Puppies, Costumes and Camaraderie Bring Smiles at New Year's Hospice Parade

Published: Friday, December 30, 2011 at 11:48 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, December 30, 2011 at 11:48 p.m.

LAKELAND | Mother Time, serene in a snow globe, passed slowly through the nursing center, preceded by angels, rock-and-rollers, snowflake princesses and puppies small enough to fit into stockings.

If that wasn't enough, there were also three or four kings in a mobile manger, Cupid in the persona of little Alexus Sharp and pajama-clad people depicting "?Twas The Night Before Christmas." Ribbon confetti flew and songs were sung, including "We Are the World," performed by parade participants adorned in costumes and toting flags of different countries.

Close to 100 employees and related well-wishers marched as Valencia Hills Health and Rehab held its third annual New Year's Eve parade Friday morning. Among them were dietary aide Juanita Parrett, carrying a sign encouraging watchers to "Bring in the New Year with a Bang" and Wanda Ray, certified nursing assistant mentor, in a hot pink and black skirt combo, in the spirit of rock-and-roll.

"It's very competitive," said Valencia Marketing Director Grace Hardy. "None of the props you saw were here in the building so no one saw them until this morning."

The angels even hid themselves in a private room until the parade started at 10:30 a.m. Polk County's three hospices may compete for patients, but they banded together joyfully as the wing-clad Hospice Angels.

Children and residents who voted on the winners faced tough choices.

Rather than come down on the side of angels or the puppies, they gave the premier award and bragging rights to a team whose costume-clad marchers depicted the 12 months of the year.

"I told (one team) that was a dirty trick, bringing in the puppies," Administrator Mike Bradley said.

He wasn't too concerned, however, since he was on the winning 12-month calendar team.

Maybe if they'd let residents keep the puppies, which several asked to do, the vote might have gone differently.

As it was, the snow globe holding Mother Time (aka physical therapy assistant Charity Brown) was judged most creative.

"It's beautiful," said resident Shirley Watkins, watching with William, her husband of 54 years.

An off-the-wall entry, Santa in a Hawaiian shirt at a beach tiki hut, was judged funniest. And to think, most tales make it appear he spends every day except Dec. 24 and 25 working on delivery logistics.

For resident Earl Thomas, the choice was clear:

"I like that one the best," he said, pointing to the snowflake princesses.

Walter Allen was more diplomatic, murmuring "It was all nice" when asked what his favorites were.

[ Robin Williams Adams can be reached at robin.adams@theledger.com or 863-802-7558. Read her blog at robinsrx.blogs.theledger.com. Follow on Twitter @ledgerROBIN. ]

Source: http://www.theledger.com/article/20111230/news/111239952

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Lawsuit seeks to get Gingrich on Va. ballot (The Arizona Republic)

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Video: Did spanking book lead to children?s deaths?

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Singer, actress Kaye Stevens dies in Florida

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 1967 file photo, Sammy Davis Jr. and Kaye Stevens perform on a TV show. Stevens a singer, actress, and longtime South Florida resident who was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show," has died at a central Florida hospital. She was 79. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 1967 file photo, Sammy Davis Jr. and Kaye Stevens perform on a TV show. Stevens a singer, actress, and longtime South Florida resident who was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show," has died at a central Florida hospital. She was 79. (AP Photo, File)

THE VILLAGES, Fla. (AP) ? Singer and actress Kaye Stevens, who performed with the Rat Pack and was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show," has died at a central Florida hospital. She was 79.

Close friend Gerry Schweitzer confirmed that Stevens died Wednesday at the Villages Hospital north of Orlando following a battle with breast cancer and blood clots.

Stevens, a longtime South Florida resident, performed with Rat Pack members including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop. She also sang solo at venues like Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and the Plaza Hotel's Persian Room in New York City.

During the Vietnam War era, Stevens performed for American soldiers in the war zone with Bob Hope's USO tour.

According to a handout from friend Rhonda Glenn, Stevens was born Catherine Louise Stephens in Pittsburgh. Her family eventually moved to Cleveland, where a teenage Stevens got her start as a drummer and singer. She later married now deceased bandleader and trumpet player Tommy Amato, and the couple performed throughout the eastern U.S.

During a gig in New Jersey, Stevens was discovered by Ed McMahon, Carson's longtime sidekick, which led to new bookings. Her big break came when she was playing a lounge at The Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. Debbie Reynolds became ill and was unable to perform in the main room. Stevens filled in and was an instant hit.

Besides singing, Stevens also acted in film and television. She appeared in six movies, earning a Golden Globe nomination in 1964 for "The New Interns." She was a regular celebrity player on game shows and appeared as a regular on "Days of Our Lives" from 1974-79.

During the past two decades, Stevens started her own ministry and began performing only Christian and patriotic music. She staged benefits to help build St. Vincent Catholic Church in her longtime home of Margate, Fla., where city officials named a park in her honor.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-29-US-Obit-Kaye-Stevens/id-940ce198336c4936845fb3d373ee393d

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Video: Electric Car From Japan Reaches Over 300KM Travel Range

We spent two posts on SIM-LEI, an electric car developed by a a spin-off startup at Keio University in Tokyo in collaboration with a total of 34 domestic and foreign companies, in the past months. And it seems that the startup, SIM Drive Corporation, is on track to start mass-producing the vehicle in about 2 years. The company was set up in August 2009. The main selling point of the newest version is that it can drive over 300km at a constant speed of 100km/h. In spring, SIM Drive said the SIM-LEI (?Leading Efficiency In-Wheel motor?) can reach 333km under ?general urban traffic conditions in Japan?.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/T5MZv-GOfxQ/

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Pets

Prudence Wants a Pet
by Cathleen Daly
illustrations by Stephen Michael King
Roaring Brook Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Prudence really really wants a pet, but her parents (seen only from the waste down in the illustrations) tell her they cost too much and make noise. So Prudence gets a pet branch. Branch is an outdoor pet who lives on the front porch and who has tripped Prudence's father eight times. "Dad broke Branch into little bits and put them on the woodpile." But Prudence is not daunted. She has a new pet. Its name is Twig. But Twig lives in her pocket and one day Twig runs away in the rinse cycle. Prudence tries one unique, inanimate pet after another. Her persistence finally gets her parents' attention -- just in time for her birthday.

Another review at Colby Sharp's blog?sharpread.

Jane and Mizmow
by Matthew S. Armstrong
Harper, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

This is a different kind of pet book. Jane has a pet -- a monster she finds in a red cap at the base of a tree (what is it with red caps this year???). Jane and Mizmow are best friends until the day they argue over the red hat, warm from the dryer, and pull it into two parts. Then, just like the hat, the two friends are pulled apart. Luckily, they find a way to repair their friendship in the end.

If you've read any of the FLIGHT graphic novel short story anthologies edited by Kazu Kibuishi, that's where you've met these characters before. This book has a graphic novel feel to it, and would have worked perfectly well as a wordless picture book -- the captions seem like an afterthought.

Another review at?Lori Calabrese Writes!

Source: http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2011/12/pets.html

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Hollywood???s Best Actors for the Buck (omg!)

?Dave M. Benett/Getty Images non-NA

The "Twilight" movies are more than a cultural sensation, they're a financial phenomenon. The latest, "Breaking Dawn," has ranked No. 1 at the U.S. box office for the past three weekends and has already earned $588 million worldwide. The entire franchise has brought in $2.4 billion so far and there?s still one more movie set for release next year.

It's been a lot of reward for relatively little outlay. The first two movies were produced for $37 million and $50 million, respectively. The current film is the most expensive to date with an estimated budget of $110 million. Part of the reason the budget has risen is that stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are getting paid more for playing Bella and her vampire boyfriend Edward, but they?re still not getting the $20 million paychecks that some big stars can command.

Full List: Hollywood's Best Actors For The Buck

That?s why the "Twilight" stars land so high on our list of Hollywood?s Best Actors for the Buck, with Kristen Stewart at No. 1. For every $1 Stewart is paid her films have earned an average $55.83. Pattinson ranks third with his films bringing in an average of $39.43 for every dollar he is paid.

How does Stewart beat Pattinson when they earn virtually identical salaries on their "Twilight" films? For the purpose of this list we look at each star?s last three major releases in the last five years, and Pattinson has been busier than Stewart. He starred in two non-"Twilight" projects in the past two years: "Remember Me" and "Water for Elephants." Neither film performed particularly well and that pulled down the average return on investment for Pattinson.

The Biggest Entertainment Flops of 2011

To create our list we looked at the 40 highest-earning actors in Hollywood. To qualify, each had to have starred in at least three movies in the past five years that opened in more than 500 theaters. Movies that opened after May 1 were not counted. We also didn't look at animated films because the stars aren?t really the draw.

We used data gathered for our annual Celebrity 100 list to calculate each star?s estimated earnings on each film (including up-front pay and any earnings from the movie?s box-office receipts and first-year sales of DVDs). We then looked at each movie?s estimated budget (not including marketing costs, which are susceptible to accounting chicanery) and box-office and DVD earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Actors

We added up each star?s compensation on his or her last three films and the operating income on those films, and divided the total operating income by the star?s total compensation to come up with a return-on-investment number. The final number represents an average of how much a studio earns for every dollar paid.

Sandwiched between the "Twilight" stars, Anne Hathaway ranks second on our list with an average return of $45.67 for every $1 she's paid. Most of that comes from "Alice in Wonderland," which was a massive hit, earning $1 billion on a budget of $200 million. "Bride Wars" also did well enough on a relatively low budget to help keep her average numbers up.

The Most Valuable Celebrities To Charity

Ranking fourth is another actor who has benefited from a massively successful franchise: Daniel Radcliffe. The young star earned a hefty salary for the last few Harry Potter movies but the films are such massive moneymakers (the franchise has pulled in $7.7 billion in global ticket sales) that his paycheck is relatively insignificant. For every $1 Radcliffe was paid his films earned $34.24.

Rounding out the top five is Shia LaBeouf, who topped our list last year. LaBeouf faltered a bit this year because of Oliver Stone?s "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." The film did OK, bringing in $135 million on a budget of $70 million, but that?s hardly "Transformers money." For every $1 LaBeouf was paid his films earned $29.40.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_hollywood_e280_99s_best_actors_for_the_buck/43823878/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/hollywood%E2%80%99s-best-actors-for-the-buck.html

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The Most Common Complaints About the Kindle Fire (The Atlantic Wire)

Three weeks after Amazon released the Kindle Fire, users have had enough time to notice its kinks. While the company predicts record sales for its supposed iPad killer, the user experience hasn't lived up to the initial hype, which won reviewers over with its cheap price tag and good enough specs.

Related: Amazon Kindle Fire Review Roundup: You Get What You Pay For

WiFi

Since the Kindle Fire came out mid-November, users have complained of WiFi connectivity issues on Amazon's forums. But it's now three weeks later and Amazon hasn't addressed or fixed the issue. The grumbles continue on the forums, which have 183 angry customer rants noting the inability to connect the device to WiFi networks or that the connection claims to work but doesn't actually link up to the Internet. While Amazon hasn't sent out a fix, some have fixed the issues with a simple software update to either 6.1 or 6.2, notes CNET.?

Related: It Costs Amazon Less to Make a Kindle Fire Than Previously Thought

Speed Issues

Even though Amazon touted the Kindle Fire's special browser, Silk, as faster than anything else because it performs most of its functions on servers, rather than on the device, in reality the thing lags. New York Times reviewer David Pogue had noticed this issue back when he reviewed the Fire.

Most problematic, though, the Fire does not have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. You feel that $200 price tag with every swipe of your finger. Animations are sluggish and jerky ? even the page turns that you?d think would be the pride of the Kindle team. Taps sometimes don?t register. There are no progress or ?wait? indicators, so you frequently don?t know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn?t been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery.

But since then, others have chimed in on Amazon's forums as well as Jakob Nielsen, who conducted a four person usability test. All report slow scrolling, a lag in response, slow download times and slow page loading

Related: Amazon's Insecurities Show as It Prepares for Kindle Fire Debut

Fat Finger Problem

Nielsen also points out this other, less technicaly, issue with the Kindle Fire. The seven inch screen is too small for finger navigation, compared to the iPad's luxurious 10 inch tablet. "You haven't seen the fat-finger problem in its full glory until you've watched users struggle to touch things on the Fire," he writes. "One poor guy spent several minutes trying to log in to Facebook, but was repeatedly foiled by accidentally touching the wrong field or button--this on a page with only 2 text fields and 1 button." Though his test only looked at four people, a handful of others have chimed in on the Amazon forums, suggesting chubby handed users purchase a stylus.?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20111206/tc_atlantic/mostcommoncomplaintsaboutkindlefire45780

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The rise and fall of Herman Cain: 6 lessons (The Week)

New York ? The Cain Train finally and officially screeches to a stop. What can we learn from this strange, wild ride?

Businessman and former GOP presidential frontrunner Herman Cain made it official on Saturday: He's indefinitely?"suspending" his campaign, blaming "the continued distraction" and "the continued hurt to me and my family" stemming from multiple accusations of sexual impropriety. Cain's poll numbers started dropping in recent weeks after sexual harassment and extramarital affair allegations surfaced, and his campaign fumbled the response. What can we learn from citizen Cain's unlikely rise and fall? Here, six lessons:

1. Presidential campaigns are no place for amateurs
Conservatives actually stuck with Cain for weeks after the sex scandals broke, says David Weigel at?Slate. But things fell apart when Cain's "epic mishandling" of the allegations shifted attention to his inept campaign. It didn't help that Cain kept demonstrating his apparent ignorance of foreign and economic policy, causing his novelty candidacy to stop being "amusing or useful to the members of his party." Cain wanted to sell books, not win the nomination, an unidentified GOP strategist?tells The Washington Post. "Then something great and awful happened, the dog caught the car. And of course, dogs don't know how to drive cars."

SEE MORE: Time for Herman Cain to take a lie detector test?

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2. The GOP wants a positive message
While Cain's rivals had even "upright, bill-paying, hand-wringing Tea Partiers... bored silly" with dour talk about budget-cutting and Washington stalemate,?Cain rose to the top by offering an "upbeat vision for the country,"?says Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. For all its faults, Cain's 9-9-9 economic plan showed that Republicans need to do more than criticize President Obama's policies. Cain's out, but his message to the remaining candidates is clear: "Voters are aching for this kind of enthusiasm."

3. GOP voters don't really want an outsider
"For all the talk about how much the Tea Party-infused Republican Party of 2011 wants a leader from beyond the political establishment," says Jonathan Martin at?Politico, Cain's spectacular rise and demise proves that "outsider status isn't sufficient by itself to overcome deeper flaws." Republican voters have made it clear that what they value most is still baseline competence and "a candidate who could stand toe-to-toe with Obama, let alone be commander-in-chief." Cain didn't pass muster, and he won't be the last.

SEE MORE: The Cain campaign's 'blatant lie': Time to fire Mark Block?

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4. It's awfully tough to escape a juicy sex scandal
Cain's lack of policy chops hurt his campaign, but sex did him in, says Marc Caputo at?The Miami Herald. "Regardless of a candidate's persona or message, a sex scandal for which there's documentation is media catnip," and no candidate with sexual harassment settlements or incriminating phone records is safe in this age of 24-hour "cable-news networks, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube." Like it or not, "nothing's private in presidential politics," and alleged sexual impropriety will get you busted faster than anything else.

5. Candidates can succeed by keeping it simple
"Viewed at the highest possible altitude, what Cain's candidacy proved was the power ? and limits ? of simplicity and unconventionality in the Republican contest,"?says Chris Cillizza at?The Washington Post. His lasting legacy is going to be his 9-9-9 plan, especially "the sentiment of simplicity behind it." Here was a bold, clear, and different policy that voters could grasp and rally behind, and it surely influenced Rick Perry's embrace of a modified flat tax and Mitt Romney's cut-and-cap economic plan.

SEE MORE: Who benefits if Herman Cain drops out?

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6. Republicans should be wary of "baggage"
Cain's effectiveness ended with the sex allegations, says John Hinderaker at?PowerLine. And it's good for the GOP that he dropped out. Democrats are desperate to shift focus from the terrible economy to any "GOP candidate and his or her alleged foibles." Fair or not, the "moral of the Herman Cain story" is that if Republicans nominate "a candidate with baggage that permits the Democrats to turn him into the next Herman Cain, it is all too likely that President Obama will be re-elected."

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Gumming Up Appetite to Treat Obesity

News | Health

Researchers plan to create chewing gum that sneaks an appetite-suppressing hormone through the gut and into the blood

By Ferris Jabr ?| December 1, 2011?|

CHEMICAL COUPLE: The appetite-suppressing hormone hPYY hitches a ride with vitamin B-12 from the stomach to the bloodstream. Image: Damian Allis, Syracuse University

Losing weight is not always about anticipating swimsuit season or squeezing into skinny jeans?for the clinically obese, losing weight is about fighting serious illness and reclaiming health. But the primal part of the brain that regulates appetite will not place a moratorium on hunger just because someone and their doctor acknowledge the need to lose weight. Researchers at Syracuse University are working toward a unique solution: a stick of chewing gum that suppresses appetite.

There are many appetite-suppressing drugs on the market, a large number of which are based on stimulating amphetamines that carry the risk of serious side effects such as high blood pressure and heart failure. Syracuse Chemist Robert Doyle's research focuses on a hormone called human peptide YY (hPYY), which is released from cells that line the intestine whenever you eat and exercise. The more calories consumed, the more hPYY travels from intestinal cells into the bloodstream, eventually reaching the hypothalamus?an almond-size, evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that helps to regulate hunger, thirst, body temperature and sleep cycles.

Previous studies have shown that injections of hPYY suppress appetite in rodents, monkeys and people. In one study, both obese and lean people consumed about 30 percent fewer calories than usual at a buffet lunch only two hours after receiving a dose of hPYY.

Doyle wanted to know if hPYY still works when taken orally because pills and tablets are easy and painless compared with injections. The problem is that if you ingest pure hPYY, the caustic soup of acids and digestive enzymes in your stomach and intestine will destroy the hormone before it reaches your blood. In the body, intestinal cells secrete a precursor to hPYY that is transported into the blood and sliced into the right molecular shape in ways that are not well understood.

Doyle knew exactly how to protect hPYY in the stomach and gut. In earlier work, he found a way to safely ferry the hormone insulin through the digestive system by chemically linking insulin to vitamin B12. Since we do not produce B12 on our own, we have evolved a complex bucket brigade of molecules that ushers the essential vitamin on a journey from the food in our mouth to the bloodstream, where it nourishes all our cells. Doyle used this same trick with hPYY.

After bonding hPYY to vitamin B12, Doyle pumped a stream of the chemical couple directly into the stomachs of healthy rats. When he sampled the rats' blood for several hours after the feeding, he found levels of hPYY high enough to suppress appetite in a human adult. The findings show that B12 grants hPYY safe passage from the stomach to the bloodstream, as discussed online in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in November. Next, Doyle hopes to show that hPYY pumped into the stomachs of obese rats reduces their appetite and how many calories they consume.

The ultimate goal is hPYY medication that obese people can take orally in pill or tablet form?or even as chewing gum. Because recent research suggests there are PYY receptors in the tongue, hPYY chewing gum could promote feelings of satiety even sooner than hPYY pills.

Gregory Russell-Jones of Mentor Pharmaceutical Consulting in Sydney, who has saddled vitamin B12 with all kinds of peptides in the hopes of devising new drugs, says the new study "adds quite a bit of good work to the area. I think we are very close to oral delivery of peptides." Peptides are chains of amino acids, typically smaller than proteins, that function as hormones and signaling molecules in people and animals. They are small and chemically fragile enough to be destroyed by the stomach and gut but too large to pass into the blood unaided.

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As US-Myanmar ties warm, China stands conflicted (AP)

BEIJING ? China is a conflicted observer to Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip to Myanmar, caught between worries about U.S. encirclement in Asia and a desire to see its isolated, at times teetering neighbor become more stable.

The discord is evident in Beijing's public pronouncements about the U.S. secretary of state's visit. While the Foreign Ministry expressed support Thursday for Myanmar's outreach to the West, a top Chinese leader called for closer military relations when meeting Myanmar's armed forces commander this week. On state-run television, a commentary appended to footage of Clinton's arrival showed U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific.

"Beijing understands Myanmar's aspiration to diversify its international engagement and improve relations with the United States. However, Beijing doesn't wish to see those goals achieved at the expense of China," said Sun Yun, an expert on China's foreign relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Though estranged for decades when China armed anti-government ethnic groups and supported communist revolution in what was then called Burma, Beijing pivoted in the 1990s to lavish the benefits of trade on Myanmar, just as its military-backed government was sinking deeper into international isolation.

Now as Myanmar's largest economic partner, with $4.4 billion in trade last year and nearly $16 billion in total investment, China has unmatched reach. Its state companies are extracting minerals and timber and investing in dams and pipelines. Chinese food products, medicines and other goods flood Myanmar's markets.

As a result China is both ubiquitous and unpopular. The infrastructure projects have drawn protests from ethnic and environmental groups, which in part led to the new government's recent decision to suspend the $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone dam. Myanmar companies complain they cannot compete with lower-cost Chinese goods, many of which are smuggled over the border and not taxed. One midsize maker of cakes and cookies has said it might have to shut down.

"The Chinese are surprised by the changes in Burma. They misunderstand our country, our people," said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Burmese Communist Party strategist who lives in the Chinese border city of Ruili. "They have good relations with the government, but not with the people of Burma. There's more and more anti-Chinese sentiment among the people and among the army."

Further unnerving to Beijing is that Myanmar's tentative rapprochement with Washington comes amid a push by the Obama administration to strengthen ties with other countries on China's periphery as a hedge against its rising power.

As Myanmar warms to Washington, some Chinese foreign policy experts want renewed backing for the ethnic groups to tweak the Myanmar government and bring it in line, said Sun, the Brookings expert. For decades Beijing ratcheted its support for the groups up and down as leverage with Myanmar.

Though that remains an option, Sun said there's no evidence China is doing so. In recent years, Chinese policy has generally been to cool temperatures on its border with Myanmar.

Beijing-approved peace talks between the government and ethnic rebels have foundered in part over renewed fighting that Myanmar watchers said have displaced thousands, sending them to relief centers along the border.

Such chaos raises the prospect for Beijing that Myanmar could become another North Korea ? a client state whose dysfunction could spill across the border and destabilize China. The remedy for that, many experts inside and outside the government argue, is for China to encourage Myanmar to welcome Clinton and improve relations with the West, bringing in trade and investment that will spur growth and stability.

"If it improves relations with the United States, then its international environment will be better, and it can concentrate on economic construction and improving the lives of its people," said Qu Jianwen of Yunnan University, in the Chinese province bordering Myanmar. "Myanmar's internal political difficulties and ethnic disturbances have for too long prevented it from focusing on economic development."

Though better relations with Washington may allow Myanmar to reduce its dependence on China and give it some bargaining power, ultimately, Myanmar experts say, any distancing is limited by geography and by the pools of ready Chinese investment.

On Thursday, China said it will host the headquarters for a multinational security detail with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand to better police shipping on the Mekong River along their borders.

"I think people get confused when they say the Burmese want to move away from China. No no no," said Maung Zarni, a longtime exiled activist who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. "The Burmese cannot move away from China, because of geographic location, and the economic penetration as well as the demographic influence of China over Burma. What they want is the best of both worlds."

___

Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_re_as/as_china_myanmar_us

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Senate panel may subpoena MF Global's Corzine (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Senate Agriculture Committee will meet next week to vote on whether to subpoena former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine, if he and other company officials do not agree to appear before the panel on December 13.

Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow said in a statement on Friday that the committee has yet to hear from Corzine on whether he will voluntarily appear before her committee.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/bs_nm/us_mfglobal_congress_senateag

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Pokemon Destiny's Fufilled: Roleplayer's wanted

Ash kechum once a young aspiring pokemon trainer form Pallet Town. Has now for filled his dream of becoming a poke'mon master. Now returning to the Kanto Region to his home town. He plans to begin construction of a pokemon Gym in pallet town. With this news the whole kanto region is abuzz. With the news of the return of a pokemon master born form the kanto region.

With world spreading fast of ash's return. Rumors begin to spread. "Will he be staying here ?, Will this new gym bring more attention to the sweet hamlet of pallet town ? and most importantly. Is he single ?. Well along with all this great news of ash returning. Some other well know face
to the pokemon scene ehhh not so lucky. Jessie, James and Meouth of team rocket after much failure obtaining Ash's Famed Pikachu. Geovoni as at long last FIRED THEM. Will they seek revenge on the New Pokemon Gym leader, or abandon they're old ways and find a way to move on with they're lives.

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