Cigarette smoke does not take too long to get into one’s bloodstream. Once in the blood, the toxins in cigarette smoke directly change the structure so that it becomes stickier to one another. Obama said not a heavy smoker who had smoked every day. Yet U.S. President was aware of his bad habits must be stopped. Through determination and family support, the president is already 9 months to quit smoking.
“I have not seen and witnessed no evidence of smoking within nine months,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said when asked by reporters about how Obama has bid to quit smoking as reported by politicsdaily.com.
Heavy smokers or who only occasionally smokes are equally in danger. Research shows negative effects of smoking can occur more quickly than expected, so that a cigarette is enough to trigger heart attacks.

Gibbs said Obama had struggled to quit smoking. “It (smoking) was not something he’s proud of. He knows it is not good for him. He knew he did not like about it,” Gibbs said.

“I think he has been working (trying to quit smoking) with a bang. He has struggled against that habit,” said Gibbs.

The media called Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes We Can ‘suitable enough for his determination to quit smoking. Obama’s smoking habit was under the spotlight when he advanced in the U.S. presidential election 2009. Before elected U.S. President, Obama has been determined to quit smoking.

When Obama’s campaign acknowledged the bad habit of smoking as a teenager. Some photographs are smoking Obama also had a month-monthly campaign of political opponents.

However, Obama said he was not a smoker every day. “I was never a heavy smoker. I’ve quit periodically over the last few years due to strong demand from wives and replacing them with chewing Nicolette (gum),” Obama told the Chicago Tribune during the presidential campaign this time.

At that time, Obama said his wife Michelle has given the spirit and encouraged her to get out of the vicious circle of smoking for health reasons.

In the presidential medical examination in March 2010, Obama declared healthy and continue to struggle to quit smoking. Since the medical examination was announced, the occupant of the White House also never again sees Obama smoking.

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Saviour God wants us to live. The Apostle Paul, The Message. National Prayer Breakfast

The National Prayer Breakfast (NPB) is an established annual event which brings people together to pray for the institutions, government and people of the United Kingdom.

The main part of the Breakfast comprises a full morning of events, including:

* sessions of prayer
* the Breakfast event
* seminars on current political issues

The NPB is organised by a cross-party Steering Committee of Peers and MPs under the auspices of Christians in Parliament and is hosted in Parliament with the kind permission of the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords.

Both Julian Assange and his website, WikiLeaks, have been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.  A member of the Norwegian Nobel committee says the site promotes human rights, democracy and freedom of speech.  

Cyrus Kouandjio, the nation's top offensive tackle prospect, has not faxed scholarship papers to Auburn University and told his high school coach at around 2 p.m. CT that he is "unsure" which school he is going to sign with.More Info : Tidesports

Lake Shore Drive remained closed Wednesday afternoon, as city workers continued removing stranded vehicles from the roadway in an effort to reopen the road as soon as possible.

Lake Shore Drive was a disaster area overnight, as motorists found themselves stranded for up to 12 hours and ended up in the hospital.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, many motorists were just trying to get home, but the blizzard made that impossible.

Initially, Lake Shore Drive was moving smoothly as the evening rush began, but conditions began to deteriorate following several accidents. There were three accidents between Fullerton Parkway and Belmont Avenue 7:15 and 7:45 p.m., one of them involving a CTA bus. Shortly afterward, there were two more accidents in the northbound lanes just south of North Avenue.

The accidents caused cars and buses to back up, and as the snow piled up, vehicles became immobilized and off-ramps became impassable. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 7:58 p.m., and fire and police personnel worked to move as many cars as possible off the highway and remove people who could not get out on their own.

City officials said 700 to 900 cars were involved in the overnight traffic jam on Lake Shore Drive just south of North Avenue. In response, 13 ambulances were dispatched and remained on the scene all night, along with 26 fire companies with 130 firefighters.

Fire personnel were organized into two task forces with 30 firefighter-medics equipped on snowmobiles.

Police also dispatched 30 officers to the Drive, mayor’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco said.

Orozco said first responders tried to get to stranded motorists as quickly as possible, but winds of 60 to 70 mph and snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour made that extremely difficult.

Fire crews were unable to see even one car in front of them for a period of time, Fire Commissioner Bob Hoff said.

Before the city shut down the Drive, traffic had been crawling; it took upwards of an hour to travel only a mile. Many cars were without a full tank of gas, and ended up running out.

WBBM Newsradio 780 was flooded with calls from stranded motorists who said they had been stuck on Lake Shore Drive for over seven hours and saw people abandoning their cars.

Newsradio 780′s Lisa Fielding reports Sue Baker left her Hyde Park office around 5 p.m. and nearly seven hours later, she remained in the same spot, “We haven’t moved. It’s kinda scary. There are snow drifts on our cars now.”

Evanston attorney Craig Roeder says he got on Lake Shore Drive at 6 p.m. and headed north. He says he crept and crawled until just south of Fullerton Parkway, when traffic ground to a halt around 9:30 pm.

And there he sat, in whiteout conditions for six hours, until 3:20 a.m. when WBBM Newsradio 780’s David Roe was interviewing him on the phone.

