February 10th, 2010

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There are three traditional methods of managing personal income.

1. Budgeting,

2. Keeping a spending history, and

3. Doing nothing (also known as living from paycheck to paycheck).

Budgeting involves setting what percent of future income is to be spent on which categories of expenses, and then recording all purchases in order to track how well spending is staying within the predefined limits. The process sounds very simple, however, it is difficult, in my opinion, to stick with a budget for very long. The energy and dedication needed to keep track of where the money goes is tremendous. I’ve tried budgeting on several occasions and failed miserably because I couldn’t stomach keeping track of every penny I spent.

Traditional budgets also tend to fail because the setting of rigid spending limits does not lend itself well to being flexible. When unforeseen expenses pop up, a budget can be rendered useless very quickly. It’s my experience that budgets can feel like monetary straight jackets that are soon abandoned.

Spending Histories – A Vicious Cycle

Keeping a spending history also involves the recording of every penny spent. The intent is to use the spending history as a basis for identifying spending habits that can be improved and then making needed changes to future spending patterns. The main weakness of keeping a spending history is that it is focused on past activity and, therefore, is of little help when a person is trying to make immediate decisions about spending for current and future requirements.

Here’s the normal cycle of keeping a spending history. This cycle highlights the spending history’s weakness as a personal cash flow management tool.

1. It takes time to accumulate a spending history. While accumulating the history, inappropriate spending habits will probably continue. If you don’t consistently continue your bad habits, you won’t be able to document them in your spending history.

2. You have to keep track of, and record every penny of your spending. Spending information must be recorded in some type of tracking device that is capable of organizing the information and displaying useful reports and graphs. Two popular examples of these tracking devices are Quicken and Money. As mentioned earlier, keeping track of every penny spent, and dutifully recording that information, takes dedication and a lot of energy.

3. Whether or not changes to spending habits are effective, and whether or not habits are really starting to change, cannot be determined until additional spending history has been accumulated. After you have accumulated sufficient spending history such that you can see some of your bad habits, it’s time to adjust your spending patterns. To determine whether these adjustments are appropriate and have the desired effect, you have to return to step 1.

The failure of keeping a spending history as a personal cash flow management tool is, in my opinion, to be expected. This money management technique is, I believe, based on GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) which are used by businesses specifically to keep track of what happened; not plan for what is about to happen. The “about to happen” part is left to annual budgeting processes. This accounting approach is appropriate for businesses; but, is cumbersome and unresponsive for personal use.

The software used to accumulate a spending history, in my opinion, also contributes to the failure of the spending history technique. These types of programs tend to be too complicated and inflexible for many people. I’ve tried both Quicken and Money. In addition to my own dislike for these programs, I have met very few people who actually use Quicken and Money for their intended purposes. The usual reason I hear for buying either of these programs is because they contain a check register. That is the only feature being used.

The “Doing Nothing” Method

I believe most people end up doing nothing either because they’ve never been shown a better way, or because, like me, they’ve tried and failed at budgeting and/or keeping a spending history. Doing nothing means their personal finance management is reduced to paying bills when the bills come due with the money that is on hand at the time. They live from paycheck to paycheck with periods when they have lots of money interspersed with periods when there may not be enough on hand to buy bread and milk. This roller coaster approach to personal cash flow, in my opinion, encourages ill advised spending and almost guarantees growing indebtedness.

What Is Month-To-Month Personal Finance?

There is a new alternative which overcomes all of the above personal cash flow management problems. Created out of practical necessity, this new alternative may require new ways of looking at, and thinking about personal finances and the tools that are used to manage those finances. Before looking at this new approach to managing personal cash flow, let’s first take a new look at the activities that comprise personal finances. Before you can begin to effectively manage your finances, it helps to have an understanding of what you are managing.

I break down month-to-month personal finances into the following five activities.

1. Receiving income.

2. Paying bills.

3. Paying day-to-day expenses.

4. Paying for larger than normal expenses.

5. Setting aside a cushion.

This list does not include any activity intentionally associated with wealth building. The concern here is dealing with the fundamental issues of living comfortably day-to-day and paying the bills on time. Once those issues are dealt with successfully and consistently, building wealth becomes a possibility.

It is my contention that the main reason people get into trouble with their finances is because they let activity 1, getting a paycheck, control when all of the remaining activities happen. Bills are paid typically on payday because that’s when money is available. Depending on how much is needed to pay bills each payday, the amount left over for day-to-day expenses could be a lot or a little. Sound familiar? And, since the receipt of paychecks is determining when bills are paid, and the size of the bills are determining how much pocket money is left, there is rarely any excess money for activities 4 and 5. Setting aside money “for a rainy day” just doesn’t happen. Making major purchases, such as replacing the refrigerator when it goes on the fritz or buying a new set of tires, adds even more to the credit card balances.

Having growing, uncontrolled debt and no savings can, I believe, be attributed directly to letting your paychecks control your cash flow.

Getting Off The Roller Coaster

How do you break the living from payday to payday roller coaster cycle? Budgeting and keeping a spending history, while very useful to some people, are, in my opinion, not the solutions that work for most of us. Getting control of your finances is, instead, a matter of simplifying your finances. This is done by decoupling all of your personal finance activities. The five activities listed above are related, but they can be managed separately. Once you begin handling your personal cash flow management activities separately, something magical happens. The domino effect of (1) get a paycheck, (2) pay bills, (3) put what’s left in your pocket, is stopped. Instead, your bills begin to get paid on time, and money for day-to-day expenses is consistent from week to week.

The decoupling of personal finance activities is achieved by consistently applying these two techniques.

1. Separate the receipt of income from the paying of bills. Instead of paying bills on payday, sit down and arrange for the payment of bills on a consistent schedule that is independent of when income is received.

2. Fix the amount of money for day-to-day expenses at an appropriate weekly amount. Instead of pocketing what’s left over after paying the bills, “pay” yourself the same amount on the same day every week regardless of when you get paid.

When consistently applied, these two very simple rules for managing personal cash flow are powerful. I’ve been using them for several decades in my personal finances. Prior to stumbling on these techniques, I used to lie awake nights worrying about how I was going to pay the rent. It was habit for me to be continually on the lookout for yet another bill consolidation loan. Sometimes buying groceries was not possible on short paydays. Setting aside savings wasn’t even something I thought about.

Since starting to use personal cash flow management tools that are based on the above two simple rules, money is no longer a controlling force in my or my wife’s lives. We always pay our bills on time. Lois and I continually have money in our pockets for day-to-day expenses. We have no credit card debt since we pay our statement balances in full every month on or before the due date. And planning for major and unexpected expenses is simple because we have a detailed, forward focused view of our current and future cash flow. Money and bills are not the sources of stress and discord they used to be.

It’s Easy If You’re Willing

Applying the above decoupling rules to your personal finance does not require any special tools. A properly constructed manual or software spreadsheet will do the trick. I used such a spreadsheet in Excel to help a teacher friend of ours go from “more month than money” to “more money than month” in just a few weeks. The problem was that our friend had to come see me regularly so I could update her spreadsheet. She was not that knowledgeable about using Excel. Plus, I was having to coach her on the techniques that made the spreadsheet work. That was when I made the decision to write a program so that I, and anyone else who is interested, would have a readily available, easy to use tool for simplifying management of their personal cash flow.

You also can achieve financial peace of mind. It’s easy if you are willing to make a few simple lifestyle changes including using a personal cash flow management tool that is based on the two decoupling techniques discussed above.

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www.edmunds.com You've got a busy summer ahead. Before setting out on that road trip out West or back East, you'll have to find time to download some travel music. (We recommend new releases from Common, My Morning Jacket and Weezer.) After that, we've got another assignment for you that promises to make your summer trip easier and may enhance your listening habits, too: Get a portable navigation system. Of course, we wouldn't dream of leaving you out in the cold on such an important decision, so we're updating last year's portable navigation system roundup with four new or newly improved portable systems. Since our last portable navigation review, a few of the units we sampled have changed significantly, plus there are two all-new units that seem promising on paper — the Dash Express and Becker Travel Assistant.

Daily Kos

Since the U.S. won’t do it, the Iraqi government will:

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq ordered hundreds of former and current Blackwater employees to leave country within 7 days. Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection in January responded with bitterness and outrage at a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge’s decision as proof of what they’d long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

“There is no justice,” said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. “I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square.”

