Re: Bombardier bigshot: Israel should electrify all of its railroads ASAP (AlM)

Posted by AlM on Sat Jun 29 17:27:25 2013, in response to Bombardier bigshot: Israel should electrify all of its railroads ASAP, posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jun 29 16:18:04 2013.

Uh-huh. How come the only part of Canada's general railway network that is electrified is the AMT commuter rail out of Gare Centrale?

Compare the density of Canada and Israel.

Source: http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=1231707

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Democrat predicts House will pass Senate immigration bill

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled House of Representatives will bow to political pressure and pass the immigration bill approved by the Democratic-led Senate by the end of the year, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer predicted on Sunday.

Schumer, a member of the bipartisan Senate group that crafted the immigration measure, said House Republicans who are now vowing they will not pass the Senate measure will ultimately be convinced by political concerns about the party's future.

"I believe that by the end of this year, the House will pass the Senate bill. I know that's not what they think now. And they'll say, 'Oh no, that's not what's going to happen.' But I think it will," Schumer told the "Fox News Sunday" program.

Senior House Republicans rejected Schumer's prediction. Republican Speaker John Boehner has said the House will write its own immigration bill rather than bringing up the Senate bill passed on Thursday, which is supported by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Fourteen Senate Republicans joined Senate Democrats in backing a Senate bill that features a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States, an approach vehemently opposed by many conservative House Republicans who view it as rewarding law-breakers.

Some Republican leaders worry that rejecting the Senate bill could further alienate Hispanics, a fast-growing bloc of voters who overwhelmingly supported Obama's re-election in 2012, and could handicap the party in future presidential elections.

Schumer said House Republicans eventually will allow a vote on the Senate bill to get the issue off their backs and ease the pressure from immigration reform supporters including religious, civil rights and business groups.

"Within several months, Speaker Boehner will find two choices: no bill or let a bill pass with a majority of Democratic votes and some Chamber of Commerce-type Republicans. And he'll find that the better choice," the New York senator said.

House Republicans sarcastically shrugged off Schumer's prediction.

"I was moved almost to the point of tears by Senator Schumer's concern for the future prospects of the Republican Party. But we're going to not take his advice," said Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, who heads the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

"The Senate bill is not going to pass in the House, and it's not going to pass for myriad reasons," Gowdy said.

"I'm more interested in getting it right than doing it on Senator Schumer's schedule," he added.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Boehner has said an immigration bill will be put to a vote only if a majority of House Republicans back it. Boehner supports a piecemeal approach using smaller, targeted bills rather than the sweeping Senate legislation.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, another member of the bipartisan group behind the Senate bill, said it would not be easy to convince the House to pass broad immigration reform but held out hope.

"I really hesitate to tell Speaker Boehner exactly how he should do this. But I think Republicans realize the implications (for) the future of the Republican Party in America if we don't get this issue behind us," McCain said on "Fox News Sunday."

"I believe that the coalition that we've assembled of support ranging from evangelicals, to the Catholic church, business, labor, farm workers, growers ... I frankly have never seen such widespread support. And I am hopeful that we can convince our House colleagues," McCain said.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the top Democrat in the House, said she was optimistic the political realities of immigration would force House Republicans to come around.

"It's certainly right for the Republicans if they ever want to win a presidential race," Pelosi said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

A proposal being talked about in the House as an alternative to the Senate bill would offer possible citizenship in the future after illegal immigrants spend a decade working through a legalized status that gives them work permits.

Representative Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said it was possible the House could pass a measure that did not include a pathway to citizenship but focused on a "pathway to legalization" for undocumented immigrants. On ABC's "This Week" program, Goodlatte also made clear the House would not pass the Senate bill.

"When you use the word pathway to 'legalization' as opposed to pathway to 'citizenship,' I'd say, 'Yes,'" he said when asked about the chances for an immigration bill getting through the House.

"Not a special pathway to citizenship where people who are here unlawfully get something that people who have worked for decades to immigrate lawfully do not have," Goodlatte added.

(Additional reporting by Will Dunham and Deborah Charles; Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/democrat-predicts-house-pass-senate-immigration-bill-165735744.html

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Immigration bill clears Senate test

FILE - In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

FILE - In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

FILE - In this June 21, 2013 file photo, Sen. John Hoeven, N.D., leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Historic immigration legislation cleared a key Senate hurdle with votes to spare on Monday, pointing the way to near-certain passage within days for $38 billion worth of new security measures along the border with Mexico and an unprecedented chance at citizenship for millions living in the country illegally.

The vote was 67-27, seven more than the 60 needed, with 15 Republicans agreeing to advance legislation at the top of President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda.

The vote came as Obama campaigned from the White House for the bill, saying, "now is the time" to overhaul an immigration system that even critics of the legislation agree needs reform.

Last-minute frustration was evident among opponents. In an unusual slap at members of his own party as well as Democrats, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said it appeared that lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle "very much want a fig leaf" on border security to justify a vote for immigration.

Senate passage on Thursday or Friday would send the issue to the House, where conservative Republicans in the majority oppose citizenship for anyone living in the country illegally.

Some GOP lawmakers have appealed to Speaker John Boehner not to permit any immigration legislation to come to a vote for fear that whatever its contents, it would open the door to an unpalatable compromise with the Senate. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of approving a handful of measures related to immigration, action that ordinarily is a prelude to votes in the full House.

"Now is the time to do it," Obama said at the White House before meeting with nine business executives who support a change in immigration laws. He added, "I hope that we can get the strongest possible vote out of the Senate so that we can then move to the House and get this done before the summer break" beginning in early August.

He said the measure would be good for the economy, for business and for workers who are "oftentimes exploited at low wages."

As for the overall economy, he said, "I think every business leader here feels confident that they'll be in a stronger position to continue to innovate, to continue to invest, to continue to create jobs and ensure that this continues to be the land of opportunity for generations to come."

Opponents saw it otherwise. "It will encourage more illegal immigration and must be stopped," Cruz exhorted supporters via email, urging them to contact their own senators with a plea to defeat the measure.

Leaving little to chance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced it was launching a new seven-figure ad buy Monday in support of the bill. "Call Congress. End de facto amnesty. Create jobs and economic growth by supporting conservative immigration reforms," the ad said.

Senate officials said some changes were still possible to the bill before it leaves the Senate - alterations that would swell the vote total.

At the same time, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who voted to advance the measure during the day, said he may yet end up opposing it unless he wins a pair of changes he is seeking.

Senate Democrats were unified on the vote.

Republicans were anything but on a bill that some party leaders say offers the GOP a chance to show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters, yet tea party-aligned lawmakers assail as amnesty for those who have violated the law.

The party's two top Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, voted against advancing the measure. Both are seeking new terms next year.

Among potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, while Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky were opposed.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the legislation will reduce the deficit and increase economic growth in each of the next two decades. It is also predicting unemployment will rise slightly through 2020, and that average wages will move lower over a decade.

At its core, the legislation in the Senate would create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. It also calls for billions of dollars to be spent on manpower and technology to secure the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, including a doubling of the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents.

The measure also would create a new program for temporary farm laborers to come into the country, and another for lower-skilled workers to emigrate permanently. At the same time, it calls for an expansion of an existing visa program for highly-skilled workers, a gesture to high tech companies that rely heavily on foreigners.

In addition to border security, the measure phases in a mandatory program for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers, and separate effort to track the comings and goings of foreigners at some of the nation's airports.

The legislation was originally drafted by a bipartisan Gang of 8, four senators from each party who negotiated a series of political trade-offs over several months.

The addition of the tougher border security provisions came after CBO informed lawmakers that they could potentially spend tens of billions of dollars to sweeten the bill without fearing higher deficits.

The result was a series of changes negotiated between the Gang of 8 and Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Different, lesser-noticed provisions helped other lawmakers swing behind the measure.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, likened some of them to "earmarks," the now-banned practice of directing federal funds to the pet projects of individual lawmakers.

He cited a provision creating a $1.5 billion jobs fund for low-income youth and pair of changes to benefit the seafood processing industry in Alaska. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., issued a statement on Friday trumpeting the benefits of the first; Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat, took credit for the two others.

