north.
Alongside the mainly peaceful protests, armed insurgents have increasingly attacked military targets in recent weeks.
State media have reported the funerals of 34 soldiers and police in the last four days. Since the outbreak of the uprising officials have blamed armed groups for the violence and say 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed.
Assad, 46, seems prepared to fight it out, playing on fears of a sectarian war if Syria's complex ethno-sectarian mosaic shatters and relying on support of senior officials and the military to suppress the protests, inspired by Arab uprisings which toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
(Reuters) ? Bargain hunters flocked to stores late Thursday and overnight Friday, searching for deals on big screen televisions, video games and toys while fretting about their own shaky economic well-being.
Some stores, looking to grab as big a piece as possible of what is expected to be a middling holiday shopping season pushed post-Thanksgiving openings into Thursday evening or opened at midnight for the first time in years, getting a jump start on "Black Friday," the traditional beginning to the U.S. holiday shopping season.
The strategy appeared to be working, judging from the 300 people who were lined up at a Toys R Us store on Long Island, New York before it opened at 9 p.m. on Thursday, while shoppers and employees at other stores said the crowds were bigger than in the past.
Shoppers were looking for bargains, but customers like James McBreaty were just what retailers wanted -- those who will also buy things beyond the "doorbuster" deals that retailers offer to entice customers.
"We came for the deals but we were just discussing if we will buy things that aren't discounted," McBreaty, 32, a paralegal who was waiting with his wife Nicole, said. "Most likely the entire store isn't discounted but we're here so we'll probably buy some crap anyway."
The National Retail Federation expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year.
In reality, the shopping period has been underway for some time as retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Toys R Us started early by offering layaway programs.
Retailers from Amazon.com to Wal-Mart were also offering online deals as Thanksgiving has become one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.
Retail executives and analysts are predicting a more competitive season than 2010. Unemployment still remains at 9 percent, European debt woes are weighing on the stock market and consumer confidence remains spotty.
NRF, an industry trade group, forecast a 2.8 percent increase in sales for the November-December holiday season, down from the 5.2 percent increase in 2010.
Some shoppers even feel as though the recession has returned, even if it has not shown up in economic data.
"This year, we are going to do shopping but I don't think it is going to be as much shopping as we usually do. Because of the recession, we are not going to shop as much," Desiree Schoolfield, 49, a public service profession from Queens who was shopping at the Toys R Us in Times Square, said.
REALLY EARLY START
Nelson Sepulveda, a building superintendent from Manhattan, was the first person in line at the Best Buy in Union Square, having queued up at 8 p.m. on Wednesday -- 28 hours before the store opened -- to get the $200 Sharp 42-inch LCD television, Play Station 3 games and other items he wanted.
NRF expects 152 million people to hit stores this weekend, up 10.1 percent from last year.
Wal-Mart, Old Navy, which is part of Gap Inc, and KMart, owned by Sears Holdings', were among the few retailers open on Thanksgiving.
Wal-Mart began offering Black Friday deals at 10 p.m. on Thursday.
To narrow the gap in store hours with rivals, discounter Target Corp, electronics chain Best Buy and department store chains Macy's Inc and Kohl's Corp will open at midnight - their earliest starts ever.
About 1,000 people were waiting in line at the opening of the Target in Farmingdale,
Those midnight openings drew online petition protests from store workers, and some shoppers also did not like the early openings.
"Tonight all the stores decided to open at midnight which is difficult when you're trying to enjoy dinner with your family," said Louis Clapper, 24, as he shopped at the Walmart in Farmingdale, New York. "Normally I leave the house at midnight, or 3-4 a.m. for a 5 a.m. opening. The stores are opening earlier and earlier."
For others, staying up late beat waking up for a 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. opening.
"Nobody really has to be out so early to come into the store. I really feel like that's better," Tosha Smith, 21, hotel attendant, lives in Queens, said while shopping at Macy's.
At Macy's in Herald Square, four Occupy Wall Street activists chanted "boycott Macy's" and "stop supporting big corporations" even as about 9,000 people lined up to shop at the store.
Others retailers, including J.C. Penney Co Inc, are opening early Friday morning as they did last year.
Wal-Mart started its Black Friday "doorbuster" deals on Thursday at 10 p.m. at its stores. Amazon.com Inc, not to be outdone, will offer its deals online at 9 p.m.
The knock-down-drag-out fight comes as the rebound in sales cooled in October, when many top chains like Macy's and Saks reported disappointing sales.
It will be even tougher for chains that have struggled with sales declines lately, like Gap and Penney.
Last year, after a strong Black Friday weekend, shoppers sat on their hands until closer to Christmas.
(Writing by Brad Dorfman in Milwaukee. Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan, Liana B. Baker and Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
X Factor judge and former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger shows off her assets, posing nude for Diddy's new coffee table book celebrating the female backside.
