Business Briefs: Home sales up from year ago | timesfreepress.com

Home sales up from year ago

Home listings grew and sales declined in Chattanooga during September, the Greater Chattanooga Area Association of Realtors reported Friday. Realtors sold 393 houses last month, down 8.8 percent from the previous month. But new listings rose by 11.7 percent to 877, swelling inventory on the Chattanooga market to 4,920 residential units for sale. The median sales price in September was up 1.5 percent to $139,100.

"Employment growth remains critical, providing the very jobs that will stimulate housing demand and higher prices as well as alleviate beleaguered homeowners," said Mark Hite, president of the Chattanooga Realtors group.


Amtrak trains reach 111 mph

In a modest milestone for President Barack Obama's high-speed rail vision, test runs started zooming along a small section of the Amtrak line between Chicago and St. Louis at 111 mph Friday.

The 30-mph increase from the route's current top speed is a morale booster for advocates of high-speed rail. But some rail experts question whether the route will become profitable, pose serious competition to air and automobile travel, or ever reach speeds comparable to the bullet trains blasting across Europe and Asia at 150 mph and faster.

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Source: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/20/business-briefs-Home-sales-up-from-year-ago/

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After Libya misfire, pressure on Romney in foreign policy debate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face off on Monday in their third and final debate, it will be the Republican challenger's last best chance to recover from his botched "Libya moment" and exploit vulnerabilities in his opponent's foreign policy record.

But Romney has an uphill struggle to make his case against Obama, who will be buoyed by the advantages of incumbency as well as polls showing him with an edge - though a shrinking one - on the question of who is more trusted in global affairs.

With this week's debate in Boca Raton, Florida, coming just 15 days before the election and devoted entirely to foreign policy, it could be the riskiest of the three nationally televised showdowns for Romney, largely because of his own inexperience and recent blunders on the world stage.

Romney's missteps in criticizing Obama's handling of a deadly September 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi - the focus of a vividly testy exchange in the previous debate - have complicated his broader strategy of trying to cast the president as a weak steward of American power abroad.

Deprived of one of his most potent lines of attack, expect Romney to instead focus more of his critique on Obama's policies toward Iran, Israel, Syria, China, Afghanistan and Russia.

"Obama has a record, and Romney doesn't, so he can just cherry-pick the arguments," said Jon Alterman, a former State Department policy planner now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. "But that doesn't mean any of it will stick."

Romney's aides hope that chipping away at Obama's credibility on foreign policy and national security - areas the White House once saw as largely immune from Republican attack - can help put him over the top with undecided voters in the final weeks of a White House race still too close to call.

WILL VOTERS CARE?

And Obama's policies have faced setbacks recently, from challenges to U.S. interests in the Middle East to a string of attacks on American-led NATO forces in Afghanistan by the Afghan troops they are supposed to be training.

Reports that the Obama administration has agreed in principle with Iran to hold one-on-one talks over its nuclear program could provide a fresh avenue for Romney to cast Obama as too willing to accommodate.

It remains to be seen how much traction any of this will have with voters, whose main concerns by far are the economy and jobs.

The problem for Romney is that in honing in on Obama's trouble spots, he also further exposes his own weaknesses.

As former governor of Massachusetts and an ex-businessman, he is out of his comfort zone when not focused on domestic and economic matters.

That was evident in last week's debate when he mistakenly said Obama took weeks to acknowledge that the Benghazi assault - which claimed the lives of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans - was a terrorist attack.

Obama, who said he had done so in a September 12 appearance in the White House Rose Garden, challenged Romney to "check the transcript" and chastised him for trying to score political points from a national tragedy.

A slew of pundits dubbed it Romney's "Libya moment," and some of his own aides conceded privately that Obama got the better of him.

On top of that, Obama managed to shift the focus away from the thornier question of whether the administration had ignored requests to beef up diplomatic security in Libya.

Romney went silent on Libya after Tuesday's encounter but aides say the Republican, hunkered down in debate prep in Florida this weekend, will be ready to deal with it on Monday night when it is all but certain to come up again.

What Romney hopes to do is press his point, drowned out in the last debate, that the recent wave of anti-American violence in Libya and other parts of the Middle East shows Obama's foreign policy is "unraveling before our very eyes."

At the same time, he will want to avoid giving Obama another opportunity to go on the offensive.

"I doubt the governor will end up parsing words. That's not the most productive thing to do," said Eliot Cohen, a Romney adviser and neoconservative foreign policy expert at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies in Washington.

Romney must also show voters he has what it takes to be a capable commander-in-chief, and he will seek to counter any attempt by Obama to "paint him as an insane warmonger," Cohen said.

Obama - who has touted the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as a signature foreign policy accomplishment - has signaled he could use the debate to caution war-weary voters of the risk of a more hawkish Romney presidency.

At a campaign rally in New Hampshire last week, Obama suggested Romney was promoting the kind of foreign policy that "takes us into wars without a plan to get us out."

A Pew Research Center survey, conducted after the first debate but before the second, showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 43 percent on the question of who would make wiser foreign policy decisions. That was much narrower than Obama's 15 percentage-point advantage in a poll early last month.

LOOKING FOR CONTRASTS

Romney will be under pressure to sharpen contrasts with Obama when the two men sit side-by-side across the table from moderator Bob Schieffer, known for a cantankerous demeanor with guests on the Sunday morning news show "Face the Nation."

The 90-minute debate will be divided into six segments: America's role in the world; the war in Afghanistan; Israel and Iran; the changing Middle East; terrorism; and China's rise.

Critics have accused Romney of relying on generalities and platitudes - he has hearkened back to Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" doctrine - and he could be put on the spot if he resists providing specifics.

Romney has promised to tighten the screws over Iran's nuclear program, accused Obama of "leading from behind" as Syria's civil war expands, and accused Obama of a politically timed exit from the unpopular Afghanistan war.

But in each case, critics say, he has not detailed alternatives from Obama's policies.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libya-misfire-pressure-romney-foreign-policy-debate-051621328.html

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Simple Tips For Home Improvement Jobs Today | Blog3.RapiChat.com

An easy and cost effective way to spruce up your home is by painting the interior. To estimate the amount of paint you need, you have to calculate the square footage of the walls. Simply multiply the length of the wall by its height. One gallon of paint will cover approximately 350 square feet. Bear in mind that you may need two coats of paint, depending on what color you are painting over.

If you are new to home improvement, it is important that you get the knowledge you need. Oftentimes, if you have colleagues or friends that know what they are doing when it comes to home improvement, they would be more than willing to help you with the information you need or help you in the actual process itself.

When replacing your furnace filter, remember that electrostatic pleated filters may cause your furnace to run harder than it would with a filter that has larger spaces for air to pass through. If you do use pleated allergen-reducing filters, make sure that you change them frequently, because air cannot flow through them easily when they are clogged with dirt and debris.

Refurbishing an unfinished basement floor can bring the space together while increasing the functionality of the basement. Family members and friends will want to go down there more than they did before and one can create a new area to entertain guests. Putting down a wood, carpet, or synthetic floor will really improve ones basement.

Look for stores that can provide inexpensive storage for built in closet projects. You can save money by installing it yourself instead of paying a contractor to create a closet system. Many times, the quality will be very similar to a paid professional. However, you can get it done yourself in a faster amount of time, if you can follow instructions.

If you are renovating your kitchen but need to spend less money, consider using laminate flooring and countertops. These synthetic options are generally much less expensive than wood, tile, or stone. They are also easier to care for. Many of these products are designed to closely mimic the natural products, so that the difference is only visible on close inspection.

When looking to replace counter tops, go with granite. Most granite is attractive looking, durable, reasonably priced and is able to withhold hot products. Also, because it is so hard, it will not scratch, blister, or crack. It is easy to clean and does not wear down like other counter tops.

Giving your rental unit a separate laundry room, will save you the headache of trying to co-ordinate running loads when your tenant wants to use the washer and dryer, too. Having your own laundry will give you the ability to wash whenever you wish to, and the laundry facilities in the rental unit, will command a higher rent.

Before deciding on renovations for your home, go to several open houses in new subdivisions. You?ll see the latest styles and colors and get a better idea of how your home could look with those options than you would by just going through the hardware store. Many model homes even hire a decorator to include window coverings and furniture to complete the effect, so you can copy the ones you like best and skip a lot of trial and error when updating your own home.

Make sure to assess your needs for equipment and supplies, getting all that you need before you start your home improvement project. The last thing you want to do is get to the middle of a project only to find that you need to stop and get more supplies or equipment to finish appropriately.

So you?ve decided to take on that long awaited home improvement project. You?ve made the right choice by starting here. In this article, we have discussed the top tricks to help you get the job done. We hope you have found this information useful and that it makes your next project that much easier to accomplish.

Hubert Bobrowski personal blogs in relation to http://www.ChicagoRoofingTeam.com

Source: http://blog3.rapichat.com/2012/10/20/simple-tips-for-home-improvement-jobs-today/

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Saturday's Must Read Articles: Why Capital Gains Taxes Are Lower ...

Hope everyone has had a great weekend so far. Below we have some great articles for you to read and help get you through your day so sit back, relax, and enjoy some great reads.?Like always, if you have any investment questions or need advice on a specific stock,?Stocks?on Wall Street?is always here for you so feel free to?Contact Us?at anytime.?We always love to hear from our readers so please shoot us an email. Also let us know what you think about the articles below and your thoughts on the markets current climate by either commenting below, posting on our?Facebook Fan Page?or by sending us either?Stocks on Wall Street?or our?Founder?a Tweet.

Why Capital Gains Taxes Are Lower?- Thomas Sowell, Investor?s Business Daily

High School Diploma: Big Ticket to Nowhere?- Leah Konen, The Fiscal Times

McDonald?s Offers a Mirror Onto Our Society?- Jonathan Kay, National Post

Private Equity: More Money Than It Can Invest?- Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

Kleinke Is Wrong, Obamacare Is Not Conservative?- Furchtgott-Roth, RCM

How Much of Future Can We Take For Today??- Joe Calhoun, Alhambra

?Black Monday? Echoes as Computers Fail to Restore Trust?- Bloomberg

Individual Investors Destroying Own Wealth?- Howard Gold, MarketWatch

Truth About Google?s Horrible, No Good, Bad Day?- Miguel Helft, Fortune

China Needs A New Growth Model?- David Turner, Institutional Investor

Japan Goes Shopping For Growth?- Bruce Einhorn, BusinessWeek

Why Diversification Doesn?t Work?- Mark Buchanan, The Physics of Finance

Get Ready to Buy Stocks After a Crash?- Jonathan Burton, MarketWatch

For Holidays, Retailers Take the Fight to Amazon?- Brad Tuttle, TIME

If you can?t access some of the articles it might be because you need to have a subscription, to get a Free-Trial or Subscribe to any of the Top Financial Publications,?Simply Click on the Link!

Filed Under: Articles of the Week ? Books ? Buy Stocks ? Featured

Tags: How to Lower Capital Gains Taxes ? Lowering Capital Gains Taxes ? Saturday's Must Read Articles ? Saturday's Must Read Articles: Why Capital Gains Taxes Are Lower ? Why Capital Gains Taxes Are Lower

Source: http://stocksonwallstreet.net/2012/10/saturdays-must-read-articles-why-capital-gains-taxes-are-lower/

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Employee late submitting FMLA certification? - Business ...

Employees are supposed to get FMLA certifications back to their employers within 15 days. But it?s not a good idea to terminate an employee simply because you didn?t receive the paperwork on time.

The FMLA regulations include an out for employees who miss the deadline for reasons beyond their control. That can easily happen when a doctor?s office is overwhelmed with paperwork.

Recent case: Gary was an assistant store manager for Walmart. When he began having panic attacks, he asked for time off and was told he?d have to take disability leave.

The store manager gave him an FMLA packet, which included instructions for his doctor to fill out a medical certification. The doctor did, certifying that Gary had hypertension, depression and anxiety and needed FMLA leave.

Walmart claimed it never got the form despite a fax confirmation from the doctor?s office showing the date the form was faxed. Gary was fired for unapproved absences.

He sued, alleging interference and retaliation. He pointed out that the regulations allow for extenuating circumstances. Gary said he would have followed up if he had known Walmart never received the form.

The court said his case could go to trial. (Drake v. Wal-Mart, No. 2:10-CV-679, MD FL, 2012)

Final note: Courts hate needlessly draconian rules. Always give employees a reasonable chance to submit paperwork. Jumping the gun makes it look like you were looking for an excuse to fire someone.

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We believe great content should be read and passed around. After all, knowledge IS power. And good business can become great with the right information at their fingertips. If you'd like to share any of the insightful articles on BusinessManagementDaily.com, you may republish or syndicate it without charge.

The only thing we ask is that you keep the article exactly as it was written and formatted. You also need to include an attribution statement and link to the article.

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Source: http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/32901/employee-late-submitting-fmla-certification-dont-just-fire-find-out-why

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Poachers Gun Down Iconic Ibis

Goja, named by Jane Goodall and the poster bird for a project to save northern bald ibises from extinction, was killed by illegal hunters


Ibis Ibises are being killed by illegal hunters in Italy. Image: Flickr/Thomas Lieser

By Chelsea Wald of Nature magazine

Vienna, Austria?The leading bird in a European project to develop a method to save a rare species of ibis was killed last weekend by illegal hunters in Italy. Goja, a northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita), was on her way to wintering grounds in Tuscany when she was shot down.

The northern bald ibis has been extinct in the wild in Europe for nearly 400 years and is critically endangered in North Africa and the Middle East. A team led by biologist Johannes Fritz from the University of Vienna has been hand-raising the birds and teaching them how to migrate from breeding areas north of the Alps in Germany and Austria to wintering grounds in Italy. The project aims to learn more about the bird and about migration in general.

Goja initially learnt the migration route in autumn 2009 by following an ultralight aircraft. She made headlines in 2011 when she became the first of the team?s birds to fly back on her own to Germany for the summer.

Although unconventional, the team believes that its aircraft-based teaching method could eventually be used to reintroduce the bird to Europe and to aid in conservation elsewhere. The researchers have made important progress ?on getting a method that looks like it's probably going to work?, says Chris Bowden, international species recovery officer at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Sandy, UK, and chair of the International Advisory Group for the Northern Bald Ibis.

Goja was a key element in the team?s success to date. Not only was she the first to migrate on her own, she was also the first migrator to raise chicks in the breeding area she came from, and last year she became the first to lead a juvenile, a male called Jazu, to the wintering grounds. ?I think she is somehow a special personality type,? Fritz said of Goja last summer, ?a successful and active type of bird.?

Goja's fate is not unique, last autumn the project lost up to 15 of 37 migrating birds to hunters in Italy. As the team shifted its focus from aiding migration to combating illegal hunting, Goja became even more important. Primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall (from whom Goja got her name) began including Goja?s story in her public lectures, where she drew attention to the problem of illegal hunting of all migrating birds.

When Goja was shot on Saturday, she was leading two juveniles; one was shot dead along with her and the other is missing, presumed shot. A fourth bird traveling alone survived a shooting but will probably not return to free flight. But the poachers have not yet managed to put an end to the migration: Jazu safely led a juvenile to the wintering grounds this year, making sure another generation will know where to go. The birds are now being kept under lock and key until the end of hunting season.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on October 18, 2012.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=caccc05cd24eceb274050dc22aba5f02

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Could you be Writer of the Year 2013? | The Writers Bureau Blog

As usual, thanks to Louise for last week?s guest blog. I can vouch for the fact that she really does practise what she preaches! I can also vouch for the fact that it pays dividends ? when I last had coffee with her I could feel myself going green with envy as she told me about the overseas trips she?d enjoyed in the previous few months, writing for various magazines.

