Additional U.S. sanctions on Iran are more significant for their timing than their immediate effect on Iran’s economy, coming as the United States and its allies are arguing that Israel should hold off on any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities to allow more time for sanctions to work.

The U.S. ordered tough new penalties Monday to give U.S. banks additional powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the U.S. and Europe.

Israelis officials have been open about their worry that Iran could be on the brink of a bomb by this summer and that this spring offers the last window of opportunity to destroy bomb-related facilities. Many Israeli officials believe that sanctions only give Iran time to move its nuclear program underground, out of reach of Israeli military strikes.

Nonetheless, the sanctions were endorsed Tuesday by Israel’s hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

“We appreciate the very crucial decision regarding the sanctions,” Lieberman told reporters in Washington, in between meetings with U.S. senators. “We are awaiting that the Iranians, they will give up their nuclear ambitions,” said Lieberman, who also met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the sanctions are not doing enough. “We are pleased to see increasing sanctions but so far they have not been deterred from their course,” he said of Iranian leaders.

Like previous economic penalties, these are intended to persuade Iran to back off what the West contends is a drive to build a nuclear bomb. Israel increasingly is concerned that sanctions will never be enough to make Iran drop what has become a national priority for a clerical regime that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

The faster and more effectively the sanctions can be seen to work, the better the case to shelve any plan by Israel to bomb Iran, a pre-emptory move that could ignite a new Mideast war.

Taking this initial step against the Iranian Central Bank, the first time the U.S. has directly gone after that major institution, is one way the Obama administration can show momentum now.

In Tehran, Ramin Mehmanparast, the foreign ministry spokesman, dismissed the sanctions as “propaganda.” He said Iran’s central bank has no financial transactions with the United States and would not be affected by the measures. “Many of these (U.S.) activities are in the sphere of psychological war and propaganda, and they cannot affect our work,” he said.

“Many of these (U.S.) activities are in the sphere of psychological war and propaganda, and they cannot affect our work,” he said.

Israel considers Iran to be its most dangerous enemy and has vowed to prevent it from going nuclear. But an Israeli official in Jerusalem on Monday said the country’s prime minister has told Cabinet members not to be so outspoken about the possibility of attacking Iran.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a closed meeting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself often has commented about keeping all options on the table in dealing with Iran.

The new, stricter sanctions, authorized in legislation that President Barack Obama signed in December, will be enforced under an order he signed only now.

The U.S. and Europe want to deprive Iran of the oil income it needs to run its government and pay for the nuclear program. But many experts believe Iran will be able to find other buyers outside Europe.

The European Union announced last month it would ban the import of Iranian crude oil starting in July. The U.S. doesn’t buy Iranian oil, but last month it placed sanctions on Iran’s banks to make it harder for the nation to sell crude. The U.S., however, has delayed implementing those sanctions for at least six months because it is worried about sending oil prices higher at a time when the world economy is struggling. Iran exports about 3 percent of the world’s oil.

White House spokesman Jay Carney denied that Monday’s unexpected announcement of new banking sanctions was a sign of heightened worry about an Israeli attack.

“There has been a steady increase in our sanctions activity and this is part of that escalation,” he said.

Carney said U.S. sanctions on Iran already are squeezing Iran’s economy and have exacerbated tensions within the Iranian leadership.

“There is no question that the impact of the isolation on Iran and the economic sanctions on Iran have caused added turmoil within Iran,” he said.

Iran is the world’s third-largest exporter of crude oil, giving its leaders financial resources and leverage to withstand outside pressure. Last year, Iran generated $100 billion in revenue from oil, up from $20 billion a decade ago, according to IHS CERA, an energy consulting firm.

If Iranian oil is prevented from getting to market, other suppliers could make up the difference.

The U.S. has been pressuring other Middle East and African nations to step up production for sale to Europe. Saudi Arabia has said it could increase production to make up for any lost Iranian crude.

Iran’s disputed nuclear program became a global concern more than five years ago, when the extent of the country’s research and uranium enrichment began to be known. Since then a web of international economic and other sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s progress toward a point when it could build one or more nuclear devices.

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran is indeed close to that ability but has not yet decided to go ahead. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and denounces sanctions as aggression.

The White House previously had said it would take months to evaluate the likely effect on the fragile global economy before taking the next large steps, including new penalties on the Central Bank.

Now, U.S. institutions are required to seize any Iranian state assets they come across, rather than rejecting the transaction involved.

The value of Iranian assets affected by the new order was not clear. Iran does almost no direct business with the United States after three decades of enmity, but its money moves through the world financial system and its oil is sold in dollars.

Bloomberg, a political independent and longtime advocate for gun control, made his comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” hours before his gun control ad with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was scheduled to air during the Super Bowl.

“You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed Congress’ views,” Bloomberg told NBC’s David Gregory, who asked why the issue of gun control has been “overtaken by the politics of indifference.”

Bloomberg continued, “I can tell you how to change it, just get Congress to come with me to the hospital when I’ve got tell somebody that their son or daughter, their spouse, their parent is not going to come home ever again. This past week, sadly, even though the murder rate in New York is so much lower than almost every big city, we still had a cop shot last week with a gun that somebody had even though the federal laws prohibited that person from having a gun.”

Calling on Congress to provide funding to ensure proper background checks and close loopholes to make sure current laws are enforced, claiming that since the 1960s, nearly 400,000 Americans have died in gun violence — more than the number of Americans who died during World War II.

“I don’t know who has to get killed for people to start saying ‘wait a second, this is enough,’” Bloomberg said.

An interview with Robert Shiller, he is an economist famous for predicting the collapse of the housing bubble. He says using the tax code to level the playing field is embedded in our democracy — and that it is needed right now. Watch the Yale professor tell Chrystia Freeland how reducing inequality will improve the economy. What do you think?

I’m the fuckin’ man, y’all don’t get it, do ya?
Type of money, everybody acting like they knew ya
Go Uptown, New York City, bitch
Them Spanish girls love me like I’m Aventura
Tell Uncle Luke I’m out in Miami, too
Clubbing hard, fuckin women, there ain’t much to do
Wrist bling, got a condo up in Biscayne

This is a story about an elephant. A metal, metaphorical elephant that for two weeks grazed beside a dual highway next to the Pacific Ocean in an upscale neighbourhood of Los Angeles. It was created last month by Banksy, the elusive British street artist. And in a few short weeks, it has sparked fierce debate about such diverse topics as greed, homelessness, wealth, poverty, the genius of the man who made it and the sheer, unbridled insanity of the contemporary art market he (sort of) inhabits.

She Will She Will She Will……

A Torrance man who taught at a Florence-area school for 30 years is suspected of photographing children with their eyes blindfolded, allowing large cockroaches to crawl over their faces, and feeding them his semen, deputies said Tuesday.

Mark Berndt, 61, was arrested Monday for allegedly committing lewd acts on 23 Miramonte Elementary School students who believed they were playing games and eating a sugary treat, sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Scott said.

Detectives believe Berndt was actually using his students to act out scenes similar to an adult bondage video found in his apartment.

“What kind of scum would do something like this?” Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy told the Daily Breeze. “We put such trust in our employees of kids in our care. To violate that trust is probably the lowest thing you could possibly do. I hope the man is in jail for the rest of his life and then some.”

Authorities began investigating Berndt in January 2011, when a film lab turned over suspicious photographs of the children to police. He resigned from his position last June, four months after the Board of Education moved to terminate him but before his employment was actually severed.

Berndt, who is being held in county jail on $2.3 million bail, is scheduled to be arraigned today in a downtown courtroom on 23 counts of committing lewd acts on children from 2005 to 2010.

“The sexual aspect of this is the `bondage,’ for lack of a better word, and the fact his bodily fluids were being consumed,” Scott said.

Key to the criminal investigation was a detective’s discovery of a blue plastic spoon in Berndt’s classroom that tested positive for his semen, Scott said.

Redondo Beach police Sgt. Shawn Freeman said a film processor in the city brought in 40 suspicious photographs to his department last year. Detectives viewed them and knew something was definitely wrong.

“The kids are blindfolded and their mouths were covered with tape, and the cockroaches. It was very strange,” Freeman said. “Thank goodness the photo lab contacted the police.”

Some photos showed Berndt with his arm around the children or with his hand over their mouths.

Redondo Beach police determined the school in the photos was Miramonte Elementary on 68th Street in the unincorporated Florence area and turned them over to the Sheriff’s Department, which assigned its Special Victims Unit to the case.

“All of us in the bureau that looked at these photos said there’s something terribly wrong here,” Scott said. “But just looking at the photos in general, these kids are smiling. They are having a good time.”

Sheriff’s detectives interviewed more than 80 current and former students and school employees during the investigation, identifying 23 boys and girls from 7 to 10 years old as victims of crimes committed from 2005 to 2010.

“The photographs depicted girls with what appeared to be a blue plastic spoon filled with an unknown clear white liquid substance, up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest the substance,” Scott said. “There are also photos of children with large, live Madagascar-type cockroaches on their faces and mouths.”

A search at Berndt’s apartment discovered more than 100 similar photos with children, and a DVD containing the bondage video.

Detectives additionally recovered 250 photos from the film processor and have identified

26 children in 390 total photographs recovered. Ten children have not been identified.

Detectives suspect there might be more victims. Anyone with information about Berndt is asked to call detectives at 877-710-5273(LASD) or email them at specialvictims@lasd.org.

Scott said no children ever reported anything about Berndt to their parents.

“It was fun,” Scott said. “How many kids come home and tell fun stuff?”

The cockroaches, he said, were like classroom pets and lived in a terrarium.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that Berndt played a “game” that involved a tasting test during which children were blindfolded and spoon-fed the white substance, believed to be his semen.

A school district source told the Times that children were told to describe whether the taste was sweet or salty and whether they liked it.

Deasy said he pulled Berndt from the classroom the day after police showed him some of the photos.

“I didn’t care if there was a crime committed or not,” Deasy said. “What I knew is this is too disturbing and bizarre to have this person anywhere near a child.”

Deasy said Berndt never received a negative evaluation from a principal.

“He was always at the top of the ratings, no discipline problems,” the superintendent said. “There were no complaints against him – not even minor.”

Deasy added that he was not certain when the photos were taken but speculated that some may have been taken either during the lunch hour or at recess or just after school.

After the school board moved to terminate Berndt on Feb. 15, 2011, the teacher was under heavy surveillance by police, Deasy said. Scott confirmed Berndt was monitored.

Deasy said he did not know whether Berndt is receiving any retirement checks from the state. A district spokeswoman said his pension benefits would not be affected one way or the other.

No one was home at Berndt’s apartment Tuesday morning and no neighbors answered their doors.

At Miramonte, crisis counselors have been provided for the children. Scott said authorities will address testing the children for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Berndt’s arrest comes two years after Miramonte teacher Rigoberto Ruelas committed suicide after the Times printed his performance rating in an investigation of teachers throughout the district.

Even by the struggling standards of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Miramonte Elementary is a low-performing school in a troubled area.

With an API score of 700 – a full 108 points below that of the average California elementary school – Miramonte’s performance ranks in the bottom 10 percent of all schools across the state, and in the bottom 20 percent of schools across the state with similar demographics.

Virtually all of Miramonte’s students are Latino and are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-priced meals, according to the California Department of Education. About 70 percent of them are classified as English learners, meaning they are not considered native English speakers.

It also has failed to meet every one of its federal targets under the No Child Left Behind Act and, as a result, has been on the federal watch list for five straight years. It is therefore subject to the steepest sanctions possible under the law.

Punxsutawney Phil - Groundhog Day 2012!

There are literally dozens — dozens! — of prognosticating marmots pressed into duty Thursday on what is undoubtedly one of the world’s wackiest holidays. There’s Staten Island Chuck, famous for biting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. There’s Woodstock Willie in Woodstock, Ill. There’s Georgia’s most famous groundhog, General Beauregard Lee. To the north, there’s Alberta’s Balzac Billy and Ontario’s Wiarton Willie… We could go on, but you get the idea.

So why does that Punxsutawney Phil always seem to get top billing? After all, you don’t see Sir Walter Wally of Raleigh, N.C., as the No. 1 single most searched for term on Google today, do you?

No, that remarkable perch is held by none other than Punxsutawney Phil.

That’s because he’s the first – and he’s got Hollywood cred.

The rest are just imitators.

Punxsutawney has been at this for 126 years, if the Inner Circle of Punxsutawey, Pa., is to be believed. And we’d just as well. The members, who are partial to top hats, snappy ties and long formal coats, proclaim themselves to be the official handlers and translaters for Puxsutawney Phil himself.

(One question they always get: How can Punxsutawney Phil live so long? Suffice it to say that the answer involves a magic potion. And try not to think about it too much.)

But there’s more. Punxsutawney Phil also has the support of Hollywood.

He’s the furry star of the beloved 1993 comedy classic “Groundhog Day,” along with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Murray plays a full-of-himself journalist who is none-too-happy about an assignment covering Punxsutawney Phil weather prediction on Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney Phil gets his revenge at the slight: Murray finds himself reliving Groundhog Day over and over again until he gets it right.

The film title has also become part of the national lexicon, a shorthand reference for drudgery that just won’t quit.

The movie is set in Punxsutawney, Pa., although the shoot actually took place in Woodstock, Ill., because filmmaker Harold Ramis was besotted with that community’s town square. It serves as the centerpiece for all the action.

Come to think of it, Punxsutawney Phil must have a heck of a talent manager as well as a PR agent