PS Vita Is The Ultimate JRPG Console, But it Needs More Support From Sony

The PS Vita is definitely blooming in Japan, posting very solid sales numbers every week. The time in which Sony?s portable was struggling in its home turf is mostly history now and its current momentum has sparked a very healthy third party support, especially between JRPG developers.

The Vita is simply perfect for JRPGs: it?s beautiful and bright OLED screen brings the colorful worlds to life better than any other, and the screen?s small size keeps at bay the imperfection of engines that often aren?t state-of-the-art. The touch screen (even if it?s not universally used) is also very conducive to making the typical JRPG interfaces more intuitive and fast. Finally the strong focus on digital download makes smaller titles less costly to publish.

I can?t almost remember a single day in the last few months in which we didn?t get news about one of the many upcoming JRPGs Japanese developers are cooking for Sony?s portable (and you can probably notice it by yourself, since here at DualShockers we don?t ignore everything that isn?t Call of Duty or Assassin?s Creed). The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki, Exstetra, Chronos Materia, Dragon?s Crown,?Freedom Wars, God Eater 2?these are just some of the many titles we hear about almost daily. We don?t even need to look to the many compatible PSP games and PlayStation classics, because if we did the amount and variety would become mind boggling.

That?s a real JRPG treasure chest for everyone that loves the genre, but there?s still a problem, and it?s unfortunately the same problem that affected the PSP. Most of those games don?t get localized for the western market, with the result that most of us don?t get to enjoy a large percentage of the role playing gems available for the console.

If we take a look at the history of the PSP, the situation is pretty much the same. The console was (and to an extent still is) very popular in Japan, where gamers could enjoy an extremely rich line-up of games (again, many of those were JRPGs), while most of those titles didn?t make it to the western shores where the console languished due to a poor software line up. The dreadful sin that was the lack of a localization for games like Valkyria Chronicles 3 still burns.

Many Japanese developers and publishers are still hesitant to bring their games to the west because the installed base isn?t enormous yet, and because they don?t feel up to shouldering the localization expenses. Some simply aren?t interested in the North American and European markets because the local market gives them all the profit they need to thrive.

Luckily we have a few brave niche publishers in the west like NIS America and XSeed Games that are ready to pick up some small titles and bring them over for us to enjoy, but their resources are limited, and they can only work on a mere fraction of what Japan offers.?

So who should take it upon themselves to bring us all that JRPG goodness? No one is in a better position for that than Sony Computer Entertainment itself.

Sony has made headlines lately with their support of indie developers, especially thanks to the PubFund, a rather sizable investment that goes into supporting select indie studios that want to create their games on PlayStation platforms. Something similar could be put in action to help JRPG developers bring their games to the West, by shouldering part or the entirety of the localization costs (that aren?t exactly enormous), in exchange for a share of the profits.

Don?t get me wrong, I?m not in any way advocating subtracting resources from the indies to allocate them to JRPGs. I?m talking about something completely separate. As a matter of fact, Sony could easily find it advantageous to creating a dedicated?in house\ JRPG localization studio, and act directly as the publisher for the most interesting titles.

The localized titles don?t even need to get a physical release, as publishing them on the PSN would be plenty to make most of the fans happy, further reducing the costs of the whole operation. This would allow Sony to effectively multiply the number of PS Vita titles available in the west at the price of a reasonably low investment, and I?m ready to bet that considering the average localization costs and digital publishing costs, Sony would end up making a respectable profit out of the deal as well.

As an added bonus Sony Computer Entertainment would solidify its relationship with several Japanese studios in the process, granting them a further source of income and fueling the development of additional games (many of which would surely be on PlayStation platforms), contributing to strengthening Japanese development as a whole.

Of course the project wouldn?t even need to be limited to the PS Vita, as it could easily involve the PS3 and the upcoming PS4, and it wouldn?t even need to stop at JRPGs. There are a lot of Japanese games belonging to other genres that would do quite well in the west if marketed the right way and published while keeping costs low. Yakuza 5 comes to mind.

