Liberty Newspost April-16-2012

Curated News Edition
- 16/04/12
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U.N. condemns North Korea rocket launch

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China and the U.S.: It's complicated CNNMoney

(china - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:11:39 PM
resolution imposing sanctions against North Korea after its first Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:05:18 PM nuclear test in 2006, and stepped UNITED NATIONS (AP) The up the sanctions after its second U.N. Security Council on Monday test in 2009. s t r o n g l y c o n d e m n e d N o r t h North Korea's attempt to launch a Korea's rocket launch, announced satellite ended in failure Friday it will impose new sanctions, and when the rocket disintegrated over warned that it will take further the Yellow Sea. Western nations action if Pyongyang conducts have said the launch was a cover another launch or a new nuclear for the testing of a long-range test. missile, and worries remain about By Ng Han Guan, AP North Korea's nuclear program A North Korean vehicle carrying amid reports that it may be what appears to be a new missile planning another atomic test soon. passes by during a military parade The Security Council demanded Sunday in Pyongyang. Monday that North Korea halt any A p r e s i d e n t i a l s t a t e m e n t , further launches and said Friday's approved by all 15 council l a u n c h " h a s c a u s e d g r a v e members and read at a formal c o n c e r n s i n t h e r e g i o n . " meeting, said Friday's launch, "as U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, the well as any use of ballistic missile current council president, said the technology, even if characterized speedy adoption of the statement as a satellite launch or space "shows that the international launch vehicle, is a serious community is united" in sending a violation of U.N. resolutions." strong message to North Korea The Security Council adopted a and said its companies dealing in content] [unable to retrieve full-text
nuclear technology would be added to the sanctions list. The council said it asked the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea to prepare new additions for the sanctions list within 15 days, and said if it doesn't the council itself would take action within five days to expand the sanctions list. The council expressed "its determination to take action accordingly in the event of a further DPRK launch or nuclear test," the statement said, using the initials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 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 [unable to retrieve full-text
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, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines. 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. content]
MarketWatch China and the U.S.: It's complicated CNNMoney By Paul R. La Monica @lamonicabuzzApril 16, 2012: 1:01 PM ET China is slowly loosening restrictions on its yuan currency. The US thinks China is artificially keeping the value of the yuan low to boost exports. Click photo for more on currencies. Chinese yuan weakens in first day of new trading range Los Angeles Times China Lifts 6.5-Year-Old Ban On Long Yuan Positions For FX Trading Banks Wall Street Journal Securities Czar Aims to Make China's Markets Respectable New York Times MarketWatch- San Francisco Chronicle all 770 news articles
Headline/ Economy/
Obama, DNC raised $53M in March for campaign

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Obama's camp outlined the fundraising in an Internet video Monday that featured donors who By Fredreka Schouten, USA had given as little as $5. More TODAY than 567,000 people contributed Updated to the campaign last month. WASHINGTON President Obama's campaign, however, has Obama's fundraising gained urged supporters to do more, strength in March, as he raised a noting that Republican super combined $53 million for his PACs and other GOP-affiliated campaign and the Democratic outside groups are prepared to N a t i o n a l C o m m i t t e e i n spend heavily to oust him. preparation for the next phase of "We're all going to have to dig the campaign: the general election even deeper," campaign manager battle with Republican Mitt Jim Messina said in the video. Romney. "It's going to take all of us By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, working together." AP President Obama greets The campaign did not disclose supporters after speaking at a the size of Obama's cash reserves fundraiser in Burlington, Vt., on at month's end. Those totals and March 30. other details of Obama fundraising will become public By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, later this week when presidential AP candidates file reports with the P r e s i d e n t O b a m a g r e e t s Federal Election Commission. supporters after speaking at a Romney has not yet released fundraiser in Burlington, Vt., on March fundraising totals, but he March 30. had collected a little more than Obama's March haul is nearly $75 million through the end of twice the $29.1 million he February. This month, he began collected for himself and the party raising funds jointly with the in January. In all, he has raised Republican National Committee, more than $350 million in this which will run ads and conduct election cycle for his campaign voter-outreach efforts in the and various party accounts. months ahead.
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:59:17 AM
who now is raising money for Romney. "It's going to be a record amount of fundraising on our side this year," he said. In Romney, "we finally have a proven and experienced privatesector executive who knows how to create jobs," Malek said. "That's combined with an abject T h e R e p u b l i c a n N a t i o n a l fear of four more years of Committee, which started the P r e s i d e n t O b a m a a n d h i s election cycle mired in debt, is p o l i c i e s . " Republican outside groups, showing renewed strength. It including super PACs that can raised $13.7 million in March, its best fundraising month of the raise unlimited corporate money, election and ended the month with have consistently outraised their nearly $33 million in available Democratic counterparts. For instance, the Congressional cash. Kirsten Kukowski, the RNC's Leadership Fund, a super PAC spokeswoman, noted that Obama supported by House Republican still lags behind his fundraising leaders, raised nearly $5.1 million pace in March 2008, when he during the first three months of raised $42.8 million in his the year, boosted by $5 million p r i m a r y f i g h t w i t h H i l l a r y from casino magnate Sheldon Rodham Clinton without the Adelson and his wife, Miriam. benefit of the Democratic Party. Adelson and his family has Obama's team counters they are donated $16.5 million to help using their cash stockpile to build Republican Newt Gingrich's a nation campaign infrastructure. presidential campaign, and the Republicans donors are more c o n g r e s s i o n a l d o n a t i o n energized than they have been in a demonstrates he also is willing to while, said Fred Malek, a top finance the party's establishment. fundraiser in Arizona Sen. John By contrast, the House Majority McCain's 2008 presidential bid PAC, working to elect Democrats to the House, raised $1.5 million
during the first three months of the year, new filings show. 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, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines. 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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Pope turns 85, amid focus on frailty

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Submitted at 4/16/2012 7:46:00 AM
Bettazzi of the north Italian city of Ivrea, reportedly to Italian Television on Saturday, Today is Pope Benedict XVI's I wish him a long life and lasting 85th birthday and according to the lucidity but I think that if the Associated Press, he's spending it moment arrives when he sees that hanging with his brother, Msgr. things are changing, I think he has Georg Ratzinger, who has written the courage to resign," Bettazzi that he feared Benedict was too told Italian television on Saturday. old and frail for this job when he There's no "vice pope" and no was elected in 2005. succession plan. The Cardinal Big brother isn't alone in that electors who will one day choose thought. Associated Press quotes the next pope rely on the guidance Benedict's homily at his Mass of the Holy Spirit once they're today: locked into the conclave in the I am facing the final leg of the Sistine Chapel. path of my life and I don't know DO YOU THINK ... Pope what's ahead...I know though that died aged 93 in 1903 after last month: Benedict will resign and spend his God's light is there ... and that his reigning for 25 years. I'm old but I can still carry out last years writing theological light is stronger than every scholarship and playing the piano, The story is a chronicle of my duties. darkness. infirmity: Benedict using a cane After all, Benedict did tell an a s h e o n c e i m a g i n e d h i s Reuters' Philip Pullella writes on the Cuba trip; wheeling down interviewer for a 2010 book, retirement years ago? about "speculation" whether the aisle of St. Peter's on the ... he would not hesitate to This entry passed through the Bendict, entering his seventh year platform last used by Pope John become the first pontiff to resign Full-Text RSS service if this is as pope this week, "will be the Paul II; suffering like many his willingly in more than 700 years your content and you're reading it first pontiff in seven centuries to age with high blood pressure and i f h e f e l t n o l o n g e r a b l e , on someone else's site, please read resign." arthritis. "physically, psychologically and the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentBenedict is already older than Benedict knows the topic is on spiritually" to run the Catholic only/faq.php#publishers. Five John Paul was when he died in folks' mind and he told another Church. Filters recommends: Donate to 2005 and is now the oldest famously old leader, Fidel Castro, R e t i r e d A r c h b i s h o p L u i g i Wikileaks. reigning pope since Leo XIII, who
Chinese standover tactics claim dismissed Stuff.co.nz

Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:00:11 PM
MSN NZ News Chinese standover tactics claim dismissed Stuff.co.nz The Government is rejecting claims of Chinese"standover tactics" on foreign investment as one of China's top politicians uses his visit here to press home a desire for a step up in investment in New Zealand. Chairman Jia Qinglin and a group of Chinese... Crafar farms sale off the agenda for China leader New Zealand Herald NZ PM rejects Greens' China pressure Sky News Australia Top political advisory body to boost ties with NZ China Daily Xinhua all 87 news articles
Italy's Ducati Owner: In Talks With Audi But No Exclusivity - Wall Street Journal
(Andrea Rossi - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 8:24:53 AM
Italy's Ducati Owner: In Talks
With Audi But No Exclusivity Wall Street Journal Andrea Bonomi of Investindustrial, an Italian
investment company, described the week as important for the talks, but not decisive. Two people familiar with the matter
had told Dow Jones Newswires last week that Investindustrial could enter exclusive... and more
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Insurgent says Haqqani was behind Afghanistan attacks - CNN International

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Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:52:50 PM
Weekend attacks in Afghanistan STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: Afghan president says his country will be well-defended after forces leave The performance of Afghan forces in fighting off insurgent attacks shows they're ready The United States thought Afghan attacks likely, a Pentagon spokesman says But officials didn't have precise intelligence about when or where, the spokesman says Read an Arabic version of this story. Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)-- The performance of Afghan forces in reacting to a series of sustained assaults shows that the country's security situation will not deteriorate after scheduled departure of international troops next year, President Hamid Karzai said Monday. "I'm rather very confident that once the international forces leave, that the Afghan forces will be able to defend their country as they demonstrated yesterday," Karzai told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Afghan security forces took the lead in responding to a coordinated wave of assaults in
Kabul and across eastern parts of Afghanistan on Sunday and Monday. Afghan troops completed the final raids Monday, clearing two central Kabul buildings of holdout insurgents, a NATO spokesman said. Afghan forces also captured a
suicide bomber Monday in Kabul before he was able to reach his target, NATO spokesman Lt. L.M. Rago said. Two other would -be bombers were captured on Sunday, according to Rago. Karzai said that four insurgents were in custody. The nearly 18-hour series of
assaults left four civilians and eight members of the Afghan security forces dead, Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi said Monday. About 65 people were wounded, he said. One insurgent told officials that he was working for the Haqqani network, a ruthless, well-trained
organization linked to al Qaeda, Mohammadi said. The coordinated attacks were the most dramatic and widespread assault in the Afghan capital since an attack in September on the U.S. Embassy and NATO INSURGENT page 5
INSURGENT
continued from page 4
headquarters. Pentagon spokesman George Little also said it appears the Haqqani network was behind the wave of attacks. He would not discuss specific intelligence. But he said the wellcoordinated attacks appeared to have the hallmarks of previous attacks by the Haqqani network, which has long aimed its attacks at Kabul. Given the seasonal rise in attacks as the warmer weather of spring approaches, Little said, U.S. officials "thought something like this may very well happen and it did." Little emphasized the United States had not had a "precise understanding" of when and where such attacks might come. Karzai said the attacks demonstrated a intelligence failure for Afghanistan and especially its allies in NATO. "I'm not blaming NATO for this," he said. "I'm simply asking a question as to the efficiency of our intelligence gathering systems." Insurgents launched the wave of audacious attacks in Kabul and three other areas of the country Sunday. Government forces said they had repelled the offensives, but some of the violence in the streets of the capital spilled into Monday. Explosions rocked central Kabul early Monday after periodic bursts of gunfire that lasted well into Sunday night in the district that houses government offices and allied embassies.
"In Kabul, our problem was that we were very cautious not to cause any civilian casualty, therefore it took us longer to act," Mohammadi said Monday. He said that more than 30 people had been trapped by fighting around the Afghan parliament and that it had taken until Monday morning to rescue them. Thirty-five of the insurgents died in the violence, most of them killed by government forces, Mohammadi said. Only a few succeeded in detonating explosives attached to their bodies, he said. Karzai said the attacks demonstrated the capability of Afghan forces. "As brazen as it looked, it was a failure from our perspective, because our security forces responded immediately and quite efficiently," Karzai said. Afghan forces won praise for their response not only from Karzai, but also from Gen. John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Allen said Sunday that the Afghans beat back the insurgents without allied assistance. "They were on scene immediately, well-led and wellcoordinated," Allen said. "They integrated their efforts, helped protect their fellow citizens and largely kept the insurgents contained." He said the attacks were meant to signal "that legitimate governance and Afghan sovereignty are in peril," but the Afghan response "is proof enough of that folly."
The majority of the attackers used women's clothing -- with burqas covering their faces -- in order to reach their intended positions, Mohammadi said. They even "had bunches of flowers in their car in Kabul in order to show off that they were women and they were going to a wedding party or something like that," he said. The Taliban militia that once ruled most of Afghanistan claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying it launched fighters into battle with suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades in Kabul and the provinces of Nangarhar, Paktia and Logar. However, one of the attackers was arrested in Nangarhar on Sunday and said during questioning that he was part of the Haqqani network, supporting the view of several observers who doubted the Taliban had the capacity to mount such offensives alone. The Haqqani network has operated for more than 20 years and played a significant role among the mujahedeen groups that fought Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is currently led by Sirajuddin Haqqani and is regarded by U.S. military commanders in the region as one of the most effective and dangerous arms of the insurgency. A recent paper by the nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War described the Haqqani network as "Afghanistan's most capable and potent insurgent group."
According to the report, the Haqqanis "continue to maintain close operational and strategic ties" with al Qaeda and its affiliates. The paper's authors said the network had "expanded its reach" toward the Taliban's traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan, the areas surrounding Kabul and the north of the country. Senior U.S. officials have persistently accused elements in Pakistan's military intelligence service of aiding the Haqqanis as a way of ensuring Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. The officials says that both the Taliban and the Haqqani network have safe havens in Pakistan that they use to launch cross-border attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Apparently supporting that point, the insurgent arrested Sunday in Nangarhar said he had been trained and equipped "on the other side of the border," Mohammadi said. A senior official with Pakistan's intelligence service said officials were concerned the attacks may be used to pressure Pakistan either to attack north Waziristan, where the Haqqani network has operations, or to allow a return to a broader U.S. campaign of drone strikes against militant targets. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker earlier had said he thought the attacks Sunday might have been the work of the Haqqani network rather than the Taliban. "The Taliban are very good at
issuing statements, less good at fighting," Crocker said. No Americans were hurt during the fighting, he said. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said that as many as seven locations in Kabul were attacked, including the parliament building and the American, German and Russian embassies. Sediq Seddiqi, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, said Sunday that the insurgents had taken up positions in empty buildings in three Kabul districts to carry out the attacks. The Kabul police said they found and detonated a van full of explosives. Meanwhile, an airbase used by U.S. troops in the eastern city of Jalalabad, in Nangarhar Province, also came under attack, NATO command in Kabul reported. Four suicide bombers wearing women's burqas tried to attack the Jalalabad airfield where U.S. troops are based, airfield commander Jahangir Azimi said. At least three of the attackers were killed, ISAF said in a statement. Separately, a group of suicide bombers attacked the police training center in the city of Gardez, in Paktia Province. At least eight civilians were wounded, said a police official at the center, who was not authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be identified. And 15 would-be attackers were arrested in Kunduz Province INSURGENT page 11
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'Doomsday Clock' of Defense budget cuts nears zero hour

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Submitted at 4/16/2012 4:52:00 AM
Its big. Its ugly. And its probably going to happen. The first two statements have been reiterated by policy makers and Defense officials since Congress agreed to sequestration, a doomsday clock of budget cuts disproportionately targeting the Defense Department and set to strike midnight at the first of next year. The third has been roundly disavowed by military leaders; but experts are now saying its time to prepare for the worst. To be sure, the facts are grim. Sequestration, the product of failure by a Supercommittee last July to root $1.2 trillion of excess spending out of the U.S. budget, means an automatic round of spending cuts, half of which, or up to $600 billion over the next decade, will fall across the Defense Department. In the bestcase scenario, Defense officials would be permitted by the Office of Management and Budget to administer the cuts themselves, choosing the programs they deem appropriate for trimming. In the worst case, the ax will fall across every defense program equally, taking roughly nine percent off
the top without regard to consequences. You cannot buy three-quarters of a ship or building, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wrote to Senate Armed Services Committee leaders John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R -S.C.) in a letter last November, explaining the crippling effects of such a measure. Management leaders generally advocate reducing or abandoning specific activities, rather than invoking across-the-board cuts, which can harm valuable endeavors. If the hatchet strikes indiscriminately, and at a time that does not regard Defense budget planning, Panetta said the immediate result would be employee furloughs and contract and procurement curtailment; and the end of the decade would see the smallest U.S. Air Force in history in terms of personnel, smallest ground force since 1940, and smallest number of Navy ships since 1915. A George Mason University scholar, Dr. Stephen S. Fuller, projected on behalf of Aerospace Industries Association that the cuts, compounded with the $500 billion of cuts already taken in the FY 2013 Defense request, would
mean the loss of more than one million American jobs and a 25 percent loss of growth. Moreover, Republican staffers with the House Armed Services Committee projected last September: the Army and the Marine Corps risk dropping 200,000 troops from 2011 levels; the Navy 50 ships or more; and the Air Force nearly 480 fighters, with additional blows to unit technological capability, humanitarian and noncombat missions, and provision for military families and dependents. If budget reductions are restricted primarily to major acquisitions, as may happen if DoD is given its head, the outcome is still damaging, said American Enterprise Institute scholar Mackenzie Eaglen, who has written extensively about military readiness and Defense budget issues. Following the Clinton administrations Procurement holiday in the 1990s, the military finds itself in real need of new equipment, much of which may face cancellation if current acquisition and procurement programs are diced or eliminated, Eaglen said. If you ask me, for the last three years, the Obama
Defense budgets have raised the acquisition accounts disproportionately, Eaglen said. The cut in the program side now is tending to hurt programs that are safety nets to bridge the military for the next conflict. President Barack Obama set the trend with his first budget proposal in 2009, proposing that over $8 billion in cuts, or half of overall budget reductions, come from a Defense Department that was waging two wars and would soon embark on a massive troop surge in Afghanistan. Travis Korson, a spokesman for the nonprofit For the Common Defense, said hope remains among the experts that Congress will tackle sequestration during the November lame duck session, perhaps seizing on one of the proposed solutions: passage of bills in the House and Senate that would divert cuts from DoD, phasing out 10 percent of federal workers over the next decade instead; or considering the budget of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which recently cleared the House and spares Defense of sequestration while restoring additional funding. The first option, however, appears hopelessly partisan,
without a single Democratic cosponsor in the Senate or House; and the second, the Ryan Budget, is not expected to pass the Senate. Obama has publicly made clear his intentions to veto any Republican attempt to avoid the sequester. A director at the Center for Defense Information, Winslow Wheeler, was less optimistic that any solution would be found. I regard sequestration as virtually inevitable. Were going to hear lots of noise, and I dont expect anything to happen, he said. People think the lame duck Congress will transform itself into a rational bunch of statesmen. I dont see that happening at all. Hope springs eternal, contrary to all headlines, that the Big Deal can be made, Eaglen said. Theres really so much (in sequestration) for everyone to hate. 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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Obama's 'war on coal' likely to give GOP edge in West Virginia

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treatment of the coal industry to the Navy Seals taking out Osama bin Laden and hinting the UMW MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- may not endorse President Obama Last week, I was talking about for re-election, it is considered some coal deals, businessman certain that West Virginias five and Republican U.S. Senate electoral votes will be in the candidate John Raese told a Republican column this fall. In packed crowd at the local Holiday addition, Raesewho lost a close Inn Saturday night, and I said special election to Democratic lets close the deals before the Gov. Joe Manchin in 2010 for the hammer-and-sickle come down. seat of the late Sen. Robert Byrd The 200-plus guests at the (D-W.Va.)is considered even Berkley County Republican money against Manchin in the dinner here cheered. They knew race for the full term this fall. exactly what Raese was talking Manchin, obviously aware of the about: the O b a m a desperate political situation he is administrations assault on the in, has broken with Obama over coal industry that is the economic the coal issue. backbone of West Virginia. Republican Bill Maloney, Almost to a person, Republicans n a r r o w l y e d g e d o u t b y we spoke to here agree that a D e m o c r a t i c G o v . E a r l R a y series of regulations and rulings Tomblin in the special election to f r o m t h e E n v i r o n m e n t a l succeed Manchin as governor last Protection Agency that are hostile year, is in much stronger political to the coal and natural gas shape for their coming rematch in industry will most likely turn the November. h i s t o r i c a l l y D e m o c r a t i c Even in contests where they Mountaineer State into a land of traditionally have not even placed, opportunity for the GOP in 2012. West Virginia Republicans find With United Mine Workers themselves in fighting trim as a President Cecil Roberts likening result of animosity toward the E P A h e a d L i s a J a c k s o n s Obama administration. John
Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:31:00 AM
Overington, who has served in the state House of Delegates for 28 years, told us he expects the ranks of his fellow Republicans in the House to grow significantly from its current 35 (out of 100) and that recruitment of fresh candidates is outstanding. And, in large part, whats spurring all of this, explained Overington, is what we refer to as Obamas war on coal. In a state whose population is about 1.8 million, there are about 40,000 residents working in coalrelated jobs. But because the industry is so critical to the state economyand because so many EPA actions have a harsh impact on their energy industry in generalWest Virginians in general feel the effects of the war on coal. You saw an excellent case in point of the war on coal when the EPA revoked the Spruce No. 1 coal mine expansion, Patrick Morrisey, the likely Republican nominee for attorney general, told us. The EPAs zealous and arbitrary action cost the state countless jobs. Fortunately, the U.S. District Court recently ruled
that the EPA had over-reached its authority and overturned the Agencys order. Folks breathed a sigh of relief, but people realize that Obama wont stop until he puts the coal industry out of business. (Morrisey, who also worked on the 26 state effort to overturn Obamacare, has an excellent chance of unseating 20year Democratic incumbent Daryl McGraw as attorney general.) Another example of the EPAs hostile approach to West Virginia was offered by Republican State Delegate Gary Howell. Noting that his state has offices in Germany and Japan to promote overseas exports of its goods, Howell said that The EPA is dragging their feet on issuing permits. They are keeping many in a state of perpetual review not denying, but not issuing either. And this is just not confined to overseas orders, either." There has been some attempt at retaliation toward the EPA from the state. Earlier this year, Howell introduced the Intra-State Coal and Use Act, which designates the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection as the final-say agency on permits for coal companies that produce coal for in-state use. Howell told Human Events that EPA actions against our coal industry, which operates solely in the state, are in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which clearly sets out the rights of states. Whether the Democratic-ruled legislature acts on Howells measure is uncertain. What seems certain is that West Virginia voters will respond to the Obama administration and its war on coal at the polls by voting Republican in a very big way come November. John Gizzi is Political Editor of HUMAN EVENTS. 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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UC Boulder loses some buds: school to shut down over pro-pot rally
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participants just in 2011. In the past campus police have resorted to dousing students with water The University of Colorado will and snapping their photos to be on lockdown this Friday, publish them on the Web, offering complete with campus police c a s h b o u n t i e s f o r t h e conducting checkpoints and identifications of those caught demanding proper ID from smoking up. This time, the answer everyone in sight. The reason? isnt just public humiliation, Authorities want to finally end the though. Instead the school will be schools annual pro-pot rally. instituting authoritarian rule for If you spend April 20 this year in one day in hopes of at least Boulder, Colorado, stay far, far ending what has proven to be a away from the citys major peaceful protest in years past. c o l l e g e c a m p u s , c a u t i o n "We're at that point where we're authorities. No, there is no bomb saying, 'Enough,'" CU-Boulder threat expected for this Friday at spokesperson Bronson Hilliard UC Boulder, nor are police said on Friday, reports the citys 9 p r e p a r i n g f o r a n y v i s i t i n g News television. " We don't want dignitaries to address the students. this on our campus." The cause for heightened security To keep any questionable activity this time around is something to a minimum, anyone without a much more serious, it would school-sanctioned ID will be seem. School officials are sick banned from campus on Friday. and tired of an annual event that The Nolin Quad, where Alex has brought people from across D o u g l a s o f t h e N a t i o n a l both the state and the country to Organization for the Reform of smoke marijuana on campus. Marijuana Laws says he spotted Students have been toking up on 15,000 pro-pot ralliers in 2010, the schools campus every 4/20 will be shut down entirely for the for years now, with the annual day. event bringing in around 10,000 "Students, faculty, staff and all
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:14:00 PM
CU-Boulder affiliates will need their Buff OneCard IDs to get on and around the campus, states an official press release from the university.Those not affiliated with CU-Boulder will not be permitted on campus and face tickets for trespassing." "We will have checkpoints on the perimeter of the campus and also within the perimeter as well," CU Boulder Police spokesperson Ryan Huff adds to the tv station. Those tickets wont be tiny ones either. Non-students engaged in the annual pro-marijuana rally will be considered trespassers and subjected to penalties that include six months in jail and a $750 fine. Opponents of the annual event are saying this time around that it isnt an issue of drugs, though."This is not about marijuana. It's about a major disruption in the heart of campus, and it's something we want to end. Huff adds to 9 News that UC Boulders chancellor has the ability to close the school for any event that disrupts the campus or poses a threat to students and
faculty. To thousands of students and other supporters of the states comparably lax marijuana laws, though, they beg to differ about just how disruptive the annual event really is. Traditionally, students gather shortly before 4:20 in the afternoon, smoke and disperse. To the Colorado Daily in 2010, a 31-year-old participant in the gathering said the event occurred in the spirit ofpeace, love and freedom. With disruptions few and far between, opponents of the campus decision to closedown this year say that freedoms across the board are being brought to an end. "The decision to close the CU campus is a wrongheaded and misguided effort to thwart students' right of association and right of expression, explains the Boulder County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.Although the Constitution does not provide a right to smoke pot in public, the First Amendment does protect the right to associate with others to amplify the power and force of a
collective protest against government policy. Not everyone who joins a 4/20 protest is violating the marijuana laws. Students who wish to protest the marijuana laws have a constitutional right to invite others to join them. By closing the campus to visitors, establishing checkpoints, assigning uniformed police to check papers, and threatening arrests of visitors without proper credentials, the university disserves the values that underlie the First Amendment and the right to dissent." The citys Occupy Wall Street offshoot, Occupy Boulder, will be waging a smoke-out just offsite of the school as a way of opposing the shutting down of the university on Friday. 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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Top News/
Jim Yong Kim secures World Bank job amid criticism - The Guardian
Dominic Rushe (Top Stories Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:30:22 PM
The World Bank said in a statement: 'We all look forward to working with Dr Kim when he assumes his responsibilities.' Photograph: Andrew Harrer/EPA The World Bank named Koreanborn doctor Jim Yong Kim as its new president today amid criticism that the role had once more gone to a US-nominated candidate. The 52-year-old president of Ivy League college Dartmouth beat Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to the post, the first time in the World Bank's history that the US candidate has faced a serious challenge. US president Barack Obama nominated Kim to replace current World Bank chief Robert Zoellick in March. Kim, who was born in Seoul, the South Korean capital, is a public health expert a change from the bank's usual nomination of candidate from the financial world. The World Bank presidency has gone to a US candidate since the organisation was founded at the Bretton Woods conference at the close of the second world war. The International Monetary Fund ( IMF), its sister organisation, has always been run by a European.
The US backed France's Christine Lagarde's nomination to the top role at the IMF last year after the shock resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In return, Kim received Europe's backing for the World Bank job. But in recent years the organisations have faced growing criticism over their US/European duopoly. Ahead of the announcement, Okonjo-Iweala said: "You know this thing is not really being decided on merit." "It is voting with political weight and shares, and therefore the
United States will get it," she told reporters at a briefing on the country's 2012 budget. A third candidate, Colombia's former finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, pulled out of the race Friday, calling the selection process a "politicaloriented exercise". Okonjo-Iweala said that although she expected her challenge to the US's nomination to fail, the process "will never ever be the same again". "So we have won a big victory. Who gets to run the World Bank
we have shown we can contest this thing and Africa can produce people capable of running the entire architecture," she said. Kim was a surprise nomination for the role. The 52-year-old is a leading figure in global health and a former director of the HIV/Aids department at the World Health Organization. He moved with his family to the US at the age of five. Brazillian and South African government officials reiterated their support for Okonjo-Iweala on Monday. Before the
announcement, South African finance minister Pravin Gordhan said there was a need to "look beyond the verbiage of democracy and the claims to democratic process, and ask whether in substantive terms the institution has met the democratic test." In a statement, the World Bank said: "We, the executive directors, wish to express our deep appreciation to all the nominees, Jim Yong Kim, Jos Antonio Ocampo and Ngozi OkonjoIweala. Their candidacies enriched the discussion of the role of the president and of the World Bank group's future direction. The final nominees received support from different member countries, which reflected the high calibre of the candidates. We all look forward to working with Dr Kim when he assumes his responsibilities." Professor Simon Evenett, a former World Bank official who works at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland, said Kim's appointment was inevitable. "The Obama administration would almost certainly have withheld support for Lagarde's appointment to the IMF if European nations had not agreed in advance to support whomever