US Scientists Boycott Nasa Conference Over China Ban

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Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Nasa is facing an extraordinary backlash from US researchers after it emerged that the space agency has banned Chinese scientists, including those working at US institutions, from a conference on grounds of national security.

Nasa officials rejected applications from Chinese nationals who hoped to attend the meeting at the agency’s Ames research centre in California next month citing a law, passed in March, which prohibits anyone from China setting foot in a Nasa building.

The law is part of a broad and aggressive move initiated by congressman Frank Wolf, chair of the House appropriations committee, which has jurisdiction over Nasa. It aims to restrict the foreign nationals’ access to Nasa facilities, ostensibly to counter espionage.

But the ban has angered many US scientists who say Chinese students and researchers in their labs are being discriminated against. A growing number of US scientists have now decided to boycott the meeting in protest, with senior academics withdrawing individually, or pulling out their entire research groups.

The conference is being held for US and international teams who work on Nasa’s Kepler space telescope programme, which has been searching the cosmos for signs of planets beyond our solar system. The meeting is the most important event in the academic calendar for scientists who specialise in the field.

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Joel Osteen: God Accepts Everyone Including Homosexuals (+video)

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

God “absolutely” approves of everyone — including homosexuals — declared one of America’s most well-known evangelical pastors.

The Houston megapastor and best-selling author Joel Osteen, whose followers include the likes of Cher and Oprah Winfrey, is hitting the talk-show circuit to promote his new book, “Break Out! 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life.”

Osteen, the very visible face of Lakewood Church in Houston since 1999, talked to the Huffington Post about his thoughts on prayer, the pope and the homosexual lifestyle.

HuffPo Live host Josh Zepps quoted from Osteen’s new book: “It doesn’t matter who likes you or who doesn’t like you, all that matters is God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.”

Zepps followed up by asking if that included homosexuals

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Leon Panetta to Congress: ‘Put Politics Aside,’ End Shutdown (+video)

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Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Photo Credit: Cliff Owen

Former Secretary of State and CIA director Leon Panetta urged a bitterly divided Congress to fund the government until mid-December — and then hold a summit on contentious issues – like entitlements and tax reform — that are holding up an agreement to end a four-day-old shutdown.

“The first thing is to … put politics aside and take the steps necessary to solve this crisis,” Panetta told CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

“The Speaker [of the House John Boehner] has to allow the House to vote” on funding the government and “on lifting the debt,” he said, adding that a later summitlike conference could “negotiate issues involving entitlements … [and] tax reform” toward a “deal that would restore some confidence.”

“I suspect the majority of Republicans and Democrats would support a clean [continuing resolution,” he added, scolding lawmakers: “You can’t let the extremes control the party … work needs to be done.”

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NSA and GCHQ Target Tor Network that Protects Anonymity of Web Users

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Photo Credit: Felix Clay

Photo Credit: Felix Clay

The National Security Agency has made repeated attempts to develop attacks against people using Tor, a popular tool designed to protect online anonymity, despite the fact the software is primarily funded and promoted by the US government itself.

Top-secret NSA documents, disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveal that the agency’s current successes against Tor rely on identifying users and then attacking vulnerable software on their computers. One technique developed by the agency targeted the Firefox web browser used with Tor, giving the agency full control over targets’ computers, including access to files, all keystrokes and all online activity.

But the documents suggest that the fundamental security of the Tor service remains intact. One top-secret presentation, titled ‘Tor Stinks’, states: “We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time.” It continues: “With manual analysis we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users,” and says the agency has had “no success de-anonymizing a user in response” to a specific request.

Another top-secret presentation calls Tor “the king of high-secure, low-latency internet anonymity”.

Tor – which stands for The Onion Router – is an open-source public project that bounces its users’ internet traffic through several other computers, which it calls “relays” or “nodes”, to keep it anonymous and avoid online censorship tools.

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IVF Babies ‘Are a Third More Likely to Develop Childhood Cancer’

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Photo Credit: Alamy

Photo Credit: Alamy

Children born as a result of IVF are a third more likely to get cancer, a major study found.

Scientists said those born after fertility treatments were 33 per cent more likely to have childhood cancer.

