Obama leads Romney in electoral college votes: report

President Barack Obama faces new warning signs in a once-promising Southern state and typically Democratic-voting Midwestern states roughly five months before the election even as he benefits nationally from encouraging economic news.

Obama's new worries about North Carolina and Wisconsin offer opportunities for Republican Mitt Romney, who must peel off states Obama won in 2008 if he's to cobble together the 270 electoral votes needed to oust the incumbent in November.

Iowa, which kicked off the campaign in January, is now expected to be tight to the finish, while New Mexico, thought early to be pivotal, seems to be drifting into Democratic territory.

If the election were today, Obama would likely win 247 electoral votes to Romney's 206, according to an Associated Press analysis of polls, ad spending and key developments in states, along with interviews with more than a dozen Republican and Democratic strategists both inside and outside of the two campaigns.

Seven states, offering a combined 85 electoral votes, are viewed as too close to give either candidate a meaningful advantage: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.

``As of today, the advantage still lies with the president, but there is a long and hard road ahead in this election,'' said Tad Devine, who was a top strategist to Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry but isn't directly involved in this year's race.

If Romney wins all the states Republican John McCain carried in 2008 plus North Carolina, as trends today suggest he would, he would still need 64 electoral votes to hit the magic number. That would require him to win a majority of the states that are up for grabs.

Obama, on the other hand, faces the costly and labor-intensive challenge of defending those states in a much different environment than the one he enjoyed four years ago.

Big-spending, pro-Romney political committees are certain to be a factor, and already are running heavy levels of television ads in states where Obama is vulnerable, such as Florida.

But Obama's early spending _ more than $30 million on advertising before Memorial Day _ and new glimmers of economic hope across the battleground states demonstrate the size of Romney's challenge.

The race is expected to be close, and the past six weeks have been volatile.

North Carolina is a case in point.

Obama announced his support for gay marriage on May 9, one day after 60 percent of North Carolina voters approved a constitutional ban. ``That issue definitely hurts him down there,'' said veteran Republican presidential campaign strategist Charlie Black, a top aide to 2008 nominee McCain. Black's not directly involved in this year's race but is an informal adviser to Romney.

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Health Fitness-4 | Acupuncture Online School

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Business VOIP Providers in Perth | The Best List

We've collated a list of the most popular and best Business VOIP Providers in Perth for your reference.
Our suggestion is to middle click (depress your mouse's scroll wheel) on each of the business names below to open their website in a new tab within your browser. Then you can compare prices and services of each business.

Perth Business VOIP ProvidersCommand A Com
Command A Com can provide you with complete business solutions in both Telecommunications and Voice/Data Cabling. Command A Com can provide a huge selection of Business Telephone Systems from leading brands such as Panasonic, Samsung and Avaya. We offer new VoIP phone systems from small, medium to large to accommodate any size business. We?re a major Telephone System Dealer who also provides sales, maintenance and support on a large range of telephone systems.

Esstech
Esstech Voice & Data understands the importance of ?integrated communications? and how this impacts on the efficiency and overall perception of your company. This is why we pride ourselves on providing unbiased solutions for small, medium to large based businesses. Esstech can provide a total solution to fit your current company needs, which will effectively increase your overall telecommunications efficiency. If your business is looking at upgrading your old system or are in the market for purchasing new, Esstech sales team can help tailor a solution to suit your needs.

Titan Cloud
Titan Cloud is the new utility of the 21st Century. Titan Cloud is an industry leader in the provision of Cloud Services throughout WA. Offering a range of Cloud Solutions including: Cloud Phone, Cloud Mail, Cloud Backup and Cloud IT Support, Titan Cloud is changing the way Perth businesses do business, through cost-effective, secure and scalable IT and communication solutions.

Thinkin IT
VoIP Phone Systems. Establishing good business communication is crucial for business success. At the same time, modern day businesses are looking for cost cutting communication systems. If you want the best call service at a modest price, then VOIP phone systems and VOIP solutions is the best choice for your business. The VOIP system can be easily customized for your business and that is why large organizations and small businesses are using VOIP solutions.

Phone Systems Perth
OPS is a business phone solution specialist servicing Perth?s local businesses. We take a different approach to business communications. We believe today?s communication tools should enhance how a business operates ? helping to reduce costs, improve efficiency and deliver a better customer experience ? as well as make phone calls of course.

Business VOIP Providers in Perth

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Seven Ways to Connect at a Business Networking Event With Dean ...

So your going to a networking funtion that you have never been to before (or maybe even one you have) determined to crack the networking code and start building priceless business relationships.? Careful, it?s possible to go to a networking event and not have any ?networking moments.?? Remember it is not just about showering and showing up. ?It?s about connecting with people and finding ways to help them progress.? Here are seven proven strategies for making contact at networking events.

1.? Go it alone.

When attending networking functions, go by yourself or at least communicate to your carpool buddies that you should all fan out.? Moving about a networking event solo encourages people to approach you and makes it easy to mingle and initiate conversations.? It may be more comfortable to have a friend right there with you, but remember: you are there to grow your network, not hang with the people already in your network.?

?2.? Stand near the registration table.?

After you have registered and put on your nametag, take advantage of the many opportunities to make small talk with new arrivals after they have signed in. These are the couple of minutes when most people are alone and interested in someone new to communicate with.? Even something really easygoing like, ?Looks like a good turnout?? is probably good enough to get a friendly conversation started.? Remember that like you, people are there to make new contacts.? And if they are not, they are in the wrong place.?

?3.? Study the tags.

If nametags are preprinted and on display at the registration table, scan the tags of the other attendees to see what opportunities await you.? Here?s something, though I have not tried this myself, Rachel Wood, a top financial advisor in the Boston area who introduced herself to me after one of my CODE Crackers Networking seminars, does something pretty neato.? If she spots a nametag on the registration table of someone she would like to meet, she asks the people manning the table if she can clip a note to their tag saying she would like to meet them.? She swears by it.?

?

?4.? Circle and scan.

Before diving into the event, try circling the room and checking out the nametags for people or companies you definitely want to make contact with while there.?

?5.? Look for people standing alone.

These folks may be nervous, and your initiative will often endear you to them.? Plus, one-on-one networking is the best networking.?

It is hard to join a group unless invited.?

?6.? Sit between people you do not know well.

If the event is a sit-down affair, do not sit by a friend or business associate.? You already know that person!? You might be sitting there a while, so make sure you are going to be sitting by someone you can form a new relationship with.? Plan who you want to sit by, but wait until the last minute to actually sit down so you can keep making new contacts.

7.? Hang out at the food table.?

I know it sounds like I?m joking, but people tend to be easily accessible around food.? Stand near the food table, but not the bar.? People tend to grab their drinks and move away from the bar, but are more likely to linger near the grub.?

As people check out the buffet table, small talk comes more easily. ?That Danish looks good?? is as good an opener as any.? Once they have their hands full, people often look for a flat surface where they can place their plate and beverage.? Take a spot next to them and get to chatting.

Check this out.? Our endorphin levels are higher when we are close to food, which boosts our memory and the chance that we will remember and be remembered.? We humans are a trip, aren?t we?

One quick DON?T

Don?t go to networking functions hungry.??

Eat before you go so you can focus on the person, not the cantaloupe.? If you are hungry, grab a quick bite off to the side, and then mingle.? And don?t talk with your mouth full. (I hope I didn?t need to write that.)

Get Cracking.

Be Progress.

Dean Lindsay
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/seven-ways-to-connect-at-a-busi...


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Stephanie Decker, Mom Who Lost Legs in Tornado, Walks on ?Ellen? (VIDEO)

Stephanie DeckerRemember Stephanie Decker, the heroic mom who lost both of her legs after saving her kids from a tornado earlier this year?

Doctors told her it would likely be a year before she would walk again.

It?s only been two months, and Decker walked on Ellen?the other day!

Not only that, but was dancing too!

There?s something to be said for the power of the human spirit.

Check out her amazing story in the video below.