Let?s take a look at the history of PlayStation and the old, glorious years of the PS1 and the PS2. Think about the games that drove the brand to greatness, and I?m quite sure you?ll notice that many were JRPGs. I?m also just as sure that I?m not the only one that feels that the genre has been sorely missed by many in the PS3 generation.

Modern PlayStation platforms are targeted to a fairly mature audience, and a big slice of that audience was already gaming during the previous generations. They remember the wonderful JRPGs of old, and seeing more games like those today would make a lot of people happy, and definitely more interested in purchasing a PS Vita. PlayStation has always been a brand strongly rooted in its Japanese heritage, and many appreciated it exactly because of that flavor that is now partly gone. Bringing it back is definitely in Sony?s best interest.

It?s noteworthy that Sony already expressed some form of interest in bringing more JRPGs to the vita with the?#jrpgvita ?campaign? on Twitter by SCEE?Senior Business Development Manager?Shahid?Kamal Ahmad, that incidentally is at the forefront of the brand?s indie support. We still have to see the results of that, but the interest is there, and it just needs to be pushed further with actual investment and resources.

Some could object that JRPGs nowadays aren?t system sellers, and it?s hard for them to make a real profit, but that?s not really true.?It?s definitely not random that the highest rated PS Vita game on Metacritic is a JRPG coming from the PS2 generation:?Persona 4 Golden.

Companies with a lot less resources and marketing potential than Sony live and thrive almost exclusively on JRPGs, like the aforementioned XSeed games and NIS America. How do they do that? By keeping costs low and by focusing their promotion in the right places. For instance if you go to big anime conventions (that are very fertile ground for JRPGs, for obvious reasons), you?ll almost inevitably find the booths of those publishers showing off their latest games, promoting them to the right crowd that is already sensitive to the topic. Word of mouth and the clever use of social networking does the rest.

Of course Sony has a much larger arsenal of marketing resources, and if there?s a company that can push the genre to a wider audience without needing to spend inordinate amount of money it?s them.

Ultimately, Sony Computer Entertainment has the means, the motive and the opportunity to turn the PS Vita into the ultimate JRPG machine in the west like it is in Japan, and to extend that wealth to the PS3 and to the PS4 as well. They only need to have the courage to go back to their roots and take that step, reaching out to the Japanese developers that helped them raise to greatness in the past in order to forge a new alliance to conquer the west again. Nihon Falcom, Gust, Acquire and many others are there just waiting for a nudge in the right direction.

To conclude, let us give a look to the rich JRPG line-up on the PS Vita, from the past and the future, including the games published or to be published in the west, and those that are still waiting for a localization announcement. Titles published in the west will be in black, those published only in Japan will be in red, upcoming titles that already have a western release announced will be in blue, while those that still haven?t been announced for localization will be in green. It?s the best way to show quite clearly where the problem is, and how much Sony has to gain by solving it

Atelier Meruru Plus: The Apprentice of Arland?

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Chronos Materia

Conception II

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Danball Senki W

Demon Gaze

Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention

Disgaea 4: Return

Dragon?s Crown

Exstetra

Final Fantasy X HD

Final Fantasy X-2 HD

Freedom Wars

God Eater 2

Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth

Hyper Goddess Faith Noir

Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur

Lord of Apocalypse

Meikyuu Cross Blood:?Infinity

MIND?0

Muramasa Rebirth

New Little King?s Story

Persona 4: Golden

Phantasy Star Online 2

Picotto Knights

Ragnarok Odyssey/Ragnarok Odyssey ACE

Sei Madou Monogatari

Super Heroine Chronicle

Super Robot Wars Taisen OG Saga Masou Kishin 3: Pride of Justice

Tales of Innocence R

Tales of Hearts R

The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki

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Woman wins $18.6 million for two-year battle over credit report

credit-and-debt

The Associated Press Staff

11 hours ago

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A federal jury in Oregon has awarded $18.6 million to a woman who spent two years unsuccessfully trying to get Equifax Information Services to fix major mistakes on her credit report.

Julie Miller of Marion County was awarded $18.4 million in punitive damages and $180,000 in compensatory damages, though Friday's award against one of the nation's major credit bureaus is likely to be appealed, The Oregonian reported.