…..

An October 2007 report by a House of Representatives committee called Blackwater an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. Blackwater chairman Erik Prince told the committee that the company acted appropriately at all times.

Were the incident to happen again today, the legal outcome might be much different. The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted the immunity that foreign contractors had in Iraq. A British security contractor accused of shooting two colleagues is currently being held in Iraq and could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi court since the immunity was lifted.

That Blackwater remained in Iraq after the September 16, 2007 massacre is bad enough. That one year into the Obama administration they are still there, and that the company is still even eligible for government contracts, is a travesty.

Daily Kos

Two more tales for the Republican hypocrisy record. First, there’s John Boehner who was all about attacking Democrats over the fact that all of the healthcare negotiations haven’t been televised.

Boehner had been a rather vocal supporter of C-SPAN’s request to televise the earlier negotiations, writing to the network in January that “House Republicans strongly endorse your proposal and stand ready to work with you to make it a reality.”

But now that he’s been asked to participate in a televised healthcare reform summit, he’s not so sure.

Last night, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren asked him what he thinks about the fact that it’s going to be televised, and added that “the American people are probably delighted that we’re getting this televised.”

Boehner responded: “I think that’s fine, but you know, is this a political event or is this going to be a real conversation?”

Van Susteren didn’t let that slide: “Well, except that we’ve been hammering them about the transparency. The president said, you know, he was going to put everything on C-SPAN, so we can’t criticize him now for when he finally does put it on C-SPAN.”

Boehner said “well, that’s fine,” but he doesn’t “want to walk into some set-up.”

As with everything else, it has to be transparency, or lack thereof, on Republicans’ terms. As demonstrated by Jon Kyl, who was right there with Boehner in blasting Dems over the healthcare conference negotiations, but what happens when Kyl is in on the closed door negotiations?

Fox News reports that Kyl in particular is perfectly happy with backroom deals this time:

While much has been made of “backroom deals” over healthcare reform, no such outcry has come on the jobs bill. One reason? A handful of Republicans have been in the back room this time. Kyl, who loudly decried the closed door sausage-making on healthcare legislation, had a softer tone on the jobs bill.

“The truth of the matter is, a lot of things here are done by staff behind closed doors, and it’s not always the wrong way to put something together, as long as you have plenty of time for that product to get out to members so they can evaluate it, have the public take a look at it. … If you’re going to forgo the committee process, then you at least have to get it out to members so they can reflect on it. And that’s why you can’t vote on it by Thursday or Friday,” Kyl said.

No real news there. Republicans are for whatever they’re for, like protecting Medicare from Democrats unless they’re not, like Ryan’s plan for eliminating Medicare. But there is an interesting element to these stories. Fox News? Calling out two Republicans over back-room deal hypocrisy? Maybe they’re taking this teabagging thing seriously.

Daily Kos

An interesting look at the recent teabagger convention, as told by a disenchanted Jonathan Kay, via Balloon Juice:

… After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It’s more John Birch than John Adams.

Like all populists, tea partiers are suspicious of power and influence, and anyone who wields them. Their villain list includes the big banks; bailed-out corporations; James Cameron, whose Avatar is seen as a veiled denunciation of the U.S. military; Republican Party institutional figures they feel ignored by, such as chairman Michael Steele; colleges and universities (the more prestigious, the more evil); TheWashington Post; Anderson Cooper; and even FOX News pundits, such as Bill O’Reilly, who have heaped scorn on the tea-party movement’s more militant oddballs.

… none of them seems to realize how off-putting the toxic fantasies being spewed from the podium were.

Perhaps the most distressing part of all is that few media observers bothered to catalog these bizarre, conspiracist outbursts, and instead fixated on Sarah Palin’s Saturday night keynote address. It is as if, in the current overheated political atmosphere, we all simply have come to expect that radicalized conservatives will behave like unhinged paranoiacs when they collect in the same room.

Really, the only aspect of the story that could be disputed is him saying that it is distressing that the media doesn’t bother “to catalog these bizarre, conspiracist outbursts,” or note that teabaggers “will behave like unhinged paranoiacs when they collect in the same room.

It’s more like par for the course.

Daily Kos

A few new data points to peruse, a bipartisan rush to the exits, and more political trauma for one of the most embattled pols in America. Welcome to Wednesday night at the Wrap…..

THE U.S. SENATE

IN-Sen: Dan Coats Is Offically In, And Officially Getting Blasted The exploratory period for former Republican Senator Dan Coats was a short one, as he made it official today that he will be challenging incumbent Democrat Evan Bayh this Fall. Apparently, Coats was not dissuaded by his disastrous rollout, which was the topic of an interesting piece in Politico entitled “The Nuking of Dan Coats.” Apparently, Dems might have learned their Scott Brown lesson, and are defining opponents with a little more fervor from this point forward (although Jed Lewison made an excellent point about the beneficiary of this tactic, Senator Bayh, earlier today).

NH-Sen: New Primary Poll Paints Intriguing Granite State Picture Yesterday, Laura Clawson hit the DK front page with the latest poll from UNH from the Granite State. The quick recap: the House races look a little daunting for Democrats, and Paul Hodes should hope for a Binnie or Lamontagne nomination for the Senate. According to a new GOP primary poll by Magellan Research, that might happen. Establishment GOP pick Kelly Ayotte leads the field, but with only 37% of the vote. In a bit of a departure from other polls, free-spending businessman Bill Binnie runs second at 23%, with Ovide Lamontagne a distant third at 12%.

PA-Sen: Rasmussen Returns To Keystone State With Poll The Ras-a-Palooza has cooled off a bit this week, with the main headlines from the prolific pollster coming from the state of Pennsylvania. Ras polls the Democratic Primary, and finds incumbent Senator Arlen Specter with a fifteen-point lead over Congressman Joe Sestak (51-36). They also have general election data against likely GOP nominee Patrick Toomey, and they find Joe Sestak doing incrementally better than Senator Specter. Both trail Toomey, according to Rasmussen, but Specter (47-38) is a little further behind than Sestak (43-35).

SC-Sen: Primary Democratic Challenger Stands Down Against DeMint This has to qualify as a slight disappointment for Democrats, their most well-funded challenger for far-right Senator Jim DeMint decided to reverse course and not seek the U.S. Senate seat in 2010. Chad McGowan, a thirty-something attorney, cited the “more time with the family” rationale for leaving the race. He had raised only around a quarter million in several months in the race.

THE U.S. HOUSE

AL-05: Suddenly, A Flood of Democrats To Challenge New GOPer For over a month after his sudden party switch, nouveau Republican Parker Griffith was getting sweated a great deal more by his new party than his old one, as Democratic challengers were scarce. That ended this week, with a trio of Democratic hopefuls making their intentions known. Along with Huntsville attorney Mitchell Howie and former Hill staffer Steve Raby, Huntsville attorney Taze Shepard jumped into the race today. Of course, it is worth remembering that Griffith is hardly a lock to be the GOP nominee, as he is being challenged vigorously by a pair of Republicans: Les Phillip and Mo Brooks.

CA-32 CA-33: Democrats Lose An Incumbent To Retirement As Dante Atkins (who got the scoop from a diarist over at the Swing State Project) reported this weekend, Diane Watson will end her long public-service career at the end of this term. The district is overwhelmingly Democratic, and will be decided in the June primaries, in all likelihood. An early name being floated is former state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.

MI-03: Republicans Lose An Incumbent, As Well… Another seventy-something incumbent is headed for the exits at the end of this term. Vern Ehlers, first elected in 1993, announced his retirement yesterday. The district went 49-49 during the Obama-McCain election, but has been solidly GOP in other presidential elections as of late. Ehlers might have been shoved, however: the day before he went to the exits, twenty-something state legislator Justin Amash had announced a primary challenge. With Ehlers on the sidelines, the field is liable to mushroom. Among the GOPers named include Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, while Democrats might look at longtime state legislator Mike Sak.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

AL-Gov: Byrne The Early Leader In Crowded GOP Primary In an interesting early season poll of the Alabama primary by Baselice And Associates, Bradley Byrne has the early lead (20-17) over “Ten Commandments” judge Roy Moore. The rest of the field is way back in the single digits. This has to be good news for Byrne, since Moore has to have close to nearly universal name recognition in the state. Interestingly, state treasurer Kay Ivey is way back in the field at 3%, despite being a statewide elected official.