Source: Chicago.cbslocal.com

The last time Egypt had a vice president was in 1981. His name was Hosni Mubarak.

His 30-year regime now facing intense pressure, Mubarak announced Saturday that the Arab world's most populous nation would once again have a deputy leader. For that role, he tapped Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief who has been a powerful behind-the-scenes player for a long time.

Suleiman's appointment as vice president was seen widely as an attempt by Mubarak to restore order. He is well respected by the military and is credited with crushing an Islamic insurgency in the 1990s, for which he earned the ear of Western intelligence officials thirsting for vital information about regional terrorist groups.

He has also long been mentioned as a possible successor to Mubarak, along with the aging ruler's son, Gamal, and some analysts viewed his deputy appointment as a way for Mubarak to make a graceful exit.

"His loyalty to Mubarak seems rock solid," a former U.S. ambassador wrote in a classified U.S. diplomatic cable leaked to the website WikiLeaks.

"Suleiman himself adamantly denies any personal ambitions, but his interest and dedication to national service is obvious," said the 2007 document.

If Suleiman's name is not well known, it is intentional. As head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Organisation, known as the Mukhabarat, he has lurked in the shadows of Mubarak's regime, earning him a nickname of "the secret minister."

He has even made trips to Washington without public notice. On one such visit in 2006, he presented former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with a personalized silver box worth $420.

"He is someone that we know well and have worked closely with," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

But if Suleiman's presence has been opaque, his role certainly has not.

Suleiman is even credited with saving Mubarak's life. On a state visit to Ethiopia in 1995, Mubarak was to have traveled in a normal vehicle but Suleiman insisted that the president's armored Mercedes be flown in from Cairo.

Accounts of an assassination attempt on Mubarak vary but it's believed that Suleiman was sitting next to Mubarak when a hail of bullets pinged off the car. The bond forged that day cemented their relationship.

Born in an impoverished area of southern Egypt in 1935, Suleiman chose the military as a career, according to a Foreign Policy magazine biography.

He rose through the ranks of the Egyptian infantry to a lieutenant general. After his country allied itself with the United States, he attended the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the 1980s, Foreign Policy reported.

He was tapped for Egypt's top intelligence post in 1993, at a time when the Arab world's most populous nation was wracked with terrorist attacks targeting tourists and essential infrastructure.

Defense and security analysis company IHS Jane's says Suleiman's interaction with the Israeli Mossad as well as the Central Intelligence Agency catapulted him to a central role in Egypt's security apparatus.

In 2001, he led Egyptian efforts to confront a Palestinian uprising next door. Later, he played a crucial role in the formation of a new Palestinian government headed by Mahmoud Abbas, according to Jane's.

Now, Omar Suleiman's name is etched into the annals of Egyptian history as the man entrusted to defend an embattled leader. He saved Mubarak's life before, but will he be able to preserve his power?

As a billionaires' caucus of conservative business executives, pundits, and campaign operatives huddles at a California resort this weekend to plot their political strategies, Common Cause will host an open-to-the-public forum nearby to explore how everyday Americans can reclaim control of our democracy.

"Uncloaking the Kochs: The Billionaires' Caucus and its Threat to our Democracy," a panel discussion, will feature Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary and now chairman of Common Case's National Governing Board; Van Jones, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California-Irvine; Lee Fang, an investigative journalist at the Center for American Progress; and DeAnn McEwen, co-President of the California Nurses Association.

At a mid-day news conference today in Washington, panelists outlined plans for the forum on Sunday, Jan. 30, and a rally that will follow it outside the Rancho Las Palmas resort in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The forum will focus on strategies for countering last year's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, including efforts to force full disclosure of corporate political spending. The 5-4 ruling allowed corporations, trade groups and unions to dump about $300 million into the 2010 elections, more than $130 million of it from undisclosed donors.

Inside the resort, guests of industrialists Charles and David Koch and the likely sources of much of that money, will be meeting in private and working on a much different agenda.

"Americans are suffering... They are worried about their future, and those worries are the direct result of the actions and influence of the select special interests who will gather in Rancho Mirage this weekend," said Reich today. "An elite few like the Koch brothers and the attendees of this conference have used their unlimited wealth to take tighter control of all branches of our government. They have played a role on the fall of our economy, prevention of affordable health care, degradation of our environment. None of it is in the interest of the American public."

"Some companies simply pay lobbyists to gain influence. But Koch Industries and its allies have taken a holistic approach of transforming entire political systems and institutions into reflections of their self interest. The story of the Koch brothers is crucial to understand the corporate threat to our democracy," said Fang.

An investigative journalist for ThinkProgress, Fang was one of the first reporters to detail the corporate underpinnings of the Tea Party. He has written extensively about the Koch brothers and is preparing a book about the right-wing political activism in the Obama era for publication later this year.