Grassley also raised questions about the origin of a detailed list of planes, sensors, cameras and other equipment to be placed along the southern border.

"Who provided the amendment sponsors with this list?" asked Grassley, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee that approved an earlier version of the bill. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano "did not provide the committee with any list. Did Sikorsky, Cessna and Northrup Grumann send up a wish list to certain members of the Senate?"

Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrup Grumann, said in an email the firm has "not had the opportunity to review the comments nor... provided the committee a 'wish list' of its systems to consider."

Officials at the other two companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-24-Immigration/id-c80adce2aa334cc099bfc1b298b57a3b

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Five years of stereo imaging for NASA's TWINS

June 24, 2013 ? Surrounding Earth is a dynamic region called the magnetosphere. The region is governed by magnetic and electric forces, incoming energy and material from the sun, and a vast zoo of waves and processes unlike what is normally experienced in Earth-bound physics. Nestled inside this constantly changing magnetic bubble lies a donut of charged particles generally aligned with Earth's equator. Known as the ring current, its waxing and waning is a crucial part of the space weather surrounding our planet, able to induce magnetic fluctuations on the ground as well as to transmit disruptive surface charges onto spacecraft.

On June 15, 2008, a new set of instruments began stereoscopic imaging of this mysterious region. Called Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers or TWINS, these satellites orbit in widely separated planes to provide the first and only stereo view of the ring current. TWINS maps the energetic neutral atoms that shoot away from the ring current when created by ion collisions.

In five years of operation, the TWINS maps have provided three-dimensional images and global characterization of this region. The observatories track how the magnetosphere responds to space weather storms, characterize global information such as temperature and shape of various structures within the magnetosphere, and improve models of the magnetosphere that can be used to simulate a vast array of events.

"With two satellites, with two sets of simultaneous images we can see things that are entirely new," said Mei-Ching Fok, the project scientist for TWINS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is the first ever stereoscopic energetic neutral atom mission, and it's changed the way we understand the ring current."

Each spacecraft is in a highly elliptical orbit called a Molniya orbit, during which the spacecraft spend most of their time around 20,000 miles above Earth, where they get a great view of the magnetosphere. Initially launched for a two-year mission, TWINS was formally extended in 2010 for three more years, with another multi-year extension pending. Over that time, TWINS has worked hand in hand with other NASA missions that provide information about Earth's magnetosphere.

"We've done some fantastic new research in the last five years," said David McComas, the principal investigator for TWINS at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "As a mission of opportunity, it is a very inexpensive mission and it continues to return incredible science."

TWINS science is based on two instruments that can track neutral atoms. The first is a neutral atom imager that records the atoms that naturally stream away when a neutral atom collides with an ion. This allows the instrument to map the original ions from far away -- as if it could see atoms the way we see light -- instead of only collecting data from the areas of space it passes through.

"Over the course of the last 20 years a completely new technique evolved so we can observe charged particles, such as those in the ring current, remotely," said McComas. "The charged particles sometimes collide with a slow-moving neutral particle, in this case from a population of neutrals from Earth's highly extended atmosphere, the geocorona."

When this happens, an electron hops from the slow neutral atom to the fast ion, so now the former becomes charged, and the latter neutral. That new neutral speeds off in a straight direction, unfazed by the magnetic field lines around Earth that guide and control the motion of charged particles. TWINS collects such fast neutral particles and from that data scientists can work backward to map out the location and movement of the original ions.

The other instrument on TWINS is a Lyman alpha detector, which can measure the density of hydrogen from afar, and in this case observes the hydrogen cloud around Earth, the geocorona.

Most importantly, these instruments exist on both of the TWINS spacecraft. Much of the successful research in the last five years relies on the ability to watch these neutrals from two viewpoints, allowing scientists to analyze not only speed and number of particles, but also to determine the angles at which the particles left their original collisions. The stereo vision contributed to the detailed perspectives on how the magnetosphere reacts to space weather storms: both those due to the impact of a coronal mass ejection that traveled from the sun toward Earth and due to an incoming twist in the solar wind known as a co-rotating interaction region. TWINS has also revealed that the pitch angle at which the ions travel around Earth is different on each side of the planet. Such information helps scientists determine whether the ions are more likely to escape from the ring current out into space or to ultimately funnel down toward Earth.

