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President Obama will use his State of the Union address Tuesday evening to make a renewed case for an overhaul of the tax reform, one of a host of “common sense” ideas advisors say he’ll offer to shore up the American economy and tackle the growing deficit. That message comes as Obama is also beginning in earnest to ask voters to give him another four years in Washington. And as he presses for what the White House calls “tax fairness,” he was offered a new political weapon from a potential Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

The former Massachusetts governor’s campaign on Tuesday detailed his income and tax burden for 2010 and an estimate for 2011. He had an effective tax rate of $13.9% in 2010 and 15.9% in 2011 on income of more than $20 million each year. Senior White House advisor David Plouffe said in a round of interviews Tuesday morning that Romney’s tax rate illustrates the “tax reform we need.”

Obama’s speech is intended to serve as a bookend to the major speech he delivered in December in Kansas, where he said the American middle class is at a “make-or-break moment.” He invoked a Republican predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, in railing against growing income inequality. It is indeed an election year, and Obama’s address to Congress — his sixth overall — is not expected to include the kind of laundry list of policy offerings that previous addresses did.  And he’ll quickly take his message on the road with the traditional post-State of the Union barnstorming tour, which this year is a three-day itinerary of likely electoral battlegrounds in the fall.

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After the dust settled on a dramatic conference championship weekend, the New York Giants and New England Patriots were the two teams left standing, and they will meet in two weeks in Super Bowl XLVI.

The Patriots defeated the Baltimore Ravens in the first game of the day, 23-20. The game appeared to be headed for overtime as Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff lined up for a 32-yard field goal with less than 30 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, but Cundiff pushed the kick wide left, and New England prevailed.  New York also used a decisive special teams play to defeat San Francisco 20-17 in overtime on Sunday night – 49ers punt returner Kyle Williams fumbled the ball away in San Francisco territory, setting up a 31-yard game-winning field goal by Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes. Super Bowl XLVI is set for Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012. The game, televised by NBC, is slated to kick off at 5:30 p.m. CT.

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Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

The Internet blackouts to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) were big news yesterday, but what type of impact did they have? Google on Wednesday blacked out the logo on its homepage, and linked to an anti-SOPA/PIPA petition that called on Americans to oppose the bills because they’d “censor the Internet and slow economic growth.” Google said today that 7 million people signed its petition, which the search giant will submit to Congress. Over on Twitter, the site recorded more than 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets between midnight and 4pm Eastern yesterday. The top five terms were SOPA, Stop SOPA, PIPA, and Tell Congress, the micro-blogging site said.

Wikipedia, meanwhile, was one of the sites that participated in Wednesday’s blackout (much to some peoples’ chagrin). In a statement, the site said that 162 million people saw Wikipedia’s blackout message on its landing page, while others “shut down Congress’ switchboards [and] melted their servers” with calls to stop the bills.”Your voice was loud and strong. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet,” Wikipedia said.

Throughout the day, there were reports of members of Congress dropping support for SOPA and PIPA, from Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, to Rep. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. ”Stealing content is theft, plain and simple, but concerns about the internet and free speech necessitate a more thoughtful, deliberative process,” Cornyn said in a note on his Facebook page. But while the blackouts certainly got some attention and scared off a few bill supporters, will they result in the end of SOPA and PIPA?

Though House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told Rep. Darrell Issa (sponsor of the rival OPEN Act) that he would not allow SOPA to hit the House floor, SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith said he would still markup the bill next month. PIPA, meanwhile, is still scheduled to be addressed by the Senate on Jan. 24 at 2:15pm, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Meet the Press this weekend that PIPA “could create some problems,” sowork needs to be done. Public pressure did, however, result in Rep. Smith stripping DNS blocking from SOPA. PIPA sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy has also voiced concern about DNS blocking, while Reid said a “manager’s amendment” to PIPA might be necessary. Keep an eye on the Senate in the coming days to see if the bill actually makes it to the floor next Tuesday.

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The video above discusses the Senate version of the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In the Senate the bill is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). SOPA has gotten more attention than PIPA because it was moving faster in the legislative process. But PIPA is just as dangerous, and now it is moving faster. PIPA would give the government new powers to block Americans’ access websites that corporations don’t like.

The bill lets corporations and the US government censor entire websites and cut sites off from advertising, payments and donations.This legislation will stifle free speech and innovation, and even threaten popular web services like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The bill is scheduled for a test vote in the Senate on Jan. 24th: We need to act now to let our lawmakers know just how terrible it is. Will you fill out the form here to ask your lawmakers to oppose the legislation and support a filibuster?

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An increasing number of popular websites will go “black” tomorrow, in protest of the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the sibling anti-piracy bills currently in Congress. But Twitter will not be one of them. In response to questions about whether Twitter would join the likes of Reddit and Wikipedia in the January 18 blackout, Twitter co-founder Dick Costolo tweeted that it would be “foolish” and “silly” to shutdown a “global business in response to single-issue national politics.” Many took this to mean that Costolo believed any site that goes black (or, more likely, shows an anti-SOPA/PIPA landing page in place of normal content) over a single bill is “foolish” and “silly.” He later clarified that these adjectives only apply to Twitter going black, not any other organization.

Of course, anti-SOPA/PIPA activists want to have as many companies on board with the blackout as possible. There has been a concerted effort to get Google and Facebook to join in the protest party, but so far, they haven’t taken the bait. (Even though both companies have come out strongly against the legislation.) The more sites, the bigger the message, or so the theory goes.

Thing is, Costolo’s right; it would be foolish, silly, and counterproductive to the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement for Twitter to go offline. When Wikipedia and other sites are down tomorrow, the activists (and, more importantly, news organizations) are going to need a place to go to gauge the effects of the blackout. And no other service is better for taking he pulse of the here-and-now than Twitter.

The activists in this movement, both individuals and companies, need a way to communicate with each other, and with the people who are suddenly met with a splash page on Wikipedia asking them to call their senators. Not all of these people are going to be happy about not being able to get what they want — which is, incidentally, the point of the blackout: to show the possible censorship effects if SOPA or PIPA became law — and not all are going to be sympathetic to the cause, or even grasp what the hell is going on. Luckily, Twitter will be there as resource for explaining the confusion.

Besides its usefulness to the anti-SOPA/PIPA crowd, Twitter is also used by millions of people around the globe, many of whom most certainly do not care about, and are completely unaffected by, US domestic policy. For those users, shutting down Twitter would be an injustice, not to mention highly annoying. It is for this reason that Wikipedia has limited its 24-hour blackout to English-language pages only. Still, oblivious foreigners will be affected, but the negatives are at least being limited.

Even with Twitter there to help smooth the rough edges of tomorrow’s unprecedented online activism, there’s no guaranteeing the effects of the protest will be in the favor of the activists. Public opinion has a way of doing its own thing, especially when it’s guided by untested techniques like shutting down websites. So, will the Jan. 18 blackout be a success? Who knows. But you can be sure we’ll be checking Twitter all day to find out.

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• Wikipedia to join with Reddit in anti-SOPA blackout (vator.tv)

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Yahoo.com recently reported how high gas prices could be beneficial in the future. High gas prices are not something typically associated with the general definition of “a good thing.” Even as a Forbes report is anticipating oil remaining in the $98 a barrel range for all of 2012, seeing gas prices remain higher than normal could work in the advantage of the United States. Adding more fuel to the fire is the potential for Nigeria to cut off oil shipments to the U.S. amid a labor dispute according to the Associated Press. Of course, smaller supply equals higher prices for gas.

 Those higher fuel prices translate into just about everything costing more money, including get back and forth to work. Higher gas prices mean higher shipping prices, which means outsourcing jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, is not as valuable to companies. A report from Rock Center speculates that by 2015 overseas manufacturing will only save companies 10 percent. The report also mentions that companies will begin to shift operations back to the United States to save money, which could be a corporate slogan by that time.

So higher fuel prices could actually be a good thing for the U.S. economy, albeit in the long-term. In addition, foreign labor is not as cheap as it once was because the shift of manufacturing caused a hiring boom in markets like China, which is also in the Rock Center report.

So while consumers might lament the high cost of fuel, those higher prices could eventually drive businesses and jobs back to America. Sure the effects will not be felt for a few years, but just to see the “Made in the USA” label regularly again might make the pain associated with higher gas prices bearable.

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1. Nuts: We noticed a price hike for pecans, and it turns out other nut prices jumped too. According to Market Analysts Mintec, the average wholesale cost of nuts, including almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, brazil nuts, pistachios, peanuts, and macadamias, increased 36% from April 2010 to April 2011.

Eggs

2. Eggs: The inventory of hens that lay the eggs we eat decreased in 2011, bringing egg prices up 22.8%. The good news is that eggs have always been budget-friendly and still are easy on the wallet.

Apples

3. Apples: A host of reasons account for the 12.3% price increase and one of them is us, the consumers! We’re buyin’ up the delicious-and more expensive-varieties like Honeycrisp and SweeTango. That larger percentage of market sales contributes to the higher average price of all apples.

Potatoes

4. Potatoes: According to the Consumer Price Index, potato prices were up 11.9%. With twice the average rainfall in the east and cold spring weather across North America, crop losses and delays were significant. That, along with seed shortages, meant there were no bumper crops to drive down prices this past year.

Oil

5. Fats & Oils: We don’t tend to think about soybeans when greasing our skillets, but they’re the reason our cooking oils cost more. Surging soybean prices in 2011 made the commodity prices of fats and oils go up 11.1%. Maybe that’s a good thing as we start our New Year dieting…

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Georgia is putting a similar law into effect requiring any business with 500 or more employees to use E-Verify to check the employment eligibility of new hires. The requirement is being phased in, with all employers with more than 10 employees to be included by July 2013. Supporters said they wanted to deter illegal immigrants from coming to Georgia by making it tougher for them to work. Critics said that changes to immigration law should come at the federal level and that portions of the law already in effect are already hurting Georgia.

“It is destroying Georgia’s economy and it is destroying the fabric of our social network in South Georgia,” Paul Bridges, mayor of the onion-farming town of Uvalda, said in November. He is part of a lawsuit challenging the new law. Tennessee will also require businesses to ensure employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. but exempts employers with five or fewer workers and allows them to keep a copy of the new hire’s driver’s license instead of using E-Verify. A South Carolina law would allow officials to yank the operating licenses of businesses that don’t check new hires’ legal status through E-verify. A federal judge last week blocked parts of the law that would have required police to check the immigration status of criminal suspects or people stopped for traffic violations they think might be in the country illegally, and that would have made it a crime for illegal immigrants to transport or house themselves.

California is also addressing illegal immigration, but with a bill that allows students who entered the country illegally to receive private financial aid at public colleges. Many laws aim to protect young people. In Colorado, coaches will be required to bench players as young as 11 when they’re believed to have suffered a head injury. The young athletes will also need medical clearance to return to play.

The law also requires coaches in public and private schools and even volunteer Little League and Pop Warner football coaches to take free annual online training to recognize the symptoms of a concussion. At least a dozen other states have enacted similar laws with the support of the National Football League.

People 18 and under in Illinois will have to wear seat belts while riding in taxis for school-related purposes, and Illinois school boards can now suspend or expel students who make explicit threats on websites against other students or school employees.

Florida will take control of lunch and other school food programs from the federal government, allowing the state to put more Florida-grown fresh fruit and vegetables on school menus. Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam says the change will help children eat healthier.

A California law will add gays and lesbians and people with disabilities to the list of social and ethnic groups whose contributions must be taught in history lessons in public schools. The law also bans teaching materials that reflect poorly on gays or particular religions.

Opponents have filed five potential initiatives to repeal the requirement outright or let parents remove their children while gays’ contributions are being taught. In New Hampshire, a law requiring girls seeking abortions to tell their parents or a judge first was reinstated by conservative Republicans over a gubernatorial veto. The state enacted a similar law eight years ago, but it was never enforced following a series of lawsuits.

In Arkansas, facilities that perform 10 or more nonsurgical abortions a month must be licensed by the state Health Department and be subject to inspections by the department, the same requirements faced by facilities that offer surgical abortions in the state. It affects two Planned Parenthood facilities that offer the abortion pill, though they’re not singled out in the statute.

Among federal laws, a measure Congress passed last week to extend Social Security tax cuts and federal unemployment benefit programs raises insurance fees on new mortgages and refinancings backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration by 0.1 percent beginning Jan. 1. That covers about 90 percent of them and effectively makes a borrower’s monthly payment on a new $200,000 mortgage or refinancing about $17 a month more than it would have been if obtained before the first of the year.

Nevada’s 3-month old ban on texting while driving will get tougher, with tickets replacing the warnings that police have issued since the ban took effect Oct. 1. In Pennsylvania, police are preparing to enforce that state’s recently enacted ban on texting, scheduled to take effect by spring. Election law changes in Rhode Island and Tennessee will require voters to present photo ID, a measure that supporters say prevents fraud and that opponents say will make it harder for minorities and the elderly to cast ballots. In Ohio, a measure that creates one primary in March, instead of two that would have cost the state an extra $15 million, goes into effect later in January.

Ohio is also one of eight states with automatic increases in the minimum wage taking effect Jan. 1. The others, with increases between 28 and 37 cents, are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. A few laws try to address budget woes. In Delaware, new state employees will have to contribute more to their pensions, while state workers hired after Jan. 1 in Nevada will have to pony up for their own health care costs in retirement. Jan. 1 is the effective date in many states for laws passed during this year’s legislative sessions. In others, laws take effect July 1, or 90 days after passage.

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