In Culo by Mazzucco - "culo" is Italian for buttocks - Scherzinger, along with Lady Gaga, Fergie and others, left very little to the imagination in the name of art.
Scherzinger, 33, pays homage to her hometown of Honolulu in the portrait, with a lei wrapped around her neck and her skin decorated with henna tattoos.
See her naked in the collaboration between Diddy, Jimmy Iovine and celebrity fashion photographer Raphael Mazzucco (available in stores now) right here:
State Department personnel in Iraq may be in danger as transition plans leave gaps in security and medical care
The State Department can often times be so inward looking that it fixes the facts based on the policy need, making reality fit the vision whether that naughty reality wants to or not. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it can be tragic.
When I arrived at my second Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Iraq, we were told to call the area we worked in the "Sunni Triangle of Death." The meme was "Look at us bad boys, reconstructing the nasty Sunni Triangle of Death. It proves State is not a sissy." About six months later we were told to stop calling the place the "Sunni Triangle of Death," because since we had been working for half a year, we needed to show some progress. "Triangle of Death" did not signify progress so the Embassy banned the term to fit the policy meme, even though nothing had really changed. No real harm done, I guess.
Around election time, the initial plan was for PRT staffers to observe the March 2010 voting up close, mostly so the Embassy could claim the election was legitimate based on the happy-talk reports we understood we were to file. That was part of the warp, but the real kicker was that to show our faith in Iraqi security, we were told we were not to wear body armor at the polling stations. The Embassy felt that photos of us all geared up, as we believed we needed to be based on local security conditions, would not play well with their PR campaign that all was well. There was a lot of back channel grumbling, and a few threats to refuse to observe, and the Embassy quietly just changed plans and canceled most of the rural observations. Again, narrowly, no real harm done.
Now, as the State Department rushes to replace all of the military support it needs to exist in still-dangerous Iraq without the Army, there are fears that the warping of reality may indeed endanger lives in Baghdad.
What's for Dinner?
Currently every item of food for the Embassy, from sides of beef to baby carrots, is procured in "safe" Kuwait and convoyed up to Baghdad. It is an expensive system, one that occasionally even entails the loss of life protecting boxes of Raisin Bran, but it has ensured the safety and cleanliness of the food for almost nine years.
The State Department, facing the crazy costs of this system without the nearly bottomless budget of the Defense Department, is once again swaying the facts to fit the policy. Undersecretary for Management Pat Kennedy told Congress in mid-November that seeking to cut costs in Iraq, State is looking to locally purchase some of the food its personnel will eat, breaking with the U.S. military's practice of importing. Nothing has changed on the ground vis-a-vis food security, but to save money, State is warping that reality to fit its own needs.
Physical Security for Contractors
Security in general is subject to such warping, potentially at the cost of U.S. lives. In an anonymous email sent to numerous State Department official addresses this week, one contractor from State's much-criticized police training program paints this picture (information deleted/changed for security purposes):
There is an DOS policy that prevents contractors from using mission vehicles and personnel for leave rotations. Recently the climate in Iraq has become far more hostile to private companies, especially those not directly linked to the US State Department (such as our leave rotation crews). There is a current security threat briefed by DOS as "????? is actively seeking to capture personnel associated with the mission."
Meanwhile, the security taking contractors working for the State Department's at ????? have recently stopped carrying weapons.
My last trip took place at approximately 11pm. Armored cars traveling through the Baghdad red zone stopping at multiple checkpoints and opening doors at every checkpoint. The driver and TC were both Iraqi nationals speaking no English. Neither had any weapons. Neither wore their tactical body armor. Observing their behavior suggested they had no security experience.
At the front of ????? outside the attached Iraqi compound, at the Iraqi checkpoint under an overpass at a four way intersection in the middle of Baghdad our convoy stopped outside a secure area. The Iraqi Police officers operating the checkpoint suggested that the absence of a dog created a situation where we could not be swept for bombs so we could not enter. Our driver and TC both exited the vehicle, leaving both doors open. Then we were ordered out of our vehicle (no weapons between all of us- in the presence of Iraqi officers known to be infiltrated with terrorists.) After a brief conversation and several tenuous minutes we were allowed to enter, however this scenario continues to repeat itself.
Terrorists are not stupid. We have to assume they are actively surveilling us. We have to assume they are talking to Iraqi Police (who among other things have failed to catch two recent bombs passing through their security checkpoint).
This policy preventing US contractors from having real security while traveling to and from ????? and ????? is the weakest link in the operation. It is reasonable to expect the US Government to value the lives of their citizens, especially those working in support of US Government operations.
State of State's Private Army
Much has been made of State's plan to hire over 5500 mercenaries as security guards for its Iraq-bound diplomats. However, while numbers do matter, the skills that those merc possess matter more. Currently in Iraq, with the US Army in place, a State Department convoy ambushed can call on a QRF, an Army quick reaction force. On standby 24/7, these soldiers are literally the cavalry that rides in to save the day.
Needless to say, the State Department does not have such people on staff. So, State is hiring contractors, specifically an "Aviation Advisor" responsible for "Search and Rescue (SAR), medical evacuations, transporting Quick Reaction Forces (QRF) to respond to incidents, and providing air transportation for Chief of Mission personnel."
The problem is that the State Department put out this notice on November 4, closing a month later, only 26 days before the final withdrawal of US troops. Better hope HR is on the spot, especially given that the interviewing, vetting, hiring, travel to Iraq and initial setting up of a full SAR system will need to take place over Christmas to be in place by January 1. In other words, it won't be there when needed.
There remain other concerns harder to nail down in an unclassified environment -- security at the Baghdad Airport once control leaves U.S. hands, availability of a blood supply (another contractor, who will have to create a logistics schema with the Armed Services Blood Program) and proper trauma care for the diplomats (yet another contractor), particularly should someone suffer the horrific burns now too common in IED attacks. Under the military system, even during an attack, an injured soldier would receive first aid from a trained buddy, be helicopter evacuated from the site within minutes, stabilized at a specialized trauma unit and on a med flight to a hospital in Germany within an hour or two. While the danger on the ground in Iraq will remain the same (if not more dangerous given the lack of American troop presence), State in no way will be able to replicate the vast resources the military can bring to bear.
Reality - Policy = Insecurity
The issues are not unnoticed. Some State Department officials have privately complained of becoming full-time contract managers, not practicing diplomats. One commenter lamented "Officials will be prisoners on the ridiculously large but poorly constructed compound and will be unable to leave the grounds without a security package so large and costly that being out of the Embassy will be the exception rather than the rule." State's own Inspector General laid out its concerns in a May 2011 report, concluding "Because of the complexity and considerable cost of construction, staffing, and logistics, there is a risk the Embassy will not have a fully operational medical system prior to the military's departure." Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta reminded the Hill that State will require thousands of contractors to provide security and other services that had been provided by the Pentagon. "Yes there are risks involved," Panetta said. "Do we have any other alternatives? No."
State's responses have been weak. Can't travel safely outside the Green Zone? "The Embassy will attempt to mitigate the loss of tactical intelligence by establishing closer working relationships with the Government of Iraq." Although Embassy medical plans do not currently include the capability for handling a mass casualty event, Embassy officials magic-wanded the problem away by stating that "even the US military's current combat support hospital can be overwhelmed by a large enough number of casualties." Meanwhile, State "will continue to explore possibilities for mitigating the impact of a mass casualty event."
In other words, again the policy seems to be warping the reality on the ground. Only this time, it's not politics, it's personal, or maybe, without irony, personnel, at stake.
The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Department of State, the Department of Defense or any other entity of the US Government. The Department of State does not approve, endorse or authorize this article.
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Follow Peter Van Buren on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@wemeantwell
TORONTO - The president of a Canadian bat company is embracing a Major League Baseball ban on the use of low-density maple bats by new players.
The change was included in the agreement between players and owners that was announced Tuesday, a deal that still needs formal ratification. Arlene Anderson, the president of the Ottawa-based Original Maple Bat Corporation, predicts the ban will have little affect on manufacturers.
"It's actually something that we welcome," she told The Canadian Press in a phone interview Wednesday. "We don't want breakage on the field, it's not good for anyone. Certainly in terms of young hitters, they will get used to the other products and many of the older players have used heavier weights to their advantage. So this will have a minimal impact on us."
Ash bats were a traditional favorite but the harder maple bats have soared in popularity over the last 15 years.
Maple bats tend to break more easily, and when they do they often send large shards of wood flying. Low-density models ? essentially the lighter bats ? tend to shatter more often, putting pitchers, infielders, base coaches, umpires and fans in harm's way.
Anderson's company, which makes the popular Sam Bat, said she has seen a shift toward longer, well-balanced bats instead of low-density models.
"Basically what we're talking about is the weight of the wood, the volume of the wood that is used for a particular model," she said. "Certain players love to have what they call a big-barrel bat, lots of meat on the barrel, but then very lightweight wood.
"So the problem, of course, is when you create a larger barrel and you still want to have the bat very light, the wood density has to give," Anderson said. "This is something though that most manufacturers will recognize as not being the strongest product."
Anderson said her company has been reporting wood density information to MLB on a regular basis. She said they serve about 100 major leaguers, including NL MVP Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, who uses a longer, higher-density KB1 bat.
The ban would only apply to new major leaguers. Other players would be grandfathered and could continue using low-density bats if desired.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Arbitration on the table
Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Jose Reyes were offered salary arbitration Wednesday, guaranteeing their teams two extra draft picks next year if they sign with new clubs.