"TWINS is a stereo mission, providing the first observations of the neutral atoms from two vantage points, but two spacecraft give us another advantage," said Natalia Buzulukova, a magnetospheric scientist at Goddard who works with TWINS data. "Two spacecraft provide continuous coverage of the ring current, as one set of instruments always has a view."

Because the spacecraft orbits are not in sync they provide stereoscopic imaging for a few hours each day, but there is always at least one spacecraft keeping tabs on how events are unfolding. Prior to TWINS, a spacecraft might see a tantalizing process taking place in the ring current for only a short while before its orbit took it out of view. The event might well have finished before the spacecraft came back around for its second look.

Such continuity has proved useful to determine what governs whether particles in the ring current will precipitate downward toward Earth as well as to provide a global temperature map of the magnetic tail trailing behind Earth, the magnetotail. Such a map had only ever previously been inferred from models and statistical analysis, never from a comprehensive data set of what was actually observed.

The Lyman-alpha instrument has been used in two ways. For one thing, it quantifies the geocorona in order to better understand how it affects the collisions in the ring current. It also has taught us more about the geocorona itself. Previously, researchers believed it to be a fairly simple sphere around Earth. The two TWINS instruments have shown how asymmetric it is, changing with the solar cycle, seasons, and even the hours of the day.

A final important feature of this fire hose of TWINS data is how much it helps improve computer simulations of the ring current and the rest of the magnetosphere. With accurate computer models, scientists can better predict how the magnetosphere will react to any given space weather event.

"We get two really unique things with two spacecraft: stereo imaging and continuous coverage. Together the observations we get are fantastic," said McComas. "It's an incredibly powerful combination of tools."

TWINS is an Explorer Mission of Opportunity. Southwest Research Institute leads TWINS with teams of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.

For more information about TWINS science and mission, visit: http://science.nasa.gov/missions/twins/

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130624141606.htm

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CyanogenMod 10.1 general release is on its way

Any device that received an RC build will get the stable release; builds hitting servers as soon as possible

The CyanogenMod team announced on its official blog today that it will be ending the release candidate (RC) phase for builds of CM10.1 and moving to a general release. Following a few quick releases of the latest RC builds, the general release is currently being built for any device that has received an RC of CM10.1 and will hit servers for download as soon as possible. Absent from this CM10.1 general release are Tegra 2 devices, as are many Samsung Exynos devices -- the team says it will give an update as to the status of CM for those devices soon.

The launch of a general release also marks the time when we get back into the M-release cycle for experimental features to be added to CM10.1 for willing flashers among us. CyanogenMod says it has already incorporated its new Privacy Guard feature into the latest nightly build and surely has many more up its sleeve to come.

Source: CyanogenMod

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/3svhOjw4IAs/story01.htm

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Sky Faces New Challenges From Coliseum Over Internet... | Stuff.co.nz

TIM HUNTER YOUR PORTFOLIO

Getty Images

Play of the day: Coliseum Sports Media chief executive Tim Martin fronts the media in Auckland last week.

Sky TV's?shares staggered on Wednesday after a sideswipe from new football broadcaster Coliseum.

It was an interesting development for football fans, but it also showed how in the daily dance of sharemarket investment it takes two to tango.

When shares trade, every seller needs a buyer. And typically they will have different views on the attractions of a particular business.

Some will have seen Coliseum as the thin end of a wedge that will ultimately shatter Sky's business into a dozen fragments and end its reign as a dominant force.

Others saw it as just another lightweight hoofing it in a heavyweight game with as much impact on Sky as a rat on an open plan office - there is a frisson of alarm and then life goes on.

The net result of these views was a sudden drop in the share price from the $5.67 open down to $5.20, followed by a slow climb back above $5.43.

Sky has been a popular blue-chip stock for years and is firmly ensconced in portfolios big and small around the country. Perhaps it was no surprise then that initial comments from analysts and fund managers saw little impact for the pay TV company.

