What happens if US Airways and American Airlines merge

What happens if US Airways and American Airlines merge: 4 theories - American's unions are backing US Airways' proposal to combine the two carriers. What happens if the merger goes through?

US Airways has won the support of unions at the bankrupt American Airlines for a proposal to fold the two companies into one giant carrier, US Airways CEO Doug Parker said Friday. American's parent company, AMR Corp, is hoping to emerge from bankruptcy court on its own, but the unions representing American's pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and other workers are among the airline's biggest creditors, so they can help persuade the court to open the door to a merger. What would that mean for the airlines, their passengers, and the industry? Here, four possible ramifications:

A US Airways-American Airlines merger could create one combined healthy carrier, but at the expense of some 55,000 jobs

1. Some of American's employees will avoid lay-offs

The unions, which represent 55,000 pilots, flight attendants, and ground workers, are "angry that American is trying to cut jobs and labor costs while under bankruptcy protection," say David Koenig and Joshua Freed of The Associated Press. AMR CEO Thomas Horton plans to cut 13,000 union jobs and throw out union contracts on pay and benefits to restore the airline's profits. US Airways CEO Doug Parker says his merger plan would save roughly 6,200 jobs at American, cutting the losses nearly in half.

2. It would create a healthy giant from two struggling carriers

"American and US Airways need each other," says Scott McCartney at The Wall Street Journal. Separately, neither can compete for business travelers or vacationers with the much larger rivals, Delta and United. But fold together the third (American) and fifth (US Airways) biggest U.S. carriers, and, presto, you have the biggest airline in the world. Together, US Airways and American will have the scale and efficiency they need "to stay profitable even during periods of high oil prices."

3. Parker can keep his promises or make a profit — not both

American's workers are "livid," says Justin Bachman at Bloomberg Businessweek, so winning their support was the easy part. But it's hard to say yet whether US Airways' Parker made American's unions "a realistic offer or one shaped to win over a key ally in American's bankruptcy." After all, United and Delta are doing well now because they made deep cuts to emerge from bankruptcy. Parker might find he can't keep his promises to the unions "while running a profitable airline."

4. This could mean big changes — and higher prices — for passengers

"Anytime you shrink capacity and jettison certain routes, airfares have nowhere to go but up," says Peter Greenberg at CBS News. So brace yourself for higher ticket prices. And use up your frequent-flier miles now, as reward seats would likely become scarce post-merger. The programs make money, so they won't disappear. But in a consolidated industry with just three big carriers they'll have less incentive to give away seats. So "instead of getting a free ticket, you'll get a toaster." ( The Week )

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What's the threat? North Korean rhetoric

What's the threat? North Korean rhetoric — According to its official statements, North Korea is ready to go to the brink. But how serious are Pyongyang's threats?

This week, new U.N. sanctions punishing the North's successful December rocket launch have elicited a furious response from Pyongyang: strong hints that a third nuclear test is coming, along with bigger and better long-range missiles; "all-out action" against its "sworn enemy," the United States; and on Friday, a threat of "strong physical countermeasures" against South Korea if Seoul participates in the sanctions.

"Sanctions mean war," said a statement carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.

Associated Press/Ahn Young-joon - A veteran of South Korean Headquarters of Intelligence Detachment (HID), in a North Korean military uniform, shouts a slogan with his former comrades during a rally against South Korean government giving support to pro-North Korean groups in South Korea near the City Hall in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. South Korea's President Park Geun-hye is strongly urging North Korea to refrain from conducting a nuclear test that could only worsen the tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of a provocative long-range rocket launch in December, envoy Rhee In-je told The Associated Press and selected news outlets in Davos, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)  

A U.S. research institute said Friday that recent satellite photos of the site where nuclear tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009 show North Korea could be almost ready to carry out its threat.

In the face of international condemnation, North Korea can usually be counted on for such flights of rhetorical pique. In recent years it threatened to turn South Korea into a "sea of fire," and to wage a "sacred war" against its enemies.

If the past is any indication, its threats of war are overblown. But the chances it will conduct another nuclear test are high. And it is gaining ground in its missile program, experts say, though still a long way from seriously threatening the U.S. mainland.