Dear Prudence, My husband and I are in our 30s, have been married for more than a decade, and have one child. My husband is smart and successful. He's fun-loving, outgoing, supportive of my career, incredibly helpful around the house, generous, enjoys taking me shopping, and is generally an all-out nice guy. However, he often bores me intellectually. While I love Fellini, he loves The Transporter movies. I read for pleasure, he watches TV shows or works out. It depresses me. I have discussed this issue with him, and he does try to talk to me about things he thinks will interest me, such as history, but it doesn?t work due to his shallow grasp of most subjects. His mother left when he was in kindergarten and he got a horrible stepmother, so he was wounded emotionally. I find brains and confidence wild turn-ons, but unfortunately I don't get that with him. My husband does have magnificent prowess in bed and a great sense of humor. I always had boyfriends who were well-read and my dad was a keen intellect, so I love to discuss physics or geopolitics over dinner. But with my husband all I get is mundane talk. I feel trapped. What should I do?
Let's say you're interested in ghosts, but haven't had any luck photographing them on any of your nocturnal visits to local cemeteries and abandoned insane asylums. The ghost-hunting guys on TV seem to capture plenty of ambiguous images (in between surprised looks and spooked "What was that?" exchanges), so why can't you?
Fear not; technology can help you easily fake ghost photos, though it comes at the cost of making it harder for serious ghost researchers to do their jobs.
These days almost everyone has an HD camera in their pocket in the form of a smartphone. So many people have high-quality cameras on them at virtually all the time that if ghosts exist, actual photographic evidence of them should be pouring in as more and more eyewitnesses record their amazing encounters.
Yet that hasn't happened; in fact, the evidence for ghosts seems to be getting worse, not better, in large part due to pranksters and ghost-generating apps. Several smartphone apps allow their users to easily tweak photos to make them look strange or mysterious, adding quasi-transparent ghostly images in the background. Up until a year or two ago, it took at least a little bit of effort to Photoshop an even halfway convincing snapshot of your recently departed grandmother's spirit appearing in an otherwise ordinary photo. With the help of these mobile apps, all it takes is a few pushes of a button to add shadowy or faint figures of spooky little girls, Confederate soldiers, outlaws, monks and any other historical (or horror film) caricature you can think of.
Faking images of spirits for fun and profit has a long tradition. In fact, the very first ghost photographs were hoaxes. William Mumler, a Boston-based photographer, first produced "spirit photographs" in 1861 and dozens more in the following decade. Mumler convinced many people that he and his camera could photograph the spirit world. It wasn't true, of course, and Mumler was eventually revealed as a hoaxer and con artist. The "ghosts" he captured were merely double exposures of previous clients, not images of the dead.
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Bogus ghost photos have been around for years, but with so many fakes, how can you tell which photos (if any) really show something possibly paranormal? It's not easy.
In fact, faked ghost photos might even be damaging to the work of those who analyze ghostly photos, hoping to find evidence that ghosts exist.
One group in the United Kingdom that has raised concerns over the rise in fake ghost photos is the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP). Carrie Searley of ASSAP told Life's Little Mysteries, "Fake ghost photography is in the minority; however, it does occur. Here at ASSAP we like to turn it into a positive ... one of our aims is to offer a scientific explanation as to the methodology used in creating a fake ghost photograph."
Before digital photography replaced film, investigators could examine the photograph's negative for evidence of fraud. "In the digital age of photography, being able to authenticate a photo can be tricky, as no negative is made," Searley said. "It is purely down to us to educate ourselves with the up-and-coming new photo apps that are being offered on the market."
To that end, ASSAP has requested the public's help in cataloging known fakes created by sneaky smartphone apps. Of course, it will be a never-ending project, because new apps can be created (and old apps tweaked) to keep ahead of the fake-photo ghost busters.
The techniques and technology for faking ghost photos have changed in the last 150 years, but William Mumler would most likely be amused to know that others have carried on his not-so-proud tradition.
Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @ llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.
? 2011 LifesLittleMysteries.com. All rights reserved. More from LifesLittleMysteries.com.
NASA is launching a new robotic probe, called the Mars Science Laboratory to see if the Red Planet was once, or is now, habitable. But could it go one step further and discover signs of life?
The mission will land a state-of-the-art rover named Curiosity near the equator of Mars. The car-size robot is loaded with tools that will help scientists probe the Martian surface more rigorously than ever before.
"We have this powerful mobile lab with many added capabilities that can help us ask more complex questions than ever, such as what makes a planet habitable, what might that evidence look like and whether we can see such evidence," astrobiologist and planetary scientist Pamela Conrad, deputy principal investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory, told SPACE.com.
For instance, Curiosity can drill into rock ? a first for Martian rovers. It can then use microscopes, heat, X-rays and other scientific tools to see what the mineral, chemical and isotopic components are of samples it scoops up from the ground and inhales from the air.