They are probably right. Some say the rights to the English premier league are likely to have cost Coliseum $2 million to $3 million. If so, they would be about 1 per cent of Sky's total programming rights cost - last year the total was $216m.

A Sky Sport package costs about $26 a month or $312 a year more than the basic package, and about 558,000 subscribers get Sport.

If 1 per cent of Sports subscribers were die-hard fans of English football and switched to Coliseum, that would represent about 5500 subscribers, or revenue for Sky of $1.7m a year.

With Coliseum's EPL subscription costing $150 a season, that would represent revenue of $825,000 a season for Coliseum, or $2.5m over its three-year licence period.

Using these numbers we can start to gauge the effect of the new service on Sky, and it looks like the football fan base would have to be large before it made much of a dent. In that sense, the share-price drop was probably a buying opportunity - a drop of 24c a share represents a cut on Sky's market value of about $90m, way more than the likely financial impact of the EPL rights loss.

But if Coliseum was not itself a significant problem for Sky, maybe it was the harbinger of greater competition for content as the internet becomes a realistic delivery system. This is an interesting question, and analysts were alive to it before Coliseum announced its play. A research note from Tristan Joll and Lance Reynolds at UBS last month declared Sky TV a "buy" with a 12-month price target of $6.30, citing an "earnings sweet-spot" as the company enjoyed the benefits of previous investment.

"Risks to our rating include entry of internet competitors, fragmentation of entertainment content and pressure on NZRFU rights at the 2015 renegotiation window," they said. But "all are factored into our forecasts, with declining content margins a fact of life going forward."

Greg Main, at First NZ Capital, was also positive in a May 15 research note with Sky "riding a cash flow sweet-spot for the next two to three years". His outlook was more cautious with a 12-month target of $5.70 and a rating of neutral, although there was some upside because Sky could offer a special dividend or on-market buyback.

Both research notes followed an investor day in which Sky briefed analysts on its current thinking.

Main wrote that the briefing "discussed and again discounted the risk of sports bodies going direct where the current relationship with SKT is strong (ie, SKT pays them a lot for their content already). While it could happen in some overseas sports with a small New Zealand following, the cost requirements and coverage required for the main sports makes this a harder proposition."

The potential for a Coliseum-type move was evidently well understood by Sky, and its view that local sports such as rugby were less vulnerable to internet competition looks justified. However, the presence of NZRU board member and former broadcasting executive Brent Impey at the Coliseum press conference indicated the rugby establishment is taking a close interest in developments. Even if Sky is unchallenged as a rugby broadcaster, come 2015 the NZRU, or its international equivalent Sanzar, may demand widespread internet distribution for the product.

Although we don't know how change will happen it would be wrong to assume the internet won't pose challenges for Sky. The comfort for investors is that the company has so far proved highly adaptable and can eye the future from a position of strength.

Last week's Portfolio column incorrectly stated Wynyard Group's expected revenue was $19 million this year and $24.6m in 2014. The prospectus figures are in fact $21.5m and $27m respectively. I apologise for the error.

Tim Hunter is deputy editor of the Fairfax Business Bureau.

- ? Fairfax NZ News

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8826559/Challenges-from-internet-for-Sky

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UBS to exit banking business in India: source

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG will surrender its Indian banking license and close its banking unit, covering fixed income, forex operations and credit services, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

However, UBS will continue its corporate client service business, which includes mergers and acquisitions, equities and debt capital market services, said the source, who declined to be identified as the information was not yet public.

"That doesn't mean that we are closing down our India operations. We will be closing a very small business unit, to focus on our key strength," said the source. "It's part of our global strategy."

A UBS spokesman declined to comment.

UBS has a full-fledged banking license in India with a single branch in Mumbai and was focusing on the wealth management business, covering foreign exchange, fixed income and credit services.

Indian newspapers reported on Saturday that UBS would surrender its banking license.

Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley sold its private wealth management business to Standard Chartered , in a sign of growing consolidation of Asia's wealth management industry, which is struggling with rising regulatory costs and wafer-thin advisory fees.

(Reporting by Indulal PM; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ubs-exit-banking-business-india-source-072735265.html

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