One less reason to smoke

By Ed EdelsonHealthDay Reporter Thu Feb 16, 11:51 PM ET
THURSDAY, Feb. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Specific personality traits might boost the risk for Parkinson's disease, British researchers report.
cautious, risk-averse approach to life may be linked to increased odds for the motor neuron disease, says a team reporting in the February issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
"This study raises the possibility that there is a neurobiological link between low sensation-seeking traits which might underlie the parkinsonism personality," the researchers wrote.
And because more reserved types are less likely to smoke, the finding could throw water on the notion that smoking somehow protects against Parkinson's disease, the researchers added.
In fact, the study was undertaken not primarily to look at personality but to examine the effects of tobacco, alcohol and caffeine on the condition, explained Dr. Andrew H. Evans, who worked on the study while in England and now is a neurologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia.
"Over the past 10 to 15 years, there has been an abundance of evidence linking smoking, coffee and alcohol intake as a protective factor," Evans noted.
Investigating further, researchers at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies in London examined the drinking and smoking habits and consumption of caffeine of 106 people with Parkinson's disease and 106 unaffected individuals.
They also compared participant answers from three standard personality tests measuring depression, anxiety and the willingness to seek sensational experiences.
As expected, the Parkinson's patients drank less, smoked less and consumed less caffeine-containing beverages -- not a surprising finding, since earlier studies have found the same thing, leading some neurologists to speculate that smoking might protect against the disease.
The more striking finding was that the people with Parkinson's disease scored higher on the tests for anxiety and depression and lower on the sensation-seeking test.
They suggest several explanations for the link, including the possibility that shyer, more cautious folks are more vulnerable to Parkinson's disease.
A different explanation is offered by Dr. Kevin Black, a professor of psychiatry, radiology and neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis, who has been doing work along the same line, using brain scans in addition to testing.
"My personal hunch is that it's more likely that whatever ends up producing parkinsonism starts very early in life," Black said. "When it is mild, it can affect personality -- how much you can be addicted to, or be able to quit, something. Then as it progresses, it affects nerve endings. It makes you more likely to be exposed to whatever causes parkinsonism."
Parkinson's disease is a progressive condition that usually is seen in older persons. It often starts with a slight tremor of one arm, leg or hand, then moves to the rest of the body, causing constant trembling, difficulty in walking and shaking of the head, among other symptoms.
That there is a "Parkinson's personality" has been evident for some time, Black said, "Anecdotally, and then with increasing evidence, that people who develop Parkinson's disease have a more straight-laced personality. When they come to clinic appointments they are always on time, they are law-abiding types."
The British study is valuable because it looks at all the factors believed to be involved in parkinsonism, including cigarette smoking, caffeine and personality traits, Black said. One result of the study is to strike down one postulated positive effect of smoking, he said.
"People have looked for evidence of some good things in tobacco," Black said. "This makes it seem a little less likely."
The study "raises questions rather than answers them," Evans noted. Neurologists studying Parkinson's disease now "maybe must take into account more complex factors, such as personality," he said. But it does weaken the theory that smoking can protect against parkinsonism, he added.

Young and ugly

Washington -- Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.
"We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking," say Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.
Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high schoolers. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from "very attractive" to "very unattractive."
These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes, including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.
Other studies have shown that unattractive men and women are less likely to be hired, and that they earn less money than the better-looking. Such inferior circumstances may steer some to crime, Mocan and Tekin suggest.

Maybe part of it is that ugly people are more likely to get caught.

A good article on violence

This is pretty long but worth reading if you are interested in the causes of violence:

Violent Crime Rising Sharply in Some Cities
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: February 12, 2006
MILWAUKEE — One woman here killed a friend after they argued over a brown silk dress. A man killed a neighbor whose 10-year-old son had mistakenly used his dish soap. Two men argued over a cellphone, and pulling out their guns, the police say, killed a 13-year-old girl in the crossfire.
Ryan Donnell for The New York Times
Law enforcement officers trying to serve a warrant in South Philadelphia. With 380 homicides, 2005 was the deadliest year in that city since 1997.
While violent crime has been at historic lows nationwide and in cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles, it is rising sharply here and in many other places across the country.
And while such crime in the 1990's was characterized by battles over gangs and drug turf, the police say the current rise in homicides has been set off by something more bewildering: petty disputes that hardly seem the stuff of fistfights, much less gunfire or stabbings.
Suspects tell the police they killed someone who "disrespected" them or a family member, or someone who was "mean mugging" them, which the police loosely translate as giving a dirty look. And more weapons are on the streets, giving people a way to act on their anger.
Police Chief Nannette H. Hegerty of Milwaukee calls it "the rage thing."
"We're seeing a very angry population, and they don't go to fists anymore, they go right to guns," she said. "A police department can have an effect on drugs or gangs. But two people arguing in a home, how does the police department go in and stop that?"
Here in Milwaukee, where homicides jumped from 88 in 2004 to 122 last year, the number classified as arguments rose to 45 from 17, making up by far the largest category of killings, as gang and drug murders declined.
In Houston, where homicides rose 24 percent last year, disputes were by far the largest category, 113 out of 336 killings. Officials were alarmed by the increase in murders well before Hurricane Katrina swelled the city's population by 150,000 people in September; the police say 18 homicides were related to evacuees.
In Philadelphia, where 380 homicides made 2005 the deadliest year since 1997, 208 were disputes; drug-related killings, which accounted for about 40 percent of homicides during the high-crime period of the early 1990's, accounted for just 13 percent.
"When we ask, 'Why did you shoot this guy?' it's, 'He bumped into me,' 'He looked at my girl the wrong way,' " said Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson of Philadelphia. "It's not like they're riding around doing drive-by shootings. It's arguments — stupid arguments over stupid things."
The police say the suspects and the victims tend to be black, young — midteens to mid-20's — and have previous criminal records. They tend to know each other. Several cities said that domestic violence had also risen. And the murders tend to be limited to particular neighborhoods. Downtown Milwaukee has not had a homicide in about five years, but in largely black neighborhoods on the north side, murders rose from 57 in 2004 to 94 last year.
"We're not talking about a city, we're talking about this subpopulation, that's what drives everything," said David M. Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "When they calm down, all the numbers go down. When they heat up, all the numbers go up. They hurt each other over personal stuff. It's respect and disrespect, and it's girls."
While arguments have always made up a large number of homicides, the police say the trigger point now comes faster.
"Traditionally, you could see the beef growing and maybe hitting the volatile point," said Daniel Coleman, the commander of the homicide unit in Boston. "Now we see these things, they're flashes, they're very unpredictable. Even five years ago, in what started as a fight or dispute, maybe you'd have a knife shown. Now it's an automatic default to a firearm."
In robberies, Milwaukee's Chief Hegerty said, "even after the person gives up, the guy with the gun shoots him anyway. We didn't have as much of that before."
Homicide rates are driven by different factors in each city, but even cities whose rates have fallen have seen problems with disputes, though those disputes are often about drugs or gangs. "As the murder universe continues to shrink in New York, the common denominators remain consistent," said Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne. "In most instances, killers and victims knew each other, each had criminal records, and they were engaged in disputes, usually over narcotics."
Nationally, the homicide rate peaked in 1991, declined steadily after 1993 and has remained essentially flat since 1999. But in the first six months of 2005, according to preliminary statistics from the F.B.I., the number of homicides nationwide rose 2.1 percent, with the greatest increase, 4.9 percent, in the Midwest.
Yet many cities have seen far steeper increases. In Boston and San Francisco the number of homicides last year was at its highest in a decade, and in Prince George's County, Md., outside Washington, it was the highest ever.
In St. Louis, the number of homicides rose to 131 last year from 113 in 2004. Tulsa had 64 murders, 2 more than in 1993. Charlotte jumped from a record low of 60 homicides in 2004 to 85 in 2005. And the murder rate for 2005 was above the 15-year average in Kansas City, Mo., and Nashville.
A large part of the problem, the police say, is simply more guns on the streets as gun laws have loosened around the country. In Philadelphia, Commissioner Johnson said, since the state made it easier to get a gun permit in 1985, the number of people authorized to carry a gun in the city has risen from 700 to 32,000.