"We also have a very powerful tool that is so science-fiction-y, so amazing," Conrad said. "ChemCam can fire a laser and make a little cloud of plasma when it hits the rock, and by scanning this plasma, it can scan what chemical elements are in the rock without even touching it."
In addition, Curiosity's wheels are relatively large, which will help it roll over obstacles that stopped past rovers in their tracks. Moreover, the plutonium fuel it carries will help power it at night when its solar panels do not work, which means it could potentially operate all day.
The fact that Curiosity is landing in a deep crater punched in the Martian surface will also help it analyze Mars' ancient history. A cosmic impact long ago essentially acted like a giant shovel that scientists can now use to investigate samples from untold layers of rock laid down over millions of years. This will enable scientists to effectively peer back into the planet's past. [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]
"It's important to look at lots of samples from many different kinds of environments and moments in time as you can to better understand what a planet was like," Conrad said. "Since we can't go to all the different environments Mars has with just one rover, we can hopefully pick an environment that has accumulated diverse layers of sediment over time, so when we're looking at something as complicated as habitability, we have as much information at our fingertips as possible."
The problem with investigating the past or present habitability of Mars, "is that we've never found definitive evidence of life on Mars, so we don't know what makes one spot good or not for the kind of life that may or may not be there," Conrad said.
The goal of the Mars Science Laboratory then is to collect as much and as many different kinds of data about Mars as possible, and to compare what Curiosity learns with processes on Earth.
"We can try and deduce what the environment at our site is like now and what it was like in the past, and whether or not those were or are environments that life that we know of might be able to live in," Conrad said.
The question of asking whether life can or could have lived in an area, however, is very different than asking whether life did or does live there. Researchers have emphasized that Curiosity is not intended to find signs of life.
"We know what plants and animals look like on Earth, and we're very good at recognizing the molecular signatures of different microbes, but when we go to a different planet, we can have no certainty about what constitutes alien life," Conrad said. "What we can do is cross off all the things that we know aren't life and then look carefully at what's left. If we see organic molecules, can those be made by processes that aren't life or not?"
Even if Curiosity's microscope does spy a microbe scurrying across a sample, or if its scanners detect what might be biomolecules, such finds might not be conclusive evidence of life on Mars, "because we'd have to ask whether or not we brought them to Mars," Conrad said. "We have cleaned the spacecraft very carefully, but you'd have to ask whether anything we see that might be a sign of life was a contaminant, and we'd have a high burden of proof to overcome."
"We now have this wealth of information about all the extreme environments on Earth that organisms can live on that have expanded our notion of what might be possible," Conrad said. "We'll see what happens when the Mars Science Laboratory lands nine months after launch."
Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcomand on Facebook.
One of the biggest challenges facing individual investors is that of time frame.? Individual investors have the benefit of having a longer term time horizon than institutional investors.? The problem is that individual investors squander those advantages by trying to play the same game the big boys play.? Unfortunately institutional managers are already following sub-optimal strategies due to the business risks of undergoing extended periods of underperformance.? In so doing they shorten their time horizon to fit that of their unduly anxious clients.? This mismatch in time horizons that is noted in a new paper.
A recent research paper by Andrew Ang and Knut N. Kjaer delved into the topic of investor time horizons in ?Investing for the Long Run.?? The paper is worth reading in part because it is not particularly long or technical.? In this paper they look at the many advantages that long term investors have and the ways in which they these investors fritter away these advantages.? One way in which investors fritter away this time advantage is by engaging in ?procyclical investments.?? In short, they buy high and sell low.? One way recommended in the paper for investors to offset this tendency is ?institutionalize contrarian behavior.? This can be done in part by having a formal reblancing process that by its nature sells those assets that have been outperforming.
Another thing that investors with a sufficiently long time horizon can do is build a portfolio that exploits certain factors.? There is a large literature of factors that seem to generate abnormal returns.? Combining them in a portfolio can yield more consistent returns that one solely focused on asset classes.? This ability is one of the ways that investors with a long time horizon can exploit.? Ang and Kjaer write:
Long?horizon investors have an edge. They have the ability to reap risk premiums that are noisy in the short run and only manifest over the long run. They can acquire distressed assets when investors with over?stretched risk capacity have to sell. They can also pursue opportunities to invest in illiquid assets.
The challenge for investors is recognizing what sort of time horizon they should have.? Changing time horizons, by turning trades in investments and investments into trades, is a common enough problem that investors should always be on the lookout for this type of behavior in their own portfolios.? In an investment world filled with machines trading with other machines the long run seems to be the one place where disciplined individual investors may in fact have a edge.