Jones highlighted the Koch's long opposition to environmental protection. "They are actively standing in the way of our nation transitioning to a 21st century economy focused on clean energy and job creation," he said. He noted that Charles Koch provided $1 million in support of California's Proposition 23, a ballot initiative which would have eliminated California's attempt to limit carbon emissions and embrace a clean economy. "Nationally, their influence is more profound," he said. "They are the number one funders of climate change deniers. Their influence has global impact."

McEwen and the Nurses Association have been key organizers of a rally that will follow the "Uncloaking" forum. "As nurses, we are dedicated to the values of caring and compassion," she said today. "Hiding behind astroturf front groups and shadowy financing of campaigns, the Koch brothers and their allies have shown a heartless contempt for these values on every level. We believe the American people deserve to know who is causing their pain."

"Our goal here for the panel Sunday is to talk about the Billionaires Caucus agenda, its human impact and what can be done to restore the voices of ordinary Americans to the our political process," said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause. "Our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people, but it has been hijacked by self-interested billionaires. We must take it back."

Two alleged narcotics traffickers aligned with a right-wing paramilitary terrorist organization in Colombia have been convicted of conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine into the United States.

Christian Fernando Borda and Alvaro Alvaran-Velez were extradited from Colombia a year ago and were convicted by a federal jury Thursday.

The Justice Department said Borda led an organization that obtained cocaine from paramilitary groups and smuggled in more than 1,500 tons in drums of palm oil from Colombia in 2005, with additional shipments in 2005 and 2006. The department said Alvaran-Velez, an associate of Borda, facilitated cocaine shipments.

They were allied with Autodefenses Unidas de Colombia, an umbrella group for far-right paramilitary groups that has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/09/colombians-convicted-cocaine-smuggling-plot/#ixzz1CQSRV2p5

President Obama chose J. Paul Oetken to be a federal judge in Manhattan, New York.  If confirmed by the Senate, Oetken could become the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench in the United States.

Obama's Promises

Presidents and promises have been comrades since the birth of our nation. Sometimes, the vows have been bold: Lyndon B. Johnson pledged to eliminate poverty in his 1964 State of the Union Address. Obviously, that didn't happen. Other times, the promises have been mostly fulfilled, as when Roosevelt announced his historic New Deal. Throughout his campaign, President Obama made more than 500 promises to our nation, according to PolitiFact, a service from the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times that assesses the truth behind politicians' statements. Here is how PoliFact says the president is doing.
Foreclosure prevention fund
'The Fund will not help speculators, people who bought vacation homes or people who falsely represented their incomes.'
PolitiFact rating: Compromise
Repeal the Bush-era tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 (couple) or $200,000 (single)
'At a time when Americans are working harder than ever, we are taxing income from work at nearly twice the level that we're taxing gains for investors,' Obama said. 'We've lost the balance between work and wealth.'
PolitiFact rating: Stalled
Require health-insurance
coverage for all children
'Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that all children have health-care coverage … [and] expand the number of options for young adults to get coverage by allowing young people up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parents' plans.'
PolitiFact rating: Promise Kept
Build an electronic health
information system
'Barack Obama and Joe Biden will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health-care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health-information systems, including electronic health records. They will also phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT and commit the necessary federal resources to make it happen.'
PolitiFact rating: In the Works
Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as 'must-pass' legislation
'Obama will meet early in the budgeting process each year with congressional leaders and the nation's leading Veterans' Service Organizations (VSOs) to ensure the VA budget is always given 'must-pass' status.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Begin drawing down combat
troops from Iraq
'Barack Obama will work with military commanders on the ground in Iraq and in consultation with the Iraqi government to end the war safely and responsibly within six months.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Deploy additional troops to Afghanistan
'As Obama removes our combat brigades from Iraq, he will send at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent. He will also provide our armed forces with the reset capability that they need. He will replace essential equipment, and he will ensure that our men and women in uniform get the care and support they have earned.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Close Guantanamo Bay
'As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo. He will reject the Military Commissions Act, which allowed the U.S. to circumvent Geneva Conventions in the handling of detainees. He will develop a fair and thorough process based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice to distinguish between those prisoners who should be prosecuted for their crimes, those who can't be prosecuted but who can be held in a manner consistent with the laws of war and those who should be released or transferred to their home countries.'
PolitiFact Rating: Stalled
End the use of torture
'Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries.'
PolitiFact Rating: In the Works
New rules barring paid lobbyists from serving as administration officials
'No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Broken
Require full disclosure and a waiting period for budget earmarks
'The Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks, disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.'
PolitiFact Rating: Compromise
Create tough new financial regulations
'I'll put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I've been calling for since March--rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
'Obama and Biden support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.'
PolitiFact Rating: Stalled
Create 5 million new 'green industry' jobs
'Obama and Biden will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe.'
Politifact Rating: In the Works
Create a cap-and-trade system to control global-warming emissions
'As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming--an 80 percent reduction by 2050 … These reductions will start immediately, and we'll continue to follow the recommendations of top scientists to ensure that our targets are strong enough to meet the challenge we face.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Broken
Increase funding for national parks
and forests
'As president, he and Joe Biden will repair the damage done to our national parks by inadequate funding and emphasize the protection and restoration of our National Forests.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept