This kind of seats prevent forward movement of the occupant in case of collision. It is a safety feature, important for front seats over rear seats.

The power seat adjustments in a Lincoln Town Car. Here the seat controls are located on the door panels, next to the memory seat controls. Above the seat settings are the memory control settings which also set the mirrors and pedals.

Seat Heaters

WASHINGTON – Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming.
Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change.
In a poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Thursday, the number of people saying there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades is down from 71 percent in April of last year and from 77 percent when Pew started asking the question in 2006. The number of people who see the situation as a serious problem also has declined.
The steepest drop has occurred during the past year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time and international negotiations for a new treaty to slow global warming have been under way. At the same time, there has been mounting scientific evidence of climate change — from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer.
The poll was released a day after 18 scientific organizations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming. A federal government report Thursday found that global warming is upsetting the Arctic's thermostat.
Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities — such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles — are behind a temperature increase. That's down from 47 percent from 2006 through last year's poll.
"The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things," suggested Andrew Kohut, the director of the research center, which conducted the poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. "When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave."
Andrew Weaver, a professor of climate analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said politics could be drowning out scientific awareness.
"It's a combination of poor communication by scientists, a lousy summer in the Eastern United States, people mixing up weather and climate and a full-court press by public relations firms and lobby groups trying to instill a sense of uncertainty and confusion in the public," he said.
Political breakdowns in the survey underscore how tough it could be to enact a law limiting pollution emissions blamed for warming. While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say there is no solid evidence of global warming, up from 31 percent in early 2007.
Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.
Jane Lubchenco, head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a business group meeting at the White House Thursday: "The science is pretty clear that the climate challenge before us is very real. We're already seeing impacts of climate change in our own backyards."
Despite misgivings about the science, half the respondents still say they support limits on greenhouse gases, even if they could lead to higher energy prices. And a majority — 56 percent — feel the United States should join other countries in setting standards to address global climate change.
But many of the supporters of reducing pollution have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week.
Under cap-and-trade, a price is put on each ton of pollution, and businesses can buy and sell permits to meet emissions limits.
"Perhaps the most interesting finding in this poll ... is that the more Americans learn about cap-and-trade, the more they oppose cap-and-trade," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who opposes the Senate bill and has questioned global warming science.
Regional as well as political differences were detected in the polling.
People living in the Midwest and mountainous areas of the West are far less likely to view global warming as a serious problem and to support limits on greenhouse gases than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Both the House and Senate bills have been drafted by Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts and California.

One of those lawmakers, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, told reporters Thursday that she was happy with the results, given the interests and industry groups fighting the bill.

"Today, to get 57 percent saying that the climate is warming is good, because today everybody is grumpy about everything," Boxer said. "Science will win the day in America. Science always wins the day."

Earlier polls, from different organizations, have not detected a growing skepticism about the science behind global warming.

Since 1997, the percentage of Americans that believe the Earth is heating up has remained constant — at around 80 percent — in polling done by Jon Krosnick of Stanford University. Krosnick, who has been conducting surveys on attitudes about global warming since 1993, was surprised by the Pew results.

He described the decline in the Pew results as "implausible," saying there is nothing that could have caused it.

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Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: http://www.people-press.org

WASHINGTON – Military personnel will get an above-inflation pay raise of 3.4 percent under a Pentagon policy bill the Senate passed Thursday and sent to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The pay increase was a half-percentage point more than Obama sought earlier this year and beats the average pay boost in the private sector.
The popular legislation also gives Obama a few victories in his bid to kill some especially costly weapons systems, though it contains an effort by lawmakers to continue development — over the president's strong objections — of a costly alternative engine for the Pentagon's next-generation fighter jet.
The Senate cleared the House-Senate compromise measure by a 68-29 vote.
The far-reaching legislation also prohibits the Obama administration from transferring any detainee being held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba to the U.S. for trial until 45 days after it has given notice to Congress. Guantanamo prisoners could not be released into the U.S.
The bill also contains unrelated legislation strengthening federal hate crimes laws to include violence against homosexuals, angering Republicans who objected to the military measure carrying social legislation.
The bill also contains significant changes to voting procedures for U.S. troops and other American voters overseas.
Some Pentagon reform advocates had hoped Obama would take a more aggressive stance against costly and poorly performing weapons systems. But Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates focused most of their attention on a handful of items, especially trying to kill the jobs-rich but well-over-budget F-22 fighter program, which has its origins in the Cold War era and, its critics maintain, is poorly suited for anti-insurgent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The measure would terminate production of the F-22.
Lawmakers, however, are taking on the White House — and a vaguely-worded veto threat — over a program to develop an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force's multimission fighter of the future. The second engine would be built by General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce in Ohio, Indiana and other states. The main F-35 engine is built in Connecticut by Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp.
The administration promised in June to veto the legislation if it would "seriously disrupt" the F-35 program, an iffy threat at best. It says that spending on a second engine is unnecessary and impedes the progress of the Joint Strike Fighter program.
The legislation recommends $560 million for the program in 2010, and the administration has since backpedaled from the veto threat.
"I would be stunned if they vetoed," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after the vote.
Levin also touted less-noticed provisions that would allow the U.S. to give the Afghanistan army more useful military equipment, revamp the processes for trials of enemy combatants by military commissions to conform with a Supreme Court ruling and authorize small cash payments to Afghans to try to win over their loyalties from the Taliban.
The Pentagon says the Pratt & Whitney engine is performing well and that the second engine adds unnecessary costs and would delay the program. Supporters of the program say it provides competition that would boost contractors' performance and tamp down costs.
The legislation does, however, accede to Obama's call to terminate the VH-71 replacement helicopter program for the presidential fleet. The program is six years behind schedule and estimated costs have doubled to more than $13 billion.
And it cuts the missile defense program by about 12 percent from the $10 billion-plus level envisioned by former President George W. Bush for the 2010 budget year. It supports Obama's plan to cancel the building of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
The $680 billion measure doesn't actually fund the Pentagon's budget but provides policy guidance that is typically followed closely by the appropriations committees. It also approves Obama's $130 billion request to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

GOP Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, however, blasted the measure for calling for just a 4 percent boost in Pentagon funding.

"The bill is the beginning of a downward spiral in defense spending," Inhofe said. "We have reached a crossroads and have chosen not to invest in the long-term modernization and readiness of our military."

Republicans were irate that the so-called hate crimes legislation was attached to the bill. It would give people attacked because of their sexual orientation or gender federal protections and significantly expand the reach of hate crimes law.

The bill also increases, from $500 to $1,100, the supplemental allowance paid to service members with large families to make sure they earn at least 130 percent of the federal poverty line.

The measure also would boost troop levels to 1,425,000, about 55,000 more than current levels.

DENVER – Spectators watching the alleged balloon boy hoax unfold on live TV suggested paragliders, skydivers, fishing hooks and more to bring down the flying saucer-shaped craft thought to be carrying a 6-year-old boy.
Since the boy, Falcon Heene, was found at home and investigators declared the whole saga a hoax by the boy's parents, the e-mails flooding Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden's e-mail inbox have turned to criticism of his actions in the case.
In his online newsletter Thursday — titled "Up, Up and Away" — Alderden writes that people sent e-mails from around the world, some of them calling him gullible, fat and bald with an over-inflated ego. They compared him to Barney Fife, the bumbling sheriff's deputy on the 1960s TV show "The Andy Griffiths Show."
Alderden conceded he's fat and bald. He disagreed with most of the rest.
Though he led a weekend news conference announcing his office was pursuing criminal charges against Richard and Mayumi Heene and then appeared on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday, Alderden said he really doesn't enjoy the media spotlight.
"In fact, I'm pretty ticked off that I had to spend my weekend dealing with them instead of some quality time in the saddle," Alderden wrote. "That said, sometimes the Sheriff just has to be the spokesperson instead of putting it off on the Press Information Officer. I did my best to put an end to the media circus and have refused to do any more interviews or morning TV shows, even turning down Dr. Phil."
Richard and Mayumi Heene of Fort Collins haven't been arrested yet, and have denied it was a publicity stunt. The Heenes appeared on ABC's "Wife Swap" late last year and again in March, and investigators said the couple wanted to use publicity from the balloon episode to get their own reality TV show.
Alderden said he might address criticism next week that he misled the media in the hours after the boy was found, when he told reporters that investigators still believed the Heenes were sincere. Alderden since has said he told reporters that because he didn't want the Heenes to be tipped off to the criminal investigation.
The semi-regular newsletter, "The Bull's-eye," is posted on a private site linked to the official sheriff's site. It carries the subtitle, "Straight Shooting from the Sheriff."
Alderden wrote that one onlooker's suggestion for bringing down the balloon involved multiple helicopters and a large net. Others suggested using blimps, skydivers, paragliders, and fishing hook and line.
Alderden thanked everyone who sent ideas to rescue the craft.
"Some suggestions were actually pretty sound. Others — not so sound," the sheriff wrote.
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Larimer County Sheriff's Bulls-eye: http://www.larimersheriff.org/BullsEye/