Items mentioned above:
[earlier] Business risk and the risk of underperformance.? (Abnormal Returns)
[earlier] Playing a different game.? (Abnormal Returns)
?Investing for the Long Run? by Andrew Ang and Knut Kjaer.? (SSRN via CXOAG)
[earlier] The behavior gap illustrated.? (Abnormal Returns)
[earlier] Diversification, rebalancing and commitment.? (Abnormal Returns)
?Strategic Allocations to Premiums in the Equity Market? by David Blitz.? (SSRN)
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Conservative Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) asked the President Monday to call out the deficit committee?s failure, and urged Obama to embrace the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan.
Asked on MSNBC?s Morning Joe whether President Obama should step up and criticize the deficit supercommittee, whose negotiations have widely been reported to have collapsed, Manchin replied: ?He has to have the results. People are going to be judged on the results we receive. I know the president is, uh - hopefully, he?s going to fight for this thing. We?ve got to clear this up. It?s a mess.?
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Manchin expressed hope that Obama would quickly embrace the Bowles-Simpson?s recommendations, especially since the president was the one who convened the commission.
?When you look at it - and we all have 20/20 hindsight - I would have taken that Bowles-Simpson report that was my commission,? said Manchin. ?I would hope he would embrace that now and say that?s the best plan we have. It?s weathered the test of time because it?s been out there for about a year and it keeps gaining momentum. Do you know what it would do to this market if we accepted that??
Manchin had harsh words for the now-likely outcome, a series of automatic government sequestering.
?That?s not governing. If you have automatic cuts and automatically without governing and looking at what you?re affecting, the people most in need, the people basically that could help move this economy forward,? he said.
But, the West Virginia Democrat added, there was plenty of blame to spread around.
?It?s everybody?s fault if this will be the first generation that?s ever failed a generation, ever turned over the keys and left it worse shape that it was when we received it,? said Manchin, who also folksily referred to himself as a ?recovering governor? and noted that he, as an ?eternal optimist,? wasn?t losing total faith in the system.
Health professionals unite in WHPA Prague Call to ActionPublic release date: 21-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Janice Blondeau whpa.campaign@wma.net World Health Professions Alliance WHPA
Urge governments to ramp up fight against falsified medicines
In a first for the Central European region, national health professions organisations have discussed and endorsed the WHPA Prague Call to Action www.whpa.org/WHPA_Prague_Call_to_Action_21Nov2011.pdf , to reduce the harmful impact of falsified medical products on patients and the public. With the WHPA Prague Call to Action, health professions leaders are gearing up their response to this serious threat to patient safety and they are calling on governments in the region to do the same.
Under the banner of the "Be Aware, Take Action" campaign against counterfeit medical products, the workshop, held on 21 November in Prague, tackled the grave problem of falsified medical products worldwide. The workshop recognised that falsified medical products are, above all, a threat to patient safety with grave consequences in terms of increased disease burden, mortality and costs for healthcare systems. Health professions are extremely concerned about the current absence of harmonized international legislation, and non-deterrent sanctions on falsification of medical products that are not proportionate to the harm caused to patients.
Participants discussed the following four key strategies for the basis of a comprehensive regional action plan against falsified medical products:
Increasing capacity of our healthcare professionals to educate the public,
Fostering regional cooperation initiatives,
Strengthening collaborative practice when managing patients,
Improving collaboration with health and enforcement authorities plus other key stakeholders.
The WHPA workshop kicked off with a Roundtable on combating falsified medicines in Europe that focused on recent progress and key activities in Europe to better protect European citizens from the serious threats posed by falsified medicines.
John Chave, Secretary-General, Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) moderated this roundtable, stating, "The risk of falsified medicines entering the legal medicines supply chain is rising. Let's take action now, so we never have to get to the point where we lose confidence in the medicines in our local pharmacy." He continued that and for that reason PGEU supports the new European Directive on Falsified Medicines.
WHPA workshop presenters included:
Domenico Di Giorgio, Council of Europe, who spoke on "MEDICRIME: What are the new opportunities for health professional associations to work with Parties of the convention?" Mr Di Giorgio said, "The only way to stop this criminal activity is to have people from different professions around the table to find solutions, as we have done today. Now we have to focus on communicating with patients and the general public about the dangers of falsified medicines, and the dangers of buying medicines from the internet. Health professions are best placed to do this;"
Olexandr Polishchuk, WHO EURO, who presented the WHO strategy on combating counterfeit medicines in Europe, added, "We can't tell by looking at a package as to whether medicines are safe or not. Medicines do not have borders they can arrive at the post office, via illegal channels and across borders. When we all speak using the same language (norms and standards) to combat counterfeiting, we will be making progress."
Jim Thomson, Chair, European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines EAASM, which campaigns so that the legitimate supply chain is better secured said, "Falsified medical products are completely wrong. They totally undermine the relation between doctors, other health professionals, and their patients. How can a health professional treat a patient if the medicine or the information about it is fake?" One goal of EAASM is to direct people unaware of the high proportion of counterfeit medical products on the internet back to legal sites and high street pharmacies, and then back into the legitimate supply chain.
