Spain’s Two Finance Ministers Clash on Budget Amid Recession

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Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said Spain is sticking to its deficit goal even as the economy shrinks, underlining a rift in the month-old Cabinet over whether the nation can halve its shortfall during a recession. De Guindos said the government’s commitment to budget cuts is “total” and there’s “no change” to this year’s target. His comments in Brussels today came after reporters asked him about Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro’s call on Jan. 22 for the European Union to ease Spain’s 2012 deficit goal to take its shrinking economy into account. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy divided the Finance Ministry in two after coming to power in December, putting People’s Party veteran Montoro in charge of the budget and giving de Guindos, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. banker, responsibility for the economy. Rajoy didn’t make either of them deputy prime minister, as the last two finance chiefs were, saying he would oversee economic issues himself. “It’s a trial of strength to see who’s really in charge of economic issues, and Rajoy will just let it happen,” said Ismael Crespo, a political scientist at the Fundacion Ortega- Maranon research institute in Madrid, who was head of the state polling unit when the PP was last in power. “Montoro is speaking more to the public and Guindos is speaking more to the foreigners,” he said in a telephone interview. Economy Contracting Spain’s government needs to rein in its borrowing costs and convince investors it can cut the euro region’s third-largest budget deficit even as the economy enters its second recession in two years. The Bank of Spain said yesterday the economy contracted in the fourth quarter and may shrink 1.5 percent in 2012, adding to pressure on Rajoy, who won the Nov. 20 election on a pledge of creating jobs. Budget Minister Montoro, a 61-year-old public-finance professor and lawmaker for Seville, said on Jan. 22 the EU should ease Spain’s budget target of 4.4 percent of gross domestic product this year as the goal was set by the previous government, which expected the economy to grow 2.3 percent. The deficit amounted to 8 percent of GDP last year, overshooting the 6 percent target. “If Brussels doesn’t adapt the stability program to the new scenario of a recession, it won’t be realistic and not only will Spain sink but the whole of Europe,” Montoro said in an interview with La Vanguardia newspaper in comments confirmed by a Budget Ministry spokeswoman. Austerity Commitment EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn rejected Montoro’s comments today after a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels, saying it’s “essential” that Spain meets the target, and must take more measures to do so. De Guindos, 52, who described Montoro in December as his “mentor” and “friend,” said Spain would keep its promises. The task of attending the European meetings falls to de Guindos, who speaks fluent English, while Montoro stays in Spain. “The government’s deficit target is 4.4 percent and there is no change in this respect,” de Guindos said after the meeting today. It isn’t the first time the pair has given differing messages in the past week. De Guindos, who is not a member of parliament, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 19 that budget cuts were “not a choice.” The same day Montoro was quoted as telling the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper that the nation may miss its budget goal. The two gave conflicting reports of the 2011 deficit on Jan. 2, as de Guindos said the overshoot may have been even greater than the government’s first estimate. De Guindos’ position on this year’s shortfall is backed up by Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, who said on Jan. 20 that the government was “determined” to meet the existing target. Rajoy holds a news conference later today after meeting Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho at 5 p.m. in Lisbon.