"It's not the first time they've made a similar threat of war," said Ryoo Kihl-jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "What's more serious than the probability of an attack on South Korea is that of a nuclear test. I see very slim chances of North Korea following through with its threat of war."

Although North Korea's leadership is undeniably concerned that it might be attacked or bullied by outside powers, the tough talk is mainly an attempt to bolster its bargaining position in diplomatic negotiations.

The impoverished North is in need of international aid and is eager to sign a treaty bringing a formal end to the Korean War, which ended nearly 60 years ago in a truce. It uses its weapons program as a wedge in the ever-repeating diplomatic dance with the U.S.-led international community, and there is no reason to believe this time is different.

"I see this as their way of testing the water," said Narushige Michishita, a North Korea expert at Tokyo's Graduate Institute of Policy Studies. "North Korea will probably never be able to defeat the United States in a war. But they are getting stronger."

In 2006 and 2009, North Korea carried out underground nuclear tests just after receiving U.N. sanctions for launching long-range rockets. The latest barrage of rhetoric comes after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to condemn the successful Dec. 12 rocket launch and further expand sanctions against Kim Jong Un's regime. Pyongyang replied with its threat of more launches and possibly another nuclear test.

"Settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words," said Thursday's statement from the National Defense Commission, which promised "a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle that has lasted century after century."

North Korea has long insisted that its rocket launches were peaceful attempts to put a satellite in orbit, while the U.S. and United Nations consider them illegal tests of missile technology. This week, however, Pyongyang, made it clear that one goal of its rocket program is to attack the United States.

But its ability to do so is limited, say experts who believe North Korea still has technological kinks to work out in its nuclear devices. It is thought to be unable to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on a missile, so it needs to test that technology as well.

Another big issue is money.

In his first speech to his people, the young leader, Kim, who is still believed to be in his 20s, said North Korea will continue its "military first" policy. But for a nation that chronically struggles to feed its own people, resources are limited. And because of trade restrictions, acquiring parts for its weapons from abroad is increasingly difficult.

Despite December's successful launch, North Korea's ability to get missiles off the launch pad is less than reliable. In April, a similar rocket splintered into pieces over the Yellow Sea. Days later, North Korea showed off what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, but many experts who reviewed footage of the rockets said they were clearly fakes.

The North does, however, appear to be making some progress.

Japan's Defense Ministry, in an assessment of the December launch presented to the prime minister on Friday, said the North's best designs probably give its missiles a range of more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), according to Japan's Kyodo news service. That would be enough to reach the West Coast of the United States. A South Korean defense official said Friday that Seoul agrees with that assessment.

The Japanese report warned that Pyongyang's missile technology has "entered a new stage" that is of serious concern to the international community. Japan is particularly wary of North Korea's capabilities because all of its islands are well within striking distance. Japan also hosts about 50,000 U.S. troops, whose bases would be a tempting target if Pyongyang were to try to make good on its threats.

"There has been a tendency to underestimate what North Korea can do in the space and missile field, and possibly with technology in general," U.S. nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis wrote recently on his Arms Control Wonk blog. He noted that debris recovered from the wreckage of the December rocket's first stage indicates that most of it was made in North Korea.

North Korea claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, which stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea.

It is believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for about four to eight bombs, according to nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, who visited North Korea's nuclear complex in 2010. And in 2009, Pyongyang also declared that it would begin enriching uranium, giving it a second way to make atomic weapons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that he has seen no outward sign that North Korea will follow through soon on its plan to conduct a test, but added that doesn't mean preparations aren't under way.

A U.S. research institute said Friday that recent satellite photos of the Punggye-ri site where nuclear tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009 reveal that over the past month roads have been kept clear of snow and that North Koreans may have been sealing the tunnel into a mountainside where a nuclear device would be detonated.

The analysis was provided to The Associated Press by 38 North, the website of U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The latest image was taken Wednesday.

38 North concludes that the Punggye-ri site "appears to continue to be at a state of readiness that would allow the North to move forward with a test in a few weeks or less once the leadership in Pyongyang gives the order."

U.S. officials confirmed Friday that the U.S. has seen some trucks moving around the site. One official said the U.S. is not ruling out that the test could happen in the near future.

But the officials cautioned that, as in previous tests, because it would be done underground, the U.S. may not know much before it actually happens. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence matters publicly. ( Associated Press )

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Who Pays For Presidential Perks?

Who Pays For Presidential Perks? -Being the President of the United States comes with a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility. However, the commander in chief does enjoy preferential treatment most of us will never experience.

Some of those perks include: having his limo transported by plane wherever he travels, getting to see first-run and not-released movies free of charge, never stopping for a stop light or sign and his own private zip code.

Which brings us to today’s Just Explain It.

What’s the value of the presidency when you add in all the perks for being Commander-in-Chief?

We may never be able to put a dollar amount on the value of the presidency. That’s because some of the costs associated with the position are buried in many different budgets and scattered between different governmental departments.

Let’s take a look at some of the presidential perks covered by your tax dollars. They not only make the president’s life easier, they’re for security and practical purposes too.

Number one -- the president’s salary is $400,000 a year. The Chief Executive also gets a budget for entertainment, business and travel expenses.

Number two -- Transportation. To get the president from place to place safely, he has Air Force One, Marine One and a limo available at a moment’s notice. A 2012 Congressional Research Service report found that Air Force One costs about $180,000 an hour to operate.

According to the Hawaii Reporter, one round-trip flight to Honolulu by President Obama last month cost about $3.2 million. But the president made two of them because of the fiscal cliff crisis. That doubled the price tag to $6.4 million.

Number three – The White House. For the 2008 fiscal year, Bradley Patterson, a retired Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, estimated the cost of running the White House was almost $1.6 billion. And that amount didn’t include unpublished classified expenses.

The president’s White house staff also comes at a steep price. In 2012, the White House reported its payroll grew from $37 million in 2011 to $37.8 million. The list includes 468 names. 139 of which make more than $100,000 a year.

Number four – Secret Service access. Protecting the President takes a great deal of manpower. The agency’s budget this year is $1.6 billion. A portion of that will go toward protecting president while in office and for life.

And number five – Retirement plan. According to CNBC, President Obama will receive over $191,000 a year for life as soon as he leaves office.

A former president’s net worth can grow substantially in retirement. After two terms in office, The Atlantic magazine reported Bill Clinton’s net worth at around $40 million. The increase was due to numerous speaking engagements and book deals.

Did you learn something? Do you have a topic you’d like explained? Give us your feedback in the comments below or on twitter using ( justexplainit )

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Obama vs. Catholics

Obama vs. Catholics — The Brian Williams MSNBC debate in Florida was not only dreadfully boring — I never thought I could ever long for commercials — it was pathetic. Freed of the fear of triggering an avalanche of applause against loaded questions, Williams and his co-moderators couldn't bring themselves to utter one single question asking the Republican candidates to respond to Obama's mistakes. For almost two hours, not one Obama failure was cited. Apparently, his record is spotless.

Instead, the candidates (especially Rick Santorum) were thrown four questions surrounding the 2005 legal battle in Florida over pulling the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo, which pushed all the liberal media hot buttons about "far right" religious conservatives throwing their religion around where it didn't belong. This isn't breaking news. But like the ABC debate fixated on contraception, it's evidence that liberal networks are focused on their agenda, not on the voters' concerns.

Let's reverse the conversation. How do these same reporters deal with the outrageous left-wing extreme on social issues? They don't.

Take the order promulgated by Obama's Department of Health and Human Services on Friday to require virtually all employers to offer insurance coverage of sterilization, abortifacients and contraceptives without deductibles or co-pays in their employee plans by Aug. 1. Churches are exempt, but not religiously inspired hospitals, schools and other charities that hire outside their faith tradition.

"The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs," insisted Archbishop (and Cardinal-designate) Timothy Dolan of New York, head of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops. "Historically, this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

That's putting it mildly. What it means is that the Catholic Church is faced with closing down its hospitals, universities and charities — or committing mortal sin.

Amazingly, the major media found nothing historic about this. ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC all ignored it. NPR covered it on Friday night — with a positive tone. The headline on their website was "Administration Stands Firm On Birth Control Coverage." The Washington Post editorialized that Team Obama had made a mistake, but Brian Williams can't seem to acknowledge that Obama has ever made a mistake, even when Obama boasts of his travels to 57 states.

So at what point do our country's television networks notice that Team Obama has an ideological agenda against faith-based charitable organizations, most especially the Catholic Church? Across the country, Democrats have been pushing Catholic social workers out of government cooperation. In Massachusetts, the District of Columbia and most recently in Illinois, Democrats have insisted on forcing Catholic Charities to quit its long-time assistance in providing adoption and foster-care services because they refused to place children with homosexual couples.

How militant is their bigotry? Consider: The Catholic providers offered to refer them to other agencies (as they had been doing for unmarried couples), but Gov. Pat Quinn's government drew a line in the sand, comparing gays to the black civil rights struggle. "Separate but equal was not a sufficient solution on other civil rights issues in the past either," government spokesman Kendall Marlowe told The New York Times. "The child welfare system that Catholic Charities helped build is now strong enough to survive their departure."

The Conference of Catholic Bishops lost a federal contract to aid survivors of sex trafficking because Obama's HHS bureaucrats objected that contraceptive and abortion referrals would not be provided. Steven Wagner reported for National Review that senior officials at HHS, up to and including persons in the office of Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, "overrode career staff to give federal funds to two organizations deemed by the professionals to be unqualified."

Despite this open war on religious liberty, the networks haven't moved a muscle, even after Newt Gingrich denounced their anti-religion bias in a Jan. 7 debate in New Hampshire.

"You don't hear the opposite question asked: Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won't accept gay couples? Which is exactly what the state has done," Gingrich declared. "Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won't give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration?"

As Gingrich argued, the accusation of intolerance flows both ways. But Brian Williams and the other major-media "moderators" would rather shave their blow-dried heads than make Obama look bad at a Republican debate.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. ( creatores.com )

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Quit Giving Our Money Away

Quit Giving Our Money Away - When will the insanity stop? One day after President Barack Obama asked Congress for yet another increase in the debt limit so the federal government can continue to borrow money to stay solvent; he then offers to give Bangladesh another free billion dollars.

Reuters reported another $1 billion in aid was offered to the impoverished Asian country over five years to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition, as well as assist in family planning. There is little doubt Bangladesh needs help, but the U.S. has already provided nearly $6 billion in developmental assistance.

This is absolute craziness. The federal government is well over $15 trillion in debt -- all of which have been borrowed on the backs of current and future taxpayers and yet our government continues to pass it out to other countries without hardly a mere consideration for how Americans might feel about that. The people of Bangladesh need help -- they have always needed more help than any one nation can provide.

While the U.S. is a land of plenty, that "plenty" comes at a cost. The cost is too high anymore. We cannot continue to pass out aid to every cause or need. The need is too big. The wallet has run dry.

It is unconceivable that any American president would consider passing out aid with the financial conditions the U.S. is currently in. Not two months ago Congress missed a statutory deadline to strip money from the budget over a 10-year period. They couldn't do it.

Just one day ago, The Washington Post reported Obama asked for a $1.2 trillion increase in borrowing authority for the Treasury. The madness must stop and maybe it's time for ordinary Americans to cry "Enough already!" in the face of every elected official.

There are people suffering all around the world. The need is so great that no one nation -- no matter how mighty its economy may be -- can possibly meet the need. There are needs here too. Our inner cities are falling apart. Food stamp recipients are at an all time high. There has to be a time when the answer is "no." ( yahoo.com )

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From China, with love?

From China, with love? - The stern, bulky visage of Martin Luther King Jr. now gracing the National Mall has brought forth tears of joy and redemption from onlookers. But for some Americans, the massive monument will forever be marred by where it was made: China.

The MLK Memorial was created by Chinese master sculptor Lei Yixin and the Dingli Stone Carving Co. out of 159 pieces of pink Chinese granite, and, its defenders say, is intended to embrace Dr. King's legacy as a global icon.

"Martin Luther King is not only a hero of Americans, he also is a hero of the world, and he pursued the universal dream of the people of the world," Mr. Lei said through a translator in August, before hurricane Irene pushed back the dedication of the memorial to Oct. 16.

To be sure, the ultimate arbiters will be onlookers, and so far those closest to King have been pleased. "This particular artist, he has done a good job," Martin Luther King III, King's son, told USA Today.

But as America prepares to dedicate its first National Mall monument to an African-American, the process continues to dog the product.

At issue are two philosophical ideas: One is that a sculptor's job is to simply put into stone the vision of a patron, and the other is that art is the reflection of its creator.

It's not the first time such questions have dogged US monument patrons. The decision to use a French sculptor to carve the likeness of Robert E. Lee for a late 19th century monument in Richmond, Va., was met with “a lot of rumbling and grumbling” from Confederate veterans, who argued that only a Virginian could sculpt an appropriate likeness of Lee, says Kirk Savage, a University of Pittsburgh art historian.

Mr. Savage, the author of this year's "Monument Wars," a book about the transformation of the National Mall, sees an equivalent in the debate over a Chinese sculptor carving King.

“The idea is that a portrait likeness is supposed to be more than the features of a person, should convey the character or soul of that person, and that a Chinese person can't do that [with King],” he says. “But the fact is a competent, good artist can certainly do a better job than somebody who is not a competent artist, but who has a personal connection.”

Someone new to King's legacy, as Lei was, could even offer a fresh look at a face so familiar to Americans, he adds.

In this case, though, the creator is a state artist who has made dozens of heroic depictions of Mao Zedong, the brutal founder of Communist China. Seen this way, the statue is a corruption of King's liberation message and a PR coup for the Chinese government.

"Why are we letting the symbol of our human rights, the symbol of freedom for all Americans, to now be partially wiped out by a country – and the product that came from it – that represents repression and slavery?" asks Ann Lau, chairman of the Visual Artists Guild, a human rights organization in Los Angeles.

Since Lei was commissioned for the project in 2006, a coalition of quarrymen, artists, and Chinese human rights activists have protested the choice and the fact that American quarry companies weren't allowed to bid on the project. A federal investigation into the no-bid decision found no wrongdoing by the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, the group tasked with organizing the project.

Concerns have also been raised about the antiquated and dangerous working conditions of Chinese quarries where the MLK Monument stone was unearthed, the muscular Socialist Realist style that mirrors landmarks more common in totalitarian countries, and Lei's lifetime pension from the Chinese government – a regime that continues to take a hard line against dissenters.

The foundation, which raised most of the $120 million needed to install the monument, says having the job done in China also had aesthetic and practical advantages.

“Not only did we need an artist, we needed someone with the means and methods of putting those large stones together,” Ed Jackson Jr., the project's executive architect, told The Washington Post ahead of the original Aug. 28 dedication date. “We don’t do this in America. We don’t handle stones of this size.”

Foundation officials also said the kind of pink-hued granite needed to fit into the National Mall color palette was not available in the US.

The technical requirements for the MLK Monument may well have been beyond the reach of the stone-carving community in America, which hasn't been able to keep up with demand for larger, more intricate monuments that appeal to modern donors, and which ultimately require different sets of technical and artistic skills, adds Savage.

“It doesn't surprise me that they would go to somebody in China,” he says. “They're still making giant statues of great Communist leaders, and we had sort of stopped making monuments of that size and scale."

But granite sculptors in Vermont, a group of African-American artists, and even a bricklayers union, which handed out protest leaflets at the monument in August, deny these claims. Not only could Americans have done the job, but the monument also could have been an economic boost to America's struggling granite quarry business, which has seen large layoffs in recent years, said stone-carver Clint Button.

"Stone doesn't care what color you are, it tells the truth, and the truth that this stone tells is indicative of the process, because it missed the mark, and that's really sad," he says. "Everybody says it's awesome, incredible, and then they say, 'I can't believe they couldn't find anybody in America to do it.' "

Those who could have benefited economically from a US-made MLK Monument aren't the only ones who have been skeptical.

In 2008, the US Commission of Fine Arts criticized the visage, made from a photograph of King in his Atlanta office, as too grim and totalitarian, although the King family approved the image. American artists had favored a warmer, more "intellectual" portrait of King.

The California Chapter of the NAACP in 2007 passed a complaint resolution on behalf of African-American artists that charged that the foundation "has chosen to outsource the production of the monument to Dr. King to the People's Republic of China … which is an affront to the ideal of human dignity."

"Surely, having a black sculptor of a black civil rights icon – working on ground once toiled by black slaves, on the National Mall, designed and surveyed with the help of a black mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker – would have added to the King memorial’s symbolic power," wrote Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy.

The conflict comes at a time of deep insecurity in the US about its role in the world compared with China. In July, a Pew Research Center survey found a stunning statistic. The percentage of Americans who believe China has or is about to overshadow the US increased from 33 percent to 46 percent between 2009 and 2011.

Foundation members have also pushed back at criticism of Lei as the principal sculptor. "My response to critics who question why we chose a Chinese sculptor is Dr. King's words themselves, that we should not judge a person by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," foundation director Harry Johnson said in defense of the memorial.

What's more, a USA Today poll showed that 7 in 10 Americans are very or somewhat interested in visiting Lei's sculpture.

But American artists and quarry men haven't given up. Their goal is to build enough public sentiment against the MLK Monument to have it torn out and replaced by another rock, hewn in America, by Americans.

"Dr. King is held in bondage by his own arms, he'll never be free at last," said Mr. Button, the South Carolina stone carver. "He's always going to be made in China." ( Christian Science Monitor )

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Norway mass killer jeered on way to court hearing

Norway mass killer jeered on way to court hearing - Norway's police believe Anders Behring Breivik probably acted alone in killing 76 people last Friday, and Norwegians united in revulsion against the worst attack in the Nordic nation since World War Two.

A source close to the investigation told Reuters of Breivik's talk of other cells: "We feel that the accused has fairly low credibility when it comes to this claim but none of us dare to be completely dismissive about it either."

Researchers also doubt Breivik's claim that he is part of a wider far-right network of anti-Islam "crusaders," seeing them as empty bragging by a psychopathic fantasist who has written that exaggeration is a way to sow confusion among investigators.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Knut Storberget will meet police chiefs who are facing criticism for taking more than an hour on Friday to stop a shooting spree in which 68 people, mostly teenagers, were shot after a bomb in Oslo killed eight.

Norway has felt a widening sense of relief that 32-year-old Breivik seems to have been alone in his drive to protect Europe from "cultural Marxism" and a "Muslim invasion" by striking at Norway's ruling Labour Party.

Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of a killing spree and bomb attack in Norway, sits in the rear of a vehicle as he is transported in a police convoy to a court in Oslo July 25, 2011. The 32-year-old Norwegian gunman appeared in court for a custody hearing on Monday after killing at least 93 people in a bomb attack in Oslo's government district and shooting rampage at a youth summer camp of Norway's ruling Labour party on the island of Utoeya on Friday. Breivik declared in a rambling 1,500-pagemanifesto posted online shortly before the massacre that he was on a self-appointed mission to save Europe from what he saw as the threats of Islam, immigration and multi-culturalism. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay (NORWAY - Tags: DISASTER CONFLICT SOCIETY)

More than 100,000 Norwegians rallied in Oslo on Monday night, many carrying white and red roses, to mourn the dead and to show unity after July 22. Tens of thousands of others rallied in other cities from Tromsoe to Bergen.

BORDER CONTROLS

In signs that police are toning down fears that Breivik was part of a wider network, border controls imposed on July 22 were lifted late on Monday. Norway has not asked foreign nations to launch probes nor raised the threat level for terrorism.

Even the final entry in Breivik's own 1,500 page manifesto says on July 22: "The old saying: 'if you want something done, then do it yourself' is as relevant now as it was then."

"Intuitively, it feels like he is alone when you read the document. It's like he's lost in this made-up world and can't distinguish between fantasy and reality," said Magnus Ranstorp, Research Director at the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College.

"They (mass killers) are usually alone," he said.

Police defended themselves from suggestions that some alarm bells should have rung about Breivik. The head of the PST security police even said he would have slipped through the net in former East Germany with its feared Stasi police.

PST says Breivik's name appeared only once, on a list of 50-60 Norwegians sent by Interpol after he paid 120 crowns ($22.16) to a Polish company that sold chemicals and was on a watch list. They found no reason to react.

STASI GERMANY

"I don't think even Stasi Germany could have uncovered this person," PST chief Janne Kristiansen told the VG newspaper's online edition, adding he was "the incarnation of evil."

Breivik is likely to face a lifetime in jail if convicted of the crimes, which included shooting dead terrified teenagers on Utoeya island at a Labour Party summer camp.

He admits the attacks, but denies criminal responsibility. Even his father is horrified.

"In my darkest moments, I think that rather than killing all those people, he should have taken his own life," Breivik's father told Norwegian independent TV2 in France.

He said his son, with whom he has had no contact since he was a teenager, must be mentally ill. "There is no other way to explain it."

Other researchers say that he shares traits with past mass murderers.

"He has no empathy, he is indifferent to the people he kills, he has no conscience and no remorse," said Ragnhild Bjoernebekk, a researcher at Norway's police school.

"Evil can kill a person but never conquer a people," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday evening at the mass rally, probably the biggest in Norway since the end of World War Two. Norway's population is 4.8 million

"Our fathers and mothers promised 'never again April 9'. We promise 'never again July 22'," he said. Hitler's forces invaded Norway on April 10, 1940 at the start of a five-year occupation.

Many Norwegians have expressed relief that Breivik seems to have been a lone, home-grown fanatic rather than, for instance, an envoy of al Qaeda. Many compare him to Timothy McVeigh who killed 168 people with a truck bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995.

"If this was done by a foreigner it would have been very difficult," said Raj Pereet Singh, a Norwegian whose parents immigrated. ( Reuters )

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Do's and Don'ts

Job Hunting On the Job -- Do's and Don'ts. It's a common dilemma: You have a job but you want a better one. Whether you've outgrown your current role, seek increased compensation or need a change of scene, you're ready to explore new employment options.

But how should you go about tracking down opportunities and meeting with hiring managers without jeopardizing your current position? Following are some do's and don'ts for conducting a job search while employed:

DON'T overlook opportunities within your own company. Before updating your résumé and hitting the job boards, consider employment opportunities that may be right under your nose. Many companies looking to fill vacancies give preference to internal candidates and make an effort to encourage these individual to apply for other positions within the company.

Share with your boss your interest in pursuing a new or higher-level position. He or she may be able to help you transfer to a different department, move into a role of increased responsibility or give you a chance to work on projects that will expand your skill set and prepare you for advancement.

DO be discreet. If you want to keep your job search a secret, don't talk about it. If you tell your co-workers, you can be sure that it will get back to your boss, one way or another.

DON'T search on your employer's time. You're being paid to work for the company, so you shouldn't be surfing the Web for job openings during business hours. Any activity related to your job search, including scheduling interviews, should be completed on your own time.

DO get organized. Set aside blocks of time that you can devote to your employment search; you will be amazed by how much you can get done in just a few hours. In addition to focusing on your job hunt at night and on weekends, you can use your lunch break to scour the want ads or review your résumé. This also is a good time to return prospective employers' phone calls on your cell phone.

DON'T use company resources. No matter how convenient it may be, don't use office stationery, stamps, fax machines or copiers. It's not only an inappropriate and unethical use of company resources but also an easy way for colleagues to find out about your job search from evidence you accidentally leave behind. Along the same lines, avoid using the office's computers and phone systems to reach out to hiring managers. Many employers monitor Internet usage and review phone call logs, making it easy for them to learn of your job hunt.

DO be careful where you post your résumé. If you don't want your current firm to accidentally find your résumé when searching for new hires, post on a job site where you can keep your employer and contact information confidential. For example, CareerBuilder.com offers three levels of privacy from which job seekers can choose.

DON'T make up excuses when meeting with hiring managers. Most hiring managers will understand that accommodations may have to be made for you to attend an employment interview. Try to schedule meetings for either the beginning or the end of the day, or during your lunch hour. If a prospective employer can't interview you during those times, take a personal day.

DO pay attention to how you dress. If your normal work attire consists of jeans and sneakers, showing up to the office in a business suit is likely to arouse suspicion. Avoid the attention by bringing a change of clothes.

DON'T forget to network. More jobs are obtained through word of mouth than any other method, so take every opportunity to expand your circle of contacts. In addition to getting involved in professional associations and other networking groups, focus on meeting people while doing everyday activities. Try striking up conversations with those around you, from the coffee shop barista to the person sitting next to you at the doctor's office. These discussions can help you gain job leads or other valuable contacts.

DO register with a staffing firm. Consider partnering with a recruiter, who can work discreetly on your behalf to distribute your résumé and uncover job opportunities. These professionals also can offer guidance on enhancing your résumé, improving your interview skills and increasing your chances of landing a new position.

If you want to find a new job, stick to your game plan, be persistent and, perhaps most importantly, be respectful of your current employer. Though you may be tempted to conduct a quick search between projects or work on your résumé on the job, think twice before doing so. You wouldn't want to do anything that could jeopardize your current position and future references. ( msn.com )

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Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about

Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about. Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.

No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on.

A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum.

The Obama White House argues that all of these storylines are inaccurate or unfair. In some cases these anti-Obama narratives are fanned by Republicans, in some cases by reporters and commentators.

But they all are serious threats to Obama, if they gain enough currency to become the dominant frame through which people interpret the president’s actions and motives.

Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about:

He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money

Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe.

Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary.

The flight of independents away from Democrats last summer — the trend that recently hammered Democrats in off-year elections in Virginia — coincided with what polls show was alarm among these voters about undisciplined big government and runaway spending. The likely passage of a health care reform package criticized as weak on cost-control will compound the problem.

Obama understands the political peril, and his team is signaling that he will use the 2010 State of the Union address to emphasize fiscal discipline. The political challenge, however, is an even bigger substantive challenge—since the most convincing way to project fiscal discipline would be actually to impose spending reductions that would cramp his own agenda and that of congressional Democrats.

Too much Leonard Nimoy

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Dr. Spock.

The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.

That’s the Chicago Way

This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols.

It does not help that many West Wing aides seem to relish an image of themselves as shrewd, brass-knuckled political types. In a Washington Post story this month, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, referring to most of Obama’s team, said, “We are all campaign hacks.”

The problem is that many voters took Obama seriously in 2008 when he talked about wanting to create a more reasoned, non-partisan style of governance in Washington. When Republicans showed scant interest in cooperating with Obama at the start, the Obama West Wing gladly reverted to campaign hack mode.

The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal — to the distaste of many congressional Democrats — that gave favorable terms to the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans.

The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy off the people he can and bowl over those he can’t. If that perception spreads beyond Washington this will scuff Obama’s brand as a new style of political leader.

He’s a pushover

If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits. But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully are also starting to whisper that he’s a patsy.

It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity. Last summer he told Democrats they better not go home for recess until a critical health care vote but they blew him off. He told the Israeli government he wanted a freeze in settlements but no one took him seriously. Even Fox News — which his aides prominently said should not be treated like a real news organization — then got interview time for its White House correspondent.

In truth, most of these episodes do not amount to much. But this unflattering storyline would take a more serious turn if Obama is seen as unable to deliver on his stern warnings in the escalating conflict with Iran over its nuclear program.

He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe

That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist.

Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.

On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh.

His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.

On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases.

President Pelosi

No figure in Barack Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. With a mix of tough party discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and passed her chamber’s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House’s Afghanistan calculations.

The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense.

This conclusion seems premature, especially with the final chapter of the health care drama yet to be written.

But it is clear that Obama has allowed the speaker to become more nearly an equal — and far from a subordinate — than many of his predecessors of both parties would have thought wise.

He’s in love with the man in the mirror

No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard?

It’s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men’s Health, discusses his marriage in a joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ featuring himself.

White House aides say making Obama widely available is the right strategy for communicating with Americans in an era of highly fragmented media.

But, as the novelty of a new president wears off, the Obama cult of personality risks coming off as mere vanity unless it is harnessed to tangible achievements.

That is why the next couple of months — with health care and Afghanistan jostling at center stage — will likely carry a long echo. Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness. ( POLITICO )

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