But the police also blame lax sentences and judges who they say let suspects out on bail too easily. Here, Deputy Chief Brian O'Keefe recalled a man who was released from prison on an armed robbery conviction after two years, with five years' probation, and killed someone within three months. In Nashville, Chief Ronal W. Serpas recalled an 18-year-old who had been arrested 41 times but was out on bail when he killed a bystander in a fight over a dice game.
"We have people who've done two, three, four, five shootings who are back on the streets," said Kathleen M. O'Toole, Boston's police commissioner. "Unless we have bail reform, unless these impact players with multiple gun arrests are kept off the streets, we won't reverse this problem."
Still, some of the problems are hard to address with tougher laws.
The neighborhoods with the most murders tend to be the poorest. In Milwaukee, Mallory O'Brien, an epidemiologist brought in to direct the new homicide review commission, said suspects and victims tend to have been born to teenage mothers. The city has one of the nation's highest teen pregnancy rates for blacks, and among black men, one of the lowest high school graduation rates. An industrial base that used to provide jobs for those without a high school diploma has shrunk.
Chief Corwin of Kansas City said that in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, people had explained it as a "lack of hope." "If I don't have skills, I don't have training, my socioeconomic situation looks desperate, do I really have hope?" he said. "I think that ties into the anger. If the only thing I have is my respect, that's what I carry on the street. If someone disrespects me, they've done the ultimate to me."
Those who study crime debate whether the cities where homicide is rising represent a trend.
"It's a couple of cities with bad luck and with local problems which are very real, but not necessarily part of a national pattern," said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at Berkeley who is writing a book on the crime drop of the late 1990's.
But Mr. Kennedy, at John Jay, said the decrease in homicides in big cities has obscured the problem in many other places.
"In many places — both cities and increasingly suburban and rural settings — things never got as good as they did nationally," he said. "Even if things got better, they didn't get as better as they did in Los Angeles or New York. In many places, they're getting worse."
Certainly, the number of homicides is lower than its peak in the early 90's — Milwaukee had 168 killings, not including Jeffrey Dahmer's serial murders, in 1991. But the number is far higher than in recent years, and alarming to a public that has gotten used to good news. Boston, which peaked with 151 murders in 1990, had declined to 31 in 1999. Nashville in 2004 had its lowest homicide rate in the history of city government, with 58 murders, before jumping to 99 last year.
"Because for this decade the sense is that crime is down, it's very hard to speak out about it and not look as though you're doing something wrong," said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a research and public policy group in Washington. "People's expectation of crime has significantly changed."
In some of the cities, overall crime has declined, thanks to a significant drop in property crimes. But the rise in homicides and robberies causes alarm.
"It's hard for people to look at it in depth and understand that they're not likely to be a victim if they get along with their family members and neighbors and don't live a high-risk lifestyle," said Darrel Stephens, the police chief in Charlotte.
Cities say they are going after illegal guns and are trying to stop disputes from becoming homicides. Kansas City used to investigate only some aggravated assaults; now it follows up on all cases, on the theory that next time, the assault might be a homicide. Boston and Philadelphia are sweeping neighborhoods for people who have violated warrants. In St. Louis, the police have put cameras in high-crime neighborhoods and have sent gang units to talk to parents of chronically truant students.
But recognizing that the problems have deep roots, cities are also going beyond traditional law enforcement, trying to involve churches, schools and social service agencies. In Boston, the neighborhood sweeps are followed by work crews that repair potholes, trim trees and remove graffiti.
Here in Milwaukee, the police are tagging "M.V.P.'s," or major violent players — people with several arrests, who are more likely to be involved in arguments and homicides, according to Ms. O'Brien's analysis. Those names are announced at daily police briefings.
The city has also put prosecutors and probation and parole officers on patrol with police officers, because they have more immediate power to rein in chronic offenders by enforcing curfew, nuisance laws, and restrictions against alcohol or drug use and association with gang members.
The homicide review commission has frequent, formal meetings with corrections officers, prosecutors and social service agencies to identify problem families, and is meeting with schools to assess what they are teaching about conflict resolution and how to reduce truancy.
Next month, police officials say, they will have the first of several town hall meetings with the neighborhoods with the highest homicide rates, to get residents' ideas on how to stop the killings.
"We didn't get here in a day," said Ms. O'Brien, the epidemiologist. "There's no simple solution."