My favourite word

I notice that Readers? Digest currently has a new competition in association with Chambers. All you have to do is tell them your favourite word and then explain in no more than 100 words why it should win. The best will receive ?100 in cash plus ?100-worth of Chamber?s products. In addition there will be 50 runners-up. The closing date is 14th December.

My favourite word at the moment is ?discombobulated? ? I suspect this is because we are just coming to the end of the political party conference season and I?m sure anyone who has listened to enough of the speeches must be feeling that way. So what?s yours? If you?ve got a particularly interesting one, please let me know.

Raw writing talent

And talking about a way with words, I?ve just taken my first dip into reading works by Alan Sillitoe (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), John Braine (Room at the Top) and Stan Barstow (A Kind of Loving). They bring back a gritty, grey northern world of the late ?50s and early ?60s ? though in Sillitoe?s case the Nottingham that he writes about in later books is exactly what I still remember from my time there in the early ?80s. Their characters are often far from lovable but what makes them leap off the page is the dialogue. You can really hear them speaking to you!

I found Stan Barstow?s comments in his preface to a book of short stories particularly interesting: ?My circumstances and background didn?t seem a very hopeful breeding ground? There were no writers in my family (there were, in fact, few real readers); I?d enjoyed English at school but I?d done nothing in that line since, and I had no university education to help me. It took me a long time to realise that none of these things mattered, and that talent has a way of springing up in all sorts of apparently unlikely places.?

So if you?re sitting at home, undecided about your writing ambitions, don?t let anything put you off. Give it a go!

My guest next week is Cynthia John who was a runner up in our 2012 Writer of the Year Competition. She?ll be looking at writing from the perspective of people who want to approach English-speaking publications with their work but for whom this may not be their first language.

Finally, don?t forget our 2012 Poetry Competition with prizes totalling ?1100. If you don?t enter, you can?t win!

No Comments ?

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2012 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.writersbureau.com/blog/writer-year-2013/2012/10/

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Ryan says Obama misleading on Libya questions

President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters after speaking about the choice facing women in the upcoming election, Friday, Oct. 19, 2012, at a campaign event at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters after speaking about the choice facing women in the upcoming election, Friday, Oct. 19, 2012, at a campaign event at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Republican Vice President candidate Paul Ryan waves to one of the 1500 supporters who attended his visit on the Ocala downtown square Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, in Ocala, Fla. Ryan spoke about creating jobs, growing the economy and getting rid of the national debt in the United States. (AP Photo/Ocala Star-Banner, Doug Engle)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at the 67th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a charity gala organized by the Archdiocese of New York and also attended by President Barack Obama,Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

From left, President Barack Obama, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and his wife Ann Romney attend the Archdiocese of New York's 67th Annual Alfred. E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan slammed President Barack Obama on Friday for describing the deadly attack in Libya as "not optimal" and said the White House is misleading the country in the face of mounting questions about its response.

Obama promised answers. "If four Americans get killed, it's not optimal," the president said Thursday during an appearance on "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. "We're going to fix it."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been criticizing the administration for initially describing the attack as a spontaneous mob reaction to an anti-Muslim video on YouTube when they now acknowledge it was a terrorist attack. U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of the attack to say there was evidence it was carried out by militants, although it's unclear who received that information right away.

Ryan told "The Charlie Sykes Show" on Milwaukee radio station WTMJ that Obama's "response has been inconsistent, it's been misleading."

"Why the stonewalling?" the Wisconsin congressman asked.

"The thing about Benghazi is that they continue shifting their story," he said in a second Wisconsin radio interview on the Jerry Bader Show on Green Bay's WTAQ. "And they're refusing to answer the basic questions about what happened. Why blame (a) YouTube video for two weeks after knowing that that wasn't the case? It leads to more questions than answers."

The Wisconsin congressman said he hopes a congressional investigation and Monday night's presidential debate, which will focus on foreign policy, will provide answers.

"That's why you have these investigations in Congress, to find out what exactly happened and why the stonewalling and why blaming (the) YouTube video for two weeks," he said. "The reason we need to get to the bottom of this is so we can prevent something like this from happening again."

Ryan and Romney have been using the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to criticize Obama's overall foreign policy record.

"The Benghazi thing would be a tragedy in and of itself if it was an isolated incident," Ryan said on WTMJ. "The problem is it's not simply an isolated incident but a picture of a broader story of the absolute unraveling of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Go around the world and you see policy failure after policy failure, and that is something that they just can't defend."

Obama insisted information was shared with the American people as it came in. The attack is under investigation, Obama said, and "the picture eventually gets filled in."

"What happens, during the course of a presidency, is that the government is a big operation and any given time something screws up," Obama said on "The Daily Show." ''And you make sure that you find out what's broken and you fix it."

Asked if the White House had become aware of the CIA cable and when, spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment "on what, if true, would be an internal and classified CIA cable."

Obama did not mention the attacks during a raucous rally at George Mason University in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs. Instead, the president debuted a new routine riffing on the "you might be a redneck" stylings of comedian Jeff Foxworthy to poke at Romney.

Obama's version warned how "you might have Romnesia," characterized by shifting positions on a variety of issues. "Here's the good news," the president said with a smile, "Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions."

Romney was headed to Daytona Beach, Fla., for a Friday night rally with Ryan. The GOP nominee made a play for moderate voters in a new ad that featured video of him at the first presidential debate talking about how he would bring the political parties together to help the economy.

While they were focused on southern battlegrounds, NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls released Thursday showed Obama retaining his lead over Romney in Iowa and Wisconsin, two Midwestern battlegrounds. Obama's campaign circulated a memo highlighting the president's strength during the early voting period in Ohio, where Romney has largely staked his hopes of winning the White House.

But both were keeping relatively light public schedules before a weekend devoted to preparing for their third and final presidential debate, set for Monday in Boca Raton, Fla. After the event in Virginia, Obama was heading for the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland to prepare; Romney planned preparations in Delray Beach, Fla.

Meanwhile, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington against the Commission on Presidential Debates for excluding him from the debates.

___

Associated Press writer Frederic Frommer contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-10-19-US-Presidential-Campaign/id-2a89838bdcc64adfa4266c0ece0eacb6

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HBT: Steinbrenner: A-Rod getting too much blame

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner had a telephone interview with the Associated Press earlier today and you?ll be shocked to learn that he was asked about Alex Rodriguez.

While Steinbrenner wouldn?t discuss any speculation about whether Rodriguez will be back in New York next season, he did say that the the 37-year-old is getting too much of the blame for the team?s ALCS loss to the Tigers.

?He was just one of quite a few that just had a bad time at the plate,? the team?s co-chairperson said Friday during a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ?So is it fair to accuse him of everything but the Kennedy assassination? No, it?s not fair, but we?ll see what happens from this point on.?

Rodriguez?s situation has naturally received a lot of attention over the past week, so he has been cast as the scapegoat in some circles, but he?s pretty far down the list among those responsible for the Yankees? ALCS loss. One could argue that he?s even less to blame than his replacement Eric Chavez, who was 0-for-8 with four strikeouts during the series and made defensive miscues in both Games 3 and 4. But what fun is that?

As for A-Rod?s future in pinstripes, he said after last night?s game that he has no plans to waive no-trade clause. Meanwhile, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com earlier today that he has no intention to shop Rodriguez this offseason. Unfortunately, I?m guessing we haven?t heard the last of this story.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/19/hal-steinbrenner-says-alex-rodriguez-is-getting-too-much-of-the-blame/related/

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