Obama Boehner Golf

Obama Boehner Golf

Obama Boehner Golf. The world's top golfers are hitting the links in Washington this weekend at the U.S. Open, but the real power players will be on a different course in the nation's capital. On Saturday, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner will put aside their partisan differences and face off on the green instead.After weeks of tense negotiations on Capitol Hill have yielded little progress on raising the debt ceiling, expectations for the so-called "Deficit Open" are running high. But don't expect a deal to be made during the much-anticipated game.

"I think I can say with great confidence that they will not wrap up the 18th hole and come out and say that we have a deal," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters this week.

The White House is playing up the event as social, but doesn't deny that it could have political implications.

"I think that for the broader purpose of the work that needs to be done in a bipartisan way in Washington, this social occasion is a good thing," Carney said, "because ... spending a number of hours together in that kind of environment, I think, can only help improve the chances of bipartisan cooperation. It certainly can't hurt it, unless someone wins really big."

While the press secretary assured reporters there's been no trash talk from the president this week, he also tempered expectations.

"It's fair to say that the president enjoys golf and plays it when he can, but I don't think that he would say that he is an expert golfer. And I hear that the speaker of the House is quite good," Carney said, noting that the president's handicap is "classified."

Golf Digest's annual rankings of prominent Washington players has Boehner ranked 43. Obama comes in at 108.

The speaker and Obama have been trying to get together on the course for months and both will bring their own ringer. Obama has, appropriately, chosen Vice President Joe Biden as his partner, while the speaker is bringing along Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The venue for the much-anticipated golf game continues to be a secret, largely out of security concerns.

"My lips are sealed," Carney joked.

Obama's love of golf is well documented.

"The president plays golf because, I think, a lot of presidents who occupy this house and this West Wing look for ways to literally get outdoors where you're not surrounded by people," Carney said. "I think the process itself is one he enjoys as much as the game, which he does enjoy."

Only three presidents since the turn of the 20th century did not play golf -- Presidents Hoover, Truman and Carter. But unlike many before him, who used the time on the links to forge political deals, Obama prefers to golf with close friends and staffers.

While the president and the speaker have a functional working relationship, nobody would call them buddies. Could 18 holes bring them closer together?

Boehner told CBS' "60 Minutes" last year that golf is a great way to get to know someone.

"You start trying to hit that little white ball, you can't be somebody that you're not, because all of you shows up," he said.

The White House agrees.

"This is simply an effort to get together outside of an office, outside of the normal venues that presidents and speakers of the House tend to get together," Carney said, "and develop further the relationship that the president and the speaker already have developed in the many meetings and conversations they've had already."

Source: abcnews

Cancer Death Rates Fall

Cancer Death Rates Fall

+cancer death rates fall. CHICAGO (Reuters) – Cancer death rates are continuing to fall, but not all segments of the population are benefiting, the American Cancer Society said on Friday.Overall, the group predicts 1,596,670 new cancer cases in the United States and 571,950 deaths in 2011.

Death rates for all cancer types fell by 1.9 percent a year from 2001 to 2007 in men and by 1.5 percent a year in women from 2002 through 2007.

Steady overall declines in cancer death rates have meant about 898,000 who would have died prematurely from cancer in the past 17 years did not, the organization said.

Americans with the least education are more than twice as likely to die from cancer as those with the most education, according to the group’s annual cancer report.

Death rates for all cancer types have fallen in all racial and ethnic groups among both men and women since 1998 with the exception of American Indian/Alaska Native women, among whom rates were stable.

Black and Hispanic men have had the largest annual decreases in cancer death rates since 1998, falling by 2.6 percent among blacks and 2.5 percent among Hispanics.

New cases of lung cancer among women fell after rising steadily since the 1930s. The decline comes more than a decade after lung cancer rates in men started dropping and reflects differences in smoking trends among U.S. men and women, who took up smoking later in the last century than men.

Lung cancer is expected to account for 26 percent of all cancer deaths among women in 2011 and remains the No. 1 cancer killer of both men and women in the United States.

Breast cancer comes in No. 2 for women. Prostate cancer is the second most common killer of men, and colon cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths for both sexes.

These four cancers account for almost half the total cancer deaths among men and women.

Cancer rates vary considerably among racial and ethnic groups. For all cancer types, black men have a 14 percent higher rate of new cases and a 33 percent higher death rate than white men, while black women have a 6 percent lower rate of new cancer cases and a 17 percent higher death rate than white women.

The report found cancer rates in the least educated were 2.6 times higher than in the most educated. This was most pronounced in lung cancer, reflecting higher smoking rates among those with less education.

Thirty-one percent of men with 12 or fewer years of education are smokers, compared with 12 percent of college graduates and 5 percent of men with advanced degrees.

Source: reuters

Python Trash Truck

Python Trash Truck

Python Trash Truck. A six-foot long Burmese python was found at a Cincinnati fast food restaurant on Thursday when a garbage truck driver emptied a trash bin.Python, which is one of the largest species of snakes, was found wrapped around a broom before deputies were called around 11 am to take away the reptile.
The snake was then taken way by animal welfare workers after it was lifted into a cardboard box using the broom.

The python appeared sluggish at first but revived once inside the box, Hamilton County sheriff's spokesman Steve said in a statement.

Officials said they were not sure how the python got into the trash bin area.

Source: ibtimes