They were 65 per cent more likely to develop leukaemia and 88 per cent more likely to develop cancers of the brain and central nervous system.

The study suggests fertility treatment may change the way certain genes function when they are passed from parent to child in a process known as ‘genomic imprinting’.

These faults in genes are linked to childhood cancers, the Danish researchers said.

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‘We’re Winning’: Ted Cruz on the Latest in Washington Amid the ‘Government Shutdown’

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) told Glenn Beck during a radio interview Thursday that conservatives are “winning” the battle in Washington over Obamacare and the “government shutdown.”

“We’re winning the debate,” the senator remarked. “That’s why they are scared and they are attacking us. The more shrill it gets, the more scared they are.”

Cruz — one of the lawmakers who led the effort to defund Obamacare, and brought the issue to the forefront during a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor last week — referenced a Shakespeare quote that the lady “doth protest too much.”

“Why are they screaming so loudly? Why are they so personal? Why are they so filled with hate and fear? It’s because the American people are mobilized, are passionate and energized,” he said. “And even worse, [they] understand that Obamacare is hurting millions of Americans, and that has the left terrified out of their minds.”

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Obama Just Played His Big ‘Trump Card’ On The Debt Ceiling

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Early Thursday morning, Potomac Research Group analyst Greg Valliere predicted that if the debt-ceiling deadline grew closer, President Barack Obama would play his “trump card” in the debate. He would remind seniors that if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, seniors wouldn’t get their Social Security checks.

“GOP strategists like Karl Rove surely know that it’s just a matter of time before President Obama throws a game-changer — warning senior citizens that their Social Security checks won’t be mailed because of John Boehner,” Valliere wrote in a note to clients.

A few hours later, Obama did just that during a speech at M. Luis Construction Company in Rockville, Md. He spent much of the speech warning that while the ongoing government shutdown was damaging, failure to raise the debt ceiling by an Oct. 17 deadline would be even worse.

“In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time. In an economic shutdown — if we don’t raise the debt ceiling — they don’t go out on time,” Obama said. “In a government shutdown, disability benefits still arrive on time. In an economic shutdown, they don’t.”

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Rand Paul Caught on a Hot Mic – What He Really Feels About Democrats and Their Shutdown Rhetoric

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Screen shot 2013-10-04 at 1.13.38 AMA local Kentucky TV news station caught Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul Wednesday morning discussing some congressional Republican messaging strategy regarding the showdown with Democrats over the government shutdown.

“I just did CNN and I just go over and over again ‘We’re willing to compromise. We’re willing to negotiate,” Paul is seen on-camera telling McConnell, who is standing by for his own interview remote from D.C. “I don’t think they (Democrats) poll tested ‘we won’t negotiate.’ I think it’s awful for them to say that over and over again.”

“Yeah, I do too and I — and I just came back from that two hour meeting with them and that, and that was basically the same view privately as it was publicly,” McConnell said back.

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Video: Obama Calls for Striking Union Workers to be Fired

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Photo Credit: YouTube Screenshot

Photo Credit: YouTube Screenshot

Hilarity ensues as a panicked Barack Obama – fresh off his defeat at the hands of elderly World War II veterans – grabs a microphone and makes a compelling case for firing every union worker who goes on strike:

The poor saps cheering him are almost as funny as Obama himself. The only thing that would make this clip better would be a quick reaction shot of an aide facepalming himself into a coma, or maybe a union boss beginning to applaud until he realizes what the President just said, at which point he slowly stops clapping.

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Treasury: Under Obama, U.S Gov’t Debt Held by Public Up 90%

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Treasury released its last Daily Treasury Statement for fiscal 2013 yesterday afternoon, revealing that during the presidency of Barack Obama the U.S. government debt held by the public has increased 90 percent.

At the close of business on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. government debt held by the public was $6,307,311,000,000, according to the Daily Treasury Statement for that day.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2013—the last day of fiscal 2013—the Daily Treasury Statement said the U.S. government debt held by the public was $11,976,279,000,000.

The $11,976,279,000,000 in U.S. government debt held by the public on Sept. 30, 2013 was $5,668,968,000,000 more than the $6,307,311,000,000 in debt held by the public on Obama’s first inauguration day.

That is an increase of 89.879 percent—or approximately 90 percent.

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