What a role model

According to a report in Friday's Rocky Mountain News, a Nuggets fan alleges that Martin had one of his buddies confront him during Wednesday night's game in Denver.
Martin, who sat out Wednesday's game against the Bulls, denied having anything to do with the incident.
"I know the person, but I didn't direct nobody to go into the stands," Martin told the Rocky Mountain News Thursday. "I was watching the game."
According to the report, team officials and Denver police offered clashing accounts of the controversy swirling around Martin, the highest-paid player in team history, who is injured and now the subject of numerous trade rumors.
Don Miller, a fan sitting close the situation, told the Rocky Mountain News that he saw Martin point his friend toward the heckler. He said it all started when a fan sitting two rows behind him yelled at Martin, "Suit up, you chump."
"If this guy had stood up and come up to defend Kenyon Martin on his own, without Kenyon Martin telling him to do it, I would not be talking to you now," said Miller, who attended the game with his 15-year-old son.


Why do people continue to say that sports builds drug free responsible youths, from my perspective it seems to build a bunch of self-indulgent primadonnas

More interesting than missing white women

'Stone Age' killers keep law away from bodiesFrom Dan McDougall in Delhi
RELATIVES of two fishermen who were killed by warriors of one of the most primitive tribes in the world were shown their graves through binoculars yesterday, unable to set foot on the remote islands where they died.
Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari were killed by poison arrows after their boat beached on the desert island home of the Sentinelese in the Indian Ocean. Police investigating their murder have been unable to retrieve their bodies, which were buried by their attackers in shallow graves next to their boat.
According to B. S. Negi, the chief civilian administrator of the Andaman Islands, the area is guarded by 20 naked Sentinelese who are armed with bows and arrows.
Dharmendra Kumar, the police chief in charge of the Bay of Bengal archipelago, told The Times: “We cannot move in and take the bodies, as we strongly believe there would be casualties on both sides. The coastguard has flown over the islands in a helicopter and they were fired upon with bows and arrows. We think it is best to let things cool down and, once the tribals move to the island’s other end, we’ll try and sneak in and retrieve the bodies. Our best chance will be at night.”
Described by anthropologists as a lost tribe of Stone Age aborigines, the Sentinelese have lived in isolation for 60,000 years, despite the threat of tourism and the tsunami of 2004.
But last night the very future of the tribespeople, who are thought to number no more than 200, appeared to be in the balance, after officials in the archipelago opened an investigation into the murders of Mr Raj, 48, and Mr Tiwari, 52.
North Sentinel Island is one of hundreds of environmentally protected areas in the Andamans that remain out of bounds to visitors. According to the coastguard, the fishermen were murdered when they beached on the island while attempting to poach lobster and crabs from the rich coral reefs.
The police are not confident of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Mr Kumar said: “This is a very complex matter, and it isn’t as easy as steaming up to the island and solving the murder. Our biggest problem is there are no witnesses other than the tribespeople themselves.” Four other ancient tribes live in isolation on the Andamans: 99 Onge, 350 Shompens, 39 Andamanese and 350 Jarawas.
The Sentinelese subsist on turtle, fish, forest vegetables, fruits and wild pigs. They have a reputation for hostility to outsiders. Marco Polo, coming across the natives of the Andaman Islands in 1296, wrote that they “kill and eat every foreigner whom they can lay their hands upon”. Members of the tribe wear the jawbones of dead relatives around their necks.

This has murder in an exotic local all it needs is white women to make a national enquirere story.

Kids are depressing

LiveScience Managing EditorLiveScience.com Wed Feb 8, 3:00 AM ET
Any parent will tell you kids can be depressing at times. A new study shows that raising them is a lifelong challenge to your mental health.
Not only do parents have significantly higher levels of depression than adults who do not have children, the problem gets worse when the kids move out.
"Parents have more to worry about than other people do—that's the bottom line," said Florida State University professor Robin Simon. "And that worry does not diminish over time. Parents worry about their kids' emotional, social, physical and economic well-being. We worry about how they're getting along in the world."
Simon knows from experience.
"I adore my kids," she said in a telephone interview. "I would do it over again. There are enormous emotional benefits. But I think [those benefits] get clouded by the emotional cost. We worry about our kids even when they're doing well."
The depressing results seem to be across the board in a study of 13,000 people. No type of parent reported less depression than non-parents, Simon said.
Some parents are more depressed than others, however. Parents of adult children, whether they live at home or not, and parents who do not have custody of their minor children have more symptoms of depression than those with young children all in the nest, regardless of whether they are biological children, step children or adopted.
Other research has shown there's a bright side to raising kids, too. One study of people with younger children found the parents have greater social networks and higher levels of self-confidence than non-parents.
"Young children in some ways are emotionally easier," Simon said. "Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems."
The research, announced today, was published in the American Sociological Association's Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
Simon also found that married parents are less depressed than the unmarried. But, surprisingly, the effects of parenthood on depression were the same for men and women.
Part of the problem, Simon figures, is that Americans don't get as much help at parenting as they once did, or as is the case in other countries.
Please, our entire society is built around kids don't pretend that if someone gave you some help your life would be less pathetic.
"We do it in relative isolation. The onus is on us," she said. "It's emotionally draining."
The primary data was pulled from a study done in the late 1980s. But Simon checked the results against a repeated version of the study from the mid-90s and reached the same conclusions, and she said there is little reason to expect a new survey would yield much different results.
"People should really think about whether they want to do this or not," Simon said of parenting.