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Whose Islands are they? South Korea tries branding in its dispute with Japan

Japan and Korea have long sparred over the Takeshima/Dokdo islets. The latest bid to promote Korea's claim: Napa Valley wine labels.

By Bryan Kay,?Correspondent / May 24, 2012

Dokdo island, also known as Takeshima in Japanese, east of Seoul, is seen in this August 2011 file photo.

Lee Sang-hak/Yonhap/Reuters/File

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When it comes to some disputed islets located in the Sea of Japan, South Korea is not shy about making its claim.

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Though the Japanese refer to island group as Takeshima and remain in a bitter dispute over the issue, ?Koreans are adamant that Dokdo is Korean sovereign territory ? and they are very committed to letting the rest of the world know.

The latest ploy: a Napa Valley wine produced by Korean-American dentist Ahn Jae-hyun at his Dokdo Winery that uses the island post code as its moniker.

Illustrating the fervor with which such attempts to garner attention for Korea?s sovereign claims over the outcrop, when the wine debuted on the Korean market the local distributor pledged to donate all proceeds to nonprofit groups promoting Korean sovereign claims in other countries. ?

While both Korea and Japan point to historical documents to back up their respective claims, South Korea has occupied Dokdo/Takeshima for more than half a century. And it remains a key rallying symbol for lingering resentment over Japan's colonial occupation of the then unified Korean Peninsula in the first half of the 20th century.

Previous efforts to highlight Korea?s territorial claims to Dokdo/Takeshima range from what some observers view as the practical to the more extreme.

In 2010, the Korean singer Kim Jang-hoon was behind a months-long video advertisement in New York's Times Square that not only specifically proclaimed Dokdo as Korean territory but also made sure to refer to the sea in which they are located the East Sea, as opposed to the Sea of Japan.

In recent years, a series of ads taken out in major American newspapers announced a near identical message. The latest, placed as a full-page ad in The New York Times in March by Dokdo campaigner Seo Kyoung-duk and South Korean e-commerce firm Gmarket displayed the national flags of four countries ? including the South Korean Taegukgi ? alongside the names of four islands related to each.

In the case of the other three countries, a line connects each island with the relevant national flag ? except that of South Korea and Dokdo. Readers were encouraged to connect the two, the implication being that Dokdo is Korean territory. Japan protested the ad.?

In 2008, the president of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association in the US produced plastic bags emblazoned with a picture and a map of the disputed island along with the English slogans ?Dokdo Island is Korean territory? and ?The Japanese government must acknowledge this fact,? which were taken up by about 100 Korean dry cleaners in New York.?

And the Korea Times, a leading South Korean English-language newspaper, has for several years run an international Dokdo-themed essay competition in conjunction with the Seoul-based Northeast Asian History Foundation that invariably challenges entrants to tip their hat toward Korea?s claims to the outcrop. The winner receives a $1,270 cash prize.

Still, despite the stated intentions of Dokdo wine producer Ahn and others like him, his website gently hints at what could be seen as the futility of the territorial dispute.

Without any apparent irony, it states: ?For as long as we can remember, there has been much controversy over the island and the ownership of it. Instead of appreciating the beauty of Dokdo, the world has been too busy fighting over it.?

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California tobacco tax measure risks going up in smoke

SAN FRANCISCO | Fri May 25, 2012 11:46pm BST

SAN FRANCISCO

(Reuters) - Health-conscious Californians may mostly oppose smoking for its costs to public health and the economy but an aggressive tobacco industry campaign and general anti-tax sentiment may block a measure to raise taxes on smokers.

Airwaves in the most populous U.S. state are filling up with advertising for and against Proposition 29, a June 5 ballot measure that would add a $1 tax to a pack of cigarettes, taking the tax to $1.87, mainly to fund medical research on tobacco usage and programs to prevent and control it.

More than $40 million, mostly from the tobacco industry, has been raised to defeat the measure, dwarfing its proponents' war chest. But proponents are showing an ability to punch above their weight, most recently with a television commercial whose characters satirically explain why they support "Big Tobacco."

One character says "I support Big Tobacco because they killed my wife and that's one less mouth to feed."