Robert Bruchet, EFPIA/Pfizer, presented perspectives from the pharmaceutical industry. He indicated, "We are taking responsibility for implementation of the EU Directive, especially to secure all existing entry and exit points in partnership with other stakeholders, including health professionals, involved in the European supply chain."
Xuanhao Chan, representing the World Health Professions Alliance stressed the importance of vigilance when it comes to falsified medical products. "Failure to act to prevent falsification of essential medicines would be a fundamental breach of the trust patients place in public health structures."
###
Co-hosted with WHPA and the Czech Pharmacy Chamber the workshop brought together more than 40 participants from Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, including leaders representing national associations of nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, dentists and physicians, representatives from WHO regional office in Europe, Council of Europe, Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union, and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. The workshop also saw the participation of pharmacy, medical, dentistry, and nursing student representatives and patient groups from the region.
About WHPA www.whpa.org
The World Health Professionals Alliance WHPA is a unique alliance of The International Council of Nurses (ICN) www.icn.ch, the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) www.fip.org,
the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) www.wcpt.org, the FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) www.fdiworldental.org and the World Medical Association (WMA) www.wma.net.
WHPA addresses global health issues striving to help deliver cost effective, quality health care worldwide. Together, the partners of the WHPA include more than 600 national member organizations, making WHPA the key point of global access to health care professionals within the five disciplines.
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of national nurses associations, representing the more than 13 million nurses working worldwide. www.icn.ch
The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) is the global federation of national organisations of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists representing more than two million pharmacists around the world. www.fip.org
The World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT), the global voice for physical therapists / physiotherapists, has 101 national member organisations representing over 350,000 members of
the profession. www.wcpt.org
The FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) is a federation of approximately 200 national dental associations and specialist groups representing more than one million dentists worldwide. www.fdiworldental.org
The World Medical Association (WMA) is the global federation of national medical associations from around the world, directly and indirectly representing the views of more than nine million physicians. www.wma.net
For more information about Be Aware, Take Action, see www.whpa.org/counterfeit_campaign.htm or send an email to whpa.campaign@wma.net
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Health professionals unite in WHPA Prague Call to ActionPublic release date: 21-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Janice Blondeau whpa.campaign@wma.net World Health Professions Alliance WHPA
Urge governments to ramp up fight against falsified medicines
In a first for the Central European region, national health professions organisations have discussed and endorsed the WHPA Prague Call to Action www.whpa.org/WHPA_Prague_Call_to_Action_21Nov2011.pdf , to reduce the harmful impact of falsified medical products on patients and the public. With the WHPA Prague Call to Action, health professions leaders are gearing up their response to this serious threat to patient safety and they are calling on governments in the region to do the same.
Under the banner of the "Be Aware, Take Action" campaign against counterfeit medical products, the workshop, held on 21 November in Prague, tackled the grave problem of falsified medical products worldwide. The workshop recognised that falsified medical products are, above all, a threat to patient safety with grave consequences in terms of increased disease burden, mortality and costs for healthcare systems. Health professions are extremely concerned about the current absence of harmonized international legislation, and non-deterrent sanctions on falsification of medical products that are not proportionate to the harm caused to patients.
Participants discussed the following four key strategies for the basis of a comprehensive regional action plan against falsified medical products:
Increasing capacity of our healthcare professionals to educate the public,
Fostering regional cooperation initiatives,
Strengthening collaborative practice when managing patients,
Improving collaboration with health and enforcement authorities plus other key stakeholders.
The WHPA workshop kicked off with a Roundtable on combating falsified medicines in Europe that focused on recent progress and key activities in Europe to better protect European citizens from the serious threats posed by falsified medicines.
John Chave, Secretary-General, Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) moderated this roundtable, stating, "The risk of falsified medicines entering the legal medicines supply chain is rising. Let's take action now, so we never have to get to the point where we lose confidence in the medicines in our local pharmacy." He continued that and for that reason PGEU supports the new European Directive on Falsified Medicines.
WHPA workshop presenters included:
Domenico Di Giorgio, Council of Europe, who spoke on "MEDICRIME: What are the new opportunities for health professional associations to work with Parties of the convention?" Mr Di Giorgio said, "The only way to stop this criminal activity is to have people from different professions around the table to find solutions, as we have done today. Now we have to focus on communicating with patients and the general public about the dangers of falsified medicines, and the dangers of buying medicines from the internet. Health professions are best placed to do this;"
Olexandr Polishchuk, WHO EURO, who presented the WHO strategy on combating counterfeit medicines in Europe, added, "We can't tell by looking at a package as to whether medicines are safe or not. Medicines do not have borders they can arrive at the post office, via illegal channels and across borders. When we all speak using the same language (norms and standards) to combat counterfeiting, we will be making progress."