Maybe many people who have kids did it because they were depressed in the first place and were looking for something to give their life meaning, and it did not work.

Maybe they should offer this in college

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 4, 5:59 PM ET
WASHINGTON - They are the
Pentagon' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Pentagon's new "rules of engagement" — the diamond ring kind. U.S. Army chaplains are trying to teach troops how to pick the right spouse, through a program called "How To Avoid Marrying a Jerk."
The matchmaking advice comes as military family life is being stressed by two tough wars. Defense Department records show more than 56,000 in the Army — active, National Guard and Reserve — have divorced since the campaign in
Afghanistan'Officials partly blame long and repeated deployments which started after the invasion of Iraq' in 2003 and stretched the service thin.
Troops also are coming home with life-altering injuries.
Many come back better people, others worse-off — but either way, very changed from who they were when they wed.
"Being in the military certainly raises the stakes when you choose a mate," said Lt. Col. Peter Frederich, head of family issues in the Pentagon's chaplain office.
The "no jerks" program is also called "P.I.C.K. a Partner," for Premarital Interpersonal Choices and Knowledge.
It advises the marriage-bound to study a partner's F.A.C.E.S. — family background, attitudes, compatibility, experiences in previous relationships and skills they'd bring to the union.
It teaches the lovestruck to pace themselves with a R.A.M. chart — the Relationship Attachment Model — which basically says don't let your sexual involvement exceed your level of commitment or level of knowledge about the other person.
Maj. John Kegley, a chaplain who teaches the program in Monterey, Calif., throws in the "no jerk salute" for fun. One hand at the heart, two-fingers at the brow mean use your heart and brain when choosing.
Though the acronyms and salute make it sound like something the Pentagon would come up with, the program was created by former minister John Van Epp of Ohio, who has a doctorate in psychology and a private counseling practice. He teaches it to Army chaplains, who in turn teach it to troops.
It also is used by social service agencies, prisons, churches and other civilian groups.
Commanders once discouraged troops from starting a family while serving. Thus the old saying: "If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one."
Today, the military supports families more than any other employer, Frederich said.
The Bush administration proposes to spend $5.6 billion in the next budget year for quality-of-life services for troops and their families.
That includes help with child care, education, spouse job hunting, legal assistance, commissaries, relocation counseling — programs on every family issue imaginable — to promote stability, and thus troop readiness.
Such support notwithstanding, "not everybody is cut out" to marry into the military, said Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd.
Some 740,000 people — or a little more than half of all troops in the active-duty armed forces — are married. Of those, some 96,000 had spouses also in uniform in the 2004 budget year, according to Pentagon figures.
The Army hopes the "no jerks" program will help couples decide if they are ready for a long-term commitment and can cope with the unique stresses of military life.
"Settings like military bases are incubators," said Van Epp, of Medina, Ohio. "They try to hatch ... relationships extremely fast," leading to higher divorce rates and more domestic violence.
The program teaches troops not to cave in to the pressure of a ticking clock — like rushing to marry before shipping out for a deployment, or too soon after homecoming.
Last month, Van Epp sent 200 program workbooks to troops in Iraq.
___

for later

THE NATION
Falling Jobless Rate Boosts Wages but Fuels Concern on Prices and Profits
By Bill Sing, Times Staff Writer
A strong job report Friday helped revive a troubling theme prominent during the economic boom of the late 1990s: What's good for workers may not necessarily be good for investors and monetary policymakers.The U.S. Labor Department reported a solid gain in jobs in January along with significant upward revisions in employment for November and December. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7%, its lowest level in more than four years, while workers' average hourly earnings rose more than expected. Wage growth on an annual basis hit a nearly three-year high.
The percentage of unemployed people without work for at least six months — what is considered to be long-term unemployment — declined sharply.The bottom line: The labor market is tightening, which means more bargaining power and stronger wage growth for workers. Their earnings have failed to keep up with inflation during a five-year economic recovery marked by rising energy costs and growing competition with low-wage countries such as China and India.Sluggish wage gains, along with lackluster job creation during the early part of the rebound from the 2001 recession, are a primary reason many Americans have been skeptical about the economy's strength and dissatisfied with President Bush's economic policies. But the prospect of better rank-and-file pay and lower joblessness spooked some investors Friday because it threatened to reignite inflation and limit corporate profit growth. Investors fear that inflation pressures could force the Federal Reserve and its new chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, to boost interest rates more than hoped for. That, along with weakened profit growth, could halt what has been a promising 2006 stock market rally. Some analysts Friday altered their forecasts of what the Fed will do, with the prospect of rate hikes in March and May now seen as more likely. Before Friday, many had thought the central bank would raise rates at its next policymaking meeting March 28, the first for Bernanke, but take a breather in May. "Today's labor report could not have been more disheartening to those who thought the Fed had ended its monetary tightening," said Eugenio J. Aleman, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis, who now predicts the Fed will raise its benchmark short-term rate to 5% in May, instead of stopping at 4.75% in March. More Fed rate hikes could lead to higher mortgage rates, further cooling a once red-hot housing market, analysts said. The stock market, which had been primed to open higher Friday morning before the release of the job data, stumbled instead, with major indexes closing lower. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped nearly 60 points and the Nasdaq composite index lost nearly 20. The market has been weak since Tuesday, when the Fed raised rates and signaled that inflationary pressures could lead to more increases. Friday's stock market tumble after good news for workers was reminiscent of the late 1990s. Then, investors often cheered weak employment numbers because they reduced pressure on the Fed to boost interest rates.The return of such a dynamic "is unsettling for me," said Jared Bernstein, economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "Don't take the punch bowl away just because workers are arriving at the party…. The fact that wages are catching up to inflation is a good thing and a dynamic we ought to nurture, not stomp on," Bernstein said. He said stronger wage growth would stimulate the economy and boost consumer spending, which helps corporate bottom lines.Friday's job report provided strong evidence that the economy was rebounding from a surprisingly weak final three months of last year, analysts said. U.S. employers in January added a net 193,000 jobs, an improvement from the revised 140,000 in December, the Labor Department reported Friday. Although the January number was lower than the 250,000 that had been expected by economists, job creation for the two previous months was revised upward by 81,000 positions. Good weather in much of the country was given some credit for the strong job gains. Hiring growth was spread across many sectors, with increases in such fields as construction, mining, food services, healthcare and financial activities. Construction added 46,000 jobs amid Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts, while service industries gained 135,000 positions. Meanwhile, the 4.7% unemployment rate represented a 0.2-percentage-point drop from December and was the lowest rate since July 2001, when the figure was 4.6%. The number of people without jobs plunged 335,000.The percentage of unemployed workers who had been jobless for at least six months fell to 16.3%, down from 18.2% in December and 21% a year earlier, and was the lowest level since March 2002. Stubbornly high long-term unemployment, including among people with college degrees, had been a key reason some analysts considered job creation in the current recovery to be subpar.Average hourly earnings rose to $16.41 last month, up 0.4% from December, better than the 0.3% gain expected by economists. On a year-over-year basis, hourly wages increased 3.3%, the highest growth rate since February 2003. The economy added 1.98 million jobs during all of 2005, down from the 2.1 million generated in 2004, according to annual revisions by the Labor Department released Friday. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration lauded the job report.President Bush, speaking in Rio Rancho, N.M., where he took part in a discussion at Intel Corp. about the role of research, development and technology in the nation's economic future, said, "We've got a strong economy.""We got steady growth. And that's important. We want our people working. We want people to be able to realize opportunity and hope. And in order to do that you got to have a growing economy, obviously," Bush said.Accelerating wage growth indeed is the norm for the latter stages of an economic recovery, as was the case in the late 1990s. Under these conditions, businesses typically expand to meet growing sales, but amid falling unemployment, they must bid up wages to attract workers. Knowing this, people with jobs seek higher raises — and increasingly have the bargaining power to get them. But some analysts said it was still too soon for workers to fully celebrate their improving wage fortunes. The 3.3% annualized wage gain still lags behind the 3.4% yearly inflation rate, economist Bernstein said. And continuing pressures from globalization will subdue wage gains for some workers, he said. Employers in many industries still can shift production to countries with cheaper labor."If you are a white-collar worker in an occupation where information can be digitized, there is a good chance you are competing now with workers who are equally skilled but earn a tenth as much as you do," Bernstein said. "Of course that will have an impact." *Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Rio Rancho, N.M., contributed to this report.