Cannabis taxation: a win-win all round, Richard Branson tells MPs

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The market for cannabis in Britain should be regulated and taxed, and responsibility for drug policy moved from the Home Office to the health department, Sir Richard Branson has told MPs. The Virgin Group head said the 20% of police time and £200m spent on giving criminal sentences to 70,000 young people for possession of illegal drugs in Britain each year would be better spent going after the criminal gangs at the centre of the drugs trade. "It's win-win all round,'' he told the Commons home affairs select committee. Asked about his personal history of drug use, Branson replied: "I would say 50% of my generation has smoked cannabis. I would say 75% of my children's generation has smoked cannabis … If I was smoking cigarettes, I would be very worried." He said that in his own Virgin companies he did not think staff who were found to be taking drugs should be dismissed but instead treated as having a problem, and helped. "There are many people in companies with drink problems or smoking problems," he said. Branson was part of a global commission on drug policy, which includes five ex-presidents and Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general. The body concluded last year that the war on drugs had failed and called for experiments in decriminalisation. He was the first witness at the Commons home affairs inquiry into drug policy. Branson argued that the policy of switching responsibilty for drug policy from the Home Office to the health department had worked in Portugal, where nobody had been jailed for using or possessing drugs in the last 10 years. Portugal was the only country that had decriminalised all drugs. As a result of treating drug users rather than imprisoning them, he said, heroin use and heroin-related deaths had fallen by more than 50%. In Britain, 100,000 young people a year were arrested for drug offences, and 75,000 of them were given criminal records, which meant they had problems in later life in travelling to some countries, he said. "If next year those 100,000 people are not prosecuted for taking drugs, but they are helped, I think the commission would welcome Britain doing that." He said if the sale of cannabis and other drugs were regulated and taxed, then the quality of what was being taken could be controlled. He contrasted the lack of deaths in Portugal with the recent deaths of three teenagers in Britain from taking tablets they wrongly thought were ecstasy, citing the fatalities as an example of the consequences of failing to regulate the illegal market. The Virgin chief admitted he had not read the UK Home Office drug policy statement, which emphasises diverting drug users from prison, but said the 100,000 arrests each year were evidence the policy was not working in practice. Pressed by some Conservative MPs on the committee to come down on one side or the other in the debate over methadone maintenance versus abstinence, Branson said he was no expert, and it was for the MPs to establish what worked best.

Facebook, Twitter addict? Too much Internet may alter your brain

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This is your brain. This is your brain on Facebook, Twitter, or Match.com. A recent Chinese study found that the brains of people addicted to the Internet may see similar changes to the brains of those addicted to alcohol or drugs. Yahoo News reported that brain scans were conducted of 35 men and women aged between 14 and 21, and 17 of them were identified with Internet addiction disorder. Brain scans of those classified as addicted showed disruptions in the part of the brain that contains nerve fibers, and changes in the brain areas that are used in emotions, decision-making, and self-control. Some of the questions people needed to ask themselves to determine whether they were addicted were, according to the BBC: Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction? Do you use the Internet as an escape from feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety and depression? Have you put a relationship, job, or career opportunity at risk because of the Internet? Have you lied to people to hide the amount of time you spend on the Internet? According to safetyweb.com, an Internet monitoring service for parents, teenagers and young adults are the age groups that are more likely to be addicted to the Internet, and they are more likely to neglect work or school than older addicted adults. The Executive director of an Internet addiction recovery center known as restart says overexposure to the Internet can cause these symptoms in anyone’s brain. Hilarie Cash said to technewsworld.com, "We do a combination of psychotherapy and helping these people figure out the skills they need to function in the world. The road to recovery could include plenty of hiking and backpacking to get them both physically fit and reconnected to the world."

To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Our primary purpose.

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."  page 60

 We must be ever vigilant to maintain the purity of our message, "if AA is ever destroyed, it will be from within."  Bill Wilson

Do you to want to want to stop?

"If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer."  page 44

We are sober because of the steps we take, not the meetings we make!.

"We, OF Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book"Forward 
 what happened To the program of recovery That worked so well (a minimum 75% rate of recovery) when AA first started?

To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book

17:11 Unknown 0 Comments

Alcoholics Anonymous - Our primary purpose.

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."  page 60

 We must be ever vigilant to maintain the purity of our message, "if AA is ever destroyed, it will be from within."  Bill Wilson

Do you to want to want to stop?

"If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer."  page 44

We are sober because of the steps we take, not the meetings we make!.

"We, OF Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics PRECISELY HOW WE HAVE RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book"Forward 
 what happened To the program of recovery That worked so well (a minimum 75% rate of recovery) when AA first started?