MI-Gov: Potential First-Tier Dem Declines Gubernatorial Bid This one has to qualify as a bit of a surprise: Denise Ilitch, a UM regent and member of one of Detroit’s most well-known and well-connected families, declined to run for Governor of Michigan, citing the demands of a compressed campaign schedule. Ilitch had been courted by Dems, including a brief lobbying effort by the White House. This announcement leaves Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and state House Speaker Andy Dillon as the two top-tier Dems in the field.

NY-Gov: The Paterson Saga Continues Unabated When you are already circling the polling drain, a series of news cycles like the ones that have been suffered by New York Governor David Paterson (D) cannot be helpful. The latest revelation (furiously denied, for what it’s worth, by Team Paterson) is that the Governor awarded a lucrative contract for a gaming center at a horse track with political motives in mind. Paterson remains in a feisty defensive posture, going so far as to plead his case on Don Imus’ program earlier today.

OR-Gov: Dean Makes A House Call in Competitive Gov’s Race This one is pretty intriguing: Bill Bradbury, the former Secretary of State who is challenging former Governor John Kitzhaber, got a high-profile assist Wednesday from former DNC Chair Howard Dean. One might expect a certain kinship between Dean and Kitzhaber, both governors and physicians. One would be wrong: Dean proclaimed Bradbury as “the only progressive candidate…who has an opportunity to win.” There could also be some score-settling here: Bradbury endorsed Dean in the former Vermont Governor’s 2004 presidential bid, while Kitzhaber very noticeably stood on the sidelines.

TX-Gov: Two New Polls Out of The Lone Star State As the clock now comes down to less than three weeks until the primaries in Texas, there is new data in both the primary and general elections. One day after PPP polled the primary, they are followed by a new poll sponsored by the Texas Credit Union League (and executed by a pair of pollsters, one Democratic and one Republican). In this poll, incumbent Rick Perry comes awfully close to winning without a runoff, leading with 49% of the vote. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is well behind at 27%, with teabagger Debra Medina at 19%. On the Democratic side, it is a White-wash, with former Houston Mayor Bill White blasting hair care magnate Farouk Shami (51-19).

In the general election, PPP follows their primary poll with new nums on the general election. The race against likely Democratic nominee Bill White is surprisingly competitive (PDF file), with incumbent Rick Perry leading White by just six points (48-42). Interestingly, all three GOPers perform similarly against White, with all three holding leads of six or seven points.

Daily Kos

This evening’s Rescue Rangers are ItsJessMe, ybruti, grog, and dopper0189, and srkp23 with vcmvo2 as editor and reader.

The diaries up for rescue tonight are:

• pico revives his quiescent series Literature for Kossacks to bring us this collection of beautiful work from an American-Haitian author in Literature for Kossacks – Edwidge Danticat. (vcmvo2)
• Noting that February 11 is the official anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, FrankCornish is apprehensive about Iran: What Is At Stake Tomorrow? Some Possibilities. (ybruti)
• Chimes of Freedom wonders what the small government crowd’s response to a financial crisis would be: Lookin’ like a fool with your head in the sand. (dopper0189)
• Ever wonder Why the Republican Filibuster of Craig Becker is Ridiculous? circlesnshadows explains the obvious. (grog)
• sangemon reminds us that we often take trees for granted in Mourning For Trees. (dopper0189)
• jmknapp presents decades of temperature data in The blind men and the global climate. (ybruti)
• I T provides this update on Moving the middle on marriage equality. (grog)
• Eleanor Acer describes A System Designed to Fail Haitians. (ybruti)
• Timothy Karr examines the stalled government supported effort to expand broadband to under-served areas in Close the Broadband Gap? Phone and Cable Giants Just Say ‘No’. (dopper0189)
• DWG analyzes the pros and cons of three options to save our planet, in DK Greenroots: Legislative Approaches to Curb Carbon Gas Emissions. (ItsJessMe)
• Vacationland, shocked by her frosty breath, describes her memories of smoking in GUS: Smoke and Mirrors. (ybruti)

jotter with High Impact Diaries: February 9, 2010.

emeraldmaiden brings tonight’s Top Comments 2/10/10 – Weather or no?

