Liberty Newspost Mar-14-2012

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- 14/03/12
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Stolen truck breaches Afghan airfield, Panetta safe - Reuters

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Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:00:10 PM
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is greeted by Col. John Shafer (L) with RTC 6 after arriving to greet troops at Foward Operating Base Shukvani, Afghanistan March 14, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Scott Olson/Pool By Phil Stewart BASTION AIRFIELD, Afghanistan| Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:04pm EDT (Reuters) - An Afghan man driving a stolen pickup truck sped onto a runway ramp at an air base in southern Afghanistan and then emerged from the vehicle ablaze at around the time U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was arriving aboard a military plane, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon chief, making an unannounced visit at a time of high tensions after a U.S. soldier massacred 16 Afghan villagers on Sunday, was not hurt in the incident at Bastion Airfield, a
British base, and continued on with his schedule of events. The Afghan man, a civilian who was not believed to be carrying explosives, was being treated at the base for severe burn injuries, U.S. officials said. No explanation was given for how the man caught on fire. U.S. officials did not rule out the possibility that the incident in southern Helmand province was an attempted attack on Panetta, but said there was no indication that this was the case. They said an investigation was ongoing. "There is no evidence right now that the driver had any idea who was on that aircraft," U.S. Navy Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington. The incident was a reminder of the tense security situation in Afghanistan more than a decade after U.S. forces invaded to topple the Taliban rulers who had harbored the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11,
2001, attacks on the United States. QUESTIONS REMAIN Many questions about the incident remained after briefings by U.S. officials. The Afghan man's vehicle neither caught fire nor exploded, and there were not explosives there either - raising questions about how he came to be on fire, Pentagon spokesman George Little said in Afghanistan, denying Afghan media reports. Tensions are high in Afghanistan in the wake of Sunday's massacre and the furor over the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, at a NATO base last month. Reporters traveling with Panetta on his aircraft were not told about the incident for about 10 hours after it took place shortly before 11 a.m. local time. Panetta carried on with his schedule, talking to troops at Camp Leatherneck about the importance of the decade-old war effort.
Shortly before he arrived to speak, U.S. troops and other allies were told to put their weapons outside the tent - a highly unusual move that officials downplayed later. The commander in Helmand, U.S. Major General Mark Gurganus, said he wanted foreign troops to be unarmed since Afghan troops would be. Little said the removal of the firearms and the incident involving the pickup truck were "absolutely not" linked. Panetta's team apparently became aware that something was amiss shortly before landing at Bastion but details only came later. "We did know that we were diverted to a different runway. And we learned soon after landing that there may have been an incident," said Little, who was traveling with Panetta. "Again, the security of the secretary was never in question. He carried on during the event." One NATO service member was injured in the apparent car-
jacking, U.S. officials said. This service member's nationality was not disclosed. The pickup trunk apparently approached the runway ramp where aircraft park - at high speed before ending up in a ditch, according to an initial account. The Afghan man emerged on fire, officials said. "For reasons that are totally unknown to us at this time, our personnel discovered that he was ablaze," Little said. "Base personnel put the fire out and he was immediately treated for burn injuries and is still being treated. He sustained considerable burn wounds," Little added. (Editing By Warren Strobel and Will Dunham) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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'Pink slime' critics fight ammonia-treated meat

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Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:46:30 PM
particularly when you start thinking about how this stuff turns up in school lunches," said Nestle, AP a professor at New York Federal regulators say 'pink U n i v e r s i t y ' s D e p a r t m e n t o f slime' meets standards for food Nutrition, Food Studies and safety. Critics liken it to pet food Public Health. and their battle has suddenly gone The controversy centers on "lean viral amid new media attention finely textured beef," a low-cost and a snowballing online petition. ingredient in ground beef made ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) "Pink from fatty bits of meat left over slime" just went from a simmer to from other cuts. The bits are a boil. heated to about 100 F and spun to In less than a week earlier this remove most of the fat. The lean month, the stomach-turning mix then is compressed into epithet for ammonia-treated blocks for use in ground meat. ground beef filler suddenly The product, made by South became a potent rallying cry by Dakota-based Beef Products Inc., activists fighting to ban the also is exposed to "a puff of product from supermarket shelves ammonium hydroxide gas" to kill and school lunch trays. bacteria, such as E. coli and Though the term has been used salmonella. pejoratively for at least several There are no precise numbers on years, it wasn't until last week that how prevalent the product is and social media suddenly exploded it does not have to be labeled as with worry and an online petition an ingredient. Past estimates have seeking its ouster from schools lit ranged as high as 70 percent; one up, quickly garnering hundreds of industry officials estimates it is in thousands of supporters. at least half of the ground meat "It sounds disgusting," said food and burgers in the United States. policy expert Marion Nestle, who It has been on the market for notes that the unappetizing years and federal regulators say it nickname made it easier for the meets standards for food safety. food movement to flex its muscles But advocates for wholesome over this cause. food have denounced the process "A lot of people have been writing as a potentially unsafe and about it. Therefore, more people u n a p p e t i z i n g e x a m p l e o f know about it, therefore more industrialized food production. people are queasy about it, The epithet "pink slime," coined
by a federal microbiologist, has appeared in the media at least since a critical 2009 New York Times report. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has railed against it and it made headlines after McDonald's and other major chains last year discontinued their use of ammonia-treated beef. But "pink slime" outrage seemed to reach new heights last week amid reports by The Daily and ABC News. The Daily piece dealt with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's purchase of meat that included "pink slime" for school lunches. The story touched a nerve with Houston resident Bettina Siegel, whose blog "The Lunch Tray" focuses on kids' food. On March 6, she started an online petition on Change.org asking Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to "put an immediate end to the use of 'pink slime' in our children's school food." "When I put it up, I had this moment of embarrassment," she said, "What if only 10 people sign this?" No problem there. Supporters signed on fast. By Wednesday afternoon, the electronic petition had more than 220,000 signatures. Organizers of Change.org said the explosive growth is rare among the roughly 10,000 petitions started there every month.
Meanwhile, Google searches for "pink slime" spiked dramatically. It has become the food version of Joseph Kony, the rogue African warlord virtually unknown in the United States until this month, when an online video campaign against him caught fire. But why is "pink slime" striking a nerve now? Issues can to go from a simmer to an explosion when content with broad interest such as like food safety is picked up and disseminated by widely connected people, said Marc A. Smith, director of the Social Media Research Foundation. These people act like "broadcast hubs," dispersing the information to different communities. "What's happening is that the channels whereby this flood can go down this hill have expanded," Smith said "The more there are things like Twitter, the easier it is for these powder kegs to explode." In this case, Siegel thinks the added element of children's school lunches could have set off this round. "That's what upset me. This idea that children are passively sitting in a lunch room eating what the government sees fit to feed them and McDonald's has chosen not to use it, but the government is still feeding it to them," she said.
"That really got my ire." The USDA which did not directly address Siegel's petition buys about a fifth of the food served in schools nationwide. The agency this year is contracted to buy 111.5 million pounds of ground beef for the National School Lunch Program. About 7 million pounds of that is from Beef Products Inc., though the pink product in question never accounts for more than 15 percent of a single serving of ground beef. "All USDA ground beef purchases must meet the highest standards for food safety. USDA has strengthened ground beef food safety standards in recent years and only allows products into commerce that we have confidence are safe," agency spokesman Aaron Lavallee said in an email. Beef Product Inc. stresses that its product is 100 percent lean beef and is approved by a series of industry experts. The company's n e w w e b s i t e , pinkslimeisamyth.com, refutes some common criticisms of the product ("Myth 4: Boneless lean beef trimmings are produced from inedible meat"). The National Meat Association also has joined the fight, refuting that the product is made from 'PINK page 5
Headline/
American shooting suspect flown out of Afghanistan

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Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:46:48 PM
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The American soldier accused of shooting 16 Afghan villagers in a pre-dawn killing spree was flown out of Afghanistan on Wednesday evening, the U.S. military said. By Ted S. Warren, AP A soldier from Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state, pictured here, is accused of shooting 16 villagers in Kandahar, Afghanistan. By Ted S. Warren, AP A soldier from Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state, pictured here, is accused of shooting 16 villagers in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The soldier was taken out of Afghanistan "based on a legal recommendation," said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman. "We do not have appropriate detention facilities in Afghanistan," he said, explaining that he was referring to a facility for a U.S. service member "in this kind of case." The soldier was taken aboard a U.S. military aircraft to a "pretrial confinement facility" in another country, a U.S. military official said, without saying where. The official, who spoke anonymously
because he was not authorized to release the information publicly, would not confirm if that meant an American military base or another type of facility. Kirby said the move did not necessarily mean the trial would be held outside Afghanistan, but the other military official said legal proceedings would continue elsewhere. The soldier has not yet been charged. Afghan lawmakers had demanded that the soldier be publicly tried in Afghanistan to show that he was being brought to justice, calling on President Hamid Karzai to suspend all talks with the U.S. about an long-term military presence here until that happens. Many fear a misstep by the U.S. military in handling the case could ignite a firestorm in Afghanistan that would shatter already tense relations. The alliance between Afghanistan and the U.S. military already appeared near the breaking point last month when the burning of Qurans in a garbage pit at a U.S. base sparked protests and retaliatory attacks that killed more than 30 people, including six U.S. soldiers. In recent days, the two countries made headway toward an agreement governing a long-term American presence in the country,
concluded the shooting spree was carried out by more than one soldier. Parliament member Sayeed Ishaq Gilani said the delegation had heard from villagers who said they saw more than 15 troops at the scene. But it is unclear whether the soldiers the villagers saw were but the shootings in Kandahar part of a search party that left the province on Sunday have called base to look for the U.S. soldier a l l s u c h n e g o t i a t i o n s i n t o who was missing. The delegation is slated to formally release the question. The soldier who allegedly shot results of its investigation later v i l l a g e r s w a s c a u g h t o n Wednesday. On Tuesday, the delegation surveillance video that showed visited the two villages in him walking up to his base, laying down his weapon and raising his southern Kandahar province arms in surrender, according to an where the shootings took place. Afghan official who viewed the Two villagers who lost relatives insisted that at least two soldiers footage. The official said late Tuesday took part in the shootings. that U.S. authorities showed their U.S. military officials have so far Afghan counterparts the video to insisted that only one soldier was prove that only one perpetrator involved. was involved in the shootings on "We are still receiving, reviewing Sunday, which have further and investigating all leads in strained already shaky relations connection with this terrible between the two countries. Karzai i n c i d e n t , b u t a t t h i s t i m e said nine of the dead were everything still points to one shooter," said Lt. Col. Jimmie children. Any major discrepancy between Cummings, a spokesman for the the official Afghan and U.S. U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. accounts of the events on Sunday The surveillance video, taken from an overhead blimp that films is likely to deepen the distrust. One member of an Afghan the area around the base, shows a g o v e r n m e n t d e l e g a t i o n soldier in a U.S. uniform investigating the killings said approaching the south gate of the Wednesday that the group has base with a traditional Afghan
shawl hiding the weapon in his hand, the Afghan official said. He then removes the shawl as he lays his weapon on the ground and raises his arms in surrender. The official, who requested anonymity because he was discussing a private briefing, said that there were about two to three hours of footage covering the time of the attack but the U.S. military had only provided the video of the surrender. The Afghan delegation in Kandahar is asking for the U.S. to provide the full footage, the official said. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, AMERICAN page 5
Headline/ Top News/ Technology/
Obama, Cameron: No changes to Afghan plan

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Submitted at 3/14/2012 11:11:00 AM
President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron said today the weekend killings in Afghanistan should not alter plans to gradually withdraw troops over the next two years. "We're going to complete this mission, and we're going to do it responsibly," Obama said at a joint news conference with the British leader. Obama and Cameron said they discussed efforts to force Iran to abandon any nuclear weapons plans and to have Bashar Assad removed from power in Syria because of repeated attacks on his people. As for Afghanistan, the two leaders said U.S., British and allied forces will shift to more of a "support role" in 2013 and hand security over to the Kabul government in 2014. "We won't be in a combat role after 2014," Cameron said. Some highlights from the news conference: 12:58 p.m.-- A British reporter asks the leaders whether they talked about specific ways to stop [unable to retrieve full-text content]
Bashar Assad in Syria, such as no -fly zones, Cameron says a lot of things are being studied, but he wants to be careful not to "foment revolution" within Syria that would kill even more people. He says he would prefer diplomatic pressure to force Assad's removal. Obama concurs, citing worries about "civil war." He notes that the international community was more united behind military action in Libya; Syria is a much more complicated case. 12:52 p.m.-- Alister Bull of Reuters (a Brit working in the White House, Obama notes) asks the president and Cameron about Iran and Syria -- and whether Assad should be tried as a war criminal. Obama says he is working with allies to force Iran to forgo the means to make nuclear weapons. "We will do everything we can to resolve this diplomatically," Obama says, but nothing is off the table. Cameron talks about Syria, saying Russia and other nations should be more aggressive in stopping the violence in Syria. He says the slaughter of civilians is a
from Ari Shapiro of NPR. He asks why Obama thinks Afghanistan will be better in two years than it is now. He asks Cameron about the two leaders' different approaches to economic growth. "We have made progress" in Afghanistan, Obama says, and he is confident it can be secure. He war crime, and the international says he is not "naive" about the justice system has a long memory. challenges but has confidence in 12:47 p.m.-- Sky News of Britain the allies' plan for a gradual also asks about Afghanistan: transition. What do they tell people who The president comments on the believe the situation is "a mess"? question about different economic Cameron says things have approaches, saying the United improved in recent years, that States and Britain are "two attacks are down and security is different economies in two up. He admits that challenges different positions." remain, but more improvements Cameron notes that the two can be achieved. He reminds the nations have different currency questioner that Afghanistan systems with different problems. served as a haven for terrorists Cameron says the goals are the before 9/11. same, though, namely economic O b a m a : " I c o n c u r w i t h growth and lower deficits. everything David has said." The 12:33 p.m.-- Cameron thanks president adds that polls are low "Barack" for his hospitality, on Afghanistan as a reflection of calling the U.S.-British alliance "a fatigue and frustration over more matter of conviction." He echoes than 10 years of war. He defends Obama in highlighting the four the war, noting that Osama bin major topics of their talks: Laden and other terrorists are Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and either dead or imprisoned. economic growth. 12:40 p.m.-- First question comes On Afghanistan, Cameron -- like
Obama -- said the United States and its allies will shift to a support role in 2013 and totally hand over security in 2014. "We won't be in a combat role after 2014," he says. 12: 25 p.m.-- Obama again welcomes Cameron to the White House, saying, "We just finished up a very good discussion." Among the topics: creating economic growth and jobs, the "difficult mission" in Afghanistan, Iran's nuclear threat, Libya, the Middle East and the violence in Syria. Obama says Assad will fall from power in Syria, and the world will maintain diplomatic pressure to bring that about. On Afghanistan, Obama says he and Cameron agreed to the plan to turn over security to the Afghans in 2014. "We're going to complete this mission," he says, "and we're going to do it responsibly." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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"scraps destined for pet food" and other claims. The industry group also said that ammonium hydroxide is used in baked goods, puddings and other processed foods. Association CEO Barry Carpenter, who has visited BPI plants and watched the process, said critics don't seem to have the facts. "It's one of those things. It's the aesthetics of it that just gets people's attention," Carpenter said. "And in this case, it's not even legitimate aesthetics of it. It's a perception of what it is." Proponents of the process stress that it is both federally regulated and safe. Though Nestle said the focus on safety misses the larger point.
"I'm not arguing that that stuff is unsafe," she said, "I'm arguing that it's the lowest common denominator." Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Self-Immolations in Tibetan Areas of China Making Situation More Delicate - Voice of America
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Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:30:40 PM
Mysterious chinese fossils may be new human species - CBS News

Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:32:48 PM
Boston.com Self-Immolations in Tibetan Areas of China Making Situation More Delicate Voice of America March 14, 2012 SelfImmolations in Tibetan Areas of China Making Situation More Delicate William Ide March has long been a tense time for China and its Tibetan areas. It is a month
marked by key anniversaries in the Tibetans' struggle for more freedom. Group: Tibetan monk in China sets himself on fire, triggering anti -Beijing protest Washington Post Tibetan monk self-immolates in western China Boston.com Self Immolations in Tibet, Hunger Strikers in New York Huffington Post all 897 news articles
AFP Mysterious chinese fossils may be new human species CBS News (livescience.com) Mysterious fossils of what may be a previously unknown type of human have been uncovered in
caves in China, ones that possess a highly unusual mix of bygone and modern human features, scientists reveal. Surprisingly, the fossils are... New human species discovered? How China fossils could redefine 'human.' Christian Science Monitor Cave Fossil Find: New Human Species or "Nothing
Extraordinary"? National Geographic Chinese Fossils May Be Evidence of Early Ancestors of (TREND HUNTER - The Latest Humans U.S. News & World Trends) Report Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:59:02 PM AFP- NEWS.com.au all 82 news articles ( TrendHunter.com) The Anna Langdon Fall/Winter 2012 Collection premiered at the
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L'Oreal Melbourne fashion festival but it could have easily been at an over-the-top ugly Christmas sweater party. The clothing line featured...
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Rick Santorum wins Alabama, Mississippi; Romney wins Hawaii, American Samoa CNN
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Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:15:43 PM
Santorum: We did it again! STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: Mitt Romney gets the endorsement of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge Rick Santorum wins Alabama, Mississippi; Romney wins Hawaii, American Samoa With proportional awards, Santorum hasn't dented Romney's delegate lead Newt Gingrich says he'll continue despite losing key Southern states (CNN)-- Rick Santorum took his re-energized Republican presidential campaign to Puerto Rico on Wednesday after key primary victories in the South that raised questions about conservative rival Newt Gingrich's viability as a candidate and portended a long battle with frontrunner Mitt Romney. Romney, rejected again by Southern conservatives in the Tuesday primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, won caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa to claim about a third of the total delegates available and maintain his lead.
However, Santorum's twin primary triumphs -- while narrow -- reframed the GOP race as a one -on-one battle between the socially conservative former Pennsylvania senator and the
more moderate Romney, with Gingrich's chances fading fast. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian champion, continued to trail well behind the other three candidates in the campaign to face
President Barack Obama in November. "There is no end in sight," noted Ari Fleischer, a CNN contributor who was White House press secretary under President George
W. Bush. "... For Republicans who thought that maybe Mitt Romney could come South and make this race look like it was RICK page 7
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coming to an end, this race is going on and on and on." Santorum headed to Puerto Rico on Wednesday ahead of Sunday's primary there, which is a day after caucuses in Missouri and two days before a showdown with Romney in the Illinois primary. Delegate tracker: Who's got what "We did it again," Santorum told supporters Tuesday night in Lafayette, Louisiana, which will hold another Southern primary March 24. The Alabama and Mississippi victories give Santorum 10 states so far to Romney's 18, and he poked at the frontrunner on Wednesday as he reiterated his stance that he is the viable conservative alternative to the former Massachusetts governor. "It's pretty sad when all you have is to do math instead of trying to go out there and win it on substance and win it on what Americans want to hear about," Santorum told CNN in reference to Romney's claim of an insurmountable lead in delegates. "We're a long, long way from over." Romney said Wednesday in an interview on Fox that his lead so far in the campaign shows he has support across the Republican spectrum, adding that "some who are very conservative may not be yet in my camp, but they will be when I become the nominee when I face Barack Obama." He also noted Santorum called him a "real conservative" in endorsing his candidacy in 2008, "so obviously when campaigns
get tough and you get towards the end of this process and you are way behind in delegates you say some things which may be contradictory to what you said only four years ago." Earlier Wednesday, Romney received the endorsement of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who was the first homeland security secretary when the department was created in the Bush administration after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "I've met accomplished and strong leaders in my life," Ridge said in a statement released by Romney's campaign. "Mitt Romney is one of them." Gingrich, who based his campaign on a Southern strategy after winning South Carolina and Georgia, appeared to be in major trouble after losing both Dixie primaries Tuesday. Last week, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said the former speaker had to win Alabama and Mississippi in order to remain credible. Gingrich later said he would continue to the national convention in Tampa no matter what happens, and he repeated that assertion Tuesday night. "The fact is that in both states, the conservative candidates got nearly 70% of the vote, and if you're the frontrunner and you keep coming in third, you're not much of a frontrunner," Gingrich said of Romney's performance in Mississippi and Alabama. Citing what he called Romney's vulnerabilities on health care
reform, Gingrich said he doesn't "believe that a Massachusetts moderate who created Romneycare as the forerunner of Obamneycare is going to be in a position to win any debates this fall," and that is part of the reason he's "insisted in staying in this race." Calls for Gingrich to drop out and unite conservative support for Santorum have already started, but Gingrich argues that none of the candidates are likely to reach the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination before May or June at the earliest, and probably not until the August convention. CNN's estimated delegate count Wednesday had Romney at 489, with Santorum at 234, Gingrich at 139 and Paul at 66. Prior to Tuesday, Romney needed to win roughly 48% of the remaining delegates to win, while Santorum needed about 66% and Gingrich needed 72%. Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich each won roughly a third of the combined delegates at stake in Mississippi and Alabama. In Alabama, Santorum won 35% of the vote. Gingrich and Romney both had 29% -- although Gingrich was about 2,000 votes ahead with 99% of the vote counted -- and Ron Paul had 5%. With 99% of the vote counted in Mississippi, Santorum had 33% to 31% for Gingrich, 30% for Romney and 4% for Paul. Romney's victories in Hawaii and American Samoa demonstrated his stronger organization. Last
Saturday, Romney won caucuses in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and he also picked up a majority of the delegates in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Santorum was coming off a big win in Kansas on Saturday, and his victories Tuesday indicated a comeback after trailing Gingrich and Romney in polls released Monday. Romney's campaign has pointed to its large lead in delegates as a reason for Gingrich and Santorum to get out of the race. Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney campaign senior adviser, said the campaign met its goal of taking roughly one-third of the Mississippi and Alabama delegates. "Once the dust clears, you'll be able to look and see that there really will be no ground that our opponents have made up against Mitt Romney," Fehrnstrom said Tuesday night. "And as you look at the upcoming contests on the calendar, there are no opportunities for them to have significant wins that allow them to accumulate large numbers of delegates so that they can close that gap with Mitt Romney." Exit polls from Alabama and Mississippi show that Romney still has some ground to make up to win over conservatives: In Alabama, 55% of those polled said Romney's position on the issues wasn't conservative enough; in Mississippi, the number was 49%. Alabama exit polls
Mississippi exit polls In another trend that has continued throughout the campaign, more voters saw Romney as the best choice for defeating Obama in the general election. In Alabama, 46% saw Romney as being the most likely to beat Obama, while both Santorum and Gingrich were the favorites of 24%; in Mississippi, 50% of those polled saw Romney as having the best chance of beating Obama, compared to 24% for Gingrich and 23% for Santorum. As results were coming in Tuesday night, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger said that hardcore conservatives' persistent preference for Santorum or Gingrich means Romney benefits from the presence of both. "Gov. Romney needs Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich right now. ... If it weren't for them splitting the conservatives -- the very conservative, the evangelical, the tea party voters -Mitt Romney would not be within sort of a position to win in either of Mississippi or Alabama. So the fact that they're splitting the vote ... he ought to pay them both to stay in for a little bit longer." Results of all races Santorum and Romney are expected to split the next few contests on the calendar. Santorum won the nonbinding primary in Missouri in February and is expected to take the state's RICK page 11
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Overcome by porn: 50 Shades of Grey takes America by storm

RT (News RSS : Today)
the Twilight series. In earlier attempts at creating 50 Shades, James relied on using the male Women across the world are and female leads in Stephanie enamored with 50 Shades of Meyers Twilight collection, Gray, an erotic novel that has Edward and Bella, whom she become an international smash. eventually reworked into her own The book has certainly found its creations. While borrowing from fan base, but are thousands of themes popularized by Twilight, women buying a book that critics largely agree that James encourages them to submit to has managed to make the most male domination? capitalizing on a market that has It has topped the New York an audience still on the rise. Times best-seller list and caused Beneath the surface, however, the commotion from all corners of the message within 50 Shades can be globe. Author E.L. James and her considered much less of a fairynovel 50 Shades of Gray have tale that instead teeters on e a c h b e c o m e b r e a k t h r o u g h borderline propaganda pushing sensations in their own right. But w o m e n t o p u t o n h o l d t h e as women readers across the generations of effort gone into world hang onto every word of an achieving what they have today in erotic love tale, its possible that terms of equal rights. the womens liberation movement Its a rape fantasy! television is making a massive u-turn? Some personality and board-certified say the book encourages its specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky audience to subscribe to an ethos e x c l a i m s o n h i s H L N T V of submission by perpetuating program. Appealing to a panel of rape culture, and essentially women that endorsed the book as bringing feminism to a freezing a love story, Pinsky insists that halt. the novel is making waves for all James acknowledges that her the wrong reasons. highly successful story spawned In the book, the lead male from her love for the already- character, Christian, sweeps a established Twilight franchise. young virgin, Ann, off her feet. She began 50 Shades by authoring As a pseudo-relationship is fan-fiction, early excerpts of forged, however, the women is which have resurfaced on the asked to sign a contract in which Web and showcase an attempt to she agrees to essentially become capture and mimic the success of the slave sexual and otherwise
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:26:34 PM
of her new superior.The Dominant accepts the submissive as his, to own, control dominate and discipline, agrees the couple,for purpose of discipline [and]for his own personal enjoyment. Pinsky condemns any attempts to consider the book a love story between two consensual adults, though. Instead, he argues, Christian uses his relationship with Ana to exercise his mindcontrol capabilities and as more is learned about the characters, it is discovered that, between the lines, the writing is hardly an innocent tale of romance. We find out in the course of the book that [Christian] was sexually abused, explained the doctor,And this is all him acting out his pathology as opposed to it being two consensual adults. The doctor explains that the BDSM ideas detailed in 50 Shades is fine in his opinion, but is worried that women will continue to buy into what could be considered romance as instead rape. I dont really think its erotic. I think its kind of porn trash, radio host Judith Regan adds to HLN. She says that not only did she not find the book interesting, but the talk show host reveals it also reminded her of an interview she conducted on her own
recently with an abuse victim. Speaking of the recent sit-down, Regan says she heard tales of how an abusive husband controlled and insulted his wife, and, as she says,wanted to control just about everything she was doing. And that, adds Regan,is pretty much what the relationship in this book is about. Amy Robach for NBC News says that the novel answers the age old question of what do women really want. Never mind being left breathless or captivated, saysRobach, this book makes it clear that domination and submission are on the minds of most American women. We had the womens movement which really was about empowering women not to be submissive to men anymore. Now weve moved onto a new generation where women are more empowered than ever before, the glass ceiling has been broken and we have as much control as we want. And what are we longing for? A little bodice ripping, answers author Laura Berman to NBC. Pinsky, however, insists that a reader of 50 Shades can walk away with a different idea.We are going beyond the issue of when people often start by saying men are aroused with visual material. Women are aroused by
using more of the brain. But this is going beyond that, he tells NBC.The swept away fantasy is common. But its going beyond that into actual violence against women, he says, calling into question how Ana willingly signs herself away to Christian and allows her to be physically abused in the book. The doctor adds that encouraging that kind of activity, even unintentionally, can only reopen emotional scars for vulnerable readers that were the victims of a whole other time of crime.There is a lot of violence against children in this country there are various kinds of physical abuse, says Pinsky. People subjected to those experiences are especially aroused by these images. Im not saying the average women cant be, but its especially arousing for them. Despite criticism from Pinsky and others, the book has only become more popular as of late, with a virtual bidding war erupting over the print rights for James controversial novel. Supporters have come out to call the book empowering and enlightening, but others have questioned if the darker contents masked by reader-friendly fan fiction are only subconsciously OVERCOME page 16
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Without The Right Message, Twitter Is No Better For Your Brand Than A Fax Machine
David Brier (Fast Company)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:03:56 PM
Why brands have this endless fascination with social media is one of the more fascinating phenomena in business today-especially since many are missing the one key ingredient that, if ignored, will turn their most choreographed efforts into social media hell. [youtube vh1I-K15o1s] When it comes to branding and the ever-changing social media phenomenon, youre not a mushroom. In other words, you shouldnt be kept in the dark and fed a pile of...well, you get the idea. Every once in while, a certain business mania surfaces. As you saw in the video above, history is filled with these blips: The telephone. Radio. TV. The fax machine. The Internet. And now social media. Within social media, it splinters further--it seems like theres always a shiny new network. Before Pinterest, there was Google Plus. Before Google Plus, well, you know the drill. And on and on. Yet all of these breakthroughs have one thing in common: Theyre all channels of communication. And only c h a n n e l s o f communication.Channels wont make your message or content
better. They wont save your
brand if you have nothing to
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Obama and Cameron: No intervention in Syria, pullout in Afghanistan

he did not want tofoment revolution in Syria. Obama echoed his words, fretting about a S President Barack Obama and possiblecivil war. The President British Prime Minister David also said that the case for military Cameron take part in a joint press intervention was not as clear-cut conference on March 14, 2012 in as during the Libyan uprising last the Rose Garden of the White year, and that it would be more House in Washington, DC (AFP difficult to get the international Photo / Mandel Ngan)(78.4Mb) c o m m u n i t y o n t h e s i d e o f embed video intervention. The US and the UK are just as Thousands of people have determined as ever to remove already died in a year-long Bashar Assad from power, but are c o n f l i c t b e t w e e n A s s a d ' s unlikely to go for a full-scale government and rebels demanding military intervention at least for an end to the rule of a family that now. has controlled Syria for over 40 -This was the gist of the message years. from US President Barack Obama But despite renouncing the use of and British Prime Minister David force for the moment, the two Cameron as they stood side-by- leaders are still clear about their side before the White House press desired outcome to the conflict. corps. "Assad will leave power, it's not a Cameron is on a three-day question of if, but when," Obama official visit to the United States, said. and the leaders were keen to P e r f e c t A f g h a n i s t a n reaffirm the two allies' essential u n a t t a i n a b l e relationship. Despite recent volatility in With the West often accused of A f g h a n i s t a n , O b a m a a n d meddling behind the scenes to Cameron said there would be no impose regime change, the UK changes to the plan to pull out of Prime Minister firmly stated that the country by 2014.
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:31:00 PM
Obama said that more than half of Afghanistan is already supervised by Western-trained local forces, and that by 2014 NATO would serve a merely supervisory role. But Cameron insisted that"Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for AlQaeda." NATO troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001, following the September 11 attacks hatched by Osama bin Laden, who used the region to build up a terrorist network. Despite boasting about improved security for the world and the countrys own citizens after more than a decade, the two leaders admitted the limitations of the Western mission there. "We won't build a perfect Afghanistan," Cameron conceded during the press conference.-Good war gone bad? -Jim Lobe, a journalist at the Inter Press Service news agency, believes President Obama has been trying to depict the war in Afghanistan as the good war, as
opposed to the not-so-good Iraq war. Hes invested quite a lot in what might be called success, he told RT, But it doesnt appear to be turning out that way. Hes sent over 60,000 additional troops to Afghanistan during his term and if things go south too quickly it would be highly embarrassing to him, and it would be a major point of weakness during his re-election campaign. Lobe noted that US military commanders feel that the surge in the southeast Kandahar area of Afghanistan has succeeded in pacifying the area once known for being a stronghold of the Taliban. " But they havent entirely cleared them of Taliban influence, Lobe remarked. Its also clear that the Taliban have adapted, have done much more in the northern part of the country. Most importantly, Obamas counter-insurgency strategy aimed at combating corruption and promoting government reform, hasnt been very fruitful, Lobe said. As a result there is increasing
alienation, I think, vis--vis the Afghan government both by the Afghans themselves and, to some extent, by the US government, he noted. Lobe added that there was increasing political pressure, particularly from Democrats in Congress, to hasten the pace of withdrawal from Afghanistan. He also underscored the fact that the White House is, in general, reluctant to start new military conflicts elsewhere. I think the Army, in particular the ground forces, are completely exhausted, Lobe said. I think the Pentagon would rather not take on either enterprise at the moment. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
London Underground to get free Wi-Fi for Olympics

Katie Scott
Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:49:00 PM
Virgin Media is to bring free Wi-
Fi to 80 of London's Underground stations by the Olympics in July. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of
London, announced the news
today, adding that a further 40 stations will get platform-level Wi-Fi by the end of the year. By: Katie Scott, Edited by: Nate
Lanxon Continue reading...
Finance/
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RICK
honestly say. They wont be the silver bullet that restores brand value. They wont connect you with your audience if youve got nothing to connect with. Its like a blind date: Yes, it helps if you arrive and sit at the dinner table, but without something worthwhile to communicate, you'll both be anxious to get the bill and exit through the nearest door at the first opportunity. Youre Only a Stepping Stone So while all of these shiny new toy channels and options seem wonderful and sexy, the vital missing factor thats vital to remember is that a true, valuable, passionate message is more important than the media channel it is transmitted across. Once youve got that nailed, then choose your channels to share it, as long as you focus is on who youre helping and what theyre getting out of it.In other words, if you have nothing more than empty, stupid, self-serving drivel to share thats transparently doing nothing more than serving your needs, social media only opens the door to telling more of the world faster than ever before how shallow you and your brand really are. A real thrill.When comparing notes with cartoonist Tom Fishburne on this trend, Tom captured this point with great precision here: The Great
Disconnect Some brands, based on their actions and deliverables, stand for certain qualities. I wouldnt go to Ferragamo for discount shoes. That would inconsistent with their brand. I wouldnt go to a certain chocolatier for friendly, local items if all they made were fine European truffles served with an air of snooty servitude. Nor would I go to certain big box electronics stores in search of the same aesthetic customer-centric service I would receive at an Apple store.Yet businesses compromise their brands with inconsistent signals and messages just to acquire the almighty follower, choosing shotgun approaches that try to be everything to everyone. Only to end up standing for nothing to nobody (bad English, but more to the point). The important factor is not the follower or the fan or the like. Its having an experience worth sharing that is consistent with your brand in the first place. You're Not More Important Than Your Audience Your brand is a means to an end. Otherwise, your brand is expendable. Fail to be that bridge and you fail to be relevant. What this means in social media is sharing what is valuable to your audience, not what is merely valuable to you (unless that value
that you champion is shared by your audience, something we see displayed very well with master chefs and their loyal patrons of their restaurants. In the tech side, this was one of Steve Jobs brilliant abilities. He never became a geek at the expense of the customers views.). Adding another social media channel to your network will not make an anti-social brand more social. It will simply increase your efficiency in alienating more people with greater speed. The Lesson Social Media Gurus Forgot to Mention Your brand is a means to an end. Your brand exists to fulfill a purpose that others value.The moment you fail to connect those points is the moment you should stop any social media correspondence until you sort out WHY youre doing what you're doing, who it is helping, and why anyone should care.A wellrounded brand has sorted out all of that before they engaged in mass communication of any sort-and not just via social media channels. ------------------Thanks to Tom Fishburne, founder and CEO of Marketoonist, a content marketing agency that develops cartoon campaigns for businesses such as Unilever, O2, Kronos, and the
Wall Street Journal. He was previously a VP at Method, the innovative home care brand, and led brands at Nestle and General Mills. He learned how to draw cartoons at Harvard Business School. Sign up for his weekly marketoons at Marketoonist.com. --This is the fifth in a series of posts on HELL and escaping its grasp. Stay tuned for upcoming installments including, How to Escape Innovation Hell, How to Escape Social Media Hell, and How to Escape Logo Hell. David Brier is a brand identity specialist, package designer and branding expert. His firm's work can be regularly found in blogs, publications and award annuals. David is also the author of Defying Gravity and Rising Above the Noise. David's series of videos shed new light on real branding in these short TV interviews. Subscribe to his YouTube channel which routinely provides inspired and thoughtprovoking videos such as: What do consumers have to say about false advertising? and The Harry Potter video on branding. Request your own free copy of David's eBook, "The Lucky Brand" here.
Investors must have say on unjustifiable pay

Louise Armitstead (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
caucuses on Saturday. Romney is expected to win Puerto Rico's primary on Sunday. Polls in Illinois, which votes Tuesday, show a tight race and Santorum is expected to win in Louisiana a week from Saturday. Then the race turns north and eastward -- the District of Columbia, Maryland and Wisconsin vote on April 3 and Romney is the early favorite there. But that's three weeks away and much has changed in such a span in the most volatile Republican race in generations. Paul didn't campaign over the past week in either Alabama or Mississippi. Both states held open primaries, which meant Republicans, independent voters and Democrats could cast ballots in the GOP contests. CNN's Jim Acosta, Paul Steinhauser, Peter Hamby, Alan Silverleib, Dana Bash, Rachel Streitfeld, Chris Welch and Joe Johns contributed to this report. Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 5pm to 7pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET. For the latest from The Situation Room click here. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Britain's executive pay has become "unjustifiable" and Vince Cable is right to give extra powers
to investors to veto excesses, the Institute of Directors (IoD) has said.
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Top News/
Greg Smith Doesn't Shock Me And I'm Not Selling Goldman - Forbes
Bruce Upbin (Top Stories Google News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:14:04 PM
This is Whitney Tilsons comment about Greg Smiths scathing op-ed about why hes leaving Goldman Sachs. Tilson is an investor whose firm T2 Partners is long GS and has used Goldman as a prime broker for 7 years. Tilson is also a columnist for Forbes. This is reprinted from an e-mail widely circulated this afternoon. Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife Our direct experience as a client of Goldman has been universally positive. The many people we have dealt with there have all been exceptionally talented and high-grade, and never once have we had a negative experience in which we felt that they took advantage of us or didnt do what they said they would do.That said, we are not nave. In all of our dealings with Wall Street firms, we assume that they are looking out for their own bottom lines, not ours. And we are certainly aware that the old, gentlemanly culture in which integrity and a customerfirst attitude generally prevailed is long gone not just at Goldman, but across all of Wall Street and, in fact, across the entire financial
industry (the reasons for this and what should be done about it are the subject for another day). When we think about investing in any company especially a financial one, which is heavily regulated, leveraged, and particularly difficult for an outsider to analyze we factor into our investment equation our assessment of the companys culture and values, and, if we have any concerns, what the potential associated risks are, such as unexpected losses and regulatory action. In light of our view of the moral decay across the U.S. financial sector, we aggressively haircut our estimates of intrinsic value in the sector some companies more so than others. But at some price, of course, any stock is a buy, and last August and September we felt that the negativity surrounding the financial sector was way overdone and hence made a big and, so far, very profitable bet on Goldman and a number of other U.S. financial firms. With the run-up in Goldmans stock after falling below $90 as recently as December, its now over $120, just above tangible book value of $119.72 as of 12/31 /11 weve been debating whether to trim or exit our position, so todays op ed is
Dallasmore confirmation he is a lightweight. Somewhere along the line he has had sand kicked in his faceand is not as good as he thinks he is. That happens to a lot of high achievers there. In summary, we think its likely that Goldman does the right thing for its clients the vast majority of the time but not as certainly as it used to in the old days. Times have changed and the trend is unfortunate, but it is not unique to Goldman. In fact, we believe that Goldman still has a better culture and is more ethical than most of its competitors though this is a timely. But is it relevant to our cuts to bonuses and extensive very low bar to be sure. Our investment thesis on investment thesis? We think layoffs, so it doesnt surprise us Goldman is simple: when all the probably not, for two reasons: that there are many disgruntled 1) The argument that Goldman employees, especially those who dust settles, it will remain the has become increasingly profit are leaving. Is Smith one of premier investment banking driven, sometimes at the expense them? Its hard to tell, but heres franchise in the world and, if so, of clients best interests, and that an email sent to me this morning will be worth a substantial some employees use vulgar and by a former partner at Goldman premium to tangible book value. disrespectful language is hardly (who generally agrees that the Smiths column is a warning flag news. W h a t s t h e n e x t firms culture is not what it once that well be monitoring closely, but we believe our investment shocking headline: Prostitution was): in Vegas!? There are a couple of things out thesis remains intact and the stock 2) We highly doubt that Goldman of place. 1) This guy has been at is still cheap, so were not selling. is as truly corrupt as Smith makes firm for 12 years and is only a This entry passed through the it out to be. Goldman has more VPa piss ant of sorts. He should Full-Text RSS service if this is than 30,000 employees (including have been an MD-light by now, your content and you're reading it nearly 12,000 vice presidents, of so clearly he has been running in on someone else's site, please read which Mr. Smith is one) and has place for some time. 2) He was in the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentgone through wrenching changes U . S . e q u i t y d e r i v a t i v e s i n only/faq.php#publishers. Five in the past year, including savage Londonsort of like equities in Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Revealed: Electronic voting system hacked in DC

conference in the Caribbean last month. With elections regularly plagued When Washington, DC decided with allegations of inaccuracy and to try out an Internet voting fraud, jurisdictions across the system to make casting absentee country have debated since the ballots as easy as clicking a dawn of the Information Age if mouse, they dared hackers to democracy would translate well to compromise the contest. It was a the Web. Although logging-on to feat accomplished in less than two pick a future president might days. someday be an option that is a lot The District of Columbia hosted easier than driving to the nearest a public trial before going live polling place, the report out of the with an e-voting program to see if University of Michigan suggests their presumably impenetrable that there is a ways to go before online ballot system could sustain that goal is reached. a cyber attack. If youre Not only did the team of w o n d e r i n g w h y t h e y n e v e r researchers manage to expose the followed through, it is because the would-be voting system as one government is going to need a lot with rather lax security, they also more time with this one. explain in their findings that is Within 48 hours of the system was rather easy to do devastation going live, we had gained near once inside the system.We complete control of the election successfully changed every vote server," researchers from the and revealed almost every secret University of Michigan explain in ballot, writes the researchers a write-up of their 2010 hack of Scott Wolchok , Eric Wustrow, an e-voting system that DC was D a w n I s a b e l a n d J . A l e x debating on pushing live. They H a l d e r m a n a d d i n g t h a t managed to gain access and make Election officials did not detect massive alterations to the internal their intrusion for at least two configuration of the voting site in days,and might have remained two years, write the researchers, unaware for far longer had we not who presented their work at a deliberately left a prominent cryptography and data security clue.
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:07:00 PM
The severity of what they accomplished, they write, was something they also felt that DC would be unable to bounce right back from.Recovery from this attack is difficult; there is little hope for protecting future ballots from this level of compromise, since the code that processes the ballots is itself suspect, reads their report. This case study the first (to our knowledge) to analyze the security of a government Internet voting system from the perspective of an attacker in a realistic pre-election deployment attempts to illuminate the practical challenges of securing online voting as practiced today by a growing number of jurisdictions." The group goes on to say that they wanted to not necessarily take advantage of the open invite from Washington to test their abilities, but to act as accurately as actual hackers would.Our objective was to approach the system as real attackers would: starting from publicly available information, we looked for weaknesses that would allow us to seize control, unmask secret ballots and alter the outcome of
the mock election, they write. After the hack was first revealed, Paul Stenbjorn of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics bluntly admitted,The integrity of the system had been violated and said that, upon analyzing the footprints left by the researchers,they had to be able to change anything they wanted on the Web site. Even two years after they admitted to their attack, security is still considered largely under par as far as government entitys online presence is concerned. The FBI recently called cyberattacks the biggest threat facing America and officials from within NASA admitted that the United States department that overseas billions worth of high-tech gadgetry is not only highly susceptible to hacks but is also regularly attacked. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
METALS-China demand fears drag copper down from 1-wk high Reuters
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:46:08 PM
Business Recorder METALS- China demand fears drag copper down from 1-wk high Reuters Copper sinks after China maintains property controls * Losses drag copper back toward middle of months-long range * China refined lead consumption up this month * Coming up: US regional manufacturing data Thurs. By Chris Kelly and Harpreet Bhal NEW... BASE METALS: Copper Ends Lower As China Remains In Focus Wall Street Journal Copper backtracks on reports of Chinese real-estate crackdown The Australian all 18 news articles
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Top News/
Follow-Up: RIP PC
Kit Eaton (Fast Company)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:13:21 PM
Pour a little more out for laptops and desktops. We argued recently that the traditional PC, in its desktop and laptop guises, was looking at a very grim future where it is increasingly marginalized by newer tablet tech. So much so, in fact, that it will lose its status as a common device. It will, as the saying goes, "die." Now there's data to suggest this may be happening sooner rather than later. Morgan Stanley is so confident in Apple's drive at the lead of the iPad market that it's just bumped its bull estimate of Apple's share price up to nearly $1,000 (it's currently hovering around $550). The reasons, the bank explains, are pretty simple: It believes the earning power of Apple is better than investors believe and even its own previous bull case model implied, for the reasons that enterprise tablet adoption is due to rise the cheaper iPad 2 will push demand up, an LTE iPhone for late 2012 will spur huge growth, and there's unexplored markets in China and new markets like Brazil. Morgan Stanley's math isn't based on nonsense but expertise, and it's echoed in a recent survey from ChangeWave Research that underlines notions that the iPad's adoption in enterprise markets is set to skyrocket. About 22% of
firms surveyed by ChangeWave said they were planning on buying tablets for their employees soon in 2012, and 84% of these respondees said they would be iPads. Corporate markets are the traditional mainstay of the PC, be it powered by Microsoft software or another provider (including Apple's), but a dramatic influx of tablet computers means that at least some of the computer burden of modern professionals will be met by tablets rather than laptops or desktops. We may guess that at first this is to appeal to the more mobile modern businessperson--
someone who's confident working from home or on the metro. But it's equally possible that over time, maybe soon as tablet tech evolves very quickly (with the new iPad as an example), the tablet will soak up more of the computing needs of enterprise, and that habits that seem currently incompatible with tablets like paging through huge Excel models or putting together a graphical presentation will evolve to suit the new software. And lest you think this is just Apple in action, think again. Android tablets are consolidating their market share as the hardware
improves and Google's tabletcentric Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS spreads. Interest is already growing in Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 devices. In fact, TechNavio's analysts have just predicted that the global tablet computing market will grow at a cumulative annual growth rate of over 20% for the period 2011 to 2015--that's an astonishing huge figure. IDC, independently, surveyed the tablet market and concluded that at the end of 2011 the Kindle Fire did grab market share from Apple thanks to lower pricing (the trend will likely reverse now the iPad 3
is revealed). It also predicts that the global market will rise from 96 million shipped units in 2011 to nearly 260 million in 2016. In context, Gartner predicts the global PC market will grow slightly this year, and next, and that 400 million will be shipped around the world in 2013. But it notes that tablets and cloud solutions are affecting sales, and tallied with IDC's longer-term predictions you can conclude that by 2016 tablets will be far outselling PCs. It's just the numbers, folks. But FOLLOW-UP: page 16
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Best Practices For Warzone Journalists, Syrian Smuggles YouTube Vids In Body, WTO Complaint Against China's Rare Earths
Nidhi Subbaraman (Fast Company)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:22:06 PM
Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. Amazon Signs Discovery Communcations To Streaming TV. Amazon's making another move to bolster the selection of video content on its Prime service, announcing it's signed up Discovery's material. There's mention of Dirty Jobs and shows like Whale Wars, but not the iconic MythBusters (whose team was last seen in a Steve Jobs documentary, just so you know). Amazon notes it now has 17,000 videos available through Prime. -KE New Satellite Phone Safety Guide Released. Documentary filmmaking outfit Small World News, which works with local journalists in warzones and unfree societies, has released a new guide to satellite phone safety. The PDF offers commonsense advice for satellite phone users on how to avoid eavesdropping and detection. --NU Syrian Refugee Smuggles YouTube Atrocity Videos Inside Body To Canada. The Toronto
Star discovered a new way of smuggling video footage out of Syria: hiding them in flesh wounds. The newspaper's Rick Westhead interviewed a refugee now living in Canada, "Mustafa," who hid a Nokia Micro SD memory card inside a small selfinflicted cut to his arm. Mustafa smuggled out 42 videos which were later posted to YouTube under a variety of throwaway usernames. The videos, whose authenticity could not be verified,
appear to show graphic footage of civilians intentionally killed by Syrian government forces. --NU --Updated 12:45 p.m. EST "Why I Left Google" Explains Ex -Googler's Dashed Dreams. Google's focus on social search and rush to compete with Facebook for advertising is compromising its ability to nurture innovation at the grassroots level, according to James Whittaker, an ex-Google employee who left the search
giant for Microsoft. He describes in a blog post how he saw the company and its priorities change as Facebook loomed as a threat and adversary. "Like the proverbial hare confident enough in its lead to risk a brief nap, Google awoke from its social dreaming to find its front runner status in ads threatened," Whittaker writes. Read the rest of his post here. --NS --Updated 6:55 a.m. EST Google's Doodle today celebrates
the would-be 101th birthday of origami master Akira Yoshizawa. Complaint Against China's Rare Earths In WTO. The U.S., E.U., and Japan have lodged a complaint with the WTO against China and its current rare earth policy. In it, they accuse China of keeping prices low within the country and pressuring manufacturers to move there. A shade over 95% of the rare earths BEST page 16
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OVERCOME
subjected onto the reader. What I found fascinating is that there are all these supermotivated, smart, educated women saying this was like the greatest thing theyve ever read, Meg Lazarus, a 38-year-old former lawyer, explains to the New York Times.I dont get it. Theres a lot of violence, and this guy is abhorrent sometimes. Gurumommy.com, a popular parenting blog, adds in a write up of their own that the sexy dialogue is sending women in droves to pick up copies, but also acknowledges that 50 Shades is authored to make the message on the surface stick out more than what lies beneath (the site describes James as an authorwho
likes her adjectives in triplicate, since the author couldnt trust us (or herself) to think we could picture the image with only one descriptor). Eighth-grade reading level aside, the Guru Mommy adds,When you put the book down, you will actually want to have sex with your husband. Like, a lot. With sales figures and online write-ups suggesting that thousands of others are following suit, the end result could certainly see an age of renewed sexual energy in America but unlike the free-love revolution of the 1960s hippie counterculture, some say James is encouraging women to not be free with their bodies but instead to be free in offering it
up to men. Will it spawn a new sexual movement in the US? Or just the complete disintegration of feminism? Depending on how many women follow Anas lead and sign their bodies away, literally, thats a tale that only a well-authored sequel and time can tell. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Fusione fredda: Rossi rivela di non produrre materiali radioattivi - NextMe

(andrea rossi e-cat - Google News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 8:20:24 AM
NextMe Fusione fredda: Rossi rivela di non produrre materiali radioattivi NextMe Andrea Rossi produce il suo Ecat in Florida (Usa), attraverso la societ da lui fondata, la Leonardo
Corporation, ma qualcuno si ribellato, abbassando l'ennesima coltre di nebbia che lo stesso Rossi non sembra essere riuscito a dipanare. E-Cat: n reazione nucleare n fabbrica negli USA, Rossi si sconfessa GreenStyle all 2 news articles
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produced globally for electronics and renewable energy are mined in China. --NS Encyclopaedia Britannica Shuts Down Print Business. Encyclopaedia Britannica is shutting down their presses and phasing out their production of their iconic hardbound encyclopedias after 244 years. They're instead focusing on web content, taking competitor Wikipedia on their own turf, after a sale of just 8,000 volumes of their 2010 edition. --NS BBC Hacked In Iran. The BBC Persian TV service was hacked in
Iran, BBC has announced. This recent cyber attack follows other attempts to disrupt the service in the country--BBC has said there have also been attempts to jam their satellites and clog their phone lines with bogus calls. -NS --Updated 5:45 a.m. EST Yesterday's Fast Feed: Yahoo Sues Facebook, Twitter Acquires Posterous, Dugan Leaves DARPA For Google, and more!
it's also about technology and markets. Tablets may well see explosive adoption in growing markets thanks to their greater portability and lower prices, and tablet tech itself is developing at an incredible pace--faster, and with more innovation than is seen
in the PC game. [Image: Flickr user Am + Mo] Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.
Frosted Dessert Manicures - This Cute Cupcake Nail Art by Cutepolish is Sweet Enough to Eat (TrendHunter.com)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:10:05 PM
( TrendHunter.com) This cute sweetheart. The manicure boasts a cupcake nail art is sugary sweet. d e t a i l e d r i n g f i n g e r , w h i l e The look features girly pinks and a d o r n i n g t h e r e s t o f t h e . . . hearts, perfect for any fashionable
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MEREDITH WHITNEY: Invest In Citi? Not In My Lifetime (C)
Senators want more info on MD housing agency move - Boston.com

(housing - Google News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:26:00 PM
legislation and send it to the House of Delegates this week. The Democrat-controlled Senate Lisa Du (Business Insider) also rejected amendments offered said, adding that the results stuck with what they have. It's just MyFox Washington DC doesn't "change the game" as the not going to happen in my Senators want more info on MD by Republican... Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:29:00 PM housing agency move Md. Senate Questions Cost bank has not been investable for lifetime." Famed bank analyst Meredith four years. Efficiency Of Housing Dept. Will Vikram Pandit outlive Boston.com Whitney made a name for herself "Citithey don't have any earnings Whitney? Probably not. Either Martin O'Malley's proposal to Relocation CBS Local four years ago when she said power, it's so difficult to move way, Whitney won't be singing relocate a housing department. all 109 news articles Citigroup would have to cut its that ship," she said. "They're any praises for Citi anytime soon. The move came as senators worked to approve budget dividend. investing in a lot of regulatory Here's the clip from CNBC: Today, she was on CNBC talking processes, but it's like the old Please follow Clusterstock on about Citigroup again. broken-down Victorian house. Twitter and Facebook. In an interview with Maria You have to put so much money Join the conversation about this Bartiromo, Whitney discussed the in to get to a modern equivalent of story results of the Fed's bank stress a new house. Their investment See Also: tests that were released yesterday. span is prohibitive, it's not that Goldmanite Who Quit Via Whitney said she didn't think the exciting... from an investment NYT: In The Last Year, I Saw 5 results of the tests were that scenario. People were way too Managing Directors Call Their (housing - Google News) / -- BRIDGE Housing and the surprising, echoing what many on optimistic about citi being able to Clients Muppets Federal Home Loan Bank of San Wall Street have said. But she earn a lot." 5 Art Cashin Brain Teasers That Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:48:08 PM Francisco (FHLBank San also spent a lot of time discussing "What would it take for you to Have Wall Street Baffled the results of Citigroup, the invest in Citi," asked Bartiromo. Widow Of Legendary Banker BRIDGE Housing, FHLBank Francisco) hosted an event on biggest and most notable of the " A n e w b r a i n , " W h i t n e y Paul Mellon Is Selling This San Francisco Celebrate Grand Tuesday celebrating the grand opening of St. Joseph Senior financial institutions that failed a n s w e r e d . Gorgeous 26-Acre Cape Cod Opening of St. Joseph's... MarketWatch (press release) Apartments and... the stress test. When Bartiromo asked if that Compound OAKLAND, Calif., March 14, and more Citi's failure, however, wasn't meant a new CEO, Whitney 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX surprising or a big deal, Whitney laughed it off, saying "No, they're
BRIDGE Housing, FHLBank San Francisco Celebrate Grand Opening of St. Joseph's ... - MarketWatch (press release)
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Business/ World News/ Technology/
Are politicians trying If You Want To See Sidney to destroy the housing Crosby's Return Tomorrow, You'll Have To Find NBC Sports market? - Fox News
Cork Gaines (Business Insider)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:38:08 PM
(housing - Google News)

Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:13:39 PM
Sidney Crosby returns to the ice tomorrow for the Pittsburgh Penguins, three months after his most recent comeback attempt was cut short. And in a smart move, NBC Sports has scrapped their originally scheduled Thursday night game in favor of the Penguins showdown with the New York Rangers. The NBC Sports Network was originally scheduled to air the Montreal Canadiens game against the Ottawa Senators which would have barely registered a blip with American television audiences. But today the young network announced that they will indeed air Sid the Kid's return. Crosby has played just 49 games in the past two seasons due to concussion-related symptoms.
Are politicians trying to destroy the housing market? Fox News The damning evidence is in on two fronts: Housing continues to
collapse to unimaginable levels. -The latest numbers are in from December, showing that home prices fell in 18 of 20 markets. The statistics prove this housing collapse is now worse than... and more
And a comeback earlier this year was cut short after just eight games when the symptoms returned. Please follow Sports Page on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: SPORTS CHART OF THE
DAY: Which Seeds Are More Likely To Advance In The NCAA Tournament? Report: Tebow Will Be Traded If The Broncos Sign Manning Ranking The NCAA Tournament Field 1-68
Fluorescent Classical Performances Rome Arca's Neon Music Video Opts for a Bold Wardrobe and Set (TrendHunter.com)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:20:03 PM
( TrendHunter.com) The quartet Rome Arca has added some spunk
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Mali's Tuareg Rebellion Puts Region at Risk

(World Politics Review: Articles)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:44:00 AM
As the fighting between the Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Awazad (MNLA) and the Malian
army enters its third month, there are few indications that the conflict will be resolved in the near future. On a military level, the advantage lies with the well-equipped and experienced Tuareg fighters,
many of whom are veterans of earlier rebellions and the Libyan civil war. Using long-range guerrilla tactics, mainly surprise attacks launched over distances of hundreds of miles with four-wheel -drive pickup trucks, they have
sacked at least seven Malian garrison towns so far, including one this past weekend. ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read
the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Business/
19
INFOGRAPHIC: Homeowners Still Risk Selling In A Shaky Housing Market

Mandi Woodruff (Business Insider)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:29:29 PM
Right before the housing bubble burst and ushered in the 2008 foreclosure crisis, consumers were living in their homes for just six years on average.
Now homeowners are staying put longer than evertopping 2008's average by three years, according to Credit Sesame, and the average time it takes to sell has jumped to 10 months. Even so, that still hasn't stopped people from moving on. Credit Sesame looked closely at
which age groups decided to take the risk, and the results vary widely. Boomers, for example, are far more likely to move for work or to be closer to friends and family, while the majority of Gen X and Y say they simply outgrow their old digs.
DON'T MISS: 9 stories of homeowners who bounced back after foreclosure > Please follow Your Money on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: AmEx Partners With Twitter To
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News Wire/
Syrian army makes gains on eve of revolt anniversary

(Reuters: Top News)
and armored vehicles to the southern city of Deraa. "They are hitting the birthplace of By Erika Solomon and Oliver our revolution," said a resident of Holmes Deraa, who only identified BEIRUT| Wed Mar 14, 2012 himself as Mohammed for fear of 4:54pm EDT reprisals. The city lies adjacent to (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Jordan and was the site of some of President Bashar al-Assad gained the first protests against Assad a ground in the two flashpoint cities year ago. of Idlib and Deraa on Wednesday, "Houses are being hit with intensifying efforts to crush an r a n d o m b o m b a r d m e n t f r o m uprising approaching its first gunfire, RPGs and anti-aircraft anniversary with no negotiated missiles," he said of the city, in settlement in sight. which 13 civilian and seven rebels The U.N.-Arab League envoy, were killed on Wednesday, Kofi Annan, said he had received according to the British-based a reply from Damascus to peace Syrian Observatory for Human proposals that he had laid out at Rights. the weekend, and wanted further The Turkish Foreign Ministry clarifications. said on Wednesday it was "But given the grave and tragic working to find out information situation on the ground, everyone on the whereabouts of two must realize that time is of the Turkish journalists who are essence," his spokesman, Ahmad missing in Syria a week after Fawzi, said in a statement from travelling to Idlib city. Geneva. Annan will brief the U.N. The United Nations estimates Security Council on Friday. some 8,000 people, many of them With the anniversary of the revolt c i v i l i a n s , h a v e d i e d i n t h e falling on March 15 and increasingly bloody revolt. diplomatic efforts to end the Diplomats have warned that violence ineffective thus far, the S y r i a , d r i v e n b y s e c t a r i a n Syrian army appears to be gaining divisions, will descend into a the upper hand. Balkans-style civil war unless a It has overrun some opposition political solution can be found. Its strongholds and multiplying economy is already in tatters and attacks others this week, sweeping its ties with old Arab allies are in rebels from the northwestern city shreds. of Idlib and sent up to 130 tanks Official Syrian media accused
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:54:30 PM
"armed terrorists" on Wednesday of massacring 15 civilians, including young children, in a pro -government district of the central city of Homs, which has been the focal point of much fighting in recent weeks. Reports from Syria cannot be independently verified as the authorities deny access to rights groups and journalists. CONFUSION In the talks at the weekend, Annan presented Assad with a five-point plan to end the fighting. Syria said on Wednesday it had given a "positive" response to the approach. A Middle Eastern diplomat characterized the reply from Damascus as "not a 'No'". However, adding to the uncertainty, a senior Western diplomat in the region told Reuters that Damascus had rejected Annan's suggestions. As the army crackdown progresses, a growing number of Syrians are seeking to escape the violence. The U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday that some 230,000 Syrians had fled their homes during the past 12 months, of whom around 30,000 have sought safety abroad. Refugees streamed into Turkey early on Wednesday, saying they had been warned that their
villages in the neighboring province of Idlib would soon be targeted by the army. "They are bombing Idlib. They are bombing the city. They have tanks and they have rockets," said Abdul Samad, one of the refugees waiting for help at a fog-bound border post. DIVIDED OPPOSITION A Western diplomatic source told Reuters that, while Assad could snuff out pockets of resistance, the rebels were simply pulling back and blending into the background. "I feel the conflict will last a long time and fear that it will get a lot bloodier than it is now. That's why we have to keep pushing the diplomacy and the sanctions," he said. The rebels have received little help from the Syrian opposition in exile, the Syrian National Council, who are yet to prove to foreign powers that they can lead and unify Assad's foes inside and outside the country. On Tuesday, three prominent opposition members resigned from the Syrian National Council, saying they have given up on trying to make the group a more effective player. Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, a wellknown SNC member, told reporters on Wednesday that the SNC was "not effective and ...
inactive on an international and domestic level," and called for the restructuring of the 270-member group. Syria comprises a mix of faiths, sects and ethnic groups. Assad's minority Alawite sect dominates the levers of power and holds sway over the Sunni Muslim majority. Wednesday's reported massacre in Homs was said to have occurred in an Alawite district. On Monday, rebels and government traded blame for the murder of up to 50 people in a mixed area of the city. The turmoil, coupled with Western sanctions, has cost Damascus billions of dollars in lost revenue from crude oil sales and tourism receipts. The Syrian pound has halved in value, foreign investment has dried up and trade has collapsed. Yet there is no sign of the Assad family and their allies losing control, or of significant defections from the army. While Western powers and much of the Arab world have condemned the bloody crackdown, Syria has been able to count on the support of both Russia and China, which have vetoed two U.N. resolutions that were critical of Damascus. SYRIAN page 23
News Wire/
21
NAACP Asks UN to Judge America's Voter ID Laws

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:01:53 PM
The controversy over requiring voters to provide photo IDs has reached the world stage. The United Nations Human Rights Council is investigating the issue of American election laws at its gathering on minority rights in Geneva, Switzerland.. This, despite the fact that some members of the council have only in the past several years allowed women to vote, and one member, Saudi Arabia, still bars women from the voting booth completely. Officials from the NAACP are presenting their case against U.S. voter ID laws, arguing to the international diplomats that the requirements disenfranchise voters and suppress the minority vote. Eight states have passed voter ID laws in the past year, voter ID proposals are pending in 32 states and the Obama administration has recently moved to block South Carolina and Texas from enacting their voter ID measures. "This really is a tactic that undercuts the growth of your democracy," said Hillary Shelton, the NAACP's senior vice president for advocacy, about voter photo ID requirements. In a Fox News interview prior to his trip, Shelton said the message
from the NAACP delegation to the Human Rights Council is that the photo ID law "undercuts the integrity of our government, if you allow it to happen. It's trickery, it's a sleight-of-hand. We're seeing it happen here and we don't want it to happen to you, and we are utilizing the U.N. as a
tool to make sure that we are able to share that with those countries all over the world." The United Nations has no legal jurisdiction over the American electoral system, which Shelton acknowledges. Asked whether he thinks that the U.N. should be involved in domestic American
laws, he answered, "No, not specifically. The U.N. should certainly be involved in sharing a best practice for the world." "We're the greatest country on the face of the earth, but we can be better still," he said. The NAACP had scheduled two American citizens to present their
claims at the U.N. panel who, the group says, worry they will be disenfranchised by the requirement to present a photo ID to vote. The civil rights group says one, Kemba Smith Pradia, was convicted of a drug-related NAACP page 25
22
News Wire/
Dems Rip Romney Vow to End Planned Parenthood $$

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:01:53 PM
Democratic groups are pouncing on Mitt Romney for saying he would stop funding Planned Parenthood with dollars borrowed from China, accusing the Republican presidential frontrunner of cutting preventive health care services to pay for millionaires' tax breaks. Answering a question Tuesday about how he would cut the budget, Romney told a viewer of KSDK-TV in Kirkwood, Mo., that he would administer a test to see whether a program qualifies for federal funding. "My test is pretty simple. Is the program so critical that it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for? And on that basis, of course you get rid of Obamacare. That's the easy one. But there are others. Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that. There's a subsidy for Amtrak. I would eliminate that. National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities. Both excellent programs but we just can't afford to borrow money to pay for those things," he said. Shortly after the interview aired, the Democratic National Committee sprung into action, releasing a 30-second web video with Romney's quote, followed by
foreboding music and a black screen with lettered warning: "Cutting preventive health services for millions of women to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires." "Romney would cut Planned Parenthood's cancer screenings, birth control services, prenatal
care for millionaire's and billionaires: tax cuts," reads the text of the ad. The DNC paired the video with a release saying Romney would rather borrow trillions of dollars from China for tax breaks for the wealthy even though "0.01 percent" of the federal budget
goes to Planned Parenthood. Discussing the outcome of Tuesday's primaries, in which Rick Santorum won two big southern states but Romney still walked away with the most delegates, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz argued Romney says anything he
can to win over the GOP. "He did everything he could to pander to the far right wing of his party with extreme and out-oftouch positions like vowing to get rid of Planned Parenthood, as he did today," she said. DEMS page 26
News Wire/
23
Vets Cry 'Disgrace' Over ObamaSpangled Banner

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:01:53 PM
SYRIAN
Lake County Democratic Party officials removed the flag on Tuesday following complaints by local veterans in Florida. An American flag with President Obama's image in place of the stars flew over a Florida county's Democrat headquarters long enough to enrage local veterans who called the altered banner "a disgrace." Lake County Democratic Party officials took down the flag, which flew just below a standard Old Glory on the flagpole outside headquarters in Tavares following complaints by local veterans. But merely taking it down wasn't enough for several local veterans, who said they fought for the flag Betsy Ross made famous, not one with a politician on it. "It's absolutely disrespectful," Jim Bradford, a 71-year-old veteran who participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion told FoxNews.com. "It's totally ridiculous. To put somebody's picture there, to me, it's a disgrace to do that." Bradford, an organizer with the Veterans Memorial at Fountain Park in Leesburg, Fla., snapped photos of the flag and distributed them to fellow veterans and friends. By late afternoon, he and several other veterans delivered a
copy of the federal flag code to Nancy Hurlbert, chairwoman of the Lake County Democratic Party. "We read that to her, but she would not accept that," Bradford said. "The discussion finally got a little bit heated." The flag, which had been flying for several months without complaint and is available online for $12.95, was later removed by Hurlbert. Bradford said Hurlbert apologized for the incident, but did not offer any promises that it wouldn't fly again. "What really upsets me is that the flag had apparently been flying for months and no one had done anything about it," Bradford said. "I've got no hard feelings toward [Hurlbert], but people will be driving by there to make sure it doesn't go up again." Hurlbert said Tuesday's incident was the first time anyone had complained about the flag, which she received as a gift two months ago. "It leads me to believe that it's not about the flag," she told FoxNews.com. "Certain elements cannot accept Barack Obama as president." Hurlbert said she intends to contact an attorney regarding the matter and remained noncommittal as to whether she'll fly
the flag again. "I won't say no and I won't say yes," she said. "We want to find out what our legal rights are." Jenn Meale, communications director for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, referred FoxNews.com to state laws that pertain to the use of flags on public lands and property when asked for clarification as to whether Hurlbert could face any penalties. Statute 256.05, which covers improper use of state or United States flag, or other symbol of authority, reads: "No person shall, in any manner, for exhibition or display: "(1)Place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing or advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, color, ensign or shield of the United States or of this state, or authorized by any law of the United States or this state; or "(2)Expose to public view any such flag, standard, color, ensign or shield upon which shall have been printed, painted or otherwise produced, or to which shall have been attached, appended, affixed or annexed any such word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing or advertisement." Meanwhile, Jay Agg, communications director for AMVETS, told FoxNews.com
Amnesty International issued a report on Wednesday saying Syria should be referred to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. However, only the U.N. Security Council can do that the American flag should that, and it remains divided over never be altered. what action to take on Syria. "While we are pleased the flag in "The testimony presented in this question has since been removed report ... is yet further evidence from public display, the reported that torture and other ill-treatment fact that it had flown for months in Syria form part of a widespread without protest is a clear and systematic attack against the indication that we have much civilian population," Amnesty work to do in educating the public said. of the importance of protecting (Additional reporting by Khaled our flag," Agg wrote in an email. Yacoub Oweis in Amman; John "This issue is especially important Irish in Paris; Writing by Oliver to AMVETS' members, the men Holmes and Crispian Balmer; and women who have proudly Editing by Mark Heinrich) worn our nation's uniform and This entry passed through the served under her flag." Full-Text RSS service if this is The final insult to veterans? The your content and you're reading it flag is made in China. on someone else's site, please read "It's absolutely disrespectful," Jim the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentBradford, a 71-year-old veteran only/faq.php#publishers. Five who participated in the Bay of Filters recommends: Donate to Pigs Invasion told FoxNews.com. Wikileaks. "It's totally ridiculous. To put somebody's picture there, to me, it's a disgrace to do that." Related Stories uReport: What makes you proud to be American? Send us your photos! This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
24
News Wire/ World News/
Stolen truck breaches Afghan airfield, Panetta safe

(Reuters: Top News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:04:47 PM
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is greeted by Col. John Shafer (L) with RTC 6 after arriving to greet troops at Foward Operating Base Shukvani, Afghanistan March 14, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Scott Olson/Pool By Phil Stewart BASTION AIRFIELD, Afghanistan| Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:04pm EDT (Reuters) - An Afghan man driving a stolen pickup truck sped onto a runway ramp at an air base in southern Afghanistan and then emerged from the vehicle ablaze at around the time U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was arriving aboard a military plane, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon chief, making an unannounced visit at a time of high tensions after a U.S. soldier massacred 16 Afghan villagers on Sunday, was not hurt in the incident at Bastion Airfield, a British base, and continued on with his schedule of events. The Afghan man, a civilian who was not believed to be carrying explosives, was being treated at the base for severe burn injuries, U.S. officials said. No explanation was given for how the man caught
on fire. U.S. officials did not rule out the possibility that the incident in southern Helmand province was an attempted attack on Panetta, but said there was no indication that this was the case. They said an investigation was ongoing. "There is no evidence right now that the driver had any idea who was on that aircraft," U.S. Navy Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in Washington. The incident was a reminder of the tense security situation in Afghanistan more than a decade after U.S. forces invaded to topple the Taliban rulers who had harbored the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. QUESTIONS REMAIN Many questions about the incident remained after briefings by U.S. officials. The Afghan man's vehicle neither caught fire nor exploded, and there were not explosives there either - raising questions about how he came to be on fire, Pentagon spokesman George Little said in Afghanistan, denying Afghan media reports. Tensions are high in Afghanistan in the wake of Sunday's massacre
and the furor over the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, at a NATO base last month. Reporters traveling with Panetta on his aircraft were not told about the incident for about 10 hours after it took place shortly before 11 a.m. local time. Panetta carried on with his schedule, talking to troops at Camp Leatherneck about the importance of the decade-old war effort. Shortly before he arrived to speak, U.S. troops and other allies were told to put their weapons outside the tent - a highly unusual move that officials downplayed later. The commander in Helmand, U.S. Major General Mark Gurganus, said he wanted foreign troops to be unarmed since Afghan troops would be. Little said the removal of the firearms and the incident involving the pickup truck were "absolutely not" linked. Panetta's team apparently became aware that something was amiss shortly before landing at Bastion but details only came later. "We did know that we were diverted to a different runway. And we learned soon after landing that there may have been an incident," said Little, who was traveling with Panetta.
"Again, the security of the secretary was never in question. He carried on during the event." One NATO service member was injured in the apparent carjacking, U.S. officials said. This service member's nationality was not disclosed. The pickup trunk apparently approached the runway ramp where aircraft park - at high speed before ending up in a ditch, according to an initial account. The Afghan man emerged on fire, officials said. "For reasons that are totally unknown to us at this time, our personnel discovered that he was ablaze," Little said. "Base personnel put the fire out and he was immediately treated for burn injuries and is still being treated. He sustained considerable burn wounds," Little added. (Editing By Warren Strobel and Will Dunham) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
World's End murders: Police launch new investigation under double jeopardy laws Scotsman
(Nation - Google News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:35:41 PM
Scotsman World's End murders: Police launch new investigation under double jeopardy laws Scotsman A NEW investigation into the World's End murders has been launched under double jeopardy legislation, the Crown Office has said. A Crown Office spokesman said: Whilst it is not appropriate to comment or speculate on the live investigation into these... World's End murders reinvestigated The Press Association World's End murder case to be reopened under new double jeopardy legislation stv.tv Crown in Angus Sinclair World's End retrial move BBC News Scottish Daily Record- Deadline News all 30 news articles
World News/
25
NAACP
offense and is concerned that if she moves back to Virginia from the Midwest, state law will block her voting because of her record, even though she was granted clemency by President Bill Clinton. A second American, Austin Alex, is a Texas Christian University student. The NAACP says he is worried that he will be barred from voting because he only holds an out-of-state driver's license and a non-government student ID, not a Texas issued photo ID. But supporters of photo ID requirements argue that states provide such identifications for free, and in some cases, voters can cast provisional or absentee ballots that do not even require a photo ID. The NAACP disputes those claims. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court upheld the voter photo ID law enacted in Indiana. The U.N. Human Rights Council members include communist China and Cuba. In addition, several Arab nations are on the council that have only granted the right to vote to women in recent
years, such as Kuwait in 2005 and Qatar in 2003. Women in the Republic of Moldova have had the right to vote for less than 20 years. Council member Saudi Arabia announced six months ago that women will be granted the right to vote, but that change does not go into effect until 2015. "The idea that this is a human rights abuse is ridiculous," said Hans von Spakovsky, a voter fraud expert and senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in Washington, D.C. "The UN allowing this to take place under their roof makes them, unfortunately, complicit in what really is a publicity stunt by the NAACP, and I think it wastes their time, when they should be going after real and sustained human rights abuses like the things going on in horrible places, like North Korea." Spakovsky, who supports voter photo ID laws, says it is a hypocritical and meaningless waste of time to present a case against American electoral laws at
the UN forum. "I think the leadership of the NAACP is, quite frankly, doing a disservice to American citizens and the democracy that we have here, by going abroad to the Human Rights Council, which is filled with dictatorships and other countries that actually and really abuse human rights." He called the council's weighing of U.S. laws "an insult to the United States that the NAACP thinks we should be getting advice from those kinds of countries, which are not democracies, on how to administer elections in this country. But Shelton argues that the NAACP's presence at the Geneva conference can teach other nations how to improve their electoral systems. "We can learn a lot from those who haven't gone through as much as we have," he said. "Everyone has a different struggle, but there's lessons to learn from whoever we come across ... but there's also some things I think we can still help
teach the rest of the world." If you suspect voter fraud or election problems where you live, t e l l u s : Voterfraud@foxnews.com. Feb 27: Federal Councilor and Head of the Federal Department for Foreign Affairs of Switzerland Didier Burkhalter, seen on a video screen, addresses his statement, during the high-level segment of the 19th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.The Human Rights Council opens a four-week session with member states and top officials. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Newman continues to deny donations allegations - ABC Online

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:22:49 PM
Brisbane Times Newman continues to deny donations allegations ABC Online By Kerrin Binnie and Francis Tapim Liberal National Party (LNP) leader Campbell Newman says he does not know why a developer made donations to his re-election fund in separate payments from separate company names. Queensland's Crime and Misconduct... Poll Call: March 15 Brisbane Times True believers dare to dream as Anna Bligh steps up the onslaught on Campbell... The Australian Giant-killer knocks on plenty of doors Sydney Morning Herald BigPond News- NEWS.com.au all 802 news articles
Toddler among five hurt in suburban brawl The Age

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:10:24 PM
The Age Toddler among five hurt in
suburban brawl The Age Police say at least one of the men appeared to have suffered puncture wounds. Photo: Penny
Stephens One man is fighting for his life and a three-year-old boy has been injured after an early morning brawl in Melbourne's inner south-east.
Five injured in Ashwood assault ABC Online Five hurt as fight erupts in Ashwood home Herald Sun all 3 news articles
26
News Wire/ Technology/ Sports/
DEMS
Conservatives, on the other hand, claimed Romney was supportive of Planned Parenthood in 2002, when he was running for governor of Massachusetts. At that time he filled out a questionnaire saying that he supported laws "that help prevent violence, intimidation and harassment directed at reproductive health providers and their patients." The question was framed in the context of Planned Parenthood at the time facing an organized effort to intimidate and harrass. In the same questionnaire, Romney also said he would want to evaluate the cost of providing prescription drug coverage for contraception before supporting legislation requiring insurers to provide it . Last month, Romney supported the decision of Susan G. Komen Foundation, later reversed, to end its funding of Planned Parenthood, which is the target of a federal inquiry on the use of its funding. Romney also supported the "Blunt Amendment," legislation that failed in the Democratic-led Senate that would permit employers a moral exemption to opt out of paying for contraception that ran against
their personal beliefs. According to a Bloomberg poll out Wednesday, 62 percent of respondents said the controversy over whether education and health care facilities affiliated with religious organizations should provide access to birth control through their insurance plans is a matter of a woman's health and access while 33 percent called it a matter of religious liberty. In the same poll, 77 percent said the issue shouldn't rise to a national discussion. A CBS/New York Times poll out Tuesday showed nationally 51 percent of voters say employers should be allowed to opt out of covering birth control based on religious or moral objections. That's compared to 40 who say it should be covered. The poll taken March 7-11 also found that 57 percent believe religiously affiliated employers should be allowed to opt out compared to 36 percent who say they should be required to cover birth control. About the debate in general, 51 percent said it was a women's rights and health issue compared to 37 percent who said it's a matter of religious freedom. Dawn Laguens, vice president for
the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said Romney's position is "dangerous and out of step with what most Americans want." "Mitt Romney simply cant be trusted when it comes to womens health. He supports so-called 'personhood' laws, opposes making birth control affordable and accessible, and wants to undermine women's health care," she said. "Romney has said repeatedly he wants to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortion services," the DNC noted. Related Video Bias Bash: Does the media hate Mitt Romney? Rich Lowry on media's portrayl of Mitt Romney This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News

(Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News)
Top Stories The United States, European Union, and Japan launched a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Chinas tightly controlled export regime for rare earth materials. Bo Xilai is now notorious as the Chinese regime head in Chongqing, one of China's five National Central Cities. Here The Epoch Times chronicles Bo Xilai's rise in the ranks of [...] In order to meet requirements for its European Union-backed bailout plan, Greece will have to cut another 5.5 percent of its GDP
in 2013 and 2014. Gyalpo reached day 21 of his hunger strike on Tuesday, along with Yeshi Tenzing, 39, and His Eminence Shingza Rinpoche, 32. They call on the U.N. to intervene and lift the [...] Rick Santorum has won the Alabama and Mississippi saying his campaign is defying the odds as it wins states across the country. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
All-Pro Nicks AP Source: joins Bucs; Knicks coach D'Antoni resigns Megatron (Sports News Headlines collects Yahoo! News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:03:13 PM
Donate to World Vision

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Your gift to provide seeds, tools, and training will be multiplied 4
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Mike D'Antoni resigned Wednesday as coach of the New York Knicks, who are in danger of missing the playoffs when he said they should contend for a championship.
Calvin Johnson got the biggest contract in NFL history Wednesday, and he wasn't even a free agent.
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Bernanke says Fed to make bank rules clearer

(Reuters: Top News)
Recent Focus on Cost Obscures U.N. Peacekeeping's Strategic Successes

Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:44:00 AM
supervisory guidance that does not apply to them," Bernanke said Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:31:38 AM in a video message to an Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Independent Community Bankers Bernanke testifies before the o f A m e r i c a c o n f e r e n c e i n Senate Banking Housing and N a s h v i l l e , T e n n e s s e e . Urban Affairs committee in Bernanke said the Fed is also Washington March 1, 2012. t a k i n g s t e p s t o i m p r o v e Credit: Reuters/Gary Cameron communications with small banks By Dave Clarke and to better understand the WASHINGTON| Wed Mar 14, challenges facing the industry, 2012 10:31am EDT including the creation of a (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve subcommittee to review how will try to make it clearer whether community banks are supervised. new banking rules apply to small Bernanke told the group that the l e n d e r s , F e d e r a l R e s e r v e outlook for small banks is Chairman Ben Bernanke said in improving but that the economy remarks on Wednesday. continues to pose challenges for Bernanke said the goal is to the industry. prevent community banks from "Despite some recent signs of wasting time and money trying to improvement, the recovery has figure out if a new regulation b e e n f r u s t r a t i n g l y s l o w , applies to them. constraining opportunities for "Although this change seems profitable lending," Bernanke relatively simple, we hope it will said. help banks avoid allocating Bernanke also sought to calm precious resources to poring over fears among community bankers
that the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law will have a big impact on their businesses. He told the conference that most of the new standards in the law are geared at making changes only to the largest banks. "These new standards are not meant to apply to, and clearly would not be appropriate for, community banks," Bernanke said. "We will work to maintain a clear distinction between community banks and larger institutions in the application of new regulations." (Reporting By Dave Clarke; Editing by Andrea Ricci) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
was high. Some came very close to doing so. For the first three months of 2011, the U.N. was on The past year could have been a the defensive in Cte dIvoire. d i s a s t r o u s o n e f o r U . N . Thousands of civilians lost their peacekeeping. Twelve months lives before the Security Council ago, Cte dIvoire appeared to be ordered peacekeepers there to take on the brink of renewed civil war more robust action. The U.N. in spite of the presence there of force in Sudan was rendered United Nations and French forces. helpless when Northern and S o u t h S u d a n s v o t e f o r Southern forces clashed in the independence in January 2011 disputed region of Abyei. The also had the potential to unleash U.N. had known its contingent in mass violence. From Haiti to the area was vulnerable, but had L i b e r i a t o t h e D e m o c r a t i c to deploy an entirely new mission Republic of Congo, peacekeepers to restore order. ... were charged with overseeing This entry passed through the elections that might have resulted Full-Text RSS service if this is in significant instability. In your content and you're reading it Somalia, U.N.-mandated African on someone else's site, please read Union (AU) forces were locked in the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentgrinding combat with Islamist al- only/faq.php#publishers. Five Shabab rebels. Filters recommends: Donate to The risk of one or more of these Wikileaks. situations spiraling out of control
Anti-gang laws pass NSW parliament Brisbane Times

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:24:45 PM
Anti-gang laws pass NSW parliament
Brisbane Times Tweaked laws that prevent members of criminal bikie gangs from associating with one another have been passed by NSW
parliament. The High Court last year struck out the legislation introduced by Labor after the fatal bashing of bikie associate Anthony...
and more
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World News/ Featured/
Abu Muqawama: With Coroner says water War at Nadir, Afghanistan authority 'gambled with Still Needs U.S. lives' - Yorkshire Post
Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:42:00 AM
troops home, U.S. interests be damned, and feel certain the United States does not have a It is still too soon to tell what viable partner in either the people effect, if any, Sundays appalling or government of Afghanistan. It massacre of 16 innocent civilians is worth taking a step back, by a U.S. soldier will have on the though, to consider the trajectory war in Afghanistan or on the of U.S. and allied efforts in relationship between the United Afghanistan since President States and the government of Barack Obama took office in Afghanistan. This apparent war 2009, in order to put these attacks crime arrives fast on the heels of in some context and also to the infamous Quran burning identify the key issues ahead that incident that led to both riots this latest incident might yet across Afghanistan as well as the affect. ... m u r d e r o f s e v e r a l U . S . This entry passed through the servicemen by the Afghans they Full-Text RSS service if this is were meant to be advising. your content and you're reading it Taken cumulatively, these events on someone else's site, please read lead many to conclude that the the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentU . S . a n d a l l i e d w a r i n only/faq.php#publishers. Five Afghanistan has reached a bitter Filters recommends: Donate to nadir, with trust at an all-time low Wikileaks. on both sides. The American people are anxious to bring the
Water Authority for keeping quiet... South West Water poisoning BBC News scandal: Authority slammed by Coroner says water authority coroner for putting... Daily Mail 'gambled with lives' Poisoned water bosses 'gambled Yorkshire Post with 20000 lives' in Camelford A WATER authority has been Telegraph.co.uk criticised for its dereliction of Camelford case coroner accuses duty after gambling with the water authority of gambling with lives of 20000 people following 20000 lives The Guardian Britain's worst mass poisoning. BBC News Coroner Michael Rose criticised all 123 news articles the now defunct South West
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:28:32 PM
Badal, 84, sworn in Punjab CM for record fifth time Chandigarh Tribune
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:18:59 PM
Trinamool amendment on NCTC rejected Deccan Herald

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:30:12 PM
Obama Admin Cuts Off Birth Control Funding for LowIncome Women in Texas
John McCormack (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:26:00 PM
Reuters reports that the Obama administration will cut off birth
Indian Express Trinamool amendment on NCTC rejected Deccan Herald In a shocker to UPA ally Trinamool Congress, the Lok control funding for low-income women in Texas because Texas Sabha has rejected its amendment has cut off the state's taxpayer- seeking deletion of reference to funding of Planned Parenthood: the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in President Pratibha Patil's address to the joint
sitting of Parliament on Monday. Trinamool's NCTC amendment rejected in Lok Sabha Chandigarh Tribune Trinamool Congress amendment to NCTC in Lok Sabha rejected Times of India TMC amendment to Prez address on NCTC rejected Hindustan Times Firstpost- Daily News & Analysis- Economic Times all 199 news articles
Chandigarh Tribune Badal, 84, sworn in Punjab CM for record fifth time Chandigarh Tribune Parkash Singh Badal was today sworn in as the Chief Minister of Punjab for a record fifth time. His son and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal took oath as the Deputy Chief Minister. Sixteen other legislators took the oath of office and... Badal sworn in Chief Minister, for record fifth time in a row The Hindu BJP-SAD alliance on thin ice over sharing of seats Hindustan Times 4 terms on,youngest CM Badal becomes Punjabs oldest CM Indian Express Daily Pioneer- Deccan HeraldTimes of India all 300 news articles
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Debate on Lokpal in Harry wishes he was first half of session - 'normal' - Sydney Deccan Herald Morning Herald
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:09:18 PM
All-Pro Nicks joins Bucs; Megatron collects

(Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:43:22 PM
Deccan Chronicle Debate on Lokpal in first half of session Deccan Herald The government on Wednesday said it would bring the bill to constitute anti-corruption ombudsman, Lokpal, in the Rajya Sabha during the first part of the current Budget session of
Parliament. Parliamentary Affairs Minister PK Bansal said in Rajya Sabha... Govt promises early discussion Chandigarh Tribune Govt to take up Lokpal Bill in RS soon Indian Express 'RS to take up Lokpal Bill before March 30' Hindustan Times Daily Pioneer- Economic TimesNDTV all 47 news articles

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:19:14 PM
Telegraph.co.uk Harry wishes he was 'normal' Sydney Morning Herald Harry admitted he sometimes wished he was 'normal' - and suggested his royal role can be off -putting to women. Photo: AP Prince Harry says that being a royal is ruining his chance for
romance. Harry gave an interview to CBS News at the end of his... Britain's Prince Harry yearns to return to combat zone AFP At controls ... Prince Harry in Apache helicopter The Sun Prince Harry on emotional coming-of-age tour CBS News Mirror.co.uk- EntertainmentwiseDaily Mail all 406 news articles
Calvin Johnson got the biggest contract in NFL history Wednesday, and he wasn't even a free agent.
TUAW TV Live: iPads, apps, accessories, and trivia

Steven Sande (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:55:00 PM making comments. W e l c o m e b a c k t o a n o t h e r If you're driving somewhere and thrilling episode of TUAW TV would like to watch TUAW TV Live! On today's show, I'll be Live while you're stuck in traffic, doing the regular round of demos please don't -- keep your eyes on along with discussion with the the road! However, if someone chat room about the new iPad, else is doing the driving, you can and ending the show with another watch the show on your iPhone fun round of Apple trivia. and join the chat by downloading As usual, the show will get the free Ustream App. It's a underway at exactly 5 PM EDT / universal app and is wonderful on 2 PM PDT. an iPad, both for viewing and Below, you'll find a Ustream participating in the chat.
We'll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are
not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live
podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices. TUAW TV Live: iPads, apps, accessories, and trivia originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
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Technology/
A Life Lived Online: How We Talk About Death on Social Media

Alicia Eler (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:45:00 PM
Death is a part of life, both on and offline. Facebook and MySpace become gathering spaces for the living to mourn their fallen friends. What kind of language do people use to express their grief? A new study out of the University of California at Irvine's School of Information and Computer Sciences takes a closer look at the language of bereavement and distress in social media. "Death in social media creates an entirely different kind of experience than we've ever really had before," says Jed Brubaker, a PhD Candidate at the University of California at Irvine. "Traditionally when someone dies, people come together at a certain place, certain time and grieve together - like a cemetery, wake." What types of language people use to mourn their loved one on social media, in front of other users? Sponsor Rather than take an obvious, trendy turn toward Facebook, the study looks at MySpace users, many of whom died young. Using a coding system, the researchers identifies emotionallt distressed content and an analysis of that language, which lays a foundation
for natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including automatic detection of bereavement-related distress. The researchers discovered that linguistic style can also indicate messages demonstrating distress in the space of post-mortem social media content. After a user dies, friends visit the page and express their sadness, shock and grief. Later many return and continue updating and conversing with the user, often times sharing events and feelings as if the person were still alive. It's kind of like talking with a ghost. By examining user-generated content, the researchers were able to observe the grieving process in a naturalistic, public setting. What's more is that this study focuses on "extreme expressions of grief and mourning in SNS following the death of a friend or loved one." This means more than just a few Twitter-esque RIPs, trending topics and the dead popping up in one's Facebook friend list. The researchers sought to expand the current knowledge base around the use of language in online grieving, rather than focus on the fact that people do express their grief on social media. A previous study took a similar linguistic approach, looking at how those in mourning reacted to
and physical reactions to the perception of that loss," writes Brubaker & colleagues. As such, comments on the deceased's MySpace page serve as reminders and manifestations of grief. "During the earlier stages of grieving, the online presence of the deceased can serve as a powerful visual reminder, enabling friends and relatives to relive the tragedy in a far more vivid fashion than if they had the deceased on memorialized relied on memory alone," explains Facebook profiles. Of the post- Nadkarni. m o r t e m W a l l p o s t s , t h e y In our fractured world of social d i s c o v e r e d h i g h e r r a t e s o f media, mourning can happen negative emotion than previously, simultaneously on Facebook, when the user was alive. Visiting Twitter, Tumblr and MySpace. a deceased user's profile is seen as There is no singular space for both a space for people to mourn mourning the death of a loved and a space of pain. Some return o n e . T h e o b j e c t i v e o f t h i s to the profile again and again, mourning process is, however, continuing to post. Some decide always the same: "To incorporate to defriend the dead all together. the reality of the death into their What Do You Say To the Dead? r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h , a n d "The stages of grieving the death understanding of, the deceased," of a loved one generally consist of according to Therese A. Rando's shock, denial, anger, mourning 1 9 9 3 s t u d y , T r e a t m e n t o f and finally, recovery," explains C o m p l i c a t e d M o u r n i n g . Dr. Ashwini Nadkarni, co-author For the data in this study, of the study"Why Do People Use Brubaker and fellow researchers Facebook?" collected comments from profiles In this sense, mourning refers to of 1369 deceased MySpace users "the overall process through in April 2010 using the site which an individual comes to MyDeathSpace. All people used acknowledge and accommodate in the study had been dead for at t h e l o s s , w h i l e a c u t e g r i e f least three years and lived in the r e a c t i o n s a r e d e f i n e d a s United States. psychological, behavioral, social,
To identify the language used, researchers developed a codebook of language - and also acknowledged that much of the language used in post-mortem comments is "performative and uses formulaic language." As such, the researchers discovered two distinct types of language: common funerary sentiments (e.g. "I miss you already...") and expressions of emotional distress, which did not include memories of the deceased. To further clarify, here are some rules and examples of comments that qualify as emotional distress: After determining which types of comments qualified as emotional distress, the researchers decided to find and articulate the linguistic style of emotional distress. To analyze sentiment and linguistic style, the researchers used "Language Inquiry Word Count" (LIWC), which provides dictionaries for parts of speech and punctuation, and psychological and social processes. They examined pronounces, conjunctions, negations adverbs and tense use. "Heightened use of first person pronouns and decreased use of second and third person pronouns have previously been found to relate to depression," according to LIFE page 32
Technology/
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500Friends Raises $4.5M Series A For Its Social Loyalty Platform

Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:00:55 PM
launched and sold two other companies, an eBay for cellphones called 500Friends, the social loyalty CellsWholesale.com and a Yahoo solution for e-commerce retailers, Answers for medical questions, is announcing it has completed a AskMedicalDoctor. Well, at least $4.5 million Series A round led hes gotten better with startup b y C r o s s l i n k C a p i t a l , w i t h names since then. participation from Intel Capital as Yoshimura still fondly recalls well as company CEO (and angel growing the lemonade stand he investor) Justin Yoshimura. launched at age 12 to 25 locations Founded in 2010, and launched by age 15. And when his first in summer 2011, YC-backed startup did $1 million in revenue 500Friends LoyaltyPlus service one month while he was in high allows merchants to reward their school, he dropped out, upsetting loyal customers who are tweeting his parents, who then forced him about their purchases, posting to to move out of the house. Facebook, referring friends, Hes been an entrepreneur ever writing reviews, signing up for since. rewards programs, and more, all So yes, an interesting through a white label offering that background, but also a relevant c a n b e i n t e g r a t e d o n t o t h e one for building a product aimed retailers own site, on either web to help online retailers. or mobile. There are companies like Buddy A s a p a r t o f t h e n e w Media that help you manage your funding, Eric Chin, General fanpage, Yoshimura explains, Partner with Crosslink Capital, but if youre an e-commerce j o i n s 5 0 0 f r i e n d s B o a r d o f retailer, how do you see ROI for Directors. loyalty? How does social fit into 23-year old Yoshimura, a high the picture? There was no social school dropout, is the youngest for social loyalty out there for founder that Crosslink and Intel social loyalty, he explains, which have ever backed. A serial is why he started 500Friends. entrepreneur, hes successfully You can think of it as a loyalty
program for all a persons digital activities, Yoshimura says in describing the service. A typical loyalty program for example, American Airlines, which gives you miles for flying is obviously effective for engaging your top customer base. But especially in todays social day and age, people show their loyalty in different ways. What that means is someone can make three purchases, write a review and refer a friend, and those other actions can be just as valuable or even more valuable than the original purchase that took place. It would be silly for a retailer to be leaving all that on the table. The 500Friends LoyaltyPlus system therefore allows retailers to track, reward and recognize customers for doing anything they do on the internet posting status updates, writing reviews, checking-in, referring friendsanything. What gets rewarded is up to the retailer. Current customers using the service include LOreal, Hotels.com, US AutoParts, Shoebuy.com, Armani, Scentiments, PetfoodDirect.com
and others. Since its summer launch, 500Friends has signed up 50 customers. And the businesses are seeing good levels of customer engagement and ROI, says Yoshimura. 26%-40% of the retailers customer base are being engaged through 500Friends, and the retailers ROI is 10-20x what they pay 500Friends in the first year. Yoshimura, whos also an angel investor in startups like Hipmunk, Zencoder, Torbit and others, says thats why he decided to throw in on this round, too. The reason why I invested personally in the round is because of the significant traction were getting in the marketplace combined with the amazing results weve delivered for our partners, he says. The common theme in every company I invest in is a good team, market need, and market traction.with 500Friends, everything you would want to see is really there. Although 500Friends says its too early to talk about its own revenue figures, the company says it has been growing at fast pace month-over-month and has been doubling its every revenue every
quarter. As for the funding, besides throwing a launch party in Vegas, where $3 million will be spent on either red or black, jokes Yoshimura, the company will spend half of the new investment on sales, marketing and client services and the other half on R&D. In the future, 500Friends says it will continue to build out its social functionality and better connect the dots between other incentives. In laymans terms, this means things like more fan page tools, better analytics, integrations with Pinterest and other social sites, and more. Further down the road, the company is planning on launching a publisher platform and platform for financial institutions. And one final note on the financial details: PEHUB reported this morning that 500Friends raised $5.9M in Series A financing, but the company clarified that the total amount raised was $4.5M the other amount stems from promissory notes that were converted from the Series A.
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Technology/ Featured/
LIFE
previous studies by Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer. Use of first person singular pronouns also elevates during emotionally tense times. In a more gendered look at language, a 1988 study found that high use of adverbs and negations indicates a more socially aware, "female" style language. In analyzing expression of sentiment, the researchers looked at the categories of positive emotion ("happy," "love," "nice"), sadness (contains words such as "cry," "sad," "grief), anger ("hate" and "kill") and social processes (include "talk," and social relationships, including "family" and "friend"). Next page: Linguistic styles of emotional distress, the death of queer artist Mark Aguhar Linguistic Style as a Strong Marker of Emotional Distress In emotionally distressed comments, the researchers found increased use of first person singular pronouns, past tense verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and negations in addition to a higher word count per comment. These types of comments tended to be angrier in nature, too. Non-emotionally distressed comments tended to use secondperson pronouns, third person singular, plural pronouns and
future tense. They also had more social process words and words expressing positive emotion and sadness. In post-mortem comments, the researchers found slightly different sentiment and linguistic style depending in emotionally distressed comments. Users who write emotionally distressed comments may "spend more time constructing messages and in working through their feelings through writing." Users who are expressing emotional distressed comments are most likely in a depressed state. The researchers suggest that using sentiment analysis to detect individuals who are struggling is not exactly the point. "Post-mortem spaces are sites of social performance in which individuals (distressed or not) utilize highly emotive language, making sentiment analysis alone insufficient." The researchers do sigguest that comments expressing emotional distress are now more easily identifiable. What Does It Mean To Be Alive Online? The Death of Queer Artist Mark Aguhar Just yesterday, Chicago-based queer artist Mark Aguhar died. She/their (the artist preferred to go by gender neutral pronouns) was known in queer Internet
circles for their Tumblr blog, Call Out Queen, an intensely honest and evocative look at cultural norms of race, class and gender from the perspective of a selfidentified genderqueer person of color fat femme fag feminist who wasn't afraid to speak their mind. "If you don't know Aguhar but are on Tumblr, chances are you have seen their work," writes Simon Thubault, a Halifax-based journalist, blogger and producer. "Mark preferred the use of the pronoun "they" to convey their gender identity. It was the manifestation of that gender identity that drew me to Mark. Here was someone who was unafraid to express themselves in the way that spoke to their experience. Mark did not seek to express or explain the lives of people who lived outside the gender binary." Tumblr has been overflowing with notes to Mark Aguhar, and many are from people who didn't know them but are still moved by their work. From Mark's website: My work is about visibility. My work is about the fact that I'm a genderqueer person of color fat femme fag feminist and I don't really know what to do with that identity in this world. It's that thing where you grew up
learning to hate every aspect of yourself and unlearning all that misery is really hard to do. It's that thing where you kind of regret everything you've ever done because it's so complicit with white hegemony. It's that thing where you realize that your own attempts at passive aggressive manipulation and power don't stand a chance against the structural forms of DOMINATION against your body. It's that thing where the only way to cope with the reality of your situation is to pretend it doesn't exist; because flippancy is a privilege you don't own but you're going to pretend you do anyway. Mark's death has left Tumblr users wondering, mourning and confused. Many did not know Mark personally, but they knew their work. "Death presents an interesting case study," says Brubaker. "What does it mean to be online and express our lives?" To this he adds: "It also leaves us wondering, what does it mean to be alive?" Images via Shutterstock, Tumblr and MarkAguhar.com. Discuss
Russia plans planetary probes and manned trip to the Moon

Mark Brown
Submitted at 3/14/2012 11:22:00 AM
Santorum Leads in Texas

Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:23:00 PM
Russia plans to send probes to Jupiter and Venus, land an network of unmanned stations on Mars and ferry Russian cosmonauts to the surface of the Moon -- all by 2030. That's according to a leaked document from the country's space agency. The cosmically ambitious plans were submitted to the government by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) this month, according to a report in the Kommersant, Russia's businessfocused daily newspaper. The document lays out a blueprint for the country's space industry to follow in the next 18 years, up to 2030. It's rare for Russia to set a deadline for its future space plans. By: Mark Brown, Continue reading...
A new poll of likely voters in Texas shows that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has "a substantial lead."
Stephen Dinan reports:
Technology/
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Verizon Could Be Biting Off More Than They Chew With Their LTE Plans
Chris Velazco (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:50:53 PM
huge selling point, but since they were the first carrier to go gungho with LTE, theyre forced to Theres been more than a little bit figure out and manage these of Verizon Wireless news making network issues on the fly. the rounds today, and on the Verizon even said as much back surface, it all seems like good i n D e c e m b e r , w h e n t h e stuff. Verizon will cover 200 companys LTE network dropped more markets with LTE by the out three times within the span of end of the year? Awesome! The three weeks. At the time, Verizon next iPhone Verizon carries will called the problems growing probably have LTE? Not exactly a pains and noted that nationwide huge leap there, considering a issues like those wouldnt happen L T E - p a c k i n g i P a d w i l l h i s going forward. The plan was (is?) Verizon shelves this Friday, but to segment their LTE network by what the hell Im in. location so any future disruptions But lets take a step back for a wouldnt affect customers coast to second: how well their network coast. will hold up under that kind of A reassuring answer to be sure strain? Verizon wants to double they owned up to the problem, the size of their LTE network by apologized, and laid out a credible the end of the year, and in all sounding way to manage the likelihood will have a huge LTE issues. Still, the plan doesnt quite flagship device in the form of the seem to be working the way new iPhone. I dont doubt for a V e r i z o n w a n t s i t t o . J u s t second that Verizon will make yesterday, users across the good on their plans to expand country once again dealt with a their LTE network by leaps and 4G outage: I was affected in here bounds, but the carriers recent in New Jersey, and Verizon LTE hiccups dont fill me with customers as far as Oregon were much confidence. unable to use their LTE Its the price Verizon is paying connections. Some users reported for being the first and most not being able to get a data prominent LTE player out there. connection at all, a symptom that High-speed data connections are a appeared during Verizons slew of
December outages too. This, in short, sucks. Sure, I may use my mobile connection for checking emails and watching dumb Youtube videos, but other people lean on Verizons network for actually getting things done. Its rather telling that Verizon has stopped calling theirs the most reliable 4G network in their marketing materials, using that distinction for their 3G network instead. You know, the one they dont seem to want people using anymore. Im sure that Verizon will spend loads of money to bulk up their wireless infrastructure this year. After all, they spent over $9 billion in wireless capital expenditures last year, and though they havent offered up specific numbers, their 2012 wireless capex budget is said to be around that. Still, it seems like Verizon is racing to get their entire customer base swathed in 4G coverage, and while the end result is a desirable one, the road getting there may be a bit too bumpy for the customers they already have. I like you Verizon, so please: dont screw this up.
O2 to use old US military tech to shower the public with sound

Katie Scott
Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:11:00 PM
Technology originally developed by the US military is being deployed by O2 for a new campaign that will launch later this month. But, says the agency behind the campaign, this is part of a wider revolution in "out-of-home" advertising that could see content accurately served to the public based on their emotional response within the next 12 months. From 19 March, in select
shopping centres, outside certain stores and in bus shelters nationwide, and in what is claimed to be a world first, members of the public will walk into "sound showers". These couple parametric arrays (mechanisms that give off low frequency sound) and electrostatic speakers to create pools of directional sound, which unsuspecting members of the public will wander into. By: Katie Scott, Edited by: Nate Lanxon Continue reading...
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Technology/ Culture/
Mass Effect 3 ending solidified by Director

Chris Burns (SlashGear)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:04:25 PM
Its a point of pride that the creators of the game franchise Mass Effect have on their resumes that theres not just now contention over the ending of the game, but that theres been a similar reaction each time the games predecessors have been beaten. In an interview with the director of Mass Effect 3, Digital Trends John Gaudiosi asked what he and the rest of the creators of the game thought about the reactions the game and its ending were getting. To his and our surprise, the polarizing effect the ending has created is exactly what the developers had intended. The success of the game thus far on the market, that being 1 million copies sold in just a week, has fallen in deep contrast to what appears very much to be a negative reaction from thousands of users who have found themselves baffled by the games ending sequence. Mass Effect 3 has an ending that some say does not present a fair result after the massive amount of work players have, at that point in the
game, put in to getting a result they want. As Gaudiosi notes though, it was never the intent of the creators of the game to create a flowery love fest and high-five for a good job for the players. As he mentions in response to a question about the ending of the game specifically: I didnt want the game to be forgettable, and even right down to the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with
peopledebating what the endings mean and whats going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in. That to me is part of whats exciting about this story. There has always been a little bit of mystery there and a little bit of interpretation, and its a story that people can talk about after the fact. Gaudiosi Are you satisfied by that answer, players? The game Mass Effect 3 and its predecessors have never
been part of a storyline thats meant to give you a friendly feeling in your gut should the ending give you some reprieve from the terror you face throughout the series? Let us know what you think! Story Timeline Bioware's Mass Effect 3 comes to iOS with Infiltrator on Feb 9th 2012 Razer unveils Mass Effect 3 accessories and iPhone case on
Feb 16th 2012 Mass Effect 3 copies tied to weather balloons and sent aloft on Feb 17th 2012 Mass Effect 3 Take Earth Back cinematic trailer released on Feb 21st 2012 Microsoft Xbox Live inadvertently posts Mass Effect 3 DLC on Feb 21st 2012 EA fans clamor to retrieve first "Space Edition" copies of Mass Effect 3 on Feb 24th 2012 EA confirms Mass Effect 2 cloud saves won't work in Mass Effect 3 on Mar 5th 2012 Mass Effect: Infiltrator released for iOS on Mar 6th 2012 EA talks Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars: TOR numbers on Mar 12th 2012 [ via Digital Trends] Mass Effect 3 ending solidified by Director is written by Chris Burns& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
To improve blood flow, lose the gut

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:42:00 PM
Overweight people who shed belly fat improve their blood
vessel health whether they use a low-carb or a low-fat diet, researchers say. Our study demonstrated that the amount of improvement in the
vessels was directly linked to how much central, or belly fat, the individuals lost, regardless of which diet they were on, says lead investigator Kerry J. Stewart,
a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and director of clinical and research exercise physiology at the Heart and Vascular Institute.
Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Permalink| Leave a comment
Technology/ Featured/
35
Board of Imagination: A mind-controlled skateboard. Seriously

Molly Wood (CNET News)
Adobe Joins Forces With PayPal For Automated Forms Processing

David Strom (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:31:21 PM
tablet, into the motor, and powers the board. Simply put, you think-Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:07:23 PM it goes. Chaotic Moon's mind-controlled As with the Kinect-powered skateboard board and shopping cart, the tech The guys at Chaotic Moon are on at work isn't particularly new, and a roll. Literally. it doesn't have to be. The point is First, they wowed CES with their to use the technology in an B o a r d o f A w e s o m e n e s s , a innovative way, to push the M i c r o s o f t K i n e c t - p o w e r e d boundaries of possibility (and skateboard that the rider controls stunt work) and to create a proof with various gestures. They of concept that can become a parlayed that into a shopping cart skate-springboard to another piece that can follow you around a of future tech. grocery store, scan your groceries, Whurley, the general manager at and possibly even check you out Chaotic Moon Lab, hasn't said automatically. But all that was what project will arise out of the just January's work. Board of Imagination, but the lab These days, the Austin-based has promised a project a month, Chaotic Moon Lab--the R&D arm so I expect to have more news of the larger studio--have taken soon. the same skateboard I rode in Las In the meantime, riding the board Vegas in January and made a few was one of the more amazing X-Men style modifications. Now experiences of my career. I've it's powered by your mind. seen the mind-controlled game The obviously named Board of interfaces before, but actually I m a g i n a t i o n i n t e g r a t e s a using thought to create motion neuroheadset from a company was completely visceral and called Emotiv with a Samsung amazing. And harder than you tablet running Windows 8, which might expect! is in turn connected to the Whurley compares the level of skateboard's motor. The headset focus required to something like translates thought into electrical m e d i t a t i o n - - s t o p p i n g i s circuitry that's routed through the particularly hard, because you're
not just thinking "stop," you're actually trying to imagine yourself at rest, in a stopped position. Plus, if you forget to keep thinking about going forward, you might actually stop. Or you might find that you're thinking things that you're not aware of thinking, which are then affecting the outcome. For example, after I jumped off the board in a panic at 10 miles per hour, I apparently subconsciously sabotaged my next ride--I was capable of 10 miles per hour, but instead trundled along at a pretty sedate four or so. Whurley told me I was blocking myself from going faster out of an underlying fear. Next time, I found that simply thinking "go faster" caused me to, in fact, "go faster." And I mean, really. How amazing is that? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Adobe has had a SaaS-based forms creation service called FormsCentral for the past year. Today they announced the ability to link your forms with PayPal for automatically collecting money from your respondents. It is a great move. Sponsor Like the rest of the tool, you don't need to know any HTML or really any programming to create your forms. You will need to upgrade to the paid FormsCentral account (starting at $15 a month) and have either a Premier or Business PayPal account where the funds will be deposited into. You just fill out the various forms to create your own, and there are more than
a dozen different templates to help you get started. There is even a screencast video that shows you the process. You can also have your correspondents pay you via credit cards too if they don't have a PayPal account of their own. Discuss
Mussolini Praises Putin's Reelection in Russia

Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:28:00 PM
The Kremlin television network RT praised the supposed fairness of the Russian election after was the most transparent in strongman Vladimir Putin won history: reelection in the rigged contest. RT's claim was that the election
36
Touts Plans For Turning Video Status Updates Into A Business

Anthony Ha (TechCrunch)
Live Drawing SXSW: What's So [Bleeping] Hard About Social ROI?

Robyn Tippins (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:04:34 PM
as actually seeing and hearing him. Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:03:55 PM Downing says 12 million people Since launching about a year ago, h a v e v i s i t e d T o u t s i n c e i t Tout has been used by celebrities launched, including 3.7 million in l i k e S h a q u i l l e O N e a l a n d the last 30 days. Seventy-five Survivor host Jeff Probst to post million Touts have been shared short video status updates. Now overall. Touts celebrity-driven co-founder and CEO Michael nature means that traffic can spike Downing is sharing some details unpredictably, but Downing says about how the company has that for the most part, the sites grown and where it goes from popularity has been on steady here. growth curve, with traffic The Tout concept is pretty increasing between 20 and 35 straightforward users post percent each month. And he video messages of up to 15 predicts that 2012 will be the year seconds. People who follow you this thing explodes. and see the message can then That doesnt necessarily mean a reply with their own 15-second flood of traffic to the Tout videos. Past attempts at video website, by the way. Downing social networking have failed, but says his goal isnt to make Tout a celebrities and brands are destination social network. embracing Tout as a way to Instead, he wants to become the engage more meaningfully with d e f a c t o v i d e o m e s s a g i n g their fans. After all, reading 140- application for everyone else. To character text updates from Shaq enable this, Tout is testing a (who announced his retirement on public API, and Downing is Tout) is nice, but its not the same dropping hints about some major
partners. If he has his way, well soon see Tout buttons and widgets across the Web. Youll be able to leave a short video whenever you want to post a review on Yelp or, hey, even a comment on TechCrunch. As for making money, Downing says that he wants to establish a video at network, of sorts, across Tout properties. He notes that Tout spun out of SRI, the research institute that also launched Siri. And like Siri, Downing says Tout has access to speech-to-text and natural language technology that will help it understand what the video conversations are really about which, in turn, will allow brands to reach relevant audiences and conversations. Downing says this should open up a new opportunity for advertisers. In comparison, he says Google is tone-deaf to the conversation if theres not text on the page.
We all struggle with social measurement. Are we measuring enough? Are we measuring the right things? Clearly defining social ROI, especially if your business goals aren't tied to product sales, can be a frustratingly elusive goal. Craig Daitch (Ford), Eric Swayne (M/A/ R/C Research), Liz Strauss
(Inside Out Thinking), Matt Ridings (SideraWorks) and Petri Darby (Make-A-Wish Foundation) explain the metrics you should be focusing on and how to measure conversion when that doesn't always mean an obvious sale. Sponsor
Time Warp: James Hetfield vs Guitar

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Metallica's James Hetfield makes quick work of the more hollowbodied Xtone guitar in this video from "Time Warp." And for more Metallica, visit Metallica.com. most watched: entertainment videos recently added: entertainment videos
explore video categories: entertainment This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
37
Marvell intros low-cost, high-performance SATA controller for SSDs

Dong Ngo (CNET News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:13:26 PM
memory. According to Marvell, the new controller will deliver lower costs, The new 88SS9187 SATA high performance, and better controller chip from Marvell power efficiency, making it also a Marvell announced today the great choice for the ultrabook deployment of its 88SS9187 computer market. Most of all, the SATA controller designed for new controller might also lead to solid-state drives (SSDs). the further reduction of SSD The company says the new prices. Related stories controller is powered by high- Elgato Thunderbolt SSD performance embedded processor review: The crazy price of the technology and features the latest magic 6Gbps SATA 3.1 host interface The Elgato Thunderbolt SSD is optimized specifically for solid- magic! s t a t e d r i v e s ( S S D s ) . T h e Migrating to SSD: Get yourself -chip RAID technology for 88SS9187 also has Marvell's a new computer without getting NAND devices with firmware designed to aid in retiring Adaptive Read and Write Scheme one defective NAND storage. It also and on-chip RAID functionality. This means it can be used with the Marvell's third-generation SATA supports a high-speed DDR3 latest generation of NAND flash 6Gbps SSD controller supports on DRAM interface and up to 1GB
reaches 500MBps of sequential write performance under "dirty drive conditions." Marvell says a significant number of major SSD manufacturers are set to deploy Marvell's newest controller immediately, with additional partners expected to integrate 88SS9187 implementations later this year. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read memory for mapping algorithms. the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentAccording to Marvell, it has high only/faq.php#publishers. Five random read and write IOPS and Filters recommends: Donate to its sequential read performance is Wikileaks. the maximum available for a SATA 6G device, and still
Top 10 Improvements in Engine Design

Patrick E. George (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Most people know that the Ford Model T was the first truly affordable automobile. But do you know what kind of engine it had? The original Model T, released in 1908, packed a 2.9-liter fourcylinder engine with just 22 horsepower.
That's a tiny output for its size compared to the engines of today, but it sure beat the engine in what's considered to be the first automobile -- the 1885 Benz Patent Motorwagen. That car had a single-piston engine and generated just two-thirds of a single horsepower. As you can see, automobile engines have been in constant
evolution since the very beginning of motoring. Today they are more powerful, quieter, more durable, less polluting and more fuelefficient than they have ever been before, thanks to constant advancements in engine design and technology. Automotive engineers are constantly working on ways to improve the internal combustion
engine and carry it into the future. How many other inventions do you know that have been continuously refined for more 150 years? In this article, we'll take a look at 10 of the biggest and most significant engine improvements of all time. From fuel injection to hybrid motors, we'll take a look at where engines have been, and
hopefully get some insight on where they're headed. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
38
Technology/
Archos G10 xs Android 4.0 ICS keyboard tablet teased

Chris Burns (SlashGear)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:33:06 PM
near you soon! This tablet will have the ability to stay closed and entirely protected A brand new Archos Android by its outer shell when you do not tablet is on the way, and just like need to use it, twisting to reveal its cost-sensitive predecessors, we two separate pieces when youre expect this lovely looking new ready for some advanced Android transformable piece of equipment action. As youll see in the to be a mass release. The folks at preview video, this unit has a Archos have never been shy about tablet top like Archos has released their ability to release tablets with in the past with such tablets as the a l o w e r p r i c e - t a g t h a n t h e G9 and 80 (which weve also got competition at the same time as a full review of from a few offering many of the same high- months ago), and a keyboard dock rise specifications as their peers, for its other half. this unit looking to do just that This unit looks to be coming in a once again. This is the Archos sleek white and gray color scheme G10 xs series tablet PC, and by and appears very much to be as the looks of it, itll be flipping thin a tablet as any of Archos open and converting in a store competitors in the Android realm.
tablet official on Nov 16th 2011 Archos outs 70b Internet Tablet packing Android 3.2 on Dec 20th 2011 Archos Child Pad offers $129 Ice Cream Sandwich on Mar 2nd 2012 Archos G9 tablets get Android 4.0 ICS update on Mar 9th 2012 [ via Android Community] Archos G10 xs Android 4.0 ICS keyboard tablet teased is written by Chris Burns& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
We can expect at least a dual-core processor under the hood here and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box, this along with, once again, a low cost for a full package. Archos is coming
back with a hefty value proposition this Summer of that you can be sure! Story Timeline ARCHOS 80 G9 Review [Video] on Sep 25th 2011 Archos Arnova 9 G2 Android
iHome shipping iW2 AirPlay speakers on April 1

Rue Liu (SlashGear)
This allows you to easily stream your iTunes music library to the speaker from anywhere in your iHome will begin shipping its home. iW2 Wireless Speaker System The iW2 sports a similar with AirPlay starting April 1. The minimalist design and wireless speaker is a follow up to the iW1 capabilities to the iW1, but its s p e a k e r , w h i c h w a s t h e about 25 percent smaller and costs c o m p a n y s f i r s t t o s u p p o r t $100 less at $199. The iW2 also Apples proprietary AirPlay doesnt come with a rechargeable wireless streaming technology. battery and is instead powered by
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:01:48 PM
an AC adapter. A remote control is included.
iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices can be connected to the iW2 for charging or music playback. However, the speaker does not offer a dock, so the devices are connected through a USB port on the back. The iW2 will begin shipping for $199 on April 1. iHome plans to release iW3 and iW4 AirPlay speakers for around the same price point
later this spring. [ via CNET] iHome shipping iW2 AirPlay speakers on April 1 is written by Rue Liu& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
39
At 10, SpaceX has changed space exploration forever

Daniel Terdiman (CNET News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:09:50 PM
The muzzle of the Falcon 1 engine, the first liquid-fueled rocket developed by a private company that achieved Earth orbit. Happy 10th birthday, SpaceX. On March 14, 2002, entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of the so-called "PayPal Mafia," launched his new company with a modest goal: To become a world leader in private space exploration. 10 years of SpaceX milestones 1-2 of 7 Scroll Left Scroll Right
Ten years later, SpaceX has achieved just that, especially after inking the 2008 deal that gave its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft the exclusive rights to take NASA's cargo to and from the International Space Station after the end of the Space Shuttle program. Related stories 10 years of SpaceX milestones Watch SpaceX test-fire its new engine...on the ground in Texas Testing pushes SpaceX cargo flight to at least late March
Rocket system could lower cost of access to space, Allen says Elon Musk: In 20 years, most cars will be electric But the company has had plenty
program. Last year, Musk said that SpaceX offered price advantages that allow it to offer "the best launch prices in the world," costs he said make it nearly impossible for any foreign country to compete. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five of other noteworthy milestones, Filters recommends: Donate to including its 2006 deal with Wikileaks. NASA to develop the capability to ferry that cargo to the space station under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Chris Hemsworth Joins Liam, Jennifer, and Josh at The Hunger Games London Premiere
Katie Henry (PopSugar)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:49:39 PM
Jennifer Lawrence wore another striking gold gown for tonight's London premiere of The Hunger Games. Chris Hemsworth took a break from filming Rush to join
his brother Liam at the red carpet event. Josh Hutcherson hit the carpet solo before joining up with Elizabeth Banks, in a backless yellow dress, Jennifer, and Liam. Thousands of fans congregated at LA's Nokia Live on Monday to Hunger Games stars at the world get a glimpse of their favorite
premiere, and we were there to chat with the tributes, Jennifer, Liam, and Josh. Liam revealed he was too nervous to watch the film with friends and family so he held a private viewing party for one. Meanwhile, Jennifer shared what it's like living up to the pressure
of playing Katniss, and Josh expressed how proud he was to be involved with the project. There's plenty of more Hunger Games coming your way so be sure to check back with us often leading up to the March 23 nationwide release. View Slideshow
40
Technology/ Economy/
IK Multimedia's DJ Rig arrives on the App Store

Matt Tinsley (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:00:00 PM
MEREDITH WHITNEY: Invest In Citi? Not In My Lifetime (C)

Lisa Du (Money Game)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:29:00 PM
Back in January, IK Multimedia announced the iRig Mix and accompanying app, DJ Rig. We're still waiting to get our hands on the mixer (due at some point later this month), but the DJ Rig app has arrived on the App Store. And you don't need the iRig Mix to take advantage of it. DJ Rig is a double-deck DJ mixing app that hooks straight into your iPhone's music library. With two turntables, tempo syncing, multiple cue points, sample-based pads and some crazy but useful DJ effects, performing your very own DJ set has never been easier. I'm no DJ, but I took the app for a spin and found, for the most part, its automatic beat matching to be very effective, unless you're playing some rather complicated beats. Simply, while playing one song, I queued another, hit the Sync button and used the crossfader to bring the two songs together.
a new house. Their investment span is prohibitive, it's not that exciting... from an investment Famed bank analyst Meredith scenario. People were way too Whitney made a name for herself optimistic about citi being able to four years ago when she said earn a lot." Citigroup would have to cut its "What would it take for you to dividend. invest in Citi," asked Bartiromo. Today, she was on CNBC talking " A n e w b r a i n , " W h i t n e y about Citigroup again. answered. In an interview with Maria When Bartiromo asked if that Bartiromo, Whitney discussed the meant a new CEO, Whitney results of the Fed's bank stress laughed it off, saying "No, they're tests that were released yesterday. stuck with what they have. It's just Whitney said she didn't think the not going to happen in my results of the tests were that lifetime." surprising, echoing what many on Will Vikram Pandit outlive Additional features include a which gets you all the extra Wall Street have said. But she Whitney? Probably not. Either also spent a lot of time discussing way, Whitney won't be singing three-band EQ for each deck, features. scanning a track in wave form, IK Multimedia's DJ Rig arrives the results of Citigroup, the any praises for Citi anytime soon. and looping functionality. There on the App Store originally biggest and most notable of the Here's the clip from CNBC: are some further features to the a p p e a r e d o n T U A W - T h e financial institutions that failed Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook. app (X-Sync), but they only work Unofficial Apple Weblog on the stress test. in conjunction with the yet-to-be- Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:00:00 EST. Citi's failure, however, wasn't Join the conversation about this released iRig Mix (We'll be sure Please see our terms for use of surprising or a big deal, Whitney story said, adding that the results See Also: to provide some details on that feeds. just as soon as we can). Source| Permalink| Email this| doesn't "change the game" as the Goldmanite Who Quit Via bank has not been investable for NYT: In The Last Year, I Saw 5 DJ Rig is available for iPhone on Comments four years. Managing Directors Call Their the iOS App Store for US$1.99 "Citithey don't have any earnings Clients Muppets with an additional in-app purchase power, it's so difficult to move 5 Art Cashin Brain Teasers That of $4.99 for the Pro Bundle, that ship," she said. "They're Have Wall Street Baffled investing in a lot of regulatory Widow Of Legendary Banker processes, but it's like the old Paul Mellon Is Selling This broken-down Victorian house. Gorgeous 26-Acre Cape Cod You have to put so much money Compound in to get to a modern equivalent of
Technology/ Economy/
41
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: 4G iPads, fun apps, Apple trivia
Listen Up Muppets: Goldman Wants You To Sell TYM2 Is The Bond Sell Off Over?
Tyler Durden
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:06:35 PM
Dear muppets: Goldman wants you to short TYM2 ( reminder: a Steven Sande (TUAW - The key axis? check; elephant Unofficial Apple Weblog) hunting? check; three letter Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:30:00 PM acronym? check). Translation: every bond you sell, Goldman It's Wednesday already, which buys. means it's time for another Last nights FOMC statement episode of TUAW TV Live. It's marked-to-market the too early to do an iPad unboxing committees assessment of US or post-mortem, but I'm sure we'll economic conditions, which have an opportunity to discuss all continue to gradually improve. the things about the new iPad that Attention now turns to the we didn't get around to last week. minutes of yesterdays policy I'll also be demonstrating some meeting, which may reveal fun accessories and apps, and whether easing options were we'll have another round of Apple contemplated after the expiration trivia! See if you can answer more of Operation Twist. US questions than the other viewers, get your instructions on how to chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw Treasuries sold off yesterday, and and you'll have a chance to win are now breaking above the yield absolutely nothing but bragging participate. If you're unable to join -tv. us for the show, remember that TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: range in place for many weeks. rights. The 10-year US-Germany As usual, I'll be starting the show you can always subscribe to the 4G iPads, fun apps, Apple trivia differential, now at 40bp, is at the at 5 PM EDT (2 PM PDT / 10 PM video podcast and watch the show originally appeared on TUAW at your leisure in iTunes or any The Unofficial Apple Weblog on widest level since last November. BST) sharp, and we'll take a few A wider spread is in line with our minutes to chat before the demos other favorite podcatching app. Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:30:00 EST. The past shows are also available Please see our terms for use of valuation metrics. But the level of start. To join in on the chat and intermediate yields remains about watch the live streaming video, on the TUAW YouTube channel. feeds. The chat is now available as well Source| Permalink| Email this| 25-50bp too low on both sides of drop by TUAW about five the Atlantic. Using 10-year bond minutes before the start time to o n I R C : j o i n u s o n s e r v e r Comments futures (TYM2), we would recommend short at 129-17 for a target of 126-00 and tight stops on a close above 131-16. Financial economists make a
distinction between uncertainty and ambiguity. Loosely speaking, uncertainty has to do with what we colloquially call known unknowns and mostly pertains to the shape (or moments) of a given distribution of possible future outcomes. How ongoing tensions related to oil prices may affect future consumption and inflation provides an example: we can resort to historical precedents and attempt an answer. By contrast, ambiguity evokes the idea of unknown unknowns, or risks that are not susceptible to ex ante quantification. The current Euro area banking and sovereign crisis has raised many uncertainties, but is predominantly a story of ambiguities. This distinction, which may appear academic, has actually important implications for asset pricing. Below we illustrate this point in relation to Italian and Spanish sovereign spreads to Germany. Average: Your rating: None This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
42
Policy/
The Road to Hell Is Paved with Viral Videos - By David Rieff

DAVID RIEFF (Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:18:39 PM
For all its goodwill, Invisible Children's Kony 2012 film is dangerous propaganda, pure and simple. It's not a call to make a notorious celebrity out of Joseph Kony -- it's a call to war. BY DAVID RIEFF| MARCH 14, 2012 Click here to see photos of the evolution of the LRA. When and how so many Americans, young people in particular, were convinced, or convinced themselves, that awareness offers the key to righting wrongs wherever in the world they may be is hard to pinpoint. But whatever else it does and fails to do, Kony 2012, the 30-minute video produced by a previously obscure Californiaand Uganda-based charity called Invisible Children that seeks to "make Joseph Kony famous in 2012" so that this homicidal bandit leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in central Africa will be hunted down and turned over to the International Criminal Court, illustrates just how deeply engrained in American culture this assumption has now become. As a film, as history, and as policy analysis, there is little to be said for Kony 2012 except that its
star and narrator, Jason Russell, the head of Invisible Children, and his colleagues seem to have their hearts in the right place. But this do-good spirit is suffused
with an almost boastful naivet and, more culpably, an American middle-class provincialism that illustrates beautifully the continuing relevance of the old
adage about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. At one point, Russell's commentary over a scene of a center in a northwestern Uganda town where
children who have fled their villages for fear of LRA attacks are seeking shelter is "If [this] ROAD page 43
43
ROAD
happened one night in America, it would be on the cover of Newsweek," says Russell. Russell's argument is that the rise of global connectivity means that we are all "living in a new world" of plugged-in citizens who can change the world through the new modes of activism that Kony 2012 exemplifies -- earlier in the film he trumpets the fact that there are more people "on Facebook than were on the planet 200 years ago." But Russell's is a bogus globalism: His film basically ignores the world outside North America, where the people he is trying to mobilize live, and central Africa, where Kony and his victims are. Don't Miss Babes in Warland And whatever Russell may imagine, there is nothing new about that binary view at all. To the contrary, if the narrative structure of Kony 2012 is reminiscent of anything, it is of a tried and true paternalism that the missionaries milked for all it was worth when they returned to the metropole from the outposts of the British and French empires in which they were working. Rather than trying to inspire, inform, and mobilize kids through the efficiencies of Facebook to care about faraway tragedies and needs, the missionaries had to content themselves with the largely retail work of mobilizing the faithful. The film is full of Russell's techno-utopian pontificating about connectivity turning the world upside-down, transforming politics, and
instilling on a mass scale an ethic of borderless caring -- a message underscored by Jedidiah Jenkins, Invisible Children's "director of idea development," who told a reporter that the film had created "a tipping point" in getting young people to care about something that did not affect them. But unless you truly believe that "the medium is the message," as Marshall McLuhan -- the Canadian futurologist who coined the expression "the global village" more than half a century ago -kept insisting, then what Kony 2012 exemplifies is not new thinking but a new delivery system for the humanitarian wing of the old imperial enterprise, in all its stunning condescension toward the Global South, its sense of entitlement, and not just its contempt for both historical and moral complexity and ambiguity, but its actual reveling in that ignorance. In fairness, Russell has made no secret of this. The film "definitely oversimplifies the issue," he recently told an interviewer. "We made it quick and oversimplified on purpose." Russell insisted that the video was "not the answer" and that Invisible Children wanted people who had seen the film to "keep investigating to read the history." The problem is that everything else in Invisible Children's advocacy campaign, from the T-shirts and bracelets that read "Kony 2012" to the group's plan to "Cover the Night" on April 20 with posters and hortatory slogans such as "Stop at
Nothing" and "One Thing We Can All Agree On," is equally reductive. Make that simpleminded (not just oversimplified) in the literal sense of the term. But how could it be otherwise in a campaign that deploys the worst and most manipulative tricks of advertising with the stated goal not of making famous the context in which Kony and the LRA have committed their terrible crimes, but rather to "make Joseph Kony famous." Russell and his colleagues seem to believe that because their goal is not to make Kony famous so as to celebrate him, but instead "to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice," that this justifies the fact that they don't need to explain anything complicated to the young people they are trying to mobilize. Albert Einstein once observed bitterly that "he who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him a spinal cord will suffice." If one watches the music-video-style evocation in Kony 2012 of crowds of young people joyfully mobilizing en masse to demand Kony's arrest, it is quite hard to believe Invisible Children's claim that their campaign encourages deep thinking -- or, frankly, any thinking at all -- beyond the expression of moral outrage. In the end, this is Kony 2012's deepest flaw. For what it is actually peddling (under the flag of grassroots activism and a
universal ethics of caring) is little more than a cheap technoutopianism that conflates the entirely admirable wish for a better world with the belief that knowing how to move toward it is a simple matter, requiring more determination and goodwill than knowledge. Related In the Name of the Lord This is a fundamentally childlike view of the world. But even by the standards of the contemporary United States, where feeling and the instinctual is raised high above reason -- a view encapsulated in author Malcolm Gladwell's claim that "there can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis" -- and the child's eye view is held by many to be more discerning than the adult's, Kony 2012 is an extreme version of the idea. The early part of the film, after a few opening bits of technophilia about global connectedness, is followed by Russell sitting down with his young son, Gavin, to "explain" to him what "the war's about and who Joseph Kony is." He does this, and it makes for painful viewing -- a politically correct catechism in which it is unclear whether it is Russell or his son who is the more infantile. "What do I do for a job?" Russell asks. "You stop the bad guys from being mean," Gavin replies. This might be written off as a relatively harmless narrative device were the rest of Russell's explanation to his viewers more nuanced, which is to say, more
adult. But Kony 2012 is rhetorically seamless in that it delivers all its argument at the same level of maturity as Russell exhibits in his conversation with Gavin. Joseph Kony is the bad guy, and it is up to the good guys -- Russell, the Facebook millions, the U.S. military, and you -- to stop Kony. Nothing more, it seems, needs to be said. One more military intervention by the United States in the name of human rights, with all the imperial echoes that go with it? No problem in such a good cause. Ugandan history? Some other time, perhaps. The context of Kony's rebellion? Too complicated, at least for now. In short, nothing must be allowed to get in the way of building a movement, getting ready to put up posters, and pressuring the celebrities and politicians, or "policymakers" and "culturemakers," as Russell calls them in the film, to find a way to arrest Joseph Kony. Here, too, Russell's choice of whom to try to influence is revealing, for the infatuation with celebrity, the worship of (American) power, and the refusal of politics is at the core of the campaign. It allows Russell to lump together Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Sen. Harry Reid, and Rep. John Boehner in the list of policymakers he wants to influence (U.N. SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen ROAD page 46
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Policy/
Cameron Bets on Obama - By Oliver Kamm

OLIVER KAMM (Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:44:05 AM
The British prime minister is a lot more like the American president than you think. And he clearly believes Barack is headed for victory in November. BY OLIVER KAMM| MARCH 14, 2012 Barack Obama and David Cameron, who have been meeting in Washington this week, are two leaders who owe their present positions, in part, to the backlash of the post-9/11 era. But both the U.S. president and British prime minister have also demonstrated surprising continuities with their interventionist predecessors while in office. Obama, of course, rose to prominence as a critic of George W. Bush's "dumb war" in Iraq. Cameron, in addition to his pledges to cut spending and get Britain's fiscal house in order, took special effort after rising to leader of the opposition in 2005 to distance himself from the interventionism of Tony Blair. While Blair's position in British politics had once been unassailable -- he had completely overhauled a Labour Party that was hostile to capitalism and committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament and won three successive general elections in the process -- he paid a heavy political price for the support he gave to U.S. policy after the 9/11 attacks and in particular for
committing British forces to the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Cameron took full advantage. On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Cameron gave a speech on foreign policy in which he described himself as a liberal
conservative rather than a neoconservative. Echoing the Augustinian realism of Reinhold Niebuhr, Cameron decried a simplistic vision of a world order divided between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and he expounded the virtues of
humility and patience. However, just as Obama's presidency has surprisingly come to be defined by drone war, special operations raids, and a troop surge in Afghanistan, Cameron in government is more interventionist than his statements
in opposition suggested he would be. And his relations with Obama are warmer than observers of both men's political records might have predicted. Cameron's Blair-like tendencies CAMERON page 45
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CAMERON
have been much greater than the continuities in foreign policy between Cameron and John Major, the Conservative prime minister from 1990 to 1997. To the despair of Margaret Thatcher, whom he succeeded in Downing Street, Major presided over the greatest catastrophe in British foreign policy since the 1956 Suez crisis: Western inaction in the Balkans. Major completely misinterpreted the war in Bosnia as a recrudescence of intractable ancient hatreds. Possessed not by realism but an amoral conservative quietism, Major's government not only urged nointervention but actively obstructed the efforts of its NATO and European Union allies to counter Serbian aggression. In 1999, two years after his first landslide election victory and at the height of the Kosovo crisis, Blair gave a notable speech on foreign policy in Chicago. He cited both Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein as threats to international stability. The emphasis of that speech refutes the absurd and insulting charge that after 9/11 Blair acted as "Bush's poodle." In reality, Blair was arguing a case for the responsibility to protect threatened populations while Bush, then governor of Texas and an aspiring presidential nominee, was opposing the Bill Clinton administration's supposed entanglements in the Balkans. Cameron was elected to Parliament only in 2001. He voted for military action in Iraq, yet
three years later controversially joined with anti-war separatist parties and left-wing Labour MPs in calling for an inquiry into the decision to commit British forces. My own newspaper, the Times, declared on that occasion that Cameron should not have aligned himself with political eccentrics. It was a fair reading of Cameron's comments on foreign policy, as well as those of William Hague, now foreign secretary, that the Conservatives thought that the disasters of postwar planning in Iraq and Afghanistan were inherent to a hubristic project to establish Western-style constitutional democracies. It was widely expected that Cameron would pivot away from the foreign-policy adventurism of the Blair era. But from Afghanistan to Libya to Syria, Cameron's foreign policy has been quite different from the modest, Major-like attitude that was expected of him. Interestingly, Cameron's seeming political weakness on domestic issues has given him some room to maneuver abroad. Cameron is the first British prime minister to lead a coalition government in peacetime since the 1930s. Many commentators assumed that the inconclusive result of the 2010 general election, in which the Conservatives won most seats but failed to secure a parliamentary majority, would hamper him. In practice, it has worked to his political advantage, allowing him a freer hand than if he had been elected head of a government
comprising only Conservatives. It was also expected that the Anglo-American relationship would not be as strong under Cameron and Obama as it had been in the days when Bush and Blair bonded over Ben Stiller movies at the ranch in Crawford. British politicians frequently and smugly refer to the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom. And though there are obvious historical and linguistic ties between the two countries, this is a historically dubious notion. For much of the postwar era, relations between the United States and Germany have been closer and more consequential than the Anglo-American alliance. The famously warm regard between Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, as well as between Blair and Bush, was historically unusual. In a fundamental misstep in foreign policy, Thatcher (unlike President George H.W. Bush) failed to see that German unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall was inevitable and desirable. Major's Balkans policy was not only catastrophic for Bosnia, but it also caused a serious fissure in Anglo-American relations. There was every prospect that the Obama-Cameron relationship would be, if not of that order, at least cordial and muted rather than enthusiastic. Some British commentators also expected Obama, on grounds of his family history and justified criticisms of British colonial rule, to be less receptive to the Anglo-
American alliance than were his immediate predecessors. None of this has been borne out by experience. In the face of international crises, the transatlantic alliance has been notably strong -- in the closeness of Anglo-American relations, and, more surprisingly, in the participation of France in an interventionist consensus. In Afghanistan, for instance, the national leaders would in any event have worked closely together, if only owing to the policies of their predecessors. The Afghanistan mission has become untenable, as March 11's one-man rampage sadly makes clear. But the drawdown of Western forces in Afghanistan is a logistical exercise founded on the scaling back of earlier ambitions. It is not a creation of Cameron and Obama's common endeavor. Two issues, however, take precisely that form. The first is the Western response to tyrants in Libya last year, where Cameron joined Obama and Sarkozy in a swift intervention to save the city of Benghazi. The move cemented the tripartite transatlantic alliance but froze out German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was widely criticized for opposing the war. Syria presents an altogether tougher proposition in which there is no pressure, let alone consensus, for Western military action. But the least that can be said is that Western diplomacy is united in decrying President Bashar al-Assad's depredations, rather than hopelessly divided and
futile, as it was 20 years ago in the Balkans. The recollection of the Iraq intervention still permeates the British foreign-policy debate, but it is less potent than Cameron's critics assume. At its zenith, hostility to the Iraq war cost Blair some seats in the 2005 general election, turning what might have been a third landslide into a more modest but still convincing victory. Public opinion during the Libya intervention generally followed the progress of the military campaign -- support declined as victory appeared elusive, but spiked as the war of attrition against Muammar alQaddafi's forces eventually succeeded. British public opinion is not anti-war; it is averse to defeat and wary of long-term military commitments. Then there's Iran. Cameron and Obama have found common cause in exerting pressure on the Iranian regime to get back in line with its requirements under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the most likely ways of preventing an Israeli preemptive strike and neutralizing a potential Iranian military threat. Much of the message of the Obama-Cameron summit is purely symbolic, but symbols are important. Obama wishes visibly to reciprocate the hospitality he enjoyed on his state visit to Britain last year, cement the notion that transatlantic relations are in good shape under his CAMERON page 46
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Culture/
ROAD
Harper are the only nonAmericans on the list) with Lady Gaga, Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg among the culturemakers. (Justin Bieber, a Canadian, is the lone nonAmerican on the culture-makers list.) Again, in a film that treated its audience as adults, rather than as children or the recruits Einstein evoked, joyfully marching in rank and file, Russell would have had to pause to ask himself hard questions, such as: What might be the risks to Uganda's civilian population if the U.S. government were to give aid and more advanced military equipment to the Ugandan military to track Kony, thus strengthening a regime in Kampala whose hands are anything but clean -- as anyone who was in eastern Congo during the Ugandan intervention there in the late-1990s can attest? And as they say in the military, in war, the enemy gets a vote. At present -- though one would never know this from Russell's film -- Kony and the LRA are a largely spent force. But if a new campaign
against them were launched, what would their response be; what crimes would they commit? Russell can talk all he likes about "arresting" Kony, but what Invisible Children is actually calling for is "war" -- without acknowledging that in war there are invariably unintended consequences. The lesson of the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- which is that hoping for the best is not a plan -- does not seem to resonate with Russell at all. Given these confusions, the challenge after watching Kony 2012 is not finding things in the film to criticize, wince at, and object to, but rather to find something that is not an intellectual or political embarrassment. Comedian Jon Stewart may tease the media for being jealous of the film's success, but his mockery misses the point: It is popular not because it is true, but because it is infantile, lowestcommon-denominator activism. And in this culture, at this time in history, you are not likely to lose any money trafficking in that. Still, it is understandable that there are many intelligent people
who concede at least some of these faults of Kony 2012 but nonetheless defend the project as useful and worthy of using consumerist means to channel young people's energies away from that consumerism. The problem is that while selfevidently it is worthier to care about Joseph Kony than the Kardashians, caring by itself is not enough -- at least if the idea is that this caring should impel people to act and, more importantly, demand that their government act. To do that demands something more than actually knowing that Joseph Kony is an evil man and peddling the fantasy that, if he can be arrested, it will prove that, as Russell puts it, "the world we live in has new rules" and that "the technology that brought our planet together is allowing us to respond to the problems of our friends." And it is this deeper knowledge that Kony 2012 seems to have no interest in communicating, even though, presumably, Russell and his colleagues could impart it if they chose to. Officials of Invisible Children are
on record as admitting that, yes, in Kony 2012 they kept the thing simple, but they insist that simplifying is not always a bad thing. Because of their good intentions, this claim may at first appear credible. But if we call what they are peddling by its right name -- propaganda -- their campaign looks very different indeed, for propaganda is propaganda, no matter how worthy the cause, however and in whatever form it comes in. That Russell and his colleagues seem so blind to how dangerous this is suggests that the old adage of the road to hell being paved with good intentions is as alive and well as ever, and, in this case, flourishing on YouTube. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Challenge: Where's That Cat with the Mai Tai? [Search Research]
Daniel M. Russell (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:30:00 PM
Googler Daniel Russell knows how to find the answers to questions you can't get to with a simple Google query. In his weekly Search Research column, Russell issues a search challenge, then follows up later in the week with his solutionusing whatever search technology and methodology fits the bill. This week's challenge: Where's that cat with the Mai Tai? More
CAMERON
administration, and finally dispel some of the less informed speculation that he is cool toward the Anglo-American alliance. It is notable that Cameron is not meeting any of the Republican candidates for the presidency and is therefore placing a lot of weight on Obama's prospects for
reelection. Cameron will be particularly interested in two issues of substance that bear on British foreign policy. He will be anxious that the U.S. drawdown of forces in Afghanistan should not leave British troops exposed. And he will wish to impress on Obama that there is no political
possibility that Britain will negotiate with Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. These are points of possible friction that the two leaders would do well now to anticipate and defuse, but despite what many expected when Cameron came
into office in 2010, they are two Filters recommends: Donate to leaders with remarkably similar Wikileaks. political trajectories and outlooks. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five
Economy/
47
FITCH REVISES UK OUTLOOK TO NEGATIVE

Joe Weisenthal (Money Game)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:10:00 PM
currently forecast; -- Adverse shocks that implied higher levels of government Another AAA about to go? borrowing and debt than currently Fitch has just revised the UK's projected; and outlook to negative, according to -- A material downward revision Bloomberg. of the assessment of the UK's The AAA rating will stay, medium-term growth potential b e c a u s e m o s t l y i t ' s a Read the whole thing here... c o m m e n d a t i o n o f f i s c a l --consolidation efforts. Fitch Ratings-London-14 March But here's why the outlook got 2012: Fitch Ratings has affirmed revised to negative: the United Kingdom's (UK) The revision of the rating sovereign ratings as follows: Outlook to Negative from Stable --Long-term foreign currency reflects the very limited fiscal Issuer Default Rating (IDR) space to absorb further adverse affirmed at 'AAA' economic shocks in light of such --Long-term local currency IDR e l e v a t e d d e b t l e v e l s a n d a affirmed at 'AAA' potentially weaker than currently --Country Ceiling affirmed at forecast economic recovery. In 'AAA' l i g h t o f t h e c o n s i d e r a b l e --Short-term foreign currency uncertainty around the economic rating affirmed at 'F1+' and fiscal outlook, including the The Outlooks on the Long-term risks posed to economic recovery IDRs have been revised to by ongoing financial tensions in Negative from Stable. the eurozone and against the The affirmation of the UK's backdrop of a still large structural 'AAA' ratings reflects the progress budget deficit and high and rising m a d e i n r e d u c i n g t h e government debt, the Negative government's structural budget Outlook indicates a slightly deficit and the credibility of the greater than 50% chance of a fiscal consolidation effort. The downgrade over a two-year UK's 'AAA' rating is underpinned horizon. The triggers that would by a high-income, diversified and likely prompt a rating downgrade flexible economy as well as are as follows: political and social stability. The -- Discretionary fiscal easing that UK sovereign credit profile also resulted in government debt benefits from the macroeconomic peaking later and higher than and financing flexibility that
derives from independent monetary policy and sterling's status as an international 'reserve currency'. However, the government's structural budget deficit is second in size only to the US ('AAA'/Negative) and indebtedness is significantly above the 'AAA' median, although currently broadly in line with France ('AAA'/Negative) and Germany ('AAA'/Stable). Fitch judges the government's fiscal consolidation plans to be credible, reflecting the strong political commitment and institutional capacity. The forthcoming Budget is expected to reaffirm the government's commitment to deficit reduction
as set out in the 2010 and 2011 budgets, the 2010 Spending Review, and the 2011 Autumn Statement. The adjustment is focused on permanent reductions in current spending underpinned by structural reform to public services and welfare. The frontloaded fiscal consolidation is proceeding broadly in line with the path set out by the government. The cyclicallyadjusted primary deficit halved over the past two years, to 3.5% of GDP in 2011-12 from 7% of GDP in 2009-10, although the government's plans include further reductions in spending beyond the term of the current parliament.
The mix of tight fiscal and 'loose' monetary policies allowed for by the flexible monetary and exchange rate regime, including 'quantitative easing' (QE), is supportive of the necessary rebalancing of the UK economy. Although Fitch recognises that the purpose of QE is to forestall deflationary pressures and promote the flow of private credit, it has also reduced the government's cost of fiscal funding and its reliance on the market, at least over the short to medium term. Combined with an average maturity of government debt of over 14 years - around double that of its 'AAA' peers and a rating strength - on current policies the risk of a fiscal financing crisis is assessed to be negligible. In Fitch's opinion, the credibility of the government's fiscal commitment was further enhanced by the announcement in the Autumn Statement of additional measures to ensure that the government's target of a cyclically-adjusted current budget surplus by 2016-17 and public sector net debt (excluding financial sector interventions, PSND ex) is falling in 2015-16 in response to the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) substantial FITCH page 48
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FITCH
re-assessment of the UK's economic growth potential and growth prospects. Nonetheless, general government gross debt (GGGD) and the government's preferred measure - PSND ex are forecast by the OBR to peak in 2014-15 at 93.9% and 78% of GDP, respectively, compared to its previous forecast of 87.2% and 70.9% in 2013-14 at the time of the March 2011 Budget and Fitch's previous formal review of the UK's sovereign ratings. Consistent with Fitch's sovereign rating criteria and historical and international precedent, the projected peak for government indebtedness is at the limit of the level consistent with the UK retaining its 'AAA' status. With debt not expected to peak until 2014-15, three fiscal years from now, the risks and uncertainty surrounding the realisation of debt reduction by the middle of the decade are material. The evolution of the eurozone debt crisis has significant implications for the UK in light of the substantial trade and financial linkages between the two. The easing of financial market tensions in the eurozone in recent months has diminished the risks to the UK, but in Fitch's opinion, the crisis is not resolved and could once more intensify. Fitch's current assessment is that UK banks are relatively well placed to absorb future episodes of financial market turmoil and losses on
eurozone exposures without additional recourse to the UK taxpayer for capital. UK banks have strengthened their capital positions in recent years and they have reduced their exposures to the weaker eurozone economies over 2011. In addition, the UK government has announced its intentions to reform the banking system to make future crises less frequent and costly. Both these factors should help reduce future fiscal risks. Of greater concern would be the broader economic impact of an intensification of the eurozone crisis on the UK government's ability to meet its deficit reduction targets and place the debt to GDP ratio on a downward path in 2015-16. The revision of the rating Outlook to Negative from Stable reflects the very limited fiscal space to absorb further adverse economic shocks in light of such elevated debt levels and a potentially weaker than currently forecast economic recovery. In light of the considerable uncertainty around the economic and fiscal outlook, including the risks posed to economic recovery by ongoing financial tensions in the eurozone and against the backdrop of a still large structural budget deficit and high and rising government debt, the Negative Outlook indicates a slightly greater than 50% chance of a downgrade over a two-year horizon.
The triggers that would likely prompt a rating downgrade are as follows: -- Discretionary fiscal easing that resulted in government debt peaking later and higher than currently forecast; -- Adverse shocks that implied higher levels of government borrowing and debt than currently projected; and -- A material downward revision of the assessment of the UK's medium-term growth potential. Conversely, economic and fiscal performance in line with Fitch's baseline expectations with general government gross debt peaking at around 94% in 2014-15 would likely result in the stabilisation of the rating Outlook. In the absence of adverse shocks, Fitch does not expect to resolve the Negative Outlook until 2014. The agency's medium-term economic and fiscal projections are set out in a new Special Report on UK Public Finances, available at www.fitchratings.com. Fitch last formally reviewed the UK sovereign ratings on 14 March 2011 and has completed the current review in a manner consistent with its regulatory obligations. Contact: Primary Analyst Maria Malas-Mroueh Director +44 20 3530 1081 Fitch Ratings Limited 30 North Colonnade
London E14 5 GN Secondary Analyst David Riley Managing Director +44 (0)20 3530 1175 Tertiary Analyst Gergely Kiss Director +44 (0)20 3530 1425 Committee Chairperson Ed Parker Managing Director +44 20 3530 1176 Media Relations: Mark Morley, London, Tel: +44 0203 530 1526, E m a i l : mark.morley@fitchratings.com. Additional information is a v a i l a b l e a t www.fitchratings.com. The ratings above were unsolicited and have been provided by Fitch as a service to investors. Applicable criteria, Sovereign Rating Methodology dated August 2011 are available at www.fitchratings.com. Applicable Criteria and Related Research: Sovereign Rating Methodology ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/ UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRA TINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND
THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC W E B S I T E 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, C R I T E R I A A N D METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: The Most Stunning Part Of S&P's Downgrade Of Italy FITCH RAMPAGE: Rater Slashes Spain And Italy, Markets Tumbling Moody's Reiterates France's Aaa Rating With A Stable Outlook, But...
Economy/ Culture/
49
Is the Ten-Year going to 3%?

Bruce Krasting
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:21:45 PM
Courtesy of Bruce Krasting These two articles point in a bad direction: . . . Chinas 2011 total trade surplus was$183B. The surplus with the USA was $270B; the US was 150% of Chinas total surplus. China imports lots of stuff. Crude oil is high on that list. Increased domestic consumption, plus additional imports for strategic storage, have pushed up imports to 6 million barrels per day in February. At that rate, the 2012 import bill for crude will be $250B, approximately equal to the US trade deficit with China. The US/China trade deficit is creating USD surpluses for Chinas largest crude suppliers, Saudi Arabia. Angola and Iran are the largest providers. These countries are not Americas friends, and they already have too many dollars. When Americans shop at Wal-Mart, they are actually sending dollars to Iran. In 2012, it will come to about $25B of our money that ends up with the Ayatollahs. Welcome to the global village. As a result of the shrinking trade surplus and the need to import expensive crude, China does not have the investable dollars it once
had. So it is no longer buying US Treasuries at the previous fast pace. At the same time, the US Treasury is issuing debt at the rate of $100B a month. If the Chinese arent buying debt, then it must be sold to other dollar holders. Saudi Arabia may end up with more dollars in reserves as a result, but I dont think it will buy long-term bonds with this money. The money will stay in short-term securities. The Saudis will look at the 0.5% they can get on their money for 3-years (or the 5-year at 1%) and just say no. Let's return to the Bloomberg story and the seven-fold increase in bank holdings of Treasury paper: Commercial lenders purchased $78.2 billion of Treasuries and securities of agencies in January and February, compared with $62.6 billion in all of 2011, bringing their holdings to $1.78 trillion, Fed data show. It is a financial unnatural act when an A- rated bank can extend credit to a AA+ borrower and still make money in the process. This reverse credit arbitrage is made possible by the banks' willingness to "borrow short and lend long." The banks are doing it today because they have unlimited quantities of liquidity available to them through the repo markets at near zero cost. They are playing the carry trade. In the process,
contain long-term interest rates, the ten-year looks like it is headed to 3%. The Chinese are not buying, the banks are full up with paper (and underwater), PIMCO et al are long duration up the wazoo, and any thought that retail interest in five-year bonds at 1% will save the day is just they are loading up their balance misguided(dumb money is not sheets with low yielding assets, that dumb). and they are taking risks of rising Bernanke must be delighted rates. There is a limit to this. today. His strategy all along has As of this morning, many of been to inflate the S&P and let those US financials that own the rising asset values stimulate $1.8T of bonds are not so happy. economic growth. His unlimited The strong stock market, better supply of cheap money has economy and rising inflation worked. But it has stoked inflation expectations have clobbered the and that is now being transmitted bonds the past few days. Some to the bond market. may think that the ten-year at I think something has to give, 2.20% is a buy. But all I see in either stocks back off and the this chart is the air under the economy cools, or the ten-year is current price. headed to 3%. Bernanke cant . have it both ways. Hes about to . learn that lesson. Not surprisingly, inflation . expectations have picked up: . Average: . Your rating: None Average: 5( 4 . votes) T h e e a s y a n s w e r t o t h i s This entry passed through the conundrum is that the Fed will Full-Text RSS service if this is just keep buying more bonds to your content and you're reading it keep rates artificially low. I say it on someone else's site, please read c a n t d o t h a t . I f t h e F e d the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentannounced tomorrow that it was only/faq.php#publishers. Five going to TWIST the market to Filters recommends: Donate to keep the ten-year at 2%, crude Wikileaks. would rise to $150 in a month. Bernanke understands that. Absent a new move by the Fed to
Why is SXSW such a big deal?

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:30:00 PM
Hundreds of thousands of fans and journalists are flocking to Austin, Texas, for the combination movie-music-tech festival. How did it become such a phenomenon? Checked Twitter lately? If not, brace yourself for reams of breathless chatter about the sprawling southern "carnaval" known as South by Southwest (SXSW). Lasting until March 18, SXSW is a 10-day music, film, and interactive-technology festival that each year draws over 200,000 people fans and journalists alike to Austin, Texas. But what exactly is it, and what makes it so popular? Here, a brief guide: Full story at The Week. All the top stories from The Week. Permalink| Leave a comment
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Economy/
Commodities Crumble As Stocks Ignore Treasury Selling

Tyler Durden
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:59:26 PM
While most of the talk will be about the drop in precious metals today, the sell-off in Treasuries is of a much larger relative magnitude and yet equities broadly ignored this re-risking 'signal'. At almost 2.5 standard deviations, today's 10Y rate jump (closing it above the 200DMA for the first time in eight months) trumps the 1.3 standard deviation drop in Gold prices - taking prices back to mid-January levels. According to our data (h/t JL) for only the 14th time in the last five years (and not seen for 16 months) Treasury yields rose significantly and stocks fell as the broad gains in yesterday's financials (on the JPM rip) were held on to at the ETF level but not for Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, or Citigroup (who gave all the knee-jerk reaction back). Tech led the way as AAPL surged once again (though faltered a few times intraday) having now completed back-to-back unfilled gap-upopenings. Credit and equity were generally in sync until mid afternoon when the up-in-quality rotation took over and stocks and high-yield sold off (notably HYG - the high-yield bond ETF underperformed all day long) while investment grade credit
rallied to multi-month tights. VIX bounced higher (notably more than the S&P would have implied) recovering to Monday's closing levels and back above 15%. The Treasury sell-off was 'balanced' in terms of risk-on/-off by the strength in the USD (and modest weakness in FX carry pairs as JPY's weakness was largely in sync with the rest of the
majors - hinting its was a USD story). Oil and Copper both lost ground (as did Silver - the most on the day) though they tracked more in line with USD strength than the PMs. Post the JPM News yesterday, it appears that BofA seems the most loved(?) - up almost 9%, Amex and JPM are equally loved at around +5.5% but GS, MS, and C
are all down 0.25-1.0% from preJPM news having lost notably from last night's close... Towards the latter part of the afternoon, there was the start of a modest risk-off sentiment as ES (the e-mini S&P future) couldn't get back up to VWAP and drifted lower along with high-yield credit as it appears the 'safety' trade is re -appearing for now as up-in-
quality rotation into investment grade was clear... The 10Y broke above key technical levels and while we are uncertain given the corporate supply calendar ahead, this was a dramatic absolute and relative shock to most traders... The last two days have seen a rise in 10Y yields the likes of which we haven't seen in five months and the second largest in 16 months. In the last six months alone we have seen nine similar magnitude (percentage)drops in spot gold... ...but it was much more fun to talk about the huge USD-based drop in Gold today - as opposed to the relative change - but it is clear that Gold found some support back at pre-NFP levels from mid-January and Silver eventually gave way too and fell back to similar period levels... FX markets were a one way street in general today with USD buying relatively similar across all the majors (in a mildly risk-off manner given JPY crosses)... To put these divergences in CONTEXT, we can see from the lower chart that a) upper left shows the late-day recovery in HYG (and drop in VXX) that juiced relative risk model compared to the slow drop in COMMODITIES page 52
Economy/ Finance/
51
Ceridian Fuel Index Suggests "Recovery in Home Building has Not Yet Taken Hold"
noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mish Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
weakness of the PCI is signaling that, perhaps, the recovery in home building has not yet taken hold. The recent improvement in Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:23:00 PM The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of building permits and housing Commerce Index, a real-time starts may get building going measure of truck fuel usage, is up again and therefore, trucking as this month but down in its most well, as it has been said that it r e c e n t t h r e e m o n t h p e r i o d takes 17 truckloads to build a according to the March Pulse of home. If we get the saws and Commerce Report. hammers going again, we will The Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of have a real recovery with much C o m m e r c e I n d e x ( P C I ) , healthier job growth, said Ed issued today by the UCLA Leamer, chief economist for the Anderson School of Management C e r i d i a n - U C L A P u l s e o f and Ceridian Corporation, rose Commerce Index and Director of 0.7 percent in February but was the UCLA Anderson Forecast. not enough to offset the 1.7 Ceridian Truck Usage vs. All percent decline in the previous Petroleum Usage month. The most recent three- Regular Mish readers are not month period from December to surprised by this report as February is lower than the gasoline and petroleum demand previous three months from have collapsed. On March 10, I September to November 2011 by noted Another Plunge in 3-Month 3.2 percent at an annualized rate. Rolling Average of Petroleum and With the first two months of the Gasoline Usage. quarter known, the PCI must grow The following chart shows U.S. by over 4 percent from February petroleum and gasoline usage for to March to allow the PCI to grow December-February compared positively in the first quarter of with the same three months in 2012 compared with the last prior years. Chart is courtesy of quarter of 2011. The continuing reader Tim Wallace.
GDP is hovering at stall speed while those on fixed income are clobbered by rising fuel and food prices. This mirage won't last. I expect "real" (inflation-adjusted) GDP to take a nose-dive shortly unless home-building picks up sharply. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of Note that petroleum usage is back example, the more food stamps market direction. Visit http:// to December 1995 thru February the government hands out and the w w w . s i t k a p a c i f i c . c o m / 1996 levels. Gasoline usage is more bombs the US drops in account_management.html to back to December 2001 thru Afghanistan, the higher the GDP. l e a r n m o r e a b o u t w e a l t h February 2002 levels. Deficit spending is out of control, m a n a g e m e n t a n d c a p i t a l click on chart for sharper image and by definition, that adds to preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. Ceridian Index vs. GDP GDP. To help explain this apparent With trillion dollar deficits anomaly, note that government coupled with easy money from spending, no matter how useless, the Fed and central bankers is a direct add to GDP. For globally, the best we can say is
Apple to account for 10pc of US cash pile

Richard Blackden (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
Apple could account for more underlining the pressure the iPad than 10pc of the America's maker is under to return money to corporate cash pile by the end of shareholders. the year, according to Moody's,
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Economy/
Treasuries Hammered as "Operation Twist" Unwinds; Another Triumph of the 1% Over the 99%
noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mish Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:05:00 PM
COMMODITIES
On September 21, 2011 in a Federal Reserve Press Release the Fed announced "Operation Twist" purportedly to drive down longterm rates and drive up short-term rates. The Committee intends to purchase, by the end of June 2012, $400 billion of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years and to sell an equal amount of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less. This program should put downward pressure on longerterm interest rates and help make broader financial conditions more accommodative. The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate. Who Knew? "Curve Watcher's Anonymous" has a report that shows how banks profited by front-running of the
trade. Banks Front Run the Trade click on chart for sharper image Time to Cash Out click on chart for sharper image "Operation Twist" a Success or Failure? The stated goal of Operation Twist was to lower long-term rates and drive up short term rates. By that measure, the Fed's policy was a miserable failure. As the above charts show, 5-year, 10year, and 30-Year yields are all substantially higher than when the
SPY, b) the three charts on the right hand side shows the total disconnect between empirical correlation-driven risk models and today's price action as Treasuries (and 2s10s30s) dislocated, and c) lower left shows that VIX limped quietly up to what is more of a fair-value given the current levels hammered mercilessly by Fed of equities and credit. Whatever the reason for the policies is irrelevant as well. The Fed's real goal was not the disconnect - QE unwinds or stated mission, the real goal was individual market technicals to find still more ways to bail out (flows) - it is unusual to see this banks at taxpayer expense. The kind of break-down which makes Fed clearly succeeded in the real us think the picture is much less mission. This is yet another rosy than the S&P 1400ish triumph of the 1% over the 99%. headlines would suggest and the late-day rotation into IG credit Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / also suggests less risk-appetite globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. than the herd would like. Charts: Bloomberg and Capital com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Context Average: Recent Post List Mike Your rating: None Average: 4.5( "Mish" Shedlock is a registered 2 votes) program was announced on investment advisor representative This entry passed through the September 21. f o r S i t k a P a c i f i c C a p i t a l Full-Text RSS service if this is "Operation Pad Bank Profits" a Management. Sitka Pacific is an your content and you're reading it Stunning Success asset management firm whose on someone else's site, please read However, banks knew this goal is strong performance and the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentoperation was coming and played low volatility, regardless of only/faq.php#publishers. Five for it in advance. With the market direction. Visit http:// Filters recommends: Donate to program scheduled to end in June, w w w . s i t k a p a c i f i c . c o m / Wikileaks. it's time to take huge profits by account_management.html to selling the garbage back to the l e a r n m o r e a b o u t w e a l t h Fed. management and capital That yields are higher now than preservation strategies of Sitka when the Fed announced the Pacific. program is irrelevant. That those on fixed income have been
Economy/ Featured/ Culture/
53
Making It In The Chinese Market Is About To Get More Complicated

Aimee Groth (Money Game)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:30:00 PM
Urban Chinese consumers will double their discretionary income by 2020, according to a report by Yuval Atsmon and Max Magni at McKinsey, and that has huge implications for brands. Right now 82 percent of China's population consists of consumers who can just cover basic needs, which McKinsey calls "value" consumers, and only 6 percent are in the tier above that, or "mainstream" consumers. According to the report, by 2020, these numbers will shift dramatically, and the majority of the population will be mainstream. What does this mean for brands? A few things. First, companies can no longer view China as a single market. Its diverse mix of consumers, all with varying levels of purchasing power, means that " it should be treated almost as a collection of separate countries." Targeting the masses will no
longer work. According to Atsmon and Magni: Over the next decade, the game will change to take account of the emergence of different categories of consumers and their own sense of their differences and individuality. Companies will need the crispest value propositions to connect with each
group and to stand out from competitors. By 2020, they will have to position brands (or sub-brands) to target narrower consumer segments and offer more tailored value propositions. Brands extended across too many consumer segments and price points may struggle to defend
their market position. Hard though the transition could be, at some point companies that have focused on maximizing their brands scale will have to adopt a model based on a portfolio of more targeted brands or subbrands to connect with different consumer segments. Now read why Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent Says Women Are Its Most Important Market > Please follow War Room on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: McDonald's Says That It DOESN'T Want To Have The Most Stores In China McDonald's Dared To Mess With The McRib And Came Up With This Sandwich Why Mario Is The Most Popular Video Game Character Ever
"Most Quarrels Amplify a Misunderstanding." [Quotables]

Adam Dachis (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:00:00 PM
This quote comes from French author Andre Gide and serves as a reminder that getting angry and inciting an argument can often be the worst way to resolve a problem. More
How I organize with outliner

(Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:17:30 AM
Some projects only work if you
are systematic about note-taking. I'm really getting good at organizing development projects with the outliner. Thought it would be good to take
a screen shot to show to any MORE or ThinkTank users who might be lurking. So here's the screen shot. And this is what that same
document looks like on my website. Of course what you see when you click on the web link will be different from what you see in the
image, which is just a snapshot in time. The outline is dynamic and develops with the project I'm doing.
54
Culture/
Lee Strobel: Why Does God Allow Pain, Suffering?

(Christianpost.com > Most Popular)
survey that Mark [Mittelberg] did more recently where he asked Christians 'What are you afraid of being asked?' this was one of the (Photo: InCast Events via top questions as well," Strobel Christian Post) Speakers at said during the conference. a p o l o g e t i c s c o n f e r e n c e , He tackled the tough question of "Questions Christians Hope No pain and suffering during one of One Will Ask," include (L to R) several sessions that featured L e e S t r o b e l , C r a i g H a z e n , Mttelberg, who is his co-founder Douglas Groothuis, and Mark along with Strobel of The Institute Mittelberg, March 10, 2012. at Cherry Hills, an apologetics (Photo: Lee Strobel) and evangelism ministry, and scholars Craig Hazen and Douglas March 11, 2012| 9:25 am Groothuis. A few years ago, Christian Strobel said the question is raised apologist and author Lee Strobel by two different types of people. said that in doing research for his The first kind of person is one that book, The Case for Faith, he is presently going through pain asked the Barna Group research and suffering. organization to conduct a national Order Online: The Case for Faith survey among people across a "When someone is raising this spectrum of beliefs that asked that issue with me and I know they are hypothetical question. coming from that perspective I Strobel spoke about the results of know that they really don't want that survey at an apologetics the long, intellectual answer about conference Saturday from Cherry w h y G o d a l l o w s p a i n a n d Hills Community Church in suffering," he said. "When you are Highlands Ranch, Colo., and in the midst of suffering you are s i m u l c a s t t o m o r e t h a n 7 5 looking for someone to be Jesus churches throughout the U.S., to you. You are looking for Canada, and Australia. He was someone to love you and help one of four speakers at the event take care of you, and reach out to called, "The Questions Christians you. Hope No One Will Ask." "It's important for us to "By far, the number one question understand that when people raise that people wanted to ask God is this issue it's not always because ' W h y H e a l l o w s p a i n a n d of an intellectual curiosity," suffering in this world?' In the Strobel explained. "It's about their
own hurts and we need to be sensitive to that." There are other people that bring up the question because it is a legitimate intellectual question to ask, he said. "We don't have a complete answer. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says on this side of heaven we sort of see things dimly (paraphrase). We don't understand everything. We are not God," Strobel continued. "But, I believe that God has revealed enough to us that we do have enough of a satisfactory answer to minister to our hearts and souls to this particular question." Jesus was honest about this issue, he said. "There are Eastern religions that deny the reality of pain and suffering. They just try to wipe it away by saying it's all an illusion. Well, Jesus didn't call it an illusion. In John 16:33 Jesus said, 'In the world you are going to have tribulation.' You are going to have trouble. You are going to have pain. You are going to have suffering," Strobel insisted. "Why? Because we live in a sin scarred cosmos." Even though the issue of pain and suffering is a legitimate topic it does not negate all of the positive, affirmative evidence we have for the existence of God, he said. Strobel then asked, "So, what
does God reveal about this issue to us to help us process?" "The first thing is this. God is not the creator of evil, pain, and suffering. This answers the question, 'Why didn't God create a world where people don't suffer?' "The answer is He did. Genesis 1:31 says God saw all that He had made and it was very good," he continued. "But if God is not the author of pain and suffering where did it come from? God has existed from eternity past as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect harmony in relationship, the relationship of love that has gone on for eternity. "When God reached a decision He wanted to create humankind He wanted humankind to experience this greatest value in the universe, which is the value of love. Well, the only way we can experience and express love is if we have the free will to love or not to love," he said. Love always involves a choice, Strobel explained. "We human beings have abused our free will by rejecting God and by walking away from Him." The result has been evil entering the world and bringing pain and suffering by the wrong moral choices people make. The other type of evil is natural evil such as disasters, he said. "This is a sin-corrupted world, not
as God created it," he said. Another point made by Strobel on the topic is that although suffering is not good, "God can use it to accomplish good." Other questions discussed at the conference included: "What makes you think God exists at all?" "Why trust the Bible; isn't it full of mistakes?" "Jesus was a good man but the Son of God?" "Why choose Christianity over all the other religions?" "Is hell real and does God really send people there?" Mittelberg told The Christian Post before the conference that he and the other speakers wanted to instill in Christians the confidence that not only is the Christian faith true, but it is also defensible. "To know that we really do have, by God's grace, truth that stands up to scrutiny," Mittelberg said. "More than that, we hope this will encourage believers to move from just putting up a good defense (1 Peter 3:15) to actively getting on the offense (2 Corinthians 10:5) initiating conversations and lovingly showing their friends the evidence and logic that backs up our faith, and ultimately encouraging those friends to put their trust in Christ." LEE page 58
Culture/
55
FBI Can't Crack Android Pattern-Screen Lock

David Kravets (Wired Top Stories)
in the phone-cracking space agreed that the Android passcode locks can defeat unauthorized Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:19:00 PM intrusions. Pattern-screen locks on Android Its not unreasonable they dont phones are secure, apparently so have the capability to bypass that much so that they have stumped on a live device, said Dan t h e F e d e r a l B u r e a u o f Rosenberg, a consultant at Boston Investigation. -based Virtual Security Research. The bureau claims in federal A San Diego federal judge days court documents that forensics ago approved the warrant upon a experts performed multiple request by FBI Special Agent attempts to access the contents of Jonathan Cupina. The warrant a Samsung Exhibit II handset, but was disclosed Wednesday by failed to unlock the phone. security researcher Christopher An Android device requires the Soghoian, handsets Google e-mail address In a court filing, Cupina wrote: and its accompanying password to (.pdf) unlock the handset once too many Failure to gain access to the wrong swipes are made. The cellular telephones memory was bureau is seeking that information caused by an electronic pattern via a court-approved warrant to l o c k p r o g r a m m e d i n t o t h e Google in order to unlock a cellular telephone. A pattern lock s u s p e c t e d S a n D i e g o - a r e a is a modern type of password prostitution pimps mobile phone. installed on electronic devices, ( F o r d e t a i l s o n t h e p i m p typically cellular telephones. To investigation, check out Ars unlock the device, a user must Technicas story on the case.) move a finger or stylus over the Locking down a phone is even keypad touch screen in a precise more important today than ever pattern so as to trigger the because smart phones store so previously coded un-locking much personal information. mechanism. Entering repeated Whats more, many states, incorrect patterns will cause a i n c l u d i n g C a l i f o r n i a , g r a n t lock-out, requiring a Google eauthorities the right to access a mail login and password to suspects mobile phone, without a override. Without the Google ewarrant, upon arrest for any mail login and password, the crime. cellular telephones memory can Forensic experts and companies not be accessed. Obtaining this
technology, which it advertises as a means to fast and thorough forensic data extraction from mobile devices. But that software, she said in a telephone interview, is not going to work on a locked device. All of which is another way of saying those Android screen locks are a lot stronger than one might suspect. It was not immediately clear whether the iPhones locking system is as powerful as its Android counterpart. But the iPhones passcode has been defeated with simple hacks, the latest of which was revealed in October 2010. Clearly, the bureau is none too happy about having to call in Google for help. The warrant requires Google to turn over Samsungs default code in verbal or written instructions for overriding the pattern lock installed on the Samsung model SGH-T679. Google spokesman Chris Gaither would not say if Google would information from Google, per the physical components inside if challenge any aspect of the issuance of this search warrant, your looking to get access. warrant. Google, he said, does not will allow law enforcement to However, that runs the risk of comment on specific cases. gain access to the contents of the damaging the phones innards, Like all law-abiding companies, memory of the cellular telephone and preventing any data recovery. we comply with valid legal in question. Linda Davis, a spokeswoman for process. Whenever we receive a Rosenberg, in a telephone forensics-solutions company request we make sure it meets i n t e r v i e w , s u g g e s t e d t h e Logicube of suburban Los authorities could dismantle a Angeles, said law enforcement is FBI page 57 phone and extract data from the a customer of its CellXtract
56
Culture/
Schuller Coleman Breaks Away From Crystal Cathedral

Crystal Cathedral pastor told congregants that regular Sunday services will continue in the famed glass building and Sheila Schuller Coleman, the members were free to decide firstborn child of Robert H. and where they would like to be next A r v e l l a S c h u l l e r a n d t h e Sunday morning, according to Executive Director of Ministry The Orange County Register. "We and Mission at the Crystal are very sad, very sorry about Cathedral video address released this," Pastor Emeritus Juan Carlos on Nov. 17, 2011. Ortiz, who began the Hispanic ( P h o t o : R E U T E R S / A l e x ministry for the Crystal Cathedral, G a l l a r d o ) A v i e w o f t h e was quoted as saying. "I hope Millennial Memorial Wall on the they both have success those grounds at the Crystal Cathedral who stay and those who leave." in Garden Grove, California The split comes a day after the August 10, 2011. founder and his wife, Arvella Schuller, announced their March 12, 2012| 8:48 am resignation from the board of the Hope Center of Christ will be the megachurch, saying they had lost name of the church. Coleman, a hope of settling disputes with daughter of Crystal Cathedral d i r e c t o r s o v e r c o p y r i g h t founder Dr. Robert H. Schuller, infringement and payment for expects to find a location for her services in a positive atmosphere. breakaway church this week. Coleman said Jim Penner, former She said in a video message executive producer from the posted on the church's new "Hour of Power" television website that they would announce program, and Scott and Debbie where the new church will meet Smith, who headed the church's for worship in the next few days. music program, were coming with It would not be more than five or her to the new church. 10 minutes from the old building, Like us on Facebook she added. Penner appeared alongside Soon after her announcement, a Coleman in the video posted on
hopecenteroc.org. He said they would soon spread their mission around the world by television and the Internet. The landmark campus of the Crystal Cathedral now belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County after an agreement in February for a $57.5 million sale on a court's order. The megachurch had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October 2010. Crystal Cathedral can continue to worship on the campus for three years for $100,000 a month during the first year and $150,000 for the following two years. In 2015, the congregation is expected to move out of the campus, which will then serve as the spiritual home of the 1.2 million Catholics in Orange County. After the founder handed over the leadership of the Crystal Cathedral to his family in 2008, the megachurch faced numerous challenges, including a growing debt and a leadership struggle. Schuller founded the church with a $500 loan over 55 years ago. In her final message at the Crystal Cathedral, Coleman reminded the dwindling
congregation that despite the sale, they have not lost their "house." "Where is God's house? Let us never mistake property for God's house God's house that He wants all of us to remain focused on is eternal," she said, stressing that their home is in heaven with Jesus. "Nothing can take that away from us. That is never ever ever for sale because it's already been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed. "I have good news for you today your escrow on your eternal home has closed!" "If God allowed me and my family and all of us to go through the pain in the last couple of years to just learn that lesson and hear that message today, that escrow's closed, you don't have to worry about it, you've been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
To cut calories, stick with onepot meals

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:32:00 PM
The more food choices served at a meal, the more a person will eat, according to new research that finds single-dish meals like soup, stew, or stir-fry cut down on the amount of food and calories consumed. The study adds to a growing body of research that indicates the environment plays a powerful role in determining how much we eat. Its the only explanation of why were getting fatter, says David Levitsky, professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology at Cornell University. Our biology has not been changing over the past 40 or 50 years, but our weight certainly has. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Permalink| Leave a comment
Culture/
57
Seven Facts a Wife Should Consider About Her Husband

March 13, 2012| 10:45 am #1 As a wife you should never, I MEAN EVER, underestimate the power of your words in regards to how you speak to your husband. You should be his PRIMARY source of encouragement. The words you speak to him and about him in front of others carry more weight than you could EVER imagine! (I wrote about that specifically in this post entitled, "What A Wife Should NEVER Do," I would strongly encourage every woman to read it!) #2 A woman who attempts to manipulate/control her husband through emotional outbursts, crying and temper tantrums is NOT focused on what is best for the marriage but rather obsessed with getting her waywhich always leads to division in the marriage relationship. (See Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 19:13, Proverbs 21:9, Proverbs 21:19,
Proverbs 25:24, Proverbs 27:15!) (ANDbtwa woman who is emotionally out of control is always out of control in another area of her lifeit just usually becomes obvious in her emotions!) #3 Your husband should NEVER be the object of your worshipyou will crush him under that weight! He is a manhe is going to do something dumb, he's going to say something insensitive and he's not going to fulfill your every need/desire. Your primary focus should be on the LORDand as you grow in your love for HIM you should constantly beg HIM to allow you to see your husband through HIS EYES!!! (I promise you this will significantly impact your marriage!) #4 Every man wants to know that he can trust his wife. Be trustworthy! It takes a man longer to be open with his heart/ feelingsand when he opens up you need to be trusted with that
information. If you take what he tells you and use it as a conversation piece with your girlfriends and he finds out it is going to be incredibly difficult for him to trust you in the future. Like us on Facebook #5 Your husband cannot read your mind. He cannot understand how you feel. This isn't a gameit's marriage. If something is wrong then select the right moment, speak the truth in love and do not attack him when you share what is on your heart. The goal isn't to win an argument but solve the problem. #6 How you speak about him in front of your children either sets him up for success or failure as a father. If you constantly tear him down to your kids then they will see him as you see him, have no respect for him and in the future when you need him to help out with explanation or discipline your children will not listen to him because of the foundation of disrespect that you put down.
#7 Your character is the most important quality in your life in regards to what your husband wants/needs the most from you (see Proverbs 31:10-12!) Spend as much time developing yourself internally as you do in regards to external appearances! Perry Noble is the founding and senior pastor of NewSpring Church which has campuses in Anderson, Columbia, Florence, and Greenville, South Carolina. At ten years old, the church averages over 10,000 people across all campuses. You can find Perry online at perrynoble.com or on twitter@perrynoble. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Mockingjays and Archers' Arrows: The Hunger Games Quiz

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
FBI
both the letter and spirit of the law before complying, he said in an e -mail. If we believe a request is overly broad, we will seek to narrow it. Photo: Mike Dent/Flickr This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Lucky you! Youve been chosen by the Capitol to represent your District in The Hunger Games Quiz. Are you ready for a challenge that will test your knowledge of the book, the making of the movie and the author's writing process? In the words of Effie Trinket, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Earn a point for every right answer! Save your score at the end of the quiz. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
58
Culture/
Analyst Stands by Report: Samsung Only iPad Display Maker Shipping En Masse
Christina Bonnington (Wired Top Stories)
consumer interest is increasing shipping delays, or if production isnt ramping up quickly enough Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:18:00 PM overseas. The new iPad has a highProducing a 2048 x 1536 display resolution Retina display. Photo: is a technical challenge by any Christina Bonnington/Wired measure, so Apples suppliers Wired reported Friday that only may be experiencing a brand new one display manufacturer, set of issues. And one analyst says Samsung, was supplying Apple sales thus far have already broken with the Retina display for its new Apples records, but definitive pre iPad. Although a conflicting -order numbers arent yet known. report from Reuters has surfaced The third-generation iPad goes on today, IHS iSuppli analyst Vinita sale at Apple Stores starting at 8 Jakhanwal stands by what she a.m. on Friday, March 16. originally told us. In last weeks Wired reached out for comment article, she said, Meeting prefrom Samsung and LG. Samsung order demand is still a concern. A told us it has nothing to comment, single display supplier doing this the matter says both LG and sources for display of the new soon, in April. and we hadnt yet heard from LG will be challenging. S a m s u n g a r e i n f u l l s w i n g iPad, and we are maintaining that. Shipping date estimates for the by press time. O u r F r i d a y s t o r y w a s producing the high-resolution We havent changed our position new iPad have recently slipped: This entry passed through the corroborated on Tuesday by a display. from there. All three suppliers Customers ordering today are Full-Text RSS service if this is Bloomberg report that also quoted Its becoming a case of he-said, have been working to reach mass facing two- to three-week delivery your content and you're reading it Jakhanwal. And thus began wide she-said, but after the Reuters volume production to meet the waits, suggesting demand is on someone else's site, please read speculation over whether Apple report was published, Jakhanwal launch of new iPad, but at this intense, and supplies are limited. the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentwould be able to fulfill demand reiterated her statement from point, its likely that the most Demand for major new Apple only/faq.php#publishers. Five for its third-generation tablet. F r i d a y , t e l l i n g W i r e d t h e volumes may be coming from products like the iPhone and iPad Filters recommends: Donate to But the story took a 180-degree following in a phone interview: Samsung. LG and Sharp are likely is always extremely high, making Wikileaks. turn early today when Reuters Apple has likely qualified three to pick up volume production it difficult to tell whether sheer reported that a source close to
LEE
Strobel and Mittelberg plan to lead another conference called " Unpacking Atheism" in October that will also be available to churches interested in hosting a simulcast.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five
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Culture/ Featured/
59
This March Madness Bracket Changes the Channel

Tim Carmody (Wired Top Stories)
navigate between games across divisions and networks using a familiar interface. On the iPad Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:15:00 PM app, its a full, continually Connecticut's Alex Oriakhi loses updated interactive bracket with the ball as Kentucky's Josh all 67 games in the tournament, Harrellson defends during an from the First Four to the NCAA NCAA Final Four semifinal game championship. At home, you can in 2011. Photo: David J. Phillip/ track scores and teams, switch Associated Press directly to live games, drill down T h e N C A A b a s k e t b a l l for more information or set a tournament is always chaotic on DVR to record games in advance. the court. Its chaotic for fans, Xfinity also has a microsite too. Last year, early rounds in the where remote subscribers can mens tournament were spread stream all 67 NCAA games, over four networks. Its hard whether theyre airing live on enough to keep up with whos CBS or one of three Turner playing, whats happening and channels: TNT, TBS or the upstart how the games relate to one TruTV. (Womens tournament another without needing a channel games are likewise available, guide along with your tournament through ESPN and its networks.) bracket. Even though a chunk of the This year, Comcasts Xfinity TV games are on cable networks only, Sports Remote app for iOS blends you dont have to be a Comcast, the bracket and the remote. It lets or even a cable, subscriber to viewers on Comcasts network watch online. The NCAA is
offering its own March Madness Live subscriptions to watch all 67 games on your computer, phone or tablet for just $3.99. When it comes to sports streaming, Apples gadgets get all the love; only select Android phones are supported by March
Madness Live. Xfinity TV Sports is iOS-only. But I think Comcasts app is more interesting than just employing mobile platform or web streaming. ( All that weve seen before.) Instead, its a real two-screen experience, one that
understands that we use our second, mobile screens for lots of different tasks watching games while away from the living room, planning our schedules, using them as smart remotes, and especially organizing and keeping tabs on information. Thats what sports is; its not just spectacle, but spectacle with structure and consequences. The more ways we can leverage digital technology to augment that experience, the better. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
How I organize with my outliner

Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:18:45 AM
I'm really getting good at organizing development projects with the outliner. Here's the screen shot.
Thought it would be good to show to any MORE or ThinkTank users who might be lurking. And this is what that same document looks like on my website. Of course what you see when you click on the web link will be
different from what you see in the image, which is just a snapshot in time. The outline is dynamic and develops with the project I'm doing. BTW, to people who develop outliners, the interface is OPML and HTTP. It will definitely be
possible for any outliner to hook into this content system. And that's the plan, to bootstrap the writing tools and the website in tandem. Some projects only work if you are systematic about note-taking.
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Culture/ Food/
Angelina Jolie Tours Happy Amsterdam by Boat Pi(e) With Shiloh and Zahara Day!
Allie Merriam (PopSugar)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:54:00 PM
(Cooking Light: Editor's Picks)

Submitted at 3/14/2012 10:21:55 AM
iTunes 1080p vs. Bluray: Surprisingly Close, But Not Perfect [Video]
Whitson Gordon (Lifehacker)
10th the size, that's not bad at allplus you don't have to do the Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:15:00 PM work of ripping it yourself. The Apple has started filling the one other big difference is that iTunes Store with higher quality, Blu-Ray discs contain a channel 1080p versions of movies, and of DTS-HD audio, which is despite the fact that they're nearly higher quality than iTunes' Dolby 1/10th the size of their Blu-Ray Digital 5.1 and stereo AAC counterparts, Ars Technica found tracks, so if you're an audiophile, that the quality is almost as good. Blu-Ray gets another point in that Sharpness and color reproduction category as well. Hit the link to (Cooking Light: Editor's Picks) were just about on par, though see the full rundown, complete Submitted at 3/14/2012 11:22:14 AM iTunes lost a bit of detail in grainy with many more comparison shots and had lots of issues with shots. [Ars Technica] More Meat loaf, once the pride and triumph of the thrifty American dark gradients (at least in the one housewife, now pops up, fancymovie they tested). Still, for 1/ pants style, in urban hot spots. It's souped up with exotic chiles, tahini, or truffle oil. It gets the royal treatment: Anyone for Foie Gras--Stuffed Kobe Beef Meat
Angelina Jolie took daughters Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Zahara JoliePitt on a boat ride along Amsterdam's canals this afternoon. The girls were seen making funny faces as they wound through the city, and even had a fancy table set up for a meal. Angelina spent time with her girls following a serious morning. Angelina went to the International Criminal Court to see the conclusion of a Congolese rebel leader accused of using child soldiers. It was the latest stop on her humanitarian events schedule. Last week, she spoke about issues affecting females
With crust above and below, this classic apple pie offers ample flaky crispness as a counterpoint to the soft, moist, tart-sweet filling. View Recipe: Double-Crusted Apple Pie Next Spring Strawberry Pie globally at NYC's Women in the This entry passed through the World summit. Then Angelina Full-Text RSS service if this is was off to New Orleans, where your content and you're reading it she helped Brad Pitt raise funds on someone else's site, please read for his Make It Right foundation the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentat their star-studded charity gala. only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to View Slideshow Wikileaks.
Best Meat Loaf Recipes

Loaf? But at heart, it's humble food. Our goal here was to cut fat while staying true to the Essence of the Loaf. Then we tried it Italian-style. Then we decided to try a vegetarian version... more about that later. To start off, we updated the classic recipe by adding cheddar cheese and tangy buttermilk. View Recipe: All-American Meat Loaf Next Vegetable "Meat" Loaf This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Culture/ Products/ Finance/ Talk/
61
Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman Stroll Hand in Hand Through Paris
Katie Henry (PopSugar)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:05:41 PM
EBay Dubs Booze "Incidental Contents" If You're Selling Collectible Containers

Mary Beth Quirk (The Consumerist)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:00:00 PM
Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman visited Paris's Tuileries gardens today and strolled around the historic property while holding hands and taking in the picturesque atmosphere. The engaged couple touched down in France on Monday and later met up with friends. Drew stepped out yesterday with a girlfriend, and the pair wandered off on their own shopping excursion that included a stop at Chanel. Will has personal ties to the luxury retailer since his dad, Arie, previously held the rank of president at Chanel. The vacation
Hello, officer! Why yes, this is a jug of moonshine, but that's not booze inside. It's "incidental contents." That's what eBay calls liquor if you're trying to sell it, but don't try auctioning off that pack hasn't stopped Will and Drew of wine coolers you bought while from keeping up their fitness drunk last week. There's an routine. Drew was spotted leaving important disclaimer you've got to a yoga class this morning while include if you're shilling booze Will went for a jog through Paris. er, incidental contents. As one Consumerist reader points View Slideshow out, eBay lays down the law pretty precisely for "Alcoholrelated collectibles." According to the rules: The following disclaimer must be posted word for word in your item
description. It must be in the same font size as the rest of the description. Each of the following conditions must be met in order to list alcohol-related collectibles on our website: - The value of the item is in the collectible container, not its contents. - The container has not been opened and any incidental contents are not intended for consumption. - The item is not available at any retail outlet. - The seller will take all appropriate steps to ensure that the buyer is of lawful age in the buyer's and seller's jurisdiction. In general, this is 21 years of age. - Both the buyers and sellers ensure that the sale complies with
all applicable laws and shipping regulations The key terms to note here are that it can't be available at a retail outlet and the value of the item must be the container, not the booze inside it. Oh, and you're not supposed to drink what's in there. So, have fun with that. Although, all these liquor offerings don't seem to be on sale for their bottles. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Welcome to the new muppet show at Goldman Sachs

Telegraph Staff (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:26:11 PM
TED: Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of selftranscendence - Jonathan Haidt (2012)
TEDTalks (TEDTalks (video))
Submitted at 3/14/2012 10:04:35 AM
and discovered he had a conscience, swapping his career for five minutes of fame? Or the clients of Goldman Sachs?
So, who's the muppet? The investment banker who woke up
transcendence? Why do we attempt to lose ourselves? In a tour through the science of Psychologist Jonathan Haidt asks evolution by group selection, he a simple, but difficult question: proposes a provocative answer. why do we search for self-
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Politics-Left/
Annan wants clarification on Syria peace deal

(AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:20:21 PM
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad gained ground in the cities of Idlib and Deraa, intensifying efforts to crush an uprising approaching its first anniversary with no negotiated settlement in sight. The UN-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, said on Wednesday he had received a reply from Damascus to peace proposals that he had laid out at the weekend, and wanted further clarifications. "But given the grave and tragic situation on the ground, everyone must realise that time is of the essence," Ahmad Fawzi, his spokesperson, said in a statement from Geneva. Annan will brief the UN Security Council on Friday. With the anniversary of the revolt falling on March 15 and diplomatic efforts to end the violence ineffective thus far, the Syrian army appears to be gaining the upper hand. It has overrun some opposition strongholds and multiplying attacks others this week, sweeping opposition fighters from the northwestern city of Idlib and sent up to 130 tanks and armoured
vehicles to the southern city of Deraa. "They are hitting the birthplace of our revolution," a resident of Deraa, who only identified himself as Mohammed for fear of reprisals, said. The city lies adjacent to Jordan and was the site of some of the first protests against Assad a year ago. "Houses are being hit with random bombardment from gunfire, RPGs and anti-aircraft missiles," he said of the city, in which 13 civilian and seven opposition fighters were killed on Wednesday, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Sectarian divisions Diplomats have warned that Syria, riven by sectarian divisions, will descend into a Balkans-style civil war unless a political solution can be found. Its economy is already in tatters and its ties with old Arab allies are in shreds. Official Syrian media accused "armed terrorists" on Wednesday of massacring 15 civilians, including young children, in a pro-government district of the central city of Homs, which has been the focal point of much fighting in recent weeks.
said. The anti-government fighters have received little help from the Syrian opposition in exile, the Syrian National Council, who are yet to prove to foreign powers that they can lead and unify Assad's foes inside and outside the country. Reports from Syria cannot be during the past 12 months, of On Tuesday, three prominent independently verified as the whom around 30,000 have sought opposition members resigned authorities deny access to rights safety abroad. from the Syrian National Council, groups and journalists. Syrians displaced by the fighting saying they have given up on In the talks at the weekend, streamed into Turkey early on trying to make the group a more Annan presented Assad with a Wednesday, saying they had been effective player. five-point plan to end the fighting. warned that their villages in the Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, a wellSyria said on Wednesday it had neighbouring province of Idlib k n o w n S N C m e m b e r , t o l d given a "positive" response to the would soon be targeted by the reporters on Wednesday that the approach. army. SNC was "not effective and ... A Middle Eastern diplomat "They are bombing Idlib. They inactive on an international and characterised the reply from are bombing the city. They have domestic level," and called for the D a m a s c u s a s " n o t a ' N o ' " . tanks and they have rockets," restructuring of the 270-member H o w e v e r , a d d i n g t o t h e Abdul Samad, one of the refugees group. uncertainty, a senior Western waiting for help at a fog-bound This entry passed through the diplomat in the region told the border post, said. Full-Text RSS service if this is R e u t e r s n e w s a g e n c y t h a t A Western diplomatic source told your content and you're reading it Damascus had rejected Annan's Reuters that, while Assad could on someone else's site, please read suggestions. snuff out pockets of resistance, the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentThousands displaced the opposition fighters were only/faq.php#publishers. Five A s t h e a r m y c r a c k d o w n simply pulling back and blending Filters recommends: Donate to progresses, a growing number of into the background. Wikileaks. Syrians are seeking to escape the "I feel the conflict will last a long violence. time and fear that it will get a lot The UN refugee agency said on bloodier than it is now. That's Tuesday that some 230,000 why we have to keep pushing the Syrians had fled their homes diplomacy and the sanctions," he
Politics-Left/ Sports/
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DR Congo's Lubanga found guilty by ICC

Llodra fined by ATP Tour for verbal abuse Miami Herald

(- Bing News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:16:47 PM
been the leader of the military wing of the UPC, known as the Submitted at 3/14/2012 8:54:03 AM Patriotic Forces for the Liberation The International Criminal Court of Congo (FPLC). He denied the (ICC) has found Congolese rebel charges against him and said he leader Thomas Lubanga guilty of was a political leader. OTHER recruiting and using child soldiers A F R I C A N LEADERS during the final years of the ACCUSED OF WAR CRIMES Democratic Republic of Congo's AT THE ICC 1998-2003 war. Prosecutors said that Lubanga's Lubanga, 51, on Wednesday role in the conflict was driven by became the first suspect on whom a desire to maintain and expand t h e N e t h e r l a n d s - b a s e d his control over Ituri, one of the international court has delivered a world's most lucrative goldverdict since it was established a mining territories. decade ago. They alleged that the FPLC under The former leader of the Union Lubanga's control abducted of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an children as young as 11 from their ethnic Hema group, was charged homes, schools and football with recruiting and using child fields. soldiers in northeastern DR No conviction for sexual violence Congo. He had been held at The Carla Ferstman, director of Hague since 2006 and went on Redress, a London based human trial in 2009. rights organisation, said the ruling "The chamber reached its decision was an important one that might unanimously that the prosecution help discourage the use of child has proved Thomas Lubanga soldiers. guilty of crimes of conscription "We hope that this will have a and enlisting children under the deterrent effect in the DRC, the age of 15 and used them to r e s t o f A f r i c a , A s i a , a n d participate in hostilities," said e l s e w h e r e , " s h e s a i d . Adrian Fulford, the presiding The children were taken to judge. military training camps, where A l J a z e e r a ' s T i m F r i e n d , they were beaten and drugged. reporting from The Hague, said: Girls among them were used as "He will be sentenced at a later sex slaves, prosecutors told the date; he could be imprisoned for court. life." In his ruling, the judge noted Lubanga was alleged to have there was a lot of evidence
relating to the rape and sexual violence against the girls that were conscripted into the army. However, he said he was unable to make any ruling on this because the prosecution had not included these charges when it initially filed its case. Ferstman said rights activists were "disappointed" that no conviction had been made for the extensive sexual violence. During 204 days of hearings, prosecutors called 36 witnesses, the defence 24 and three represented victims. Lubanga's lawyers accused the prosecution of fabricating false evidence with the help of intermediaries used by the prosecution to find witnesses, and claimed that individuals were paid to give false testimony. Al Jazeera's Haru Mutasa, reporting from the DR Congo, said there were areas of the country where Lubanga still enjoyed popular support that viewed the ICC with suspicion. "There is a resentment towards the ICC, as they feel Lubanga was unfairly targeted," our correspondent said. "But for the victims in the east, they will be happy. Overall, there are mixed feelings over the case of Lubanga." The ICC, the world's only independent, permanent tribunal
to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, has issued four arrest warrants for crimes in DR Congo since opening its doors at The Hague in 2003 and is investigating seven cases, all based in Africa. Lubanga is one of 20 suspects who have been the subject of arrest warrants from the ICC. Others include Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan leader, several members of the Sudanese government, including President Omar alBashir, and Joseph Kony, the fugitive Ugandan leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. Lead prosecutor MorenoOcampo has rejected criticism that the cases focus too much on Africa. "Our office has a mandate to prosecute the worst crimes in the world where no one is investigating," he told the Reuters news agency. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -Michael Llodra of France left the BNP Paribas Open a little lighter in his wallet after being fined $2,500 by the ATP Tour for verbal abuse during a match. The incident occurred during Llodra's first-round match against Ernests Gulbis of Latvia last week. During Llodra's three-set victory, he was heard by a reporter to have said some racial epithets toward a group of fans. The tournament later fined Llodra in accordance with ATP rules. A tournament spokesman says Llodra was also verbally abusive toward the ballkids. Llodra later retired with a knee injury from his second-round match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He is scheduled to play in next week's Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
64
Politics-Left/
Obama: Syria military intervention premature

Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:43:43 PM
President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron also discussed Iran's alleged nuclear plan [Reuters] President Barack Obama has said the prospect of international military intervention in Syria is premature and could lead to a civil war. Speaking at a White House news conference on Wednesday, Obama said military intervention could lead to more deaths in Syria. Obama says he and David Cameron, the British prime minister, discussed possible "immediate steps'' their countries could take in order to make sure humanitarian aid is being provided to the Syrian people. The United Nations has estimated that more than 7,500 people have been killed in a year-long struggle between President Bashar alAssad's regime and opposition forces. The two leaders also outlined plans to shift the NATO war effort in Afghanistan toward a back-seat advisory role while Afghan forces increasingly take the lead, but stressed that the two nations remain committed to the mission there. Obama gave his fullest
endorsement yet for the mission shift, but he said the overall plan to gradually withdraw forces and hand over security in Afghanistan will stand. Obama said he anticipates no "sudden, immediate changes to the plan we already have", for bringing forces home. 'Next phase'
The US and Britain have the largest fighting forces in Afghanistan, where the combat is in its 11th year. The US, Britain and other NATO nations have already agreed to keep forces in the country through 2014, when Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, will leave office. "At the upcoming NATO summit
in my hometown of Chicago, we'll determine the next phase of transition,'' Obama said following a private meeting at the White House with visiting David Cameron, the British prime minister. "This includes shifting to a support role next year in 2013 in advance of Afghans taking full
responsibility for security in 2014. We're going to complete this mission and we're going to do it responsibly.'' Obama acknowledged the drop in public support at home for the war. "People get weary", after long OBAMA: page 65
Products/ News Photos
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OBAMA:
wars, the president said, but he also said he thinks most people in both the US and Britain understand the reasons for continuing the fight. Cameron, who joined Obama for a joint Rose Garden news conference, said security is better in Afghanistan and he praised the US strategy to add more than 30,000 forces in a "surge'' against the Taliban-led militants in 2009. "The situation is considerably improved,'' Cameron said, and the goal of keeping Afghanistan from again becoming a terrorist haven is achievable by the end of 2014. Iran discussed Following the summer fighting season, Obama said NATO allies would look at how to continue drawing down forces at a gradual pace. The Obama-Cameron meeting came in advance of May's NATO summit in Chicago, where a
decision on the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan is expected to be confirmed. The White House discussions follow the weekend killings of 16 Afghan civilians, allegedly by a lone US soldier, and the deaths of six British troops last week in a roadside bomb blast, the largest loss of life in a single incident for British forces in Afghanistan since 2006. On Iran, Obama insisted there is still "time and space'' for a diplomatic solution, in lieu of a military strike to set back Iran's progress toward a possible bomb, but said "the window for diplomacy is shrinking". "We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,'' Obama said, adding that he had sent a message "personally'' to the Iranian leadership that it should re-enter international arms talks in good
faith. "Tehran must understand that it cannot escape or evade the choice before it. Meet your international obligations or face the consequences.'' The White House lavished Cameron with all the pomp and pageantry of a state visit as the two allies aimed stressed their unity in dealing with hot spots like Iran, Syria and Afghanistan. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
In Honor Of Pi Day... Puns! : Woot Weads The Wire

(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 11:00:00 AM
PHOTOS: Charlize Theron - 9NEWS.com

(news photos - Google News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:11:27 PM
9NEWS.com PHOTOS: Charlize Theron 9NEWS.com ( Photo by Kevork Djansezian/
Getty Images) SAN DIEGO, CA - Images) NEW YORK,... JULY 21: Actress Charlize Charlize Theron Adopts a Baby Theron speaks at 20th Century Boy! ( PHOTOS) Celebuzz Fox Panel at the San Diego all 357 news articles Convention Center on July 21, 2011 in San Diego, California. ( Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty
WICHITA, Kan. ( UPI) -- A Kansas legislative committee declined to hear a bill naming the Every week in this space, well cairn terrier as the official state take a look at the news and offer dog, stopping its progress for the o u r o w n i n c i s i v e b l e n d o f current session. commentary, analysis, and poop Shortly thereafter legislators jokes. The news you need, from a posed for photos to commemorate voice you can trust, in the 90 their small victory over the terrier seconds you have to spare: thats -ists. Woot Weads the Wire. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. ( SARASOTA, Fla. ( UPI) -- The UPI) -- Regina Dugan, director of giant Lego man that washed up on the U.S. Defense Advanced a Florida beach has been released Research Projects Agency, is by police after going 90 days leaving to take a post at Google, without an official claimant. the Internet search giant confirms. While police are still suspicious, Google has already increased they say there's no solid evidence security around the post, which the Lego man is connected to any they describe as vital to the lovely Duplo-city. white fence out near their garden. WEST ST. PAUL, Minn. ( UPI) - CAPE TOWN, South Africa ( - Retailers across the United UPI) -- A science panel says it has States said a Minnesota man's recommended South Africa to be Tide laundry detergent theft spree the location for an enormous radio is part of a larger nationwide telescope known as the Square trend. Kilometer Array. Financial experts say that tax Square fans are already excited season generally does raise about where they might be finding i n t e r e s t i n i l l e g a l m o n e y the chocobo. laundering.
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TV/
Tom Murro: Cosmo Honors the Somewhat Fun and Fearless

Tom Murro (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:54:29 PM
It was a fun night at the Mandarin Hotel in New York City to honor some of the most interesting men and women from the past 12 months. Celebrities gathered on the red carpet last week for the 15th annual Fun Fearless Awards presented by Cosmopolitan Magazine. Upon entering, I quickly found myself striking a pose with Freida Pinto (while she freshened her lipstick) for a few photogs before she hit the red carpet. Also on the carpet was Dakota Fanning, who is all grown up now and very sweet, although I'm not too sure she has done anything all that fun or fearless yet. Chatting with Fanning proved to be a little difficult, as she was surrounded by about 10 people and tight security. Fear not! Difficult is by no means impossible. After watching the celebrity guests parade down the red carpet we were all directed toward the cocktail hour held on the 35th floor which was noticeably lacking of anyone fun or fearless, at least where the VIPs were concerned. I guess they must have had their own little gathering somewhere in the back. The dinner portion of the night held in
the grand ballroom on the 36th floor was another story entirely. Dinner was an event unto itself (and healthy enough for Moneyball co-star Jonah Hill to still be able to stick to his diet). It started with an autumn green salad with pears, goat cheese and dried cherries with a light maple vinaigrette. The main course was burgundy- braised beef with
horseradish gremolata. Dessert was a light raspberry tart with Patron Citronge liqueur. Leading the list as "Fun Fearless Male of the Year 2012" was Australian actor, Sam Worthington who said, "Well, you think you know who you are in your 20s. When I was in my 20s, I thought I knew who I was. And then as soon as I turned 30, I
Fearless Female of the Year 2012" was the super cute Dakota Fanning, who said of her win, "Since I was young, I've always known who I was. I never really had to go through finding who I am. I've always felt really secure." Another honoree that night, Paul Rudd, entered the stage and said "When I told my wife that I won a Fun and Fearless Male Award, she said, 'I'm not going to go to that dinner with you, because if I did, that would in some way validate and acknowledge this giant falsehood," he explained in his acceptance speech. He went on to say "Actually, it's just because the babysitter bailed on us (that she's not here), but I know the truth." Other winners in attendance included Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Jonah Hill, Liam Hemsworth and Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. Musical guest for the evening, Robin Thicke, performed a few songs to the delight of a crowd of realized that person has bruises screaming girls, and dedicated and bumps and dark parts. And "Lost Without You" to Paul Rudd you kind of go, well, that's it. I'd and Jonah Hill. Rudd and Hill rather embrace it than force embraced each other and danced m y s e l f t o c h a n g e . A n d b y romantically before taking to the embracing those parts of you, you stage with Robin to continue their can actually work on them more. antics. See? now that's Fun and You don't act as if you know it Fearless! Jonah was the first to all." Um, what? TOM page 67 Taking home the award of "Fun
Products/ Daily World/
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TOM
bolt from the party right after Robin finished singing and the lights came up. On my way to the elevators I bumped into Liam Hemsworth, beau of Miley Cyrus, before riding the elevator down to the lobby with Robin Thicke's hair, I mean Robin Thicke, and a few giggling girls eye-kissing him. On the way down we chatted about Tom Cruise's ultra graciousness at the Mission Impossible premiere back in December. This was where Cruise delayed the opening by like two hours to sign autographs and pose for pics with all of the fans, and where Thicke and I first met as he accompanied his wife Paula Patton, who was
starring opposite Cruise in the film. As we exited the elevator and headed for the door we were handed Cosmo swag bags containing full-sized bottles of bodywash, lipsticks, mascara, and of course the obligatory current issue of Cosmo Magazine. Thankfully it was still early Mary Beth Quirk (The enough to head home to watch the Consumerist) episode of Hawaii Five-O I Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:00:00 PM recorded starring James Caan, who proved you can also be Fun When J.R.R. Tolkien wove his tales of hobbits, elves, wizards, and Fearless even at 71. orcs and the triumph of good over evil, he probably didn't think that greedy Hollywood types would one day go after a cozy English pub that celebrates Middle Earth. But that's just what one company is doing suing The Hobbit in Southampton, England for copyright infringement. BBC News says the lawyers for the California company that owns the rights to several brands tied to Tolkien, including The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, is
Hollywood Bigwigs Sue The Hobbit Pub In England For Copyright Infringement
demanding the pub remove all traces of its 20-year-old hobbit heritage. Currently on the menu are cocktails name for characters like Frodo and Gandalf. A letter from the lawyers says it has "exclusive worldwide rights to motion picture, merchandising, stage and other rights in certain literary works of JRR Tolkien including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit." Says the landlady: "We were absolutely stunned. It was completely unexpected, we never intended to infringe anyone's copyright. Are we doing any harm? I don't think so. We're bringing people to the books and the stories who haven't heard of JRR Tolkien," adding, "We don't have the financial resources to fight it I can't fight Hollywood." Okay, Elijah Wood. It's up to you to stop this insanity. Take the lawsuit and throw it in Mount Doom. Hobbit pub in Southampton threatened with legal action[BBC News] This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Sporting present for President and family

(Evening Standard - News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:57:27 AM
To symbolise the special relationship between Britain and America, the bats were adorned with UK and US flags. While not the most prestigious or historic present to have been taken across the Atlantic by a British leader, it captured the camaraderie between David
Cameron and Barack Obama. They played table tennis at the Globe Academy school in south London during the presidential visit to Britain last May. The customised Dunlop table was being presented as a family gift for Mr Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia, 13, and Sasha, 10. Samantha Cameron also gave Americas First Lady a Victoriana
printed scarf from East End designer Jonathan Saunders Cruise 12 collection, inspired by Victorian wallpapers. Saunders, one of Londons hottest fashion talents, is a favourite of Mrs Cameron. She wore a Saunders dress to a No 10 reception last summer. Malia and Sasha were also given Penguin/Puffin books, including a set of cloth-bound classics and
another collection of Penguin designer classics. The table tennis table contrasts with the gift taken in 2009 by Gordon Brown - an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet. The return gift caused some surprise among Downing Street officials - a box set of 25 classic American films.
The White House did not immediately say what present was chosen to give the Camerons. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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TV/ Products/
Shocking New 'Game Of Thrones' Poster Serves Stark On A Stick

Chris Harnick (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
adverse to spoilers, read on below for the Season 2 premiere episode description and check out the full Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:48:21 PM poster below."The North In case you weren't aware, "War Remembers," Sun., April 1, 9 i s c o m i n g " t o " G a m e O f p.m. ET Thrones" Season 2 and this new As Robb Stark and his northern poster proves it. Yep, that's the army continue the war against the head of Lord Stark (Sean Bean) Lannisters, Tyrion arrives in on a pike. King's Landing to counsel Joffrey So what's ahead when "Game of and temper the young king's Thrones" returns to HBO on Sun., excesses. On the island of April 1 at 9 p.m. ET? If you're not Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon
plots an invasion to claim his late brothers throne, allying himself with the fiery Melisandre, a
strange priestess of a stranger god. Across the sea, Daenerys, her three young dragons and khalasar trek through the Red Waste in search of allies, or water. In the North, Bran presides over a threadbare Winterfell, while beyond the Wall, Jon Snow and the Nights Watch must shelter with a devious wildling.
Now You Can Play Worst Company In America Comment Bingo!

Chris Morran (The Consumerist)
America 2012 tournament! The 4 WCIA Bingo cards are available below and from cat's Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:15:00 PM Flickr account. Regular readers of Consumerist These cards are actually just the comments have pointed out that latest addition to her larger, you could set up a Bingo game g e n e r a l C o n s u m e r i s t B i n g o based on oft-repeated sentiments, project that now includes more p h r a s e s , a n d g r i p e s . N o w , than two dozen cards so you can longtime commenter and all- get your Bingo on even when the around awesome human being tournament isn't happening. catastrophegirl has created a set of Some prime cuts from the WCIA Bingo cards just to play along cards: "___ is so much worse than with the Worst Company In ____"
"I predict a tie" "____ would be great if they didn't suck at ____" and of course, "Credit Union" In true Bingo spirit, each card includes a free space for you to get started. Of course, we encourage the playing of the WCIA Bingo only
in the spirit of good fun and no money, goods or services of any kind should be gambled, right? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
TV/ News Photos
69
Tweets of misleading photos feed Israeli-Palestinian feud - Kansas City Star

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:32:35 PM
Tweets of misleading photos feed Israeli-Palestinian feud Kansas City Star Responding to the photo posted to her account, Leibovich said in a statement to the news media that she thought there was nothing misleading in the post. "Launching a rocket does not differ whether it happened in November, July or now," she said. and more
A Map Of 'Community's' Many 'More Than Friends' Relationships

Maggie Furlong (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:52:40 PM
" Community" is finally returning (Thurs., Mar. 15, 8 p.m. ET on NBC) -- can I get a "woohoo!"? -and we thought it was about time
to document the show's many levels of comedic intimacy, infographic style. From the crushes to the kisses (and almost kisses. We're looking at you, Annie and Britta.), the flashings to the sexual harassings (ahem, Pierce!), the roommates to
the karaoke dates ("Kiss From a Rose," anyone?), we've mapped out every single major Greendale relationship that's taken things beyond "just friends." Check out our awesome colorcoded infographic to walk down memory lane with some Human
Beings from "Community" past, and to find out who the true hussy of the group is. And it's not who you'd expect. Infographic by Chris Spurlock.
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Products/
March Angriness: YOU DECIDE!

(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:00:00 PM
LOOKS DIFFERENT NOW! 99% of Torrent, no seeds "Your internet service will cost Tomorrow, March Madness. The $3/month for the first five months, competition will be fierce, and $46/month for the next three people will get frustrated - maybe months, and then just $2,129/ because of a burst bracket, maybe month from thereon out!" because of a close loss, or maybe Your Apple product breaks; just because the games are all fanboys unable to believe Apple happening during the workday is at fault and not everyone has a cool boss. They said they'd be here to setAt any rate, there will be anger up my service between 9 and everywhere - and the Woot blog noon. They showed up at 2:30. will be no exception! Because I'm not great at this shooter, and we'll be holding our own little I just accidentally stumbled into a seeded competition - March room of experts. Ugh! Angriness- to see just what Some dumb noob just stumbled infuriates people the most! into our room, and he ended up on Using the Big Dance as our my team. Ugh! model, we've set up 4 Regions How texting and tweeting are representing the areas of life that d e s t r o y i n g t h e w a y w e annoy us - Technology/Internet, c o m m u n i c a t e P o p C u l t u r e , P o l i t i c s , a n d The CGI zombies in this movie Etiquette. For each Enraged look like crap R e g i o n , w e , t h e s e l e c t i o n "You just lost a follower" tweets committee, have chosen and Your mom's on the phone. She ranked 16 things that makes our needs help with the computer blood boil. These 16 things will again. be paired off tournament style (#1 Smarmy old guys making plays #16, #2 plays #15, #3 plays statements about how texting and #14, etc). tweeting are destroying the way For each match-up, you will vote we communicate for whichever one makes you the Seriously, it should not be this angriest. The votes will then be hard to find a cheap digital tallied, and the winner will move camera with a viewfinder! on to the next round. EA's Origin Software Here is the complete list of competitors by region: Politics Technology/Internet Pundits/political talk shows Forum trolls "I get all my news from this New iThing announced the day sketchy, Angel-fire-looking site after the returns window closes catering specifically to people of Guess what?! FACEBOOK my political stance."
during debates that go, "I was in Ohio/Michigan last month, where I met a man/woman, whose situation conveniently exemplifies why my policy works best." Headline with words like "Scandal" and "disgrace"; article is about very minor issue The phrase "my tax dollars" "The other side's done the same/ worse, which makes what my side did totally excusable!" The blunt, punch-in-the-face symbolism in poltical cartoons People who don't vote "That doesn't fit with how I look at things, so it's probably just made up." "You should get your news from a real source like Fox or CNN before watching the Daily Show!" People who think the Onion is real Political figure makes terrible, derogatory statement about a group of people, followed by, "No, you guys, some of my BEST FRIENDS are from that group of people." Girl/guy you're flirting with at a party turns out to be extremist psychopath "I spent a few hours making this meme just to show you how little your efforts matter." "I SPEND ALL MY TIME LOOKING FOR THINGS THAT WILL OFFEND ME!" When the opinions flare up at Thanksgiving Those stories candidates tell Etiquette People who don't tip Guy in the traffic jam laying on his horn Boss giving you vital work to do at 4:45 on Friday Unapologetic owners of evil dogs/cats "I'm going to talk loudly on my cell phone this whole bus ride!" The person who corrects everyone's grammar "Look, I didn't bring my four kids to this coffee shop because I wanted to supervise them, okay?" The guy who never uses his blinker The guy who leaves his blinker on "And this is when I not-sotactfully bring the conversation back to me." Person who gets the last cup of coffee in the break room and doesn't make more People who take the elevator to
the second floor "I'm the stranger that stops you when you're out walking so I can talk to your dog in my baby voice." Your friend will NOT stop talking about inappropriate things in this crowded restaurant Check-writer in the grocery store express lane People who don't thank you for holding the door Pop Culture Scientology Gritty comic book reboots The Transformers movies Pitchfork Rednecksploitation reality TV "Nobody's made any good music since year X, and I should know! I listen to the radio!" The fact that Tucker Max even exists, let alone is famous Crappy film adaptation of your favorite book "Book was better" purists Interview with your favorite musician reveals he's a pretentious moron The portrayal of women in romantic comedies "I'm posting this status to let everyone know that I care less about that movie/show/sporting event than anyone else." Commercials where people do the Cabage Patch Posthumous commercialization of Dr. Seuss "I like all music, except for MARCH page 72
Products/
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Samsung Rugby Smart review: Tough on the outside but has inner weaknesses
Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:29:59 PM
Samsung Rugby Smart review: Tough on the outside but has inner weaknesses Whenever I get my hands on a smart phone that claims to be rugged in design, I like to give it a pummeling, to gain a sense of how a tough-guy phone might stand up to a tough and careless user. My most recent "victim" is the new Samsung Rugby Smart, an Android (version 2.3) smart phone available on AT&T for $100 with a two-year contract. The Rugby Smart is less expensive than the Casio G'zOne Commando, $180 from Verizon, the only other rugged smart phone currently in our smart phone Ratings. Samsung says this 4G (HSPA+) phone, which has a 3.7in Super AMOLED display, isnt for underwater use but can survive being submerged in as much as a meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Samsung also says it meets a host of other requirements in the U.S. Military spec known as STD 810F, including withstanding dust, shock, and extreme temperature. The phone came through my mini bootcamp working just fine. But I
also informally assessed the phone in other respects and found out that, for all its toughness, its compromised in some other respects. Heres what I did to abuse the Smart, and what happened when I did: I dunked it. The accidental drop into a toilet or sink has disabled, at least temporarily, many a smart phone. So I decided to informally test the Rugby Smart's claims of water resistance in my kitchen sink, despite my wife's protests and warnings from CR engineers that "if you break it, youve bought it." The Rugby Smart's USB and headphone jack have soft-plastic covers to keep out water and other elements. If they're not pushed in tightly, Samsung warns, the phone will not resist water well enough. So I pushed down on them before dunking the phone in the cold, turbulent water of my sink for about 25 to 30 seconds. I left the phones 5-megapixel camera running as I did, allowing me to capture the Smarts dip in an HD video recording. As the video (below) shows, the phone worked normally after I retrieved it, and the underwater video and glugging audio are of decent quality.
unresponsive. Despite its reasonably fast 1.4-GHz singlecore processor, I found the phone to be a tad unresponsive, taking seconds to do what other phones seem to do in an instant. For example, launching or switching between core apps like the camera and Web browser sometimes took I dropped it again and again. The a few secondsan eternity in the Rugby Smart's outer edges are smart-phone world. And despite made of a tough, rubber-like the Rugby Smart being a 4G material that, like an aftermarket phone, even with a strong network case, help it take rather hard drops signal, it took apps such as with aplomb. At least eight times, Facebook several seconds to fill I threw the phone down while it the screen with their Web-based was on, with considerable force data. against my basement's thinly The buttons felt awkward. The carpeted concrete floor. Again, no Rugby is one of the first Android problems. Only once did the phones I've seen in a long while phone's back carbon-fiber cover with raised, physical navigation fly off, but that was because I buttons you actually push. (Think the T-Mobile G1 and early forgot to lock it in place. Such qualities are certainly myTouch phones from 3 years c o n v e n i e n t i n t h e g r e a t ago.) Real buttons are easier to outdoorsor the more hostile find without looking than virtual environment of a teenager's ones, but you'll have to remember hands. Another neat feature: The to press on them more firmly to camera's LED flash doubles as a make them work. I found they sometimes didn't work at all. For flashlight. But in my usual roster of example, hitting the Back key personal tests, prior to turning the while watching a video, which phone over to our lab testers, I should take you back to the found the Rugby Smart a little previous menu, often had no less than ideal in some respects: effect, even after several presses. I t s e e m e d a b i t s l o w a n d The screen seemed small. After typing on the virtual keyboards of
so many Android phones with 4inch-or-larger displays, I felt a little constrained coming back to the Rugby Smart's Lilliputian 3.7inch screen. Even in wide-screen mode, typing accurately using the Android or Samsung keyboards was a challenge. But I was able to get much better results when I switched over to Swype keyboard, which lets you type with out lifting a finger. Bottom line: If my casual abuse is any indication, the Rugby Smart appears to be a worthy contender for people who need a phone that can handle whatever life throws at it. But make sure that ruggedness is a topif not the toppriority for you in a phone, since youll be getting a heavier, bulkier, and smallerscreened phone than most these days. Our engineers are currently testing the Rugby Smart's voice, battery, and other core features in the lab, to gain a more precise idea of how this phones performance stacks up. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences
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Products/
From the logbook: Chevrolet Volt

Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
MARCH
We continued testing the Volt in warmer weather, which saw its electric-only range approach and Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:59:59 PM once exceeding 50 miles. From the logbook: Chevrolet Our Volt cost us $48,700, Volt including a cruel $5,000 dealer Is the Chevrolet Volt the most markup that is hard to imagine significant car that General now. While a $7,500 electricMotors has produced in the last 20 vehicle tax credit softens the years? Has the automaker ever bet blow, many of us wonder if this is so heavily (or invested so much a high price to pay for going money $1.5 billion) to bring a partially electric. new design to market? Is the Volt Certainly, as a concept, the idea the answer to high gas prices? of an electric car with a backup Whatever the perspective, the engine to mitigate range anxiety plug-in hybrid Volt certainly has seems brilliant. Putting economics people talking. Unfortunately, not and philosophy aside, lets see many shoppers are buying. what the car is like to drive. GM recently announced that it Heres a candid look at excerpts will be suspending production for from the logbook: five weeks starting next Monday, Love [the motors] off-the-line hoping to sell down the current torque smooth with loads of inventory of Volts. grunt. When we started driving our Sport mode gives quicker Volt, we really wanted to like it. throttle response. But we were also in the midst of Drives like a bigger car. one of the coldest and nastiest I cant get used to the revving winters in recent memory. Hence, [gas] engine when I decelerate. It we were getting only between 23 is impossible to hypermile when and 28 miles of electric-only the car is sucking gas when driving. We knew that electric coasting. range was very susceptible to cold Nice steering, but the ride is weather, primarily because the stiff. heater runs on electricity. We also I can hear some electrical whine, found that highway speeds e s p e c i a l l y f r o m b r a k i n g . quickly diminish the electric Otherwise, this is a very refined range. hybrid.
Louder than the Nissan Leaf. No power seats at this price? Big center tunnel intrudes on knee room. Controls are a mess. It me took two minutes when parked to figure out how to turn the climate system off. Control graphics are too small and hard to read climate/radio/ information controls are all stacked together on same panel. This car has gotta-be-kidding rear-seat room. Visibility is poor: rear window is tinyfront A-pillars act as blinders cutting off the view to the sides. Driving the Volt isnt nice if you exceed the electric range. This is a short-trip car, and at $44K I dont see that there is going to be a big demand. A nifty car and more fun than a Prius (thats not saying much), but a Prius makes much more financial sense.
Overall, the Volt did well enough in our tests to be Recommended. In fact, its first-year reliability is especially good. It undoubtedly uses very little gasoline and running costs are very low if charged frequently; running on electricity only, we measured 2.93 miles/kWh, which is the energy equivalent of 99 mpg. Still, is this plug-in hybrid ready for prime time? One of my colleagues summed up the Volt thusly: Its not a very good car. Its not a very good electric car. And its not a very good gasoline-powered car. And I can see his point: We recorded greater driving range on our all-electric Nissan Leaf than our Volt, and, at 44 mpg overall, our tested Toyota Prius gets much better fuel economy (we measured 32 mpg overall for the Volt in extended range mode) and costs a lot less. Let the debates begin. For our full road test, ratings, and pricing, visit the Chevrolet Volt model page. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences
country/rap." Is that your favorite celebrity's voice in a Kia commercial?? Have any questions? Concerns? Want to voice your support? Be our guest and post in the comments section below. The first set of match-ups (Technology/ Internet Region) will be launched at midnight, so get your voting fingers ready! And remember, don't get mad! Get angry! Photo by flickr user, bottled_void used under a Creative Commons License.
Products/ News Photos Sports/
73
I plan to turn down Medicare Part A. Your thoughts?

rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:59:59 PM
Photos of the Day: March 14 Wall Street Journal (blog)

Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:04:29 PM
I plan to turn down Medicare Part A. Your thoughts? Q. Im a candidate for high national office who just turned 65. Im not signing up for Medicare because of my political convictions. Is there any downside to this? A. OK, I made up this question, but its true that, according to several news sources, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who turned 65 on March 12, is not enrolling in Medicare but rather continuing to be covered under his current private insurance plan. Is there, in fact, any downside to not enrolling in Medicare when you turn 65? Yes, several. 1. You will be penalized later if you change your mind. Your Medicare Part B premium will be 10 percent higher, for life, for every year you could have been in Medicare, but were not. Similarly, your Part D drug plan premium will be 1 percent higher for every month you could have had a plan, but did not. With a reported income in 2011 of nearly$21
million, Romney may not care, but you probably will. (The rules are different for people who have group health insurance through their own or a spouses active employment at a job. Here are details if this is your situation. ) 2. You may have to give up your Social Security benefits. This startling possibility arose last month when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling that said if you want to get a monthly check from Social Security, you must be enrolled in Medicare Part A. Or, to put it another way, if you want to turn down Medicare, youll have to turn down Social Security as well. 3. Your existing individual policy is likely more expensive than, and not as good as, Medicare. Surprisingly, if you have an individual health plan (as opposed to a group plan through your job or a spouses job), you can keep it once you turn 65. But it will cost you, especially considering that Part A, the part of Medicare that covers hospital care, is free for anyone who qualifies for Social Security retirement benefits. Generally what you pay for Part B, Part D, and Medigap is going
individuals that age, says Mila Kofman, an insurance expert at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. For instance, Ann Romney, the candidates wife, has multiple sclerosis, a serious pre-existing condition that in most states would disqualify her completely to be the same or less than what f r o m p u r c h a s i n g p r i v a t e youre paying for individual insurance. But the Romneys live coverage, and the benefit package in Massachusetts, wherethanks might be better, because a lot of to a health reform law that individual plans today have very Romney himself signed when he high deductibles, says Bonnie was governorinsurers are not Burns, a Medicare expert with allowed to turn down customers California Health Advocates, a or charge them sky-high rates nonprofit advocacy group. Also, based on their health histories. A on Medicare you can see any couple with their birth dates, participating provider, whereas living in their Belmont zip code, almost all private individual c a n b u y a g e n e r o u s policies restrict you to some type comprehensive plan for around $1,500 a month. of provider network. 4. You may find it hard or Got a question for me? Ask it impossible to purchase new here. individual coverage. Individual And see our health-insurance coverage becomes increasingly buying guide for more advice on hard to find the older you get, Medicare and other forms of mainly because older adults are health insurance. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o more apt to have pre-existing conditions. Moreover, because the ConsumerReports.org for expert o v e r w h e l m i n g m a j o r i t y o f Ratings, buying advice and Americans take Medicare at age r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f 65, there really isnt a robust products. Update your feed private individual market for preferences
Photos of the Day: March 14 Wall Street Journal (blog) (Indian Photo Agency/Caters News/Zuma Press) STADIUM SHOOTOUT: Saraperos de Saltillo baseball team players took cover during a shootout that broke out in a parking lot during a game in Saltillo, Mexico, Tuesday. According to a state police spokesman,... and more
ESPN: Mike D'Antoni resigns as Knicks coach Abc Local Web

(- Bing News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:23:56 PM
NEW YORK -- Mike D'Antoni resigned as coach of the New York Knicks on Wednesday, a person familiar with the decision said. Yahoo Sports first reported the surprising news, which comes with the Knicks in the middle of a late-season slide that could cost them a playoff spot. New York has lost six in a row for the second time this season ESPN: page 74
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ESPN:
and has fallen into a tie for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. The decision came just hours after star Carmelo Anthony denied there was a rift with D'Antoni. The Knicks have struggled since Anthony returned from a groin injury 10 games ago. There was speculation that he and D'Antoni did not get along, though the AllStar forward said Wednesday he supported the coach "100 percent." D'Antoni put the Knicks through a morning workout Wednesday, seemed in good spirits and said players were, too. He acknowledged the media frenzy around the sinking team but believed the Knicks would handle it. "You battle against it and I think we're cohesive enough to battle through this and we expect to do that," he said. He was preparing to coach the Knicks against the Portland Trail Blazers later Wednesday, but Mike Woodson is expected to handle that role instead. And certainly there's already speculation that the Knicks will try to lure a big-name coach such as Phil Jackson or Kentucky's John Calipari next season. D'Antoni's departure comes less than a month after he seemed rejuvenated by the emergence of Jeremy Lin, the undrafted point
guard from Harvard who came off the end of the bench and proved to be the player who could properly run the offensive system. But the success didn't last once Anthony returned, with the Knicks going 2-8 in a season that D'Antoni said should see them contend for a championship. Never able to duplicate his success in Phoenix, D'Antoni was headed to his third losing season since signing a $24 million, fouryear contract in 2008 that made him one of the NBA's highestpaid coaches. He never won a playoff game in New York, where the Knicks were focused on the future during his first two years and made numerous changes that didn't give him much of a chance to compete. But they spent big this season, bringing in Tyson Chandler to play between Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, while adding players such as Baron Davis and JR Smith during the season, and D'Antoni acknowledged Wednesday morning it was his responsibility to make everything work. New York returned to the playoffs last season for the first time since 2004 and had its first winning record in a decade, losing to the Boston Celtics in the first round. But the Knicks radically changed the team in the offseason, waiving point guard Chauncey Billups through the amnesty
clause to free up salary cap space to sign Chandler, and they sputtered through January while trying three point guards to replace him. D'Antoni finally turned to Lin on Feb. 4 and the Knicks took off, winning seven games in a row and looking like a threat to the top teams in the East. But it all came to a halt when Anthony returned, reinforcing the notion that his desire to get the ball in isolation didn't fit in D'Antoni's offense that focused on pick-and-rolls and quick ball movement. D'Antoni averaged 58 wins in four full seasons in Phoenix before he was hired to replace Isiah Thomas on May 13, 2008. The Knicks got off to a quick start in his first season but broke up the team three weeks into it, trading Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford in separate deals on the same day. New York would make a series of moves over the first two years, all with an eye toward clearing salary cap space for the summer of 2010. D'Antoni always supported the plan, even as it came at the cost of his won-loss record. He was 267172 when he arrived in New York but went 121-167 here. The Knicks finished in the top 10 in scoring in each of his first three seasons while racking up the three highest 3-pointer totals in team history. But his offense-first style
was never a natural fit in New York, where fans craved the hardnosed, defense-first approach of the 1990s teams of Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason and John Starks. Worse for D'Antoni, he lost his biggest backer in the front office when team president Donnie Walsh opted not to return after last season. D'Antoni became a coaching star in Phoenix, reaching two Western Conference finals. He won a Coach of the Year award and was named an assistant coach to Mike Krzyzewski with the U.S. national team. But the Suns let him talk to other clubs about their jobs after losing to San Antonio in the first round of the 2008 playoffs. He chose the Knicks over the Chicago Bulls, citing his comfort with Walsh, who had just been hired, and his desire to live in New York. After two years in transition, the Knicks appeared to be a team on the rise after landing Stoudemire in the summer of 2010 to give New York its first superstar since Ewing. But the Knicks didn't stop there, trading four of their top six players to acquire Anthony from Denver last February before the trade deadline. The high price, paid when Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan reportedly overruled Walsh, put enormous pressure on
D'Antoni and Anthony to make it work, and they never really could. Anthony was shooting a careerlow 40 percent and at times his frustration was evident, such as Monday's loss in Chicago. Asked about that Wednesday, D'Antoni said: "I'm sulking over on the bench, too. So I can understand the frustration. We've just got to a better job of blending things that we want to do and we haven't done that." Now someone else will. --FOR MORE NEW YORK SPORTS CLICK HERE TO VISIT ESPN NEW YORK --Get Eyewitness News Delivered Facebook| Twitter| Newsletters| Text Alerts (Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Get more NBA Tags: new york knicks, nba This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Sports/ Gaming/
75
Broncos on hold as Peyton Manning visiting Tennessee - Denver Post

By Mike KlisThe Denver Post (Bing News)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:16:47 PM
Uh oh, Broncos. Peyton Manning, who played his college ball at the University of Tennessee, is on his way to Tennessee. It's Rocky Top versus Rocky Mountains! Manning is the most sought after NFL free agent since players were first afforded the opportunity in 1993. The next year, Manning replaced an injured Todd Helton as Tennessee's quarterback and started every game thereafter until a neck injury prevented him from taking a snap with the NFL's Indianapolis Colts in 2011. Manning's absence caused his Colts to finish with a 2-14 record that gave them the No. 1 pick in
the 2012 draft at a time when sensational Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck declared himself eligible. Manning was released to free agency last week, and after visiting the Broncos in Denver on Friday, the Arizona Cardinals in the Phoenix-area on Sunday, and the Miami Dolphins in Indianapolis on Monday, he is flying on the private plane of Tennessee Titans' owner Bud Adams to Nashville, Tenn. Manning was picked up at the Raleigh-Durham, N.C. airport where he was throwing at Duke University under the guidance of David Cutcliffe. While Manning was at the University of Tennessee, Cutcliffe was his offensive coordinator. Cutcliffe later was Eli Manning's head coach at Ole Miss and is now
Duke's head coach. Accompanying Manning on the flight from North Carolina to Nashville are Titans head coach Mike Munchak, general manager Ruston Webster and chief operating officer Mike Reinfeldt. Manning is expected to meet with the Titans at their facility the rest of the day and evening. It appears now the earliest he would make his decision no earlier than Thursday. Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Peter Molydeux game jam may include real Molyneux, March 31 to April 1
Jessica Conditt (Joystiq)
idea from @petermolydeux and goes for it," and Molydeux responded that he would give any P e t e r M o l y d e u x m a y b e jam based on his "world-changing recognized on some level as a d e s i g n s " h i s " b l e s s i n g a n d comedic genius, satirizing Fable s u p p o r t . " c r e a t o r P e t e r M o l y n e u x o n Today we have MolyJam2012, Twitter in the form of outlandish, set to run March 31 through April brilliant game proposals, such as: 1 (April Fool's Day) in San You control a mystical rabbit at a F r a n c i s c o a n d o v e r s e a s i n bus stop during Winter. You must Brighton, but developers around find as many creative ways as the world are invited to join via a possible to make people miss their shared sign-up sheet, Molydeux b u s e s . - p e t e r m o l y d e u x N O T tweeted. (@petermolydeux) December 2, Continue reading Peter Molydeux 2011 game jam may include real It's turning out that Molydeux Molyneux, March 31 to April 1 may just be a genius, all comedic Peter Molydeux game jam may modifiers aside. Yesterday, after include real Molyneux, March 31 the world premiere of the above to April 1 originally appeared on trailer for Molydeux's latest Joystiq on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 parody, Pin Drop, things turned 16:30:00 EST. Please see our serious. Anna Kipnis of Double terms for use of feeds. Fine tweeted the idea of a game Permalink| Email this| Comments jam "where each team picks an
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:30:00 PM
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Moving to Bootstrap 2.0

Submitted at 3/14/2012 7:28:17 AM
Game Gear emulation outclasses the other 3DS Virtual Console games
JC Fletcher (Joystiq)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 5:00:00 PM
With the arrival of a new system on the 3DS Virtual Console -- the Sega Game Gear-- comes a new hardware emulator. And the one Sega and developer M2 put together is really, really nice! Nicer than I'm used to for Virtual Console games, honestly, and including a full suite of tweaks and features. Do you want to play your game inside a tiny 3D Game Gear? You can do that. Would you like said Game Gear to be a rare limitededition color variant? You can totally do that too. Excited by the application of more than minimal effort toward the presentation of
I'm converting from Bootstrap 1 to Bootstrap 2 this week. It's very revealing, when you see how a platform developer, and Bootstrap is definitely a platform, evolves the platform. The kinds of problems they fix that cause breakage in apps. In this case, they break a lot of stuff, for seemingly esthetic reasons. For example, in Bootstrap 1 they define a "twipsy" -- which is a little popup that emanates from a link as you roll over it with your mouse. Someone must have noticed that this is very much like what a "tooltip" does, so they retro games, I recorded this quick changed the name. Not a big deal, video. you say -- perhaps -- but it is Though I didn't bring it up here, breakage. In my world, I probably there's also a "performance" w o u l d n ' t c h a n g e i t . M y option that, I believe, allows for philosophy is the worst name is system-accurate slowdown (or the best name. This is to prevent lack thereof). I didn't see any discussions like this one. If difference with Sonic, so it wasn't someone said "tooltip is a better going to make for great video. name" I would say "give me a Sonic arrives tomorrow on the worse name and I'll change it." It's 3DS eShop, along with Shinobi and Dragon Crystal. Game Gear emulation outclasses the other 3DS Virtual Console games originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
a joke like"we make shitty software," but like all jokes it's an eloquent statement of the truth. If I had to change it, I would continue to make the name "twipsy" work. Avoid breakage and people who develop on your platform will love you, if they actually notice. Okay, they won't curse you in their sleep at night. I adopted this philosophy largely because I develop on my platforms too, and there never is a day when it's cool to have everything break. Especially because a programmer on the other side of the API decided "tooltip" was sexier than "twipsy." And btw, I think twipsy is a wonderful name! So clever and
cute. Maybe it was a legal problem? I don't know, but it is disconcerting, esp since I haven't gotten tooltips to work and twipsies worked great. Oy. The charm of Bootstrap is its simplicity. You can get a feature running in minutes sometimes, if you stare at the code the right way and get lucky. But it's getting less simple in version 2.0. They did a lot of factoring in some areas, combining types. Not sure what that gets us -- literally, I'm not saying it doesn't get us anything, just that I'm not sure what it is. But one thing is certain, factoring makes the theory harder to grok for the newbie. By the time Bootstrap 3.0 comes out, we'll likely be deployed with users of our own. Since we pass through a lot of what Bootstrap does, there will be breakage, if 3 is as radical a departure from 2 as 2 is from 1. My goal will be to try to insulate people who develop on my platform from changes in Bootstrap, to the extent I can.
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Runner2 development fueled by 744 beers (so far)

JC Fletcher (Joystiq)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 5:30:00 PM
How do I know? I consulted the "beer count" note on the title screen of the in-progress build I played. Gaijin Games has implemented a counter to track the number of beers drank by the team during development of Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. Eventually, it'll be automated -- and keeping track live even after the game is released -- but for now it's a manually updated spreadsheet.
"We have a whole system," codirector Alex Neuse told me. "We have a spreadsheet; we're thinking of developing an iPhone app just to use internally. Then if you drink wine or something, we have
a conversion, so it converts it to beers for the beer count." There was talk of a bottle opener that automatically logs every cap it opens. At this point I began to think that
I was being told a very fanciful tale about programmers drinking programmatically, but Neuse assured me otherwise. "We are completely serious about this. This is a real thing." Runner2 development fueled by 744 beers (so far) originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
Video: Robot Squirrel Confuses a Snake

Rebecca Boyle (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
help researchers study the interactions between California ground squirrels and rattlesnakes. The squirrels can resist rattlesnake venom, but they have also adapted Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:05:20 PM Robo Squirrel via Hizook to confront their attackers, staring When studying animal behaviors, down the snake with their tails biologists generally have to wait wagging furiously. Kind of like for something to happen - either how humans have been told to for an animal to do something, or run, shouting and flailing, toward f o r o n e a n i m a l t o p r o v o k e an approaching mountain lion. another. Alternatively, they could Researchers at San Diego State use robot animals, tempting them University and the University of with sexy fembots, mama-bots or California-Davis wanted to study tasty prey. Meet RoboSquirrel, an how snakes respond to this example of the latter. behavior, but putting a live decoy It's a robotic squirrel invented to squirrel in harm's way wasn't
really an option. So they built RoboSquirrel, a taxidermied actual squirrel that is stored with live squirrels so it smells real. The body and tail are heated with
copper wiring, so the snake can see the squirrel's heat signature as if it were real. The tail is controlled by a linear servo motor that makes it wag back and forth.
Rulon Clark of SDSU is using RoboSquirrel to test snakes' behavior in response to the tail wag. The theory is that tail wagging discourages an attack, while a silent, creeping squirrel provokes one. Apparently, it works, according to the video below. Make sure to watch to the end, where a slowed-down portion gives an awesome glimpse of the rattler's enormous fangs. [via Hizook]
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Russian and Korean Researchers Will Inject Mammoth DNA Into Elephant Eggs, Resurrecting 10,000-Year-Old Beast
Rebecca Boyle (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:03:58 PM
Woolly Mammoth Recreation Wikimedia Commons First a plant from the past sprouted new life- now researchers in Russia and South Korea are moving forward with a plan to resurrect the Ice Age woolly mammoth. Scientists in both countries inked a deal Tuesday to share technology and research that could lead to the birth of a mammoth clone, gestated in a surrogate Indian elephant mother. Mammoth remains were uncovered in thawed Siberian permafrost, and scientists around the world have been trying to extract DNA from the remains. Previously, paleobiologists were able to reproduce mammoth blood protein, and Japanese researchers want to resurrect the mammoth within five years. This new project will move forward if the Russian institution, the NorthEastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic, can ship its mammoth remains to the Koreans.
Video: To Kill Predators, Japanese Honeybees Surround Them in a 'Hot Defensive Bee Ball'
Clay Dillow (Popular Science New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:00:41 PM
The scientists involved include Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, who was embroiled in controversy after he was found to have faked some research into human stem cells. He created Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2006. Chinese scientists will also be involved in this research, according to AFP. The plan would work like previous cloning studies that successfully reproduced dogs, a cow, a cat, a pig, a wolf and
coyotes. The nuclei of mammoth somatic cells would be implanted into the nuclei of donor elephant eggs, to produce elephant embryos with mammoth DNA. The embryos would then be implanted in elephant wombs, where they would gestate for 22 months. The team plans to use an Indian elephant for the cell nucleus transfer, according to AFP. The mammoth protein study showed that we can actually learn a fair amount by working with
these extinct creatures - the mammoth blood was found to contain an anti-freeze component that no one would have known about had we not recreated its blood. So who knows what we could learn from recreating the whole thing? Surely, nothing could go wrong here ... not at all ... right? [ AFP]
That's One Seriously 'Hot Defensive Bee Ball' Ugajin A, Kiya T, Kunieda T, Ono M, Yoshida T, et al. (2012) How would you like to be literally cooked to death by bees? Bees are biologically interesting little creatures for a variety of reasons. There are their well-known talents, like communicating with the hive through dancing and producing the sweet, sticky stuff that goes great on sopaipillas. But they can also recognize human faces and solve some complex computing problems faster than computers. And now, thanks to Japanese researchers at the VIDEO: page 79
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University of Tokyo and Tamagawa University, we are learning that bees can cook. Presenting: the "hot defensive bee ball." Japanese honeybees (cousin to the European variety) have a problem when it comes to the Asian giant hornet, a predatory insect that is much larger and quite aggressive toward smaller insects in the neighborhood. When Asian giant hornets threaten a Japanese honeybee hive, the smaller bees have developed a novel group behavior for dealing with their larger foe: they swarm around the hornet so frenetically that they actually cook the hornet inside of the moving pile of bodies. This "hot defensive bee ball" behavior has been observed previously, but there are two
interesting developments that are hot off the presses of the jounal PLos ONE today. Firstly, there's the video below of the honeybees swarming an Asian giant hornet, which is pretty cool. Secondly, in studying the Japanese honeybees the researchers have detected a previously undiscovered kind of neural activity that takes place when the bees engage in "hot defensive bee balling." It's a kind of neural activity that isn't seen in European honeybees, taking place in the higher brain center. We're not sure exactly what that means yet, but if you're a Asian giant hornet, take note.
Following a Big Week in North Carolina, Bus Tour Heads to Arkansas

Josh Shepherd (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
American Dream by repealing Obamacare. During our Sunday morning stop at a large North Carolina church, Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:15:37 PM Now heading for state number 12 the specific policy proposals in after nearly two months on the Heritages budget reform plan road, The Heritage Foundation/ Saving the American Dream Family Research Council tour garnered attention from the Your Money, Your Values, Your Franklin Times: Vote continues rolling across That plan calls for balancing the America. Following a successful U.S. budget by 2021, simplifying w e e k i n N o r t h taxes, reducing government Carolinareaching thousands of spending and making health care people over 11 eventsthis affordable. Politicians and weekend we head southwest to lawmakers have pretty tough Arkansas. choices to make. They wont Why are Heritage and FRC on a make them unless the public is road trip? Well let recent press calling for it, said Genevieve coverage speak for itself. Though Wood, vice president of strategic they dont always get it right, i n i t i a t i v e s a t T h e H e r i t a g e media outlets have followed the F o u n d a t i o n . crowds and listened in as local For Heritage and FRC, the tour and national leaders present the has also been about listening and principles driving this nationwide a m p l i f y i n g t h e m e s s a g e o f effort. citizens speaking out for what Jessica Anderson of Heritage matters. Its encouraging when Action for America spoke with the media spotlights local voices the Winston-Salem Journal, which who reveal better than we could posted a video of our stop in whats at stakesuch as this Winston-Salem. Jessica stated: comment from a Hendersonville Were gearing up for the 2012 Times-News story: election with a focus on the We need change, and we need it important issues that matter most fast, said Al Jones. Standing next to conservatives across America, to the bus outside the church, he including cutting government pointed inside to a group of s p e n d i n g a n d S a v i n g t h e children in day care and added,
Theyre the ones who are going to suffermy grandchildren. Our tour through Arkansas begins tomorrow with voter registration and education at Harding University, then continues with two events in Texarkana (both the citys Arkansas and Texas sides!) as well as a few stops in the Little Rock area. In the coming weeks, look for the bus to visit Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Colorado. We encourage you to share our new short video about the bus tour, and add your name to the map at SavingTheDream.org to receive updates on how the Heritage plan is progressing. For more details on the Your Money, Your Values, Your Vote 2012 Tour including times, locations, and FAQs, visit ValuesBus.com. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Doctors Revamp Guidelines For Pap Smears

(Shots - Health Blog)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:01:00 PM
Ed Uthman/ Wikimedia Commons Cells gathered during a Pap test. Those on the left are normal, and those on the right are infected with human papillomavirus. Women should get screened for cervical cancer far less frequently than doctors have long recommended, according to new guidelines released Wednesday. More than 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year in the United States, and more than 4,000 die from the disease. For years, doctors have recommended that women start getting Pap smears every year or two to try to catch signs of cancer early, when it's easiest to prevent and treat. "Previously we had said screening should start either at age 21 or three years after the onset of sexual activity," says Debbie Saslow of the American Cancer Society, which issued one of the sets of guidelines along with two medical groups. After reviewing the latest scientific evidence, the groups concluded that annual screening isn't necessary and, in fact, was harmful. Most women should wait until they turn 21, and then only get tested every three years if everything looks OK, according to the guidelines. "This is the first time that we're
saying we recommend against annual screening," Saslow says. There are a couple of reasons for this change. First of all, cervical cancer is so rare in young women that there's no reason to start any earlier, Saslow says. And even when they're older, cervical cancer grows so slowly that there's no harm in waiting longer between tests. "If you compare the benefit of annual screening to screening every three years with the Pap test it's almost nothing," she said.
More frequent testing can cause real problems, she says. The Pap tests often produce false alarms, which lead women to undergo procedures to make sure there's no cancer. And repeating those follow-up procedures over and over can damage the cervix, causing serious problems later if women want to have children, experts said. "That can include preterm labor and then the birth of a premature infant or low birthweight infant,"
said Wanda Nicholson is with the U.S Preventive Services Task Force, which simultaneously issued almost identical recommendations. Those recommendations, along with an accompanying editorial, were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The guidelines also for the first time say that when women turn 30, they can get the Pap test along with a test for the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause
cervical cancer. If both tests come back negative, then most women women can wait at least five years to get the tests again, according to the guidelines. "The addition of this HPV test adds so much accuracy to the result that screening more frequently than five years will again be more harmful and not more beneficial," Saslow says. The new guidelines also recommend women stop getting DOCTORS page 83
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Chill Out For A Better Workout

Researchers tested the idea with obese women in their 30s and 40s who worked out on a treadmill. iStockphoto.com The women whose palms were This would be a lot more fun on c o o l e d w i t h a d e v i c e t h a t the rocks. circulated ice water were able to Cooling a person's hands while exercise longer than the women exercising can make for a better whose palms were exposed to workout, especially for people room temperature water. who hate to exercise because it "It works to reduce the sensation makes them all hot and sweaty. of being overly hot and sweaty," This might help the many, many says Stacy Sims, an exercise people who have a hard time physiologist at the Stanford keeping up with exercise because University School of Medicine, it's just plain uncomfortable. who led the study. "The idea is to
Submitted at 3/14/2012 11:31:00 AM
allow those people to overcome the initial barriers that heat intolerance produces. It gives them positive affirmation to keep going." Indeed, the women without cooling were more likely to quit, while those with cool palms were more likely to stick it out through the 12-week study. And they got results. The chill group shaved about five minutes off the time to walk 1.5 miles, and lost almost three inches from their waists. They also had lower resting blood
pressure. Core cooling has been used for years by elite athletes, and it does seem to help improve their performance and reduce muscle soreness. But experiments with more normal folks on the benefits of cooling have been mixed at best. Before becoming a scientist Sims, 40, was a professional racer in Ironman and Xterra triathlons. She says that elite athletes are prepared to push through feeling hot, tired, and miserable. But
those feelings can turn off novice exercisers for good. Overweight and obese people are more likely to overheat, adding to the disincentive. Devices like cooling vests and the handheld device used in this study cool blood as it circulates close to the skin, reducing overall body temperature and heat-related stress. The Stanford researchers used a gizmo called an Avacore Rapid Thermal Exchange, which CHILL page 83
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Get To Know 'Number Needed To Treat'

Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:32:00 PM
iStockphoto.com A single number can help show how beneficial, or not, a treatment is. While reading over an analysis of decades-old studies of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism last week, I found that the so-called
number needed to treat was 6 to prevent alcohol misuse. In other words, treat six people and one would benefit. That may not sound great, but in medicine a single-digit NNT is actually quite an achievement. For comparison, consider that an aspirin taken regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease in people already known to have heart
disease or to have survived as stroke has an NNT of 50. The best NNT is 1: everybody treated benefits. In the post I eventually wrote about the LSD study, I didn't mention the NNT, choosing to focus on the question of why scientists think hallucinogens might make sense as treatments for addiction. But knowing that
the NNT was so low helped me decide looking at the study would be worth the time. The LSD study sparked quite a bit of chatter about NNT that got me thinking it might be worth organizing in one place. Here goes. [ View the story "Meet 'NNT': A Health Statistic That's Simple" on
Storify] This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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pumps ice water past the palms while each hand is in a small vacuum chamber. The vaccum is there to maintain blood flow to the hands even though they are cool and clenched. It costs about $4,000, well beyond the reach of everyday exercisers. In the study, the 24 women walked on treadmills while their hands were in the Avacore devices. Some of the women had cold water, some not. They were told that there would be variations in the water temperature, even though there were just two. This is a very small study, so the results might not pan out in real life. But Sims says there's no harm in trying homegrown versions of the chill technique. "If you drink an icy cold drink or hold a frozen bottle, it's helping
you with the cooling," Sims says. "Hold the frozen bottle while you're training, and drink the water. It helps your core temperature stay a little colder." She presented the results of her study at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism 2012 Scientific Sessions in San Diego. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
screened all together once they turn 65 and everything still looks OK. Some previous recommendations to cut back on other cancer screeening tests, such as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's questioning of mammograms for breast cancer for younger women and PSA tests for prostate cancer, have triggered fears about rationing care. But Saslow said that's not the case. "When people hear, 'Less is potentially better, more is harmful,' the assumption is you're trying to ration careyou're trying to save money. And absolutely that is not true," she says. Still, some doctors are a little worried that eliminating the annual exams may make some
women forget to get their Pap tests, or fail to come in for other tests that are important for a woman's well-being. "We have to unlink the Pap test from the well-woman exam," said Juan C. Felix of the University of Southern California, who chairs the medical advisory panel of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Side Effects: Doctors Fear Obamacare

Alyene Senger (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:46:39 PM
SIDE page 84
Cadbury Makes Its Google+ Page Out of Chocolate

Lauren Indvik (Mashable!)
construction of its edible Google+ page through a series of 10 stepSubmitted at 3/14/2012 4:35:30 PM by-step photos, shown in the Cadbury loves Google+. Not only gallery below. has the UK-based chocolatier Layers of Cadbury Dream and launched a product through Dairy Milk chocolate were Googles social network, has also applied to a base of Dairy Milk now created a chocolate version bars. Edible inks were printed of its Google+ page. onto sugar paper to create detailed The confection was created to replicas of the Pages buttons and celebrate a recent milestone: photos of fans. Pieces were 500,000 circlers, or fans. adhered using liquid Dairy Milk C a d b u r y c h r o n i c l e d t h e as a kind of glue. Text was
applied by hand with edible ink. The company also invited followers to chime in and watch live as the finishing touches were applied through a Google+
Hangout. Many brands have created Google+ pages since Google introduced branded profiles in November. But few marketers have given the platform the same degree of attention theyve lavished on their Facebook, Twitter, or even Tumblr and Pinterest accounts. There are, of course, exceptions, and Cadbury UK is one of them. The company posts to its
Google+ page several times per day. Much of that content is cross -posted to Facebook, but experiences like this one do make followers feel important, the number of comments and +1s suggests. The base is made up of one kilogram of milk chocolate. Click here to view this gallery. More About: cadbury, Cadbury UK, Google, Marketing, trending
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The American public doesnt support Obamacare, and a new survey shows that doctors have an even worse opinion. No one has a better grasp on the state of the health care system than physicians, and according to the Doctors Company survey, 60 percent of them believe that Obamacare will have a negative impact on overall patient care. This survey is consistent with the findings of another doctor survey taken in October 2010, which also showed doctors lack of confidence in Obamacare. The survey was conducted to unveil physicians concerns about health care reform. The Doctors Company, which is the largest insurer of physician and surgeon medical liability in the nation, received more than 5,000 surveys, including all specialties and every region in the country. The results werent good for the Presidents signature piece of legislation. Not only do doctors believe that Obamacare will not improve the
health care system, they also anticipate that it will worsen the current condition. According to the survey, nine out of 10 physicians are unwilling to recommend health care as a profession to a family member, and one primary care physician even commented, I would not recommend becoming an M.D. to anyone. Obamacare doesnt just discourage entrance into the medical profession; it encourages those who are already practicing to leave it. The survey states that health care reform is motivating doctors to change their retirement timeline. In fact, 43 percent of respondents said they are considering retiring within the next five years as a result of the law. A surgeon from Michigan wrote that under Obamacare, We will be moving further away from humanity-based health care and more towards the patient as a commodity. This was not the way my father practicednor will I.
Winding down to retire early. Currently, the United States is on the brink of a severe physician shortage. According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, by 2020, the nation will need an additional 91,500 doctors to meet medical demand. Dr. Donald J. Palmisano, former president of the American Medical Association, warns, Today, we are perilously close to a true crisis as newly insured Americans enter the health care system and our population continues to age. If current physicians leave the practice early because of the health law, the problem will be exacerbated even further. Finally, the survey revealed concerns that the health law will compromise the doctor-patient relationship. Slightly more than half of doctors surveyed believe that increased bureaucracy is reducing the personal interaction with patients essential for building a close relationship and
understanding the nature of patient health. Under Obamacare, Heritage expert Robert Moffit writes, physicians will be subject to more government regulation and oversight, and will be increasingly dependent on unreliable government reimbursement for medical services. Doctors, already under tremendous pressure, will only see their jobs become more difficult. To reverse this trend, the U.S. needs health care reform that doctors and patients alike can eagerly support. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Take Terrorists at Their Word

Caitlin Kincaid (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 2:45:39 PM
The going gets better for Brooks

Rob Parsons (Evening Standard - News)
perverting the course of justice. The couple, both friends of David Cameron, were among six people Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:49:16 AM detained by detectives from The former racehorse trainer, 49, Operation Weeting, the inquiry enjoyed a pint soon after arriving, into illegal hacking of voicemail though his wife, former News messages. Mrs Brooks, 43, has International chief executive been on bail since last summer Rebekah Brooks, was nowhere to w h e n s h e w a s a r r e s t e d o n be seen just over 24 hours after suspicion of phone-hacking and their arrest on suspicion of corruption.
Much of the focus on the second day of the event, Ladies Day, was on fashion, with the Duchess of Cornwall wearing a spotted cream, green and brown dress by Anna Valentine and a blue coat by Roy Allen. The racing syndicate made up of members of Prince Harrys favourite nightclub, Boujis, sees its five-year-old Crunched race
tomorrow. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
In the fight against terrorism, it is essential to know the enemy. In a recent presentation about his new book Battle for Our Minds, Michael Widlanski spoke about a collective Islamyopia, fueled by academia, elite media, and many government officials, that is blind to the political ideology of Islamism. Widlanski explained how experts such as Edward Said perpetuated misconceptions that we are not threatened by Islamist extremism. Said, for instance, despite the fact that he was an English professor and spoke no Arabic, became American academias favorite Middle Eastern scholar. Prior to 9/ 11, The New York Times published his opinion pieces stating that Ali Khomeini wasnt an extremist, Saddam Hussein wasnt a tyrant, and the U.S. wasnt threatened by terrorism. These views colored intelligence and defense decisions despite opposing reports from field agents. Widlanksi said that the media, and by extension the American public, chose to listen to scholars like Said rather than those with actual on-the-ground TAKE page 85
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insight into these movements. Adherence to this doctrine of willful ignorance has already cost thousands of lives. While we cannot fall into the trap of assuming the problem to be Islam itself, refusing to criticize the political ideology of Islamism is itself a dangerous ideology. According to Widlanski, the best way to evaluate the threat of terrorism is not reading the works of an Arabist who cant even read Arabic. We need to listen more to what terrorist leaders are writing and what they are saying to one anotherespecially when they think no one else is listening. Irans Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei has stated he wants to destroy America. Hamass mission is to destroy Israel. We need to take people at their word instead of choosing to ignore their not-so-subtle hints at their intentions. Instead of trying to be politically correct, we need to be factually correct. Al-Qaeda had a clear record of following through on its threats against the U.S., but many were still surprised by 9/11. With innocent lives on the line, there is no excuse for ignoring or belittling known threats to our safety and security. Caitlin Kincaid is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage
Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/ about/departments/ylp.cfm This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
years Ive attended CES and Comdex before it, I have never seen a Vegas show). However, I had been traveling a lot in the weeks leading up to SXSW, ( Barcelona, San Francisco), which meant I had less time to prepare. By the time I arrived on Thursday evening, I was in a state of panic: How do I cover this show? That night, I walked over to the nearly deserted conference hall and picked up my badge. It would be almost 12 hours before I realized how big a deal this was. After wandering the mostly empty Lance Ulanoff (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:39:09 PM SXSW page 86
SXSW 2012: Nothing You Expect, Everything You Need
Arab Winter Watch: Moroccan Girl Commits Suicide After Forced Marriage to Rapist
(The Feed)
that instead of punishing him, the two must be married. The courts decision to forcibly marry Amina Via al Arabiya: to her rapist was supposed to A 16-year-old Moroccan girl has resolve the damage of sexual committed suicide after a judge violation against her, but it led to ordered her to marry her rapist, m o r e s u f f e r i n g i n t h e according to Moroccan media unwelcoming home of her rapist/ reports. Last year Aminas parents husbands family. Traumatized by f i l e d c h a r g e s a g a i n s t t h e i r the painful experience of rape, daughters rapist, a man 10 years Amina decided to end her life by older than her but it was only consuming rat poison in the house al-Massae. According to the recently that a judge in the o f h e r h u s b a n d s f a m i l y , newspaper, this type of forced northern city of Tangier decided according to the Moroccan daily marriage is rooted in local rural
Submitted at 3/14/2012 1:32:23 PM
Serendipity: That was the buzz word at this years South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. It was probably the same word as last year but I wasnt there so I couldnt tell you. Id love to tell you there was one major product announcement or even trend that defined SXSW, but Id be lying. The experience was akin to being a metal orb in a pinball machine, bounding from traditions to safeguard the honor one relay to another, having random conversations, seeing of girls who are raped. . . So, so sick and wrong. . oddball sights and making unexpected discoveries. I . Greg Pollowitz This entry passed through the t h o r o u g h l y e n j o y e d i t . Full-Text RSS service if this is Those who know me will tell you your content and you're reading it Im not a go-with-it kind of guy. on someone else's site, please read Conferences usually mean a the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- packed schedule of meetings, lots only/faq.php#publishers. Five of note taking, a ton of writing Filters recommends: Donate to and absolute exhaustion. Fun doesnt really fit in (in all the Wikileaks. SXSW page 85
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SXSW
halls for a while, I headed back to my room to try and prepare for the day. In my hand I now had a pocket SXSWi schedule that detailed the dozens and dozens of panels I could attend. Some looked interesting, but almost none newsworthy. How do I cover a show without news? This is Big The next morning, I learned something important about SXSWi: News or no news, this was one hot conference. Remember how I waltzed in and walked off with my badge? Now there were hundreds of people in that same registration hall queued up for their badges and a line of thousands more that snaked clear around the perimeter of the conference hall. Some told me they waited three hours. Obviously there was something here. As I had done before, I started walking the halls, taking pictures and tweeting what I saw. Panels didnt start for a couple more hours, so I had time to acclimate myself. Outside, the driving rain, which had started when we arrived on Thursday, was only intensifying. It served to keep whoever came into the giant convention center inside. This, too, turned out be beneficial and helped me discover the most important part of SXSWi: The people. Wherever I went, whether I was standing, sitting or walking at SXSW, I found people to talk to. Sometimes they were people I knew. Like a friendly PR rep who has helped me on many a story
and actually connected me with Pinterests first investor while I was at the show. Other times, it was folks Id only known through Twitter. I could recognize their avatars, but had never actually met them. There was the occasional Mashable fan and even some people who follow me. In every case, we had amazing discussions where I learned about cool stuff going on or around the show, new products and technologies and how to navigate SXSW. One guy gave me an important piece of advice, which would come in handy later. He said, yes, there are tons of panels, but if you find yourself in one you dont like, simply get up and walk out. There is no shame in that. Later when I went to a James Franco panel that ended up not featuring the multi-hyphenate actor, I quietly excused myself without even a hint of guilt. Shuffling, Shuffling As the morning progressed, I found myself wandering up and down the halls looking for anything that might turn into an interesting story or photo-op. I even hopped across the street and out into the cold and rain to check out Jud Apatows coffee stand for his new HBO series Girls, but mostly because I wanted more free coffee. Even when I did find some newsworthy stuff, it was almost by accident. I wandered into a panel on documentaries mostly so I could sit down. Soon the
panelists were talking about the most controversial doc on the planet: KONY 2012. Back in the halls, the ISIS NFC-based mobile payment system launch, which was news, was unhandled in a most un-news-like manner: They used a magician to show how ISIS worked. No press conference. In fact, I dont think SXSW had a single press conference. I thought that was weird, but I just went with it. I attended a couple of panels, but also got shut out of some others. SXSW is not really concerned with reporters. Panels are for everyone and if youre not there early enough, youre out of luck. When this happened to me, I just did my best to go with the flow and find other interesting opportunities. Serendipity Time and time again, the best parts of SXSW were happening in the halls. I met and chatted with Googles Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz as they ate breakfast. They seemed genuinely happy to see me, even if I was standing between them and their breakfast tacos. After this chance meeting, I began to focus more closely on the SXSW crowd, actively seeking friendly and familiar faces. I made a conscious decision to approach everyone and anyone I wanted to meet. No one ever ran away screaming. Clearly others were doing the same. At one point it took me an hour and a half to walk 300 feet. No one was blocking my way, I just kept meeting people (like
Robert Scoble, Ed Baig, Guy Kawasaki, Andy Cohen, Tony Hsieh, Steve Case, Tobey MacGuire, Craig Newmark). All the notables were kind, funny and gracious. I also met many people most (or relatively few) people have never heard of, though I bet someday you will. There was the very young entrepreneur, James Brown, who stopped me in the hall to give me a fast pitch on Goalee, a site that mashes up your social graph and interest graph to create an eHarmony-like matchmaking service for business and networking. I have a near-perfect memory for faces and spotted Irene McGee, the former reality TV star (Real World Seattle) who now blogs about health-related technology at FYIiving. I sat with Americans Elect CTO Joshua Levine who spoke passionately to me about fixing a broken political system. The online organizations grassroots candidate (who will be selected from among 300 drafted candidates via virtual primaries in May and a virtual convention in July) likely has no chance of winning. But dont tell Levine that. Then there was startup founder Hajj Flemings who grabbed me in the hall to show off Gokit.me. He said it was like a mash-up between Pinterest and About.me(though neither site is in any way involved with it). The site (an app is coming later) adds
layers of identities to help you manage your social personas and content boards. Flemings was not the first to promise me that his product could tap into the best parts of Pinterest. Later I ran into young food lover David Segall who came up with a way to track chefs and pop-up food experiences on PopGrub.com. When the weather cleared up, I met more people on the streets, at food trucks and in outdoor event spaces. All these chance meetings were not just the best part of the conference, they were ultimately what SXSW is all about. When I left the show, I had a fistful of business cards and new insight into how small companies and startups develop and work to grab attention. Many were not above a stunt or intense pitch, but they were also willing to let you come to them. My plan for a highly organized SXSW never materialized, but I had one of the best conferences of my career. I cant wait to do it all again. My SXSW Magical Mystery Tour A look at the ISIS Mobile Wallet Booth The mobile wallet software was a sponsor at SXSW. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Google, startup, sxsw, sxsw 2012
Social Media/ Politics/
87
How to Defeat the Social Media Skeptics in Your Company

Mashable Video (Mashable!)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:17:09 PM
Video: Are you ready for the presidential NCAA Tournament bracket?
Allahpundit (Hot Air Top Picks)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:15:46 PM
I say to them, Whats your return on ignoring? Hayzlett For those trying to get a social said. If youre engaged with your media campaign going in their customers, and you have an company, theyll often have to operation that is doing what its deal with naysayers that question supposed to be doing, then youre the value. going to make money. F o r m e r K o d a k C M O J e f f Hayzlett said at this point, not Hayzlett says dealing with the non engaging via social media is just a -believer is all part of running way to lose money. He broke the gauntlet. He believes it so down his social media strategy, strongly that he even wrote a book calling it the four Es. with the same title that promises Get engaged, start doing it. Start to teach people how to push being your own Chief Listening forward with their social media Officer, Hayzlett said. When dreams. you educate people about your Hayzlett spoke with Bryan Elliott product, they get excited, and then on Behind the Brand about what it start to evangelize by becoming takes to engage audiences, and brand ambassadors. how to explain to those number If you have any comments about crunchers that social is valuable. how to buck the social media For one, he said talking about n a y s a y e r s , t w e e t t h e m r e t u r n o n i n v e s t m e n t i s at@BryanElliott, or leave a overhyped. comment below. More Recent
Episodes of Behind the Brand: How Brands Are Tackling Social Issues With Social Media [VIDEO] How Ford Put its Social Marketing Strategy Into Overdrive [VIDEO] What to Do When Your Social Media Strategy Is Successful [VIDEO]
posted at 4:15 pm on March 14, 2012 by Allahpundit Greg Pollowitz joked a few days ago on Twitter that The One would use this gimmick as a pure pander to swing states and pick Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio State, and Duke. Os actual picks: Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio State, and Kentucky. He must be More About: behind the brand, awfully high on the Wildcats to features, Kodak, mashable video, waste a Final Four slot on a state he has no chance of winning, Social Media especially when he could have For more Business coverage: Follow Mashable Business on had Colorado, the 11 seed, as an upset special in the same region. Twitter Poor planning by whoever the Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Business W h i t e H o u s e N C A A Bracketology czar is. channel Download our free apps for In keeping with the general arc of Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad his presidency, he picked the
eventual winner in 2009 (the Tar Heels) and has failed dismally ever since. Two clips for you here, one of Barack-etology in action and the other a little commiseration for my fellow Syracuse fans. Look on the bright side, Orange Nation: They were bound to disappoint us. They ( almost) always do. At least this year theres no suspense. Tags: basketball, bracket, college, hoops, Kentucky, Missouri, ncaa, North Carolina, obama, ohio state, tournament This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Daily World/ Technology/
Move to shield ex-Met chiefs at Leveson probe

Tom Harper (Evening Standard - News)
Justice Leveson to suppress the claims as they were very serious and concerned senior Submitted at 3/14/2012 9:43:39 AM police officers who had Scotland Yard today fought to previously appeared before the prevent very serious allegations inquiry and are unable to respond. against former M e t Mr Garnham spoke of a real commissioners Lord Blair and Sir u n f a i r n e s s a n d s a i d t h e Paul Stephenson being disclosed allegations were unsupported by at the Leveson inquiry, saying the independent evidence. He added: press ethics hearing is being used They have, we would say, the to settle scores. flavour of attempts to settle old It follows allegations over recent scores, and those criticised have days from a serving officer in had no chance to deal with the charge of the Stephen Lawrence issues when they gave evidence. murder investigation and a former It is understood that Mr Driscoll senior official from the Mets was motivated to come forward police watchdog. by his sons involvement in the Detective Chief Inspector Clive Afghanistan war and believes he Driscoll, who led the recent should do the right thing. An successful probe into the racist inquiry source said his evidence murder of the black teenager in relates to potentially damaging 1993, and Peter Tickner, former leaks from the reinvestigation of head of internal audit at the Stephen Lawrence. Metropolitan Police Authority, Mr Tickner used to be in charge have submitted witness statements of internal probes at the MPA, a to the inquiry regarding police civilian body with oversight of corruption. Scotland Yard. However, Scotland Yards QC Lord Justice Leveson said he Neil Garnham today asked Lord understood the Mets concerns
about the timing of the evidence. He added: If it is necessary to put the evidence back, then I would be prepared to contemplate doing that, to achieve an orderly understanding of what is going on. Mr Tickner could not immediately be contacted for comment. His website says he investigated the use of corporate cards and expenses of senior police officers while he was the Mets director of internal audit from 1995 until he took early retirement in 2009. He also set up a unit to investigate contractor and staff fraud and corruption at Scotland Yard, according to his website. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
iTunes movies in 1080p: less than or equal to Blu -ray image quality?
Michael Gorman (Engadget)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:56:00 PM
Blu-ray's been atop the home entertainment mountain, with only fleeting competition from HDDVDs, ever since its introduction. Since then, home internet connections have gotten faster and the quality of downloadable content has improved such that iTunes can offer 1080p versions of your favorite movies. But, does iTunes really provide the crystal clear quality we're accustomed to seeing from its disc-based competition? The good folks at Ars Technica decided to find out using the film 30 Days of Night, and results were mixed: text and color reproduction were virtually indistinguishable, but the compressed iTunes version showed warts when dealing with bright spots and dark gradients. Highlights in the downloaded movie were a little blown out and lacked the detail of their Blu-ray
counterparts, and banding was visible in the downloaded movie during a darker scene. So, it seems that supreme video quality still comes via optical drive, but if you're willing to sacrifice a smidge, the iTunes alternative is still pretty darn good. Don't take our word for it, though, there's lots of photos detailing the difference at the source below. iTunes movies in 1080p: less than or equal to Blu-ray image quality? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Ars Technica| Email this| Comments
Politics/
89
A GOP Convention Floor Fight Is Starting to Look More Likely

Alex Roarty (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 12:42:36 PM
A notion ridiculed a few short weeks ago is now becoming more plausible -- even if it's not yet a likely outcome. Library of Congress Is it time to take the Republican convention seriously as a potential battleground? Republicans should know better by now. Their still-putative nominee, Mitt Romney, lacks the conservative support to capture the kind of expectationsexceeding primary win necessary to capsize underfunded but motivated rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Romney didn't do it in South Carolina, Colorado, or Tennessee. He proved unable once again Tuesday to claim victory in a state, Mississippi, that seemed tantalizingly within reach. MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL Can Super PACs Solve Uncompetitive Congressional Races? Mitt Romney's Mormon Millstone Senate Leaders Announce Deal on Judicial Nominations The months-long trend makes clear Romney will have to win the
GOP nomination with math, not acclamation, steadily accumulating enough delegates in friendly contests until he reaches the nomination-clinching number of 1,144. But that path is fraught with risk. There is always the chance that he'll fall just short of
the magic number, which raises the possibility of a contested convention this August in Tampa. The notion was mocked by many a month ago but now seems increasingly likely. "After last night, you have to start think it's possible,'" said Republican
political consultant Curt Anderson, a former political director of the Republican National Committee who advised Rick Perry before he quit the race. "It seems more possible than before, that's for sure." The Santorum and Gingrich
campaigns are each eagerly embracing that very scenario. In a memo released this week, the Santorum campaign argued that some delegates ostensibly pledged to Romney would switch to the GOP page 91
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Politics/
How to Fix Politics By Adding More Money to the System

Megan McArdle (Politics : The Atlantic)
host of smaller issues, lobbyists are a source of information, research and argument that simply Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:07:27 PM isn't matched by the other side. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry Writes Klein: In the New York Review of If someone walks up to you with Books, Ezra Klein makes a a bag full of money and asks you convincing argument that the way to vote to make coal companies lobbying has corrupted American more profitable, that's not a very democracy is not through money, persuasive argument. Even if you or even indirectly via a "gift take the money, you're going to economy," as Harvard's Larry feel dirty the next day. And most Lessig has argued, but rather people don't like to feel dirty. But b e c a u s e l o b b y i s t s p r o v i d e if one of your smartest, most legislators with a legislative persuasive friends, a friend you subsidy. agree with on almost everything, If cash and lobbying bought is explaining to you that those votes, you'd expect a law like environmentalist nuts are going PPACA to have gotten some too far again -- they're always bipartisan approval, given that it doing that, aren't they? -- and they was supported by major industry have sneakily tucked a provision groups. Instead it was a party-line into a bill that would make it vote. Lobbying works not by m o r e e x p e n s i v e f o r y o u r swaying votes on the big-ticket constituents to buy electricity, issues, where politicians are more that's very persuasive. And if it's accountable to voters and their also in your self-interest to listen parties, but on the small-time to him -- and lobbyists are good at issues that don't get public nothing if not making sure it is in attention: Jack Abramoff's biggest a politician's long-term selfjob was getting tax breaks for interest to listen to them -- then all Indian tribes, not exactly a page your incentives are pointing in the A1 issue. The way the legislative same direction. You'll listen. subsidy works is that on these The expression "legislative
subsidy" is excellent because it really shows how successful lobbyists hold legislators' hands and help them do their job. This seems very persuasive to me, because living in France, where campaign finance is highly regulated (since a string of corruption scandals in the 1980s), lobbying works very well, as I discovered (full disclosure) when I was in law school and active in politics and briefly worked as a lobbyist. Lobbyists equip politicians with tools to do their job, e.g. position papers, studies on complex topics, introductions to industry and sometimes even media folk, and often even drafted bills. Hence the legislative subsidy. The other form of subsidy is of course the revolving door: legislative staffers are often poorly paid but highly intelligent and credentialed people, who would like to make money one day like the dumb fratboys they went to college with who are now at Goldman Sachs. And so the lure of lobbying beckons. What to do about the legislative subsidy?
It seems to me that the obvious answer is to pay elected representatives and their staffs vast amounts of money. Legislators crave the legislative subsidy simply because they don't have the staff to research whether proposed tax X would really kill eleventy zillion jobs. Legislative chiefs of staff are "owned" by Abramoff as soon as he tells them he has a job for them in several years because they're getting paid a pittance. What if every member of Congress had a, say, $20 million staff-and-research budget? What if a congressional chief of staff made $1 million per year, and what if each congressman had an army of staffers to research policy and draft bills, as opposed to a skeleton staff? The legislative subsidy would just become irrelevant. Or at least, congresspeople would be on equal footing vis--vis well-funded lobbyists. And the cost would be a drop in the bucket compared to the federal budget -- and even less compared to the social and economic cost of carveouts and tax breaks.
This system could be abused: the budgets could become slush funds or patronage tools. Some rules (e.g., no spouses) can be drawn up, and maybe we could appoint an external auditor and some sort of review body made up of federal judges to punish abuses. Certainly the current system seems pretty rife with abuse, and if legislative subsidy really is the problem -- as I think it is -- this seems like a straightforward and effective solution. You can follow me on Twitter here. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/03/how-tofix-politics-by-adding-moremoney-to-the-system/254522/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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GOP
onetime U.S. senator if Romney fails to win on the first ballot at the convention. Combined with a difficult remaining schedule for Romney, that dynamic ensures Romney won't acquire enough delegates, the Santorum campaign contends. "The reality is simple: The Romney math doesn't add up, and he will have a very difficult time ever getting to a majority of the delegates," the memo said. "The situation is only going to get worse for them and better for Rick Santorum as time passes. Simply put, time is on our side." That sentiment was echoed by Gingrich supporters, including Rick Tyler, an official with the Gingrich-allied super PAC Winning Our Future. "We're in a position now where convention delegates are going to decide who nominee is," Tyler told National Journal. Whether Gingrich will be at the convention seems like more of an open question, even as the candidate himself vowed Tuesday night to make his case all the way to Tampa. "Because this is
proportional representation, we're going to leave Alabama and Mississippi with a substantial number of delegates, increasing our total going towards Tampa," he said. "We're going to take a much bigger delegation than we had yesterday." The former House speaker's political base was supposed to reside in the Deep South, but the twin disappointments of Alabama and Mississippi will increase calls from some conservatives for him to step aside to let Santorum battle Romney one-on-one. Gingrich's viability could depend on his super PAC, which, with the benefit of multimillion dollar donations from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has kept him visible on TV and radio. Whether those funds will continue to flow to and from the outside group remains unclear -- Tyler declined to comment. He did concede, however, that Gingrich had missed a chance Tuesday to "change the narrative." He added, "That doesn't mean it won't change tomorrow." Tyler said Santorum, whose
campaign has urged Gingrich to quit the race, actually would benefit from Gingrich sticking with it -- that way, the two men can work together to gobble up enough delegates to prevent Romney from reaching 1,144 of them. As Gingrich put it Tuesday night, "the conservative candidates" (meaning himself and Santorum) "got nearly 70 percent of the vote" in Alabama and Mississippi. The Romney campaign pointed out that despite the disappointing returns in the South, it still increased its delegate lead thanks to victories in Hawaii and American Samoa. The Associated Press delegate count Wednesday put Romney at 495. Santorum had 252 and Gingrich had 131 -- well behind Romney even when added together. "Our goal was to come in, take a third of the delegates," Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said in an interview with CNN. "We'll do that, and once the dust clears, you'll be able to look and see that there really will be no ground that our opponents have
made up against Mitt Romney, and as you look at the upcoming contest on the calendar, there are no opportunities for them to have significant wins that allow them to accumulate large numbers of delegates so they can close the gap with Mitt Romney." It may not be inspirational, and it may not prevent drama at the convention, but it's a plan. Beth Reinhard contributed. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/03/a-gopconvention-floor-fight-is-startingto-look-more-likely/254490/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Politics/
How many ways can you use Republican war on women in a sentence?
Tina Korbe (Hot Air Top Picks)
Egyptian parliamentary report: Israel is our number one enemy

Allahpundit (Hot Air Top Picks)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 4:25:18 PM
close variant four times in just 254 words, as IBDs Sean Higgins pointed out on Twitter this Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:50:08 PM afternoon. posted at 4:50 pm on March 14, If you read through it and listen 2012 by Tina Korbe carefully, you can hear the The Washington Examiners gullible entering their credit card David Freddoso makes sport of numbers. e a r n e s t , s i n c e r e , p l e a d i n g , Ah, yes. War is Republican heartfelt Democratic fundraising e H o u s e l e a d e r s l i n i n g u p -mails: congressional witnesses that dont I noted yesterday that Ive include Sandra Fluke, relegating received 23 fundraising emails on her to an exclusive hearing before the topic [of Sandra Fluke] from sympathetic Democrats. War is a j u s t t h e t w o D e m o c r a t i c radio host using a few tasteless congressional committees (the phrases, conservative pundits DCCC and the DSCC). You know calling out the media double that silly game Republicans play standard and employers denying with flag-burning amendments? employees insurance that covers The Democrats version is the contraception. war on women. Charles Lane whom I rarely Today Ive received the 24th, and read, so dont hold me responsible it is a hysterical wonder to behold. for any of his other views Supposedly penned by Rep. Diana writes for me when he writes: Degette more likely by some I dont know about you, but Im nameless staffer at the DCCC, and sick and tired of war. thats giving Degette the benefit The Democratic National of the doubt this email Committee accuses the GOP of a m a n a g e s t o u s e t h e p h r a s e Republican War on Women, to Republican war on women or a go along with its war on working
families (according to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee) and Paul Ryans war on seniors (Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky). Various Republicans accuse President Obama of waging war on religious freedom or even, in the words of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a war on religion. According to the Republican National Committee, the president is also waging war on energy, the sequel, apparently, to what the House Republican Leadership has called Democrats war on American jobs. And on and on and on until you could almost lose sight of the fact that not one of these institutions or individuals is describing a physical conflict in which people fight, bleed and die. Do I believe that conservatives and progressives are in a battle of ideas, a conflict of visions, etc.? Yes, yes and yes. Am I sick of the war on whatever shorthand? YES. Surely we can come up with a more creative way to say that
the political stakes of the contraception mandate debate, of the broader Obamacare debate, of the entire 2012 election are high. To borrow another popular metaphor, were at a crossroads. One path appears to destroy the American Dream; the other path seems to restore it. By objecting to war on whatever phraseology, Im not denying any of that. Im just saying that, if you use a phrase enough times, it loses its resonance, its power, its verve. We can do better and we dont even have to abandon military vocabulary to do it. How about we call Election 2012 Freedoms Last Stand or The Charge for Liberty? Anything but war. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
posted at 5:25 pm on March 14, 2012 by Allahpundit I saw something about this at Irans English-language house organ, Press TV, and figured it was propaganda aimed at driving the wedge between Israel and Egypt a little deeper. Not so. The AP reported it on Monday. It really happened. One year and one month after Mubarak was knocked over, this is what the vanguard of Egyptian democracy is up to. Thought experiment: Would there be more western support for intervening in Syria if this rolling clusterfark in Egypt hadnt happened? When Mubarak was teetering, the debate in the west was about whether Arabs might finally be ready to liberalize notwithstanding the Muslim Brotherhoods strength. You dont hear much of that now vis-a-vis Syria. There are lots of arguments for intervening to topple Assad, both humanitarian and strategic (depriving Iran of a prized proxy), but making Damascus safe for democracy isnt one of them. Youre apt to get the same sort of EGYPTIAN page 93
Politics/
93
Video of the Day: Romney Gets Defensive on Fox News

David A. Graham (Politics : The Atlantic)
EGYPTIAN
point that he'll win the nomination. But he can't convince GOP voters to unite around him, Submitted at 3/14/2012 3:18:17 PM and it seems like his annoyance is The front-runner's response to starting to show in the interview. hostile questioning from Megyn Kelly came out with some tough Kelly is to lay the sarcasm on questions, and played a clip of thick. him talking about why he thought Rick Santorum complained a federal mandate for health Tuesday -- back before he won insurance was a good idea. (He both Alabama and Mississippi and instituted such a mandate in his mood brightened -- that Fox Massachusetts and used to support News was in the bag for his rival it nationally, but now says he Mitt Romney. That charge doesn't thinks mandates are not an really make much sense at all: Not appropriate federal solution.) only have many Fox personalities But his greatest moment of pique praised Santorum and bashed came when Kelly read aloud from R o m n e y , i t ' s t h e f o r m e r an Associated Press article that Massachusetts governor who s t a t e d t h a t h i s l o s s e s i n seems to have trouble whenever Mississippi and Alabama showed he goes on the channel. Back in that the "core of his party does not November, there was his very want him." That set Romney off. testy interview with Bret Baier. Not in a scream-and-gnash-teeth And an appearance on Megyn sort of way -- that isn't his style: Kelly's America Live Wednesday I'm sorry, but they have to go continues the trend. back and look at some other states Romney finds himself in a t h a t a c t u a l l y a r e k i n d o f frustrating situation: his campaign important. Let's say Florida, for is clearly more disciplined, better instance, where I won, and organized, and better funded than Michigan and Ohio and Nevada h i s r i v a l s ' , a n d i t ' s a l m o s t and New Hampshire .... Oh, and mathematically certain at this by the way, last night I got more
delegates than anybody else. This sarcastic tone (watch the video to hear the edge in his voice) seems to be Romney's default when he's backed into a corner. So far, it hasn't been a major problem because he has kept the press at arm's length, but he'll likely be giving more interviews before too long -- either in an effort to seal the deal in the primaries, or else once he's cleared the field and takes on Obama. His tasks for those days ahead: learn to respond to tough questions with more equanimity, and try to avoid insulting diehard Republican states. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/03/video-ofthe-day-romney-gets-defensive-on -fox-news/254519/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
lunatics in power there as in Cairo. Is making Khamenei sweat enough of a reason to help install another Sunni Islamist mobocracy across the border from Israel? Egypts Islamist-dominated parliament unanimously voted on Monday in support of expelling Israels ambassador in Cairo and halting gas exports to the Jewish state. The motion is largely symbolic, because only the ruling military council can make such decisions, and it is not likely to impact Egypts relations with Israel. But it signals the seismic change in Egypt after the ouster of longtime leader and Israel ally Hosni Mubarak a year ago in a popular uprising that ended his 29 years in power. The vote was taken by a show of hands on a report by the chambers Arab affairs committee that declared Egypt will never be a friend, partner or ally of Israel. The report described Israel as the nations number one enemy and endorsed what it called Palestinian resistance in all its kinds and forms against Israels aggressive policies. True to Islamist form, the report referred to Israel as the Zionist entity. If youre searching for some reason to believe this isnt as bad as it seems, heres the best I can do: To some extent, Israelbashing gestures like this are aimed as much at the ruling military junta as at Israel itself. The junta runs the country, much to the Islamists dismay, and the
juntas also the guarantor of the cold peace with Tel Aviv. When a measure passes declaring Israel the countrys archenemy, its tantamount to calling the junta traitors, which further delegitimizes them among the population. So in theory, if/when parliament finally has real power and begins to collect western foreign aid (i.e. bribes), the Islamists will be more circumspect about their demagogic gambits. Ive never bought that, though, for two reasons: (1) no doubt there are plenty of MPs, especially in the Salafist wing, who really do feel this way and want another go at smashing the Zionist entity, and (2) even among the ones who dont, the temptation to sink into Jew-hatred as a populist distraction once they try and fail to solve the countrys economic problems will probably prove irresistible. Theyll end up pushing for war because thats all theyll have to offer. Sorry, Syrians, but youre out of luck. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
94
Technology/
Canada relaxes rules on foreign ownership of wireless companies, plans spectrum auction for first half of 2013
Donald Melanson (Engadget)
percent, so long as it's not done through mergers or takeovers. Submitted at 3/14/2012 5:34:00 PM Previously, total foreign The Canadian government made ownership in telecom companies a major announcement on telecom has been restricted to 46.7 p o l i c y l a t e t h i s a f t e r n o o n , percent. revealing a change that opens the Along with that news, the door to more foreign ownership of government also confirmed that wireless companies -- an issue the anticipated 700MHz spectrum that's been a point of contention auction will take place in the first for some time. As The Globe & half of 2013 (with a 2500 MHz Mail reports, the new rules will auction to follow within a year), allow for 100 percent ownership and that there will be caps in of companies with a market share place that are said to "effectively of ten percent or less -- something ensure that new wireless entrants that can then grow beyond ten and regional providers have
access to prime spectrum." The auction will also have some conditions intended to bring service to rural areas, and there will be a block of spectrum
reserved for public safety use. All of this, the government says, is intended to "provide Canadian families with more choices at low prices," although we'll naturally
have to wait and see if that last bit pans out. [ Tower photo via Shutterstock] Canada relaxes rules on foreign ownership of wireless companies, plans spectrum auction for first half of 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Industry Canada| Email this| Comments
Technology/
95
The Hague to Samsung: no injunction for 3G patent infringement if Apple's willing to FRAND license
Michael Gorman (Engadget)
Submitted at 3/14/2012 5:20:00 PM
Since it's been more than 24 hours since the last bit of news in the ongoing legal battle between Samsung and Apple, we figured you could do with another litigation revelation. Late last year, the Hague shot down Sammy's request to prevent iPads and iPhones from being sold in the Netherlands. Today, the Dutch court went a step further, telling the Korean company that it can't pursue any other injunctions based upon its FRAND 3G patents as long as Cupertino's willing to talk about licensing them. Not only that, it went on to hold that those patents don't apply in Sammy's case against the iPhone 4S due to the theory of patent exhaustion. The allegedly
infringing bits in the handset are made by Qualcomm, who licensed the technology directly from Samsung -- granting Apple protection under the license as a third party beneficiary -- and Apple prevailed using arguments not unlike those it made in a suit it recently filed against Motorola. Score one more legal victory for Tim Cook and company, but as you already know, the war is far from over. The Hague to Samsung: no injunction for 3G patent infringement if Apple's willing to FRAND license originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Electronista| de Rechtspraak (translated)| Email this| Comments

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