The jury was told she contacted Equifax eight times between 2009 and 2011 in an effort to correct inaccuracies, including erroneous accounts and collection attempts, as well as a wrong Social Security number and birthday. Her lawsuit alleged the Atlanta-based company failed to correct the mistakes.

"There was damage to her reputation, a breach of her privacy and the lost opportunity to seek credit," said Justin Baxter, a Portland attorney who worked on the case with his father and law partner, Michael Baxter. "She has a brother who is disabled and who can't get credit on his own, and she wasn't able to help him."

Tim Klein, an Equifax spokesman, declined to comment on specifics of the case, saying he didn't have any details about the decision from the Oregon Federal District Court.

Miller discovered the problem when she was denied credit by a bank in early December 2009. She alerted Equifax and filled out multiple forms faxed by the credit agency seeking updated information. She had found similar mistakes in her reports with other credit bureaus, Baxter said, but those companies corrected their errors.

A Federal Trade Commission study earlier this year of 1,001 consumers who reviewed 2,968 of their credit reports found 21 percent contained errors. The survey found that 5 percent of the errors represented issues that would lead consumers to be denied credit.

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Daily Chronicle | As America Ages, Part One: Boomers often must ...

Linda Chapman used to be a serial caregiver.

The retired high school teacher, who lives in DeKalb, began taking care of her mother after her father died in 1988.

At about the same time, her husband was dealing with a condition called temporomandibular joint disorder, which she described as being an arthritis of the mouth. All the while, she was taking care of her own newborn son.

?The [summer weather] would have sent [my husband] into pain for a couple of weeks at a time,? Chapman said. ?We tried everything we could imagine.?

Chapman?s husband died in 1999, but shortly thereafter, her mother moved in when her Alzheimer?s worsened. Chapman said she provided financial assistance, as well as arranged doctor appointments and transportation, to her mother until she died in 2008.

Chapman is a baby boomer ? one of the 76 million people who were born between 1946 to 1964 after World War II. This large generation has left an indelible mark on society, transforming America?s culture and economy that led to the United States? rise as a global leader.

As baby boomers cross the threshold into retirement age ? 10,000 boomers a day turn 65 ? more of their attention is turning to family and the need to care for their aging parents while helping their adult children in a down economy.

?You have this group of individuals who were looking forward to retirement, and then everything burst, and now they?re having to work longer,? said Tara Culotta, executive director of DeKalb County Elder Care Services. ?Or they?re having grown adult children move back home with them, who are unemployed or are having their own financial problems.?

Elder Care Services provides information assistance to people older than 60, on topics such as managing their finances. They also investigate instances of elder abuse.

Culotta said the agency knew the senior population was increasing, but she is seeing higher numbers of younger seniors needing help. Earlier in her career, Culotta said she dealt with mostly 80-year-olds who were trying to maintain their independence.

Now, many of the people who come into the agency are younger seniors who are having difficulty paying their rent or mortgages, and they?re frustrated.

?I think a lot of them are frustrated because they?re finding themselves in these predicaments they never dreamed of being in at this age,? Culotta said. ?I think all of them kind of thought they had planned well enough or saved enough. They just didn?t picture themselves thrown in a situation where they?re asking for help for somebody to clean their home, or some financial assistance.?

?Sandwich generation?

At the same time, there are baby boomers who are taking care of an older parent while also helping their children. Culotta referred to them as being a ?sandwich generation.?

Nearly 10 million American adult children over the age of 50 now provide care for their aging parents, a 2011 study from MetLife on the caregiving costs for working baby boomers found.

The total lifetime financial impact ? in terms of lost wages, Social Security benefits and private pensions ? for the average baby boomer to care for their parents is $303,880, the study found. That is the cost for leaving the labor force early and/or reduced hours of work because of caregiving responsibilities.

The caregiving role ranges from helping with the bills to helping with medical treatment. About a third of caregivers, the study showed, work less hours or leave the workforce early to focus their efforts on caring for their elderly parents.