More tough TV spots may follow as survey results released this week showed just over half of likely voters supporting the measure - down from just over two-thirds in March.

"Today, 53 percent say they will vote yes, 42 percent say they will vote no, and 5 percent are undecided on the measure," the Public Policy Institute of California's survey report said.

The ballot measure in California, the world's ninth largest economy, is of national importance because other U.S. states often follow its lead in confronting problems in public health, the environment and other areas of public policy.

The drop in support puts Prop 29 below a critical level for revenue measures with election day fast approaching, said Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University.

"You've got to have 60 percent going in because there are always people who for whatever reason back off," he said, noting the drop also shows how effective advertising that taps into distrust of the state government has been against the measure.

That distrust is working against the general idea of raising tobacco taxes, which 63 percent of likely voters favor, said Mark Baldassare, the institute's president.

END RUN AROUND LEGISLATURE

"Sixty-two percent of likely voters say the state government wastes a lot of money," Baldassare said. "Any time you're asking voters to raise state taxes for any purpose and there is questioning of the functioning of state government it's going to raise doubts."

Californians have been questioning the finances of their state for a decade due to its persistent budget shortfalls.

Governor Jerry Brown earlier this month revised the state's projected deficit to $15.7 billion from a $9.2 billion gap forecast in January. To close the shortfall, he proposed cuts to state employees' pay and health, social and welfare programs. He also urged support for a tax measure in November to lift the state's sales tax and raise income taxes on wealthy taxpayers.

Supporters of Prop 29 did not expect smooth sailing to sway voters, but a tobacco tax increase has better odds at the ballot box than in the state legislature, said Jim Knox, a legislative advocate for the American Cancer Society.

By his count more than 30 efforts over the last three decades to have lawmakers raise tobacco taxes have failed.

There is no incentive for the legislature as a body to embrace a consequential tobacco tax increase, said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.

Democrats won't turn down support from the tobacco industry that helps cement their majority in the legislature while its Republican minority opposes taxes in general and needs any help it can get to retain seats.

"The legislature is just simply dominated by tobacco interests," said Glantz, whose work based on documents from a tobacco industry whistleblower helped produce the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

That settlement between 46 states and tobacco companies was the biggest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history.

NOT FOR STATE BUDGET

Distrust of the legislature informs the language of Prop 29, which would keep revenue it raises from going into the state's general fund - effectively keeping it out of lawmakers' hands.

The roughly $800 million the measure would raise in its first year, followed by decreasing amounts, would instead be set aside, mirroring a successful 1988 ballot measure that imposed a tax of 25 cents per pack of cigarettes.

The money would be overseen by a nine-member committee that includes three University of California chancellors, three cancer research institute directors, one physician affiliated with an academic medical center and two members of disease advocacy groups that focus on tobacco-related illnesses.

In 1998, voters added another 50 cent tax to fund smoking prevention and childhood development programs. That marked the last time they backed a tobacco tax increase. Anti-tobacco advocates credit such hikes with helping drive down the state's smoking rate, although smoking by teens is creeping up.

"As a practical matter you have to tell the voters where you're going to spend the money," Glantz said. "They don't want the money handed over to the politicians."

Only 17 percent of likely voters approve of the job the legislature is doing, compared with 71 percent who disapprove and 11 percent who don't know how they feel, according to the Public Policy Institute of California's survey results.

But Prop 29's opponents have been tapping into a related concern, charging in one TV ad the measure would create a huge new bureaucracy. That echoes claims of wasteful government spending which helped defeat a 2006 statewide measure that urged a $2.60 tax on packs of cigarettes.

(Reporting by Jim Christie; editng by Todd Eastham)

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Killings, cancer, corruption and Azerbaijan: Eurovision in the Islamic ...

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
crossposted at Left Foot Forward
May 26, 2012

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???????: ??????-??????? ??? ???????????? ?????? ????? ?????????? ?????????? ????????. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Palast?s book Vultures? Picnic will be released in Britain June 26. Catch Palast with Special Guest Warren Ellis, info here.

Will ?Beyond Petroleum? oil giant BP pick the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest today in Baku, Azerbaijan? If so, I wouldn?t be surprised.