12 step organizations working the steps directly from the Big Book :

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‘If I wanted the operation, I had to give up smoking’

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The back problems that Carolina Peters was suffering with were so bad that she needed surgery. But when her consultant found out she was a smoker, he refused to operate until she kicked the habit as there was a risk of thrombosis. It was a shock, but gave her the incentive to quit three months ago – and she hasn’t had a cigarette since. Now she’s booked in to have that operation later this month. The 56-year-old, from Somers Town in Portsmouth, is among those who have received help to stop smoking from PompeyQuit, a city-based service run by Solent NHS Trust. Carolina says: ‘When I spoke to my consultant, he asked me how many I smoked a day. I said about 20 and that I’d been doing it for 38 years. Then he said he wouldn’t operate because of thrombosis (formation of a clot in a blood vessel). If I wanted the operation, I had to give up smoking.’ She had a particular reason to give up. But for many people, stopping smoking is extremely hard. They want to, but don’t know how to or simply don’t have the willpower. Some may well try to give up as a new year resolution, but lapse back into smoking. Meanwhile, others just ignore the health risks and carry on regardless. According to PompeyQuit’s Sian Howells, nationally 21 per cent of the adult population in the UK are smokers. But in Portsmouth that figure jumps up to 30 per cent – an estimated 57,000 people. PompeyQuit has more than 50 free stop smoking clinics running each week throughout the city. Studies have shown that you’re four times more likely to succeed if you don’t try to quit alone. PompeyQuit offers one-to-one support, quitting with others, drop-ins, specialist help for smokers under 18, plus support for pregnant women and new mums trying to quit and help for patients awaiting surgery to quit. Carolina says: ‘I spoke to the people at PompeyQuit and after four weeks I managed to stop smoking. Now I’m due to have my operation on January 25. She adds: ‘I feel so much better because I don’t smoke any more. I’ve noticed my teeth are getting whiter. I feel a lot fitter and I can spot a smoker as soon as I see them. ‘It’s extremely hard to give up and you need determination. You have to think ‘‘I’ve got to do this’’.’ Starting off by using Champix tablets, she eventually quit by just using nicotine patches. But Carolina’s 16-year-old son. Tom, still smokes and she says she’s particularly worried about the amount of people smoking at a young age. She explains: ‘We both had a cold before Christmas and I got better, but he’s still got symptoms. He’s had two lots of antibiotics and two chest infections. ‘I told him he should quit but he doesn’t really want to. It just shows how much it can affect you. Smoking can cause so many problems.’ Quitting can have rapid effects on your health. After eight hours, your chances of having a heart attack already start to fall and in 24 hours the build-up of carbon monoxide will leave your body. But other benefits are much slower. It can take up to nine months for your lung efficiency to increase by up to 10 per cent and 10 years for your risk of lung cancer to fall to around half that of a smoker. Sian, who is the clinical team manager at PompeyQuit, says: ‘Stopping smoking is not just about the health benefits, but the cost. Smokers on average spend £50 a week on cigarettes. ‘All smokers are different and we try to match to their individual needs. They can get 12-weeks’ worth of nicotine replacement therapy (patches, gum etc) for the price of one prescription charge (£7.40). ‘A lot of people have to try many times before they give up for good. So no matter how many times you’ve tried previously, give it a good go in 2012.’

Counsellors Forum: DREAMWARRIOR spiritual teacher who is deeply committed to helping others break through to the joyous experience of living in the NOW.

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DREAMWARRIOR teaches how to become fundamentally present and how to arise in mastery of your mind and ego, so that you are no longer involuntarily pulled out of Presence. teaches that the fully awakened state of consciousness is available now. It is not something that occurs in the future. It is already here, waiting to be revealed. As you awaken into the present moment, your thoughts will stop, your mind will fall silent, and you will awaken to an inner silence and peace that is beyond understanding. You will begin to encounter what the mystics and Masters have been speaking of for centuries.