?The trend is that people want to live in their homes and not in an institutionalized program,? said Betsy Creamer, supervisor for the Illinois Department on Aging?s Office of Older American Services. ?Baby boomers are providing more and more care to their families as caregivers.?

Creamer?s office helps administers the department?s community care program, which provides in-home services for seniors. The state of Illinois has seen a ?fairly dramatic? increase in demand for the program, which now serves 46,750 more residents than in 2003, Creamer said.

Many baby boomers also feel an obligation to help their children, who are more frequently returning home after college to look for career-oriented job prospects in a slow economy that includes persistently high unemployment.

A 2012 survey from the National Endowment for Financial Education found that 59 percent of parents are providing financial support to adult children who no longer are in school.

The support includes assistance with living expenses, transportation costs, medical bills and repaying home loans, the survey found.

The findings were released at the same time MetLife Mature Market Institute surveyed 2,123 Americans ages 21 to 65 on the level of financial responsibility people of different generations feel in a variety of family roles.

About 44 percent of baby boomers felt an absolute or strong responsibility to provide for their child?s higher education. A near identical amount ? 45 percent ? felt the same way about allowing a child to live at home during times of financial difficulty.

Connie and Ronnie Clarner are perhaps an exception to the rule: As they enter retirement, they have not had to take care of any family members, nor are they taking care of their adult sons, Tom and Jeff.

But that?s because by the time Connie Clarner was 28, she had lost her whole family. Her mother died from a brain tumor at age 50. Five years later, her father suffered a severe heart attack and died in his bathroom at age 61. Three years after that, her sister was shot to death by her husband.

?I outlived them all,? said Clarner, now 65. Her husband Ronnie is in a similar situation ? both of his parents and his brother have died from cancer.

Instead, Clarner takes care of her husband, who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident in 2000. She said she is enjoying retirement, but she recognizes she is fortunate. A lot of her insurance is covered by Northern Illinois University, where her husband worked for decades.

?I was very worried,? Clarner said. ?I kept thinking, ?It?s time to retire,? because the job was getting stressful. But I was very worried because now suddenly you?re going to be taking home a lot less money than what you were used to bringing in.

?But for some reason, it works. It?s because you?re not buying the clothes cause you?re not working. It?s not going every day in the car using gas ... Something?s different.?

There are 40 hours, 51 minutes remaining to comment on this story.

Source: http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2013/06/05/as-america-ages-part-one-boomers-often-must-care-for-parents-children/aab57pu/

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DOTA 2 is a blight on the gaming community | Lazygamer .:: The ...

Gamers and the gaming community have often been seen as being unnecessarily aggressive in games with ? ?slurs on people?s mothers being the absolute norm and attacks on peoples? gender, race and belief systems simply par for the course. So why do I single out DOTA 2?

Well, because while the gaming communities are often their own worst enemies when it comes to being respected as a mature hobby and something that can be grown into a truly representative sport, it has always been inclusive of other members of the gaming community.

Yes it?s hard to get into and you need some seriously thick skin to stay here but generally gamers like gamers and things are pretty happy all round. That is until DOTA arrived.?I?m generally an average gamer; I can hold my own in most games and while any game has a learning curve I?ve never before been massively abused for being a noob? that is until I tried DOTA.

But let?s take a step back here. The first I heard about DOTA was from a friend in the industry who has a hopeless addiction to the game. He went on about how incredible the game was and how deep the strategy and gameplay was and that I should really give it a go.

So I agreed and installed DOTA 2 and then asked if I can join his game his response surprised me

?er, no I think maybe you should just play with bots for a couple of days and then maybe?

I?ve never been invited to play a game before and then get told that they don?t want to play with me. I just thought he was being a bit of an ass so I asked some other regular DOTA players and I got the exact same response from all of them. It was amazing.

So I went online and played some DOTA 2 against the bots ? and it was painfully boring. I had no idea what I was meant to do (besides the obvious) and after about 3 games I just gave up.

I then entered the South Africa DOTA 2 group on Steam. I mean South Africans are awesome people and so I?d surely find someone on there to have a casual game with me.?How wrong I was. I got invited to 3 games and then when I said I was a noob I got instantly kicked. No explanation given just a pure kick.

When I asked the main chat group why no one would play with a noob I was subjected to a torrent of abuse. It was amazing. I?ve received a crap load of abuse while running this site and I have to say that the abuse I came under on the DOTA group for simply saying I?m a noob was mind-blowing.

But what?s more depressing really are posts like this that people publically post on forums like neogaf

The headline reads, Region Lock Multiplayer Games Good, which besides its horrendous English is a very strange thing to see on a gaming forum. The actual post is worse though.

?Lost 4/5 games in dota 2 today because brazil and peru player wont fucking stay in their own region.

Goes into us east/west and ruins the game.

Someone disconnects? *checks steam profile* GUESS WHAT, south american
entire game, their little group talks in their own language, when they die, they start blaming it on other people, all i see is ? ?report _____?, ?jajaja?, ?nob?, other broken english being spammed using mic and speaking entire time, other teammates have no clue what?s going on and is really annoying (i had a game once where 4 of us were english speakers and the 5th guy was probably spanish, he kept talking into the mic, the rest of us told him NONE of us spoke his language but he continued to speak the entire game) of course i?ve had good games with them before, but holy shit, when it?s 1 game out of 20, just fuck it, ip ban them from our region please?

So this game has become so divisive that it is now seen as acceptable to post on public forums that you don?t want people of other races and languages to play with you in your game??The game itself may be good but the vast majority of the community is an acerbic, ?absolute disgrace and they really should be ashamed of themselves.

To any DOTA player who wants to say this isn?t true of them and their friends then tell me; have you complained about the Russians joining your Western servers and ruining the game?

Source: http://www.lazygamer.net/pc-gaming/dota-2-is-a-blight-on-the-gaming-community/

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Dozens dead, scores injured, as train derails in Spain

Lavandeira Jr / EPA

Scores are killed and injured in a train derailment in NW Spain.

By Becky Bratu and Jason Cumming, NBC News

At least 77 people were killed and up to 131 injured after a train crashed in northwestern Spain on Wednesday, officials said.

Images from the scene showed bodies covered in blankets and towels lying next to toppled and crushed carriages as a plume of smoke billowed from the wreckage near Santiago de Compostela. Rescuers worked to pull survivors out of broken windows.?

"It was going so quickly. ... It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other," passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station, according to Reuters. "A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realized the train was burning ... I was in the second wagon and there was fire ... I saw corpses."

There are reports of as many as 100 people wounded and doezens dead in a train derailment in northwestern Spain. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

The train?was traveling between Madrid and Ferrol. The crash occurred as Santiago de Compostela prepared for the festival of Saint James, when thousands of Christian pilgrims from across the world pack the streets.?

"The scene is shocking, it's Dante-esque," the head of Spain's Galicia region, Alberto Nunez Feijoo,?said in a radio interview, according to Reuters.

Feijoo said it was too early to say what had caused the derailment.?

El Pais newspaper cited sources close to the investigation as saying the train was travelling at over twice the speed limit on a sharp curve. NBC News was unable to immediately confirm the report.

Reuters quoted a source as saying that investigators were "moving away from the hypothesis of sabotage or attack."

A statement released by Renfe, a?state-owned company that operates freight and passenger trains, read:?"An Alvia train traveling between Madrid and Ferrol has derailed upon entering the station of Santiago de Compostela at 8:41 p.m. [local time]. The train was traveling on high-speed tracks carrying a total of 218 passengers in addition to the crew."

Reuters

Rescue workers pull victims from a train crash near Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on Wednesday.

A Spanish government spokeswoman said Prime Minister?Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, was due to visit the accident site on Thursday morning.

The crash happened on the eve of the city's main festival, which focuses on St. James, one of Jesus's 12 disciples, whose remains are said to rest in the city.?

Santiago de Compostela's tourism board said all the festivities, including Wednesday's traditional High Mass at the centuries-old cathedral, were canceled as the city went into mourning.?

Wednesday's derailment was one of the worst rail accidents in Europe over the past 25 years.

In November 2000, 155 people were killed when a fire in a tunnel engulfed a funicular train packed with skiers in Austria.

In Montenegro, up to 46 people were killed and nearly 200 injured in 2006 when a packed train derailed and plunged into a ravine outside the capital, Podgorica.

And in Spain, 41 people were killed the same year when an underground train derailed and overturned in a tunnel just before entering the Jesus metro station in Valen

Reuters contributed to this report.?

This story was originally published on Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:23 PM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663309/s/2f1f2c5d/sc/11/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A70C240C196619440Edozens0Edead0Escores0Einjured0Eas0Etrain0Ederails0Ein0Espain0Dlite/story01.htm

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Shhhh. Republicans Are Defending Earmarks

Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee are starting to quietly defend earmarks, three years after Congress banned the practice because members said it wasted taxpayer dollars during a time of trillion-dollar deficits.

?We have a moratorium, so we?re living by that,? said Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa. But his thoughts, though not fully articulated, are friendlier toward earmarks than the defenders of the moratorium. As he put it, ?I see it very differently.?

Shuster acknowledged the bad reputation that earmarks?federal dollars directed to local projects?have earned in years past. And he didn?t go so far as to explicitly say that earmarks have a legitimate role in Congress, or that the House should drop the ban. But he also didn?t dwell on the negative side, noting the practice could be helpful to legitimate projects, ?as long as there?s transparency and it?s not done in the dark of night.?

Leaders on the Transportation Committee are keenly aware of exactly how earmarks can be used (and abused). Geography has played a huge role in the committee?s jurisdiction over roads and waterways, making earmarks integral to most bills before the ban was put in place in 2010. The last time Congress passed a full-scale reauthorization of the highway bill eight years ago, under the chairmanship of Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, it included some 6,300 earmarks. The last time Congress reauthorized the Water Resources Development Act in 2007, under then-Chairman Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., it contained almost 900 earmarks.

In interviews with National Journal Daily, Oberstar, Young, and former Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., struck a similar tone to Shuster?s. All four voiced the same argument: If Congress doesn?t earmark the money to go somewhere, agencies in the Obama administration will.

?I think continued abuse by the executive branch will lead people back to responsible designations by Congress and a priority of projects,? Mica said. ?At some point, things will turn around and come back. When people abuse either one, whether it?s executive branch or Congress, there is a rebellion, and that took place with earmarks.?

Old-timers on the panel say earmarks were unfairly vilified. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., noted that earmarks made up only 6 or 7 percent of the 2005 highway bill. Other lawmakers in both parties who sit on the Transportation Committee have articulated similar arguments.

?The word ?earmark? has associated with it [a] sort of frivolous congressional or political decision-making,? said Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Tom Petri, R-Wis. ?If you eliminate earmarks but then substitute frivolous or arbitrary administrative decision-making, people don?t like that either. But someone has to make decisions.?

Young has consistently supported earmarks, despite the ban. And that support has brought him some notoriety in years past. In 2005, while crafting the last full reauthorization of a transportation bill, then-Chairman Young successfully added almost $1 billion worth of earmarks for projects in Alaska, including an earmark worth $230 million to build a bridge from the Alaskan mainland to a sparsely populated island (albeit with Alaska?s second-largest international airport). It became known as the ?Bridge to Nowhere.?

A political slogan symbolizing Washington?s wasteful spending was born, and earmarks began their demise. Lost in this debate was the fact that earmarks made up a minuscule fraction of the federal budget, less than one-half of 1 percent.

Today, Young says Congress?s passing of legislation sans earmarks, as the committee is trying to do now with the waterways bill, is an affront unless lawmakers come up with an alternative that keeps power away from the administration.

?I?m not going to be part of a bill that will not retain power back to Congress,? Young said. ?I?m fed up with this idea that we?re ceding power. Why the hell are we congressmen??

Young is so far supporting the waterways bill that Shuster and ranking member Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., are working on together. Shuster is grappling with the inherent difficulty of writing a bill without earmarks for a measure that was once composed almost entirely of earmarks. His aides are tight-lipped about how he plans to do it.

?I have to make sure that I explain to my conference that if you do it in a new way?as opposed to the way we used to do it?we will cede our power to the executive branch,? Shuster said at a March speech at the National Waterways Conference.

These arguments are apparently not persuading leadership to change course. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio?a staunch opponent of earmarks?does not plan to lift the moratorium.

?The House earmark ban will continue, and any bill brought to the floor on WRDA or other topics will have to be consistent with the earmark ban,? Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal-budget watchdog group, said going back to earmarks would not solve the problem Congress faces on measures like the waterways bill.

?The idea that we should go back is like saying, ?Hey, I?m pulling the milk out of the refrigerator and it?s spoiled. I?ll put it back in, and maybe it?ll be fresh tomorrow,? ? said Ellis, who has been working on waterways legislation and related bills since 1998.

The biggest example of Congress passing a traditionally earmark-laden bill free of earmarks was the two-year transportation bill that President Obama signed into law last year. That was the first transportation bill Boehner voted for, precisely because it was the first one done without earmarks since he joined Congress. Mica says the measure included strong policy reforms that made up for the lack of earmarks. His Democratic counterpart is skeptical.

?It was a tepid, Band-Aid type of approach only two years in length,? said Rahall, lamenting that the lack of earmarks prevented the passage of a stronger bill and ceded congressional power.

?Is that what my deficit hawks want?? Rahall asked rhetorically. ?The man they hate the worst in this town to get more power by reneging on the prerogatives of members of Congress??

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shhhh-republicans-defending-earmarks-113831295.html

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NY press urges Weiner to quit mayoral bid, mocks new lewd chats

By Jonathan Allen and Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City newspapers called for mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner to bow out of the race on Wednesday after fresh revelations that he had continued sexually charged online chats for more than a year after his resignation from Congress.

Weiner, among the front-runners in the race for New York mayor, admitted on Tuesday he had continued sending lewd images of himself to women online - the very behavior that forced him out of office in 2011 - until at least last summer.

"The serially evasive Mr. Weiner should take his marital troubles and personal compulsions out of the public eye, away from cameras, off the Web and out of the race for mayor of New York City," the New York Times wrote in its lead editorial, adding he had "disqualified himself" for public service.

The New York Post, known for its outrageous headlines, went with "Meet Carlos Danger" - a reference to Weiner's reported pseudonym in the online chats with a woman he met over the Internet.

The Daily News joined the Times in calling for Weiner to get out of the race, saying on its cover: "Beat it! Enough of all the lies and salacious revelations. Weiner is not fit to lead America's premier city."

Weiner insists he isn't going anywhere.

On Tuesday, after a gossip website published a series of sexually explicit online chats an unnamed 22-year-old woman said she had with Weiner, including pictures of his penis. Weiner acknowledged the messages were authentic.

The candidate, who has been leading polls along with Christine Quinn, another Democrat, said he would continue his campaign to succeed Michael Bloomberg as mayor later this year.

The website, TheDirty.com, began publishing screen shots on Monday of what it said were chats on Facebook and another social media website in which Weiner described the sexual acts he wanted to perform on the unnamed woman.

"You are a walking fantasy," Weiner reportedly said, in one of the chat's less explicit exchanges, which took place after the pair began communicating in July 2012.

"I'm amazed he came back to begin with, but I think people's tolerance is up," said Bernadette Mirro, 30, a New York librarian.

One of his rivals in the Democratic primary, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who ranks at the back of the crowded race, urged Weiner to withdraw on Tuesday. Another, Bill Thompson, who often appears in third place in the polls, said the news was "deeply disturbing."

Weiner, who has often gamely conceded that his name is ready-made for late-night comedians' jokes, was ribbed on Tuesday night by David Letterman, who suggested other pseudonyms for Weiner to consider: Carlos Dangler, Throb Reiner and Eliot Spitzer.

(Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Prudence Crowther)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-mayoral-hopeful-weiner-stays-race-despite-lewd-003516008.html

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DFL attorney Andrew Luger nominated to replace Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones (Star Tribune)

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