Please share your own favorite diaries from the past twenty-four hours in this Open Thread.

Yahoo! News: Most Viewed

AP – Don’t say “mental retardation” — the new term is “intellectual disability.” No more diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome — call it a mild version of autism instead. And while “behavioral addictions” will be new to doctors’ dictionaries, “Internet addiction” didn’t make the cut.

Yahoo! News: Politics News AP – Harvard University says retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter will be the principal speaker at its spring commencement ceremony.

Yahoo! News: Politics News

AP – A former aide to John Edwards turned over the now infamous sex tape to a judge Wednesday, then faced tough questions from attorneys for the ex-presidential candidate’s mistress who were frustrated with his changing story about where the tapes had been kept.

Yahoo! News: Sports News

AP – Dwight Howard insisted his intentions were pure, that he was simply trying to block a layup and in no way meant to injure Derrick Rose.

Yahoo! News: World News Reuters – Vancouver Olympics organizers breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday as Mother Nature finally cooperated and snow began to fall on the barren hills of Cypress Mountain three days before moguls competition begins.

Yahoo! News: Sports News AP – The Houston Astros have signed three right-handed pitchers to one-year contracts and hired retired pitcher Doug Brocail as an advisor.

Yahoo! News: World News

AFP – A Beijing court on Thursday upheld on appeal an 11-year prison term against leading Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on subversion charges, triggering swift US and EU condemnation.

Yahoo! News: Top Stories

Reuters – Pakistan said on Wednesday it had information suggesting Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud had died of wounds inflicted in a U.S. drone aircraft attack in January.

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The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed

It blows my mind how little it takes to be considered an expert these days.

Take for instance Christopher Monckton, who according to Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, is an expert in the area of climate science. Monckton is a journalist by training.

And Ian Plimer, another expert on climate change according to the UK’s Spectator newspaper. Plimer is a retired geologist who has no research background in the area of climate change. He wrote a climate change book though and it was published by the Heartland Institute, a group that also thinks second-hand tobacco smoke is about as innocuous as the burning of coal.

Then there’s Marlo Lewis, another expert on climate change, who’s background is political science. Marlo has done no research climate change, yet Lewis made it on the Oprah Winfrey show and talked about the state of Arctic sea ice.

I could on and on with more ridiculous examples of how the media continues to prop up self-proclaimed experts on climate science as actual experts, but I’m sure you get the picture. One argument I have heard is that people like Plimer are a modern day, but misunderstood Galileo. Problem is, while Galileo did actual research to prove his point, people like Plimer choose to forgo this important step and announce their beliefs as fact with no scientific evidence to back their claim.

Climate science is in the headlines again recently and it is under attack. But there’s no research at the basis of this attack. There is nobody in a lab coat with frizzy gray hair who has suddenly come to a Eureka moment and proven that the world isn’t being messed up by our unrelenting burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal. There’s just people like Monckton, Plimer and Horner getting another moment in the mainstream media sun to tout the same baseless arguments I have listened to them make for many years now.

It’s a record that just keeps skipping and the media fall for it over and over and over.

More on Climate Change

Yahoo! News: Most Viewed

AP – U.S. Marines fired smoke rounds Wednesday and armored vehicles maneuvered close to Taliban positions to test insurgent defenses ahead of an anticipated attack on the biggest militant-controlled town in southern Afghanistan.

Yahoo! News: Sports News

AP – Pau Gasol had 22 points and 19 rebounds and the Los Angeles Lakers won their third straight without Kobe Bryant, beating Utah 96-81 on Wednesday night and ending the Jazz’s nine-game winning streak.

Yahoo! News: Politics News Politico – Bond calls for Brennan’s ouster as Hoekstra vows to record future calls withe counterterrorism chief.

Yahoo! News: World News AP – A court has rejected an appeal by Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo of his 11-year prison term handed down for subversion after he spearheaded a public declaration calling for an end to Communist Party dominance.

Yahoo! News: Top Stories Reuters – The British government lost a legal battle Wednesday to prevent the disclosure of secret U.S. intelligence material relating to allegations of “cruel and inhuman” treatment involving the CIA.

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