When I was arrested by the military police of during my investigation of BP for Channel 4?s Dispatches in 2010, one of the cops who surrounded our crew in the desert told us, with great pride:

?BP drives this country.?

Indeed it does.

In 1992, the newly independent former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan elected a kindly Muslim Professor, Abulfaz Elchibey, as President.

But the voters had made an error: Elchibey refused to give BP an exclusive contract to drill the nation?s massive Caspian Sea fields as the company wished. In 1993, with the assistance and, reportedly, guns provided by MI6, Elchibey was overthrown by the nation?s former Soviet KGB boss, Heydar Aliyev.

Within three months, Aliyev handed BP a sweetheart deal, called ?The Contract of the Century?, to take Azerbaijan?s Caspian oil.

The way to the no-bid deal for BP was ?greased?, to use the term applied by former BP operative Leslie Abrahams, with several million dollars in illicit payments and weekends with lap dancers in London for Azeri officials. I asked Abrahams, who was ordered by BP to provide military intelligence to MI6, whether he understood that he was paying ?bribes on behalf of BP and the British government? ? he replied, ?absolutely, yes?.

When asked, BP would not directly deny paying bribes.

The company told us, tantalisingly, that:

?While there were some facts in [Abrahams] account that were accurate, we do not recognise most of it and regarded it as fantasy.?

(Here is Abrahams in the BP office with his Kalashnikov).

Since BP has taken control of Azerbaijan?s oil, the nation has become fabulously wealthy ? at least for those close to the Aliyev family and BP.

And they eat well. The daughters of the new President, Ilham Aliyev (son of Heydar), picked up the tab for dinner in London for a half dozen of their friends. It came to ?300,000 (excluding tip and VAT).

According to Robert Ebel, the CIA?s former oil intelligence chief, the whereabouts of $140 million in BP and other oil industry payments are ?totally unknown?.

This week, Eurovision Song Contest viewers will be treated to the images of the ancient city of Baku where the Silk Road streets are filled with Maseratis and Bentleys. The Bentley dealership, and much of the capital, is owned by Azerbaijan?s First Lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, the ?Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World?.

That?s official, the vote was taken by Esquire Magazine. (She?s actually the twelfth ?Sexiest Woman in the World?, but the other eleven, infidels all, can be ignored here.) (Photo here with husband Ilham).

I?m not saying she doesn?t deserve the title: her fashion model face has been created at great expense by ?so much plastic surgery?, according to the US State Department Manning/WikiLeaks cables, that Lady Mehriban ?appears unable to show a full range of facial expression.?

But when I left the Old City and its Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana stores and headed off to Sangachal, the town where BP?s terminal operates, I found a nation heading full speed into the 14th century?

Baku, once the world?s leading manufacturer of oil drilling equipment, is now one of the world?s leading centers of oil-toxin cancers. Walking along the main street of Sangachal, the aptly nicknamed, ?Terminal Town?, was like doing the rounds in a cancer ward.

The local shoemaker, Elmar Mamonov ? who hasn?t sold a shoe in two years ? told me:

?This one?s daughter has breast cancer; there, Rasul had a brain tumor. Cancers we had never seen. His funeral was last week.?

Azlan, afraid to give his last name, paid to have a cancerous lung cut out, because employer BP wouldn?t pay. He says the oil company fired him after he could not keep up with his work.

And there was Shala Tageva, a schoolteacher, who has ovarian cancer. She needs treatment soon, but how to pay for it, Mamonov can?t imagine. Shala is Mamonov?s wife.

Suddenly, Mamonov stopped himself.

?If I am arrested, you will help me, yes??

Sorry, sir, not in the Islamic Republic of BP.

Oil, their main industry, has seen employment drop about 90 per cent according to journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Her father, the former oil production minister, was fired by Aliyev when the minister suggested bribery was behind the destruction of the industry, bribes which allegedly allowed BP to avoid ?local content? laws that would have saved those jobs.

Throughout the nation, we heard the same refrain: nostalgia for the old days of freedom and prosperity under Soviet rule; under BP rule, the people?s health, income and freedoms have decayed rapidly, as pollution has turned their Caspian fisheries into a dead, chemical toilet.

But Azeris are well entertained. The massive expenditure for the Eurovision Song Contest follows the government?s spending of $1 million for an Elton John concert during a depression.

Today, only one in seven dollars of GDP is paid in salaries (versus four of five dollars in the US and UK). Where have the billions gone? No one dare look for it, nor the source of the First Lady?s wealth. The last journalist who asked about the funds, Elmar Huseynov, was gunned down in his home. A journalist who questioned what happened to Huseynov was jailed. No third journalist is investigating what happened to the first two.

Azerbaijan is, nominally, a democracy. Indeed, the First Lady won a convincing election to Parliament (as did every other candidate supporting her husband?s regime ? there was not a single member of the opposition elected). But it doesn?t, in the end, matter who is voted in, as long as ?BP drives?.

Within hours of our arrest, my crew and I were released by the Deputy Chief of the Security Ministry: Imprisoning a Channel 4 reporter would have been an embarrassment for BP. But our witnesses to BP?s horrific drilling practices didn?t do so well. One made it out of the country, but others disappeared.

When you watch the Euro-warblers compete this Saturday, just remember that in Azerbaijan, the winners are already chosen: BP and the family of the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. And that?s not a pretty sight.


Re-prints permitted with credit to Greg Palast.

Here?s a clip from my interactive book.

Greg Palast?s book on BP, ?Vultures? Picnic: A Tale of Oil, High-Finance and Investigative Reporting?, will be released in Britain on June 26th; click here for tickets and details of the launch event at ULU (the University of London Union) on June 26th..

You can read Vultures? Picnic, ?Chapter 1: Goldfinger,? or download it, at no charge: click?here.

see

Greg Palast: BP Coverup,?Coverup

Arrest of BP Scapegoat: Real Killers Walk by Greg?Palast

BP Cover-up Part 2: Bribery, George Bush and WikiLeaks by Greg?Palast

BP Cover-up ?They Knew.? by Greg?Palast

Chapter One of Vultures? Picnic by Greg Palast + Palast: Put your money in community?banks

Palast Arrested ? Busted by BP in Azerbaijan by Greg?Palast

BP-Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster on Dandelion Salad

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New prostate cancer screening guidelines face a tough sell, study suggests

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2012) ? Recent recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advising elimination of routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer in healthy men are likely to encounter serious pushback from primary care physicians, according to results of a survey by Johns Hopkins investigators.

In a survey of 125 primary care doctors, the researchers found that while doctors agreed with older recommendations to curtail routine screening in men over age 75 and among those not expected to live 10 or more years, a large number said they faced significant barriers to stopping PSA testing in men who had been receiving it regularly. The most frequently cited reason by 74.4 percent of physicians was, "My patients expect me to continue getting yearly PSA tests," followed by 66 percent of them who said, "It takes more time to explain why I'm not screening than to just continue screening." More than half of those surveyed in the new study believed that, "By not ordering a PSA, it puts me at risk for malpractice."

The survey was conducted in November 2011, right after draft recommendations were made to end routine screening of all men, but before last week, when the draft recommendations were officially approved.

"It can be very difficult for doctors to break down the belief that all cancer screening tests are invariably good for all people all the time," says Craig E. Pollack, M.D., M.H.S., an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and leader of the study published online in the journal Cancer. "Everyone agrees that PSA screening isn't as good as we want it to be. If we had a test that was a slam dunk, it would be different. But now we know that for many men, the benefits may be small and the harms significant."

Each year, more than 33,000 American men die of prostate cancer, and 20 million get the PSA test to detect the disease early.

According to the USPSTF, evidence suggests the potential harms caused by PSA screening of healthy men as a means of identifying prostate cancer outweigh its potential to save lives and that routine annual screening should be eliminated in the healthy. Elevated PSA readings are not necessarily evidence of prostate cancer, and can lead to unnecessary prostate biopsy. In addition, even when biopsies reveal signs of prostate cancer cells, evidence shows that a large proportion will never cause harm, even if left untreated. The disease in older men often progresses slowly so that those who have it frequently die of other causes.

Treatments for prostate cancer can include the removal of the prostate, radiation or other therapies, each of which has the potential to cause serious problems like erectile dysfunction, complete impotence, urinary incontinence or bowel damage. And men who choose to "watch and wait" after elevated PSA readings must live with the anxiety of knowing they have an untreated cancer that could start to progress.

In the new study, Pollack and his colleagues found that while most physicians said they took age and life expectancy into account when deciding to order PSA screening, many also said they had a hard time estimating life expectancy in their patients and could use a better tool. H. Ballentine Carter, M.D., a professor of urology at Johns Hopkins and the senior investigator on the study, is planning to investigate the potential of individualized prostate cancer screening recommendations. Specifically, he and colleagues plan to create a decision-making tool that incorporates age, life expectancy, family history and prior PSA results in order to help doctors and their patients make better choices for prostate cancer screening.

In another report derived from results of Pollack's and Carter's survey, published in April in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers say nearly half of the providers agreed with the new USPSTF recommendations to eliminate routine screening for healthy men. Still, less than two percent said they would no longer order routine PSA screening in response to the draft recommendations; 21.9 percent said they would be much less likely to do so; 38.6 percent said they would be somewhat less likely to do so; and 37.7 percent said they would not change their screening practices.

"Men often expect PSA screening to be part of their annual physical," Pollack says. "To change their minds, we need to address their perceptions about screening, allow time for screening discussions and reduce concerns regarding malpractice litigation."

The studies were supported in part by a Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund Research Grant to Johns Hopkins.

Other Johns Hopkins researchers involved with the studies included Elizabeth A. Platz, Sc.D., M.P.H.; Nrupen A. Bhavsar, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Gary Noronha, M.D.; Gene E. Green, M.D.; and Sean Chen, B.A.

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N.J. mayor arrested on hacking, conspiracy charges

IDG News Service - The mayor of West New York, New Jersey, was arrested together with his son on Thursday, for allegedly hacking into a website that criticized him and his administration.

Felix Roque, 55, of Hudson County, and Joseph Roque, 22, of Passaic County, were charged with gaining unauthorized access to computer systems, causing damage to protected computers and conspiracy to commit those crimes, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey said on Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint filed against Felix Roque and his son, on Feb. 6, 2012, the two men began to conspire to hack into and disable a website called www.recallroque.com.

The website had been set up anonymously by a Hudson County resident and government official earlier that month and had received contributions from a number of people, identified in the complaint as victims.

For the next two days, Joseph Roque allegedly researched hacking tutorials online and attempted to learn the identity of the website's owner by sending him messages and posing as a person interested in contributing to the website.

On Feb. 8, Joseph Roque managed to reset the password for the email account associated with the recallroque.com domain name and took screenshots of the email messages found inside, an FBI agent who investigated the case said in a sworn affidavit. Some of the messages exposed the identities of people who had sent information to the website, he said.

Joseph Roque then allegedly performed a password reset for the Go Daddy account used to administer recallroque.com. This allowed him to cancel the domain name and effectively disable the website, the FBI agent said in the affidavit.

Over the course of the following days, Mayor Roque allegedly used the information gathered by his son to call or email the website's contributors with the intention of intimidating them.

During a meeting with the website's owner on Feb. 17, which was being recorded by the latter at the request of law enforcement, Mayor Roque attempted to conceal the hacking activity by suggesting that he had a friend at the CIA who provided him with the information.

"It's incredibly disappointing that resources have to be diverted from protecting the US against cyber intrusions targeting critical infrastructure, federally funded research and military technology, to address a public official intruding into computer systems to further a political agenda," FBI Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, who led the FBI team that investigated this case, said.

The conspiracy and unauthorized computer access charges each carry a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to US$250,000. The charge of causing damage to protected computers is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Ironically, even though he now stands charged with hacking into a website that was trying to organize a petition to recall him from office, Felix Roque has lead a recall effort himself in 2009 against the former West New York mayor, Silverio Vega.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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