Jim Thomson, Chair, European Alliance for Access to Safe Medicines EAASM, which campaigns so that the legitimate supply chain is better secured said, "Falsified medical products are completely wrong. They totally undermine the relation between doctors, other health professionals, and their patients. How can a health professional treat a patient if the medicine or the information about it is fake?" One goal of EAASM is to direct people unaware of the high proportion of counterfeit medical products on the internet back to legal sites and high street pharmacies, and then back into the legitimate supply chain.
Robert Bruchet, EFPIA/Pfizer, presented perspectives from the pharmaceutical industry. He indicated, "We are taking responsibility for implementation of the EU Directive, especially to secure all existing entry and exit points in partnership with other stakeholders, including health professionals, involved in the European supply chain."
Xuanhao Chan, representing the World Health Professions Alliance stressed the importance of vigilance when it comes to falsified medical products. "Failure to act to prevent falsification of essential medicines would be a fundamental breach of the trust patients place in public health structures."
###
Co-hosted with WHPA and the Czech Pharmacy Chamber the workshop brought together more than 40 participants from Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, including leaders representing national associations of nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, dentists and physicians, representatives from WHO regional office in Europe, Council of Europe, Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union, and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. The workshop also saw the participation of pharmacy, medical, dentistry, and nursing student representatives and patient groups from the region.
About WHPA www.whpa.org
The World Health Professionals Alliance WHPA is a unique alliance of The International Council of Nurses (ICN) www.icn.ch, the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) www.fip.org,
the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) www.wcpt.org, the FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) www.fdiworldental.org and the World Medical Association (WMA) www.wma.net.
WHPA addresses global health issues striving to help deliver cost effective, quality health care worldwide. Together, the partners of the WHPA include more than 600 national member organizations, making WHPA the key point of global access to health care professionals within the five disciplines.
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of national nurses associations, representing the more than 13 million nurses working worldwide. www.icn.ch
The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) is the global federation of national organisations of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists representing more than two million pharmacists around the world. www.fip.org
The World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT), the global voice for physical therapists / physiotherapists, has 101 national member organisations representing over 350,000 members of
the profession. www.wcpt.org
The FDI World Dental Federation (FDI) is a federation of approximately 200 national dental associations and specialist groups representing more than one million dentists worldwide. www.fdiworldental.org
The World Medical Association (WMA) is the global federation of national medical associations from around the world, directly and indirectly representing the views of more than nine million physicians. www.wma.net
For more information about Be Aware, Take Action, see www.whpa.org/counterfeit_campaign.htm or send an email to whpa.campaign@wma.net
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? European Union negotiators agreed to a two percent rise in the bloc's budget for next year to 129 billion euros ($174 billion), following more than fifteen hours of talks which ended in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The deal was seen as a victory for cash-strapped capitals grappling with Europe's debt crisis, which had opposed demands by EU lawmakers to increase the budget by more than 5 percent.
More than two thirds of the EU budget is spent on subsidies for farmers and regional aid funds, which finance road construction, environmental clean-ups and other projects.
But some EU officials said limiting the budget rise to forecast inflation for next year could leave the bloc unable to pay its bills and threaten the EU budget's AAA credit rating.
"This is clearly an austerity budget, as most member states are in the midst of a serious financial crisis," said EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, who had originally proposed a five percent rise in spending in 2012.
"There is now a serious risk that the European Commission will run out of funds in the course of next year, and will therefore not be able to honor all its financial obligations toward beneficiaries of EU funds," he said.
That is because while agreeing to limit their contributions to the EU budget to 129 billion euros next year, governments gave in to the European Parliament's demands to allow EU spending commitments next year to go up to 147 billion euros.
"Today's commitments become tomorrow's payments, so they are playing a very dangerous game indeed," said one EU official.
But Britain, which campaigned hard to contain EU spending, welcomed Saturday's deal, with financial services minister Mark Hoban, saying austerity at EU level was vital when member state governments struggle to tighten their belts.
"This is an excellent deal for the UK. We have stopped the European Commission and parliament's inflation-busting proposals and have delivered on the government's promise to freeze the EU budget in real terms," he said.
"Throughout this process, we have argued that with member states facing tough decisions on spending at home, we could not afford these unrealistic demands."
Parliament won some concessions in the discussions, including an extra 100 million euro in aid for the Palestinian territories in 2012.
Talks on the EU's spending in 2012 are seen as a prelude to a tougher fight on the bloc's next long-term budget for 2014-2020.
(Reporting by Charlie Dunmore, editing by Justyna Pawlak)
Mexican Insurance Store.com, a leading provider of online Mexican auto insurance, now offers one of the most comprehensive selections of Mexican insurance on the Internet.
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Public release date: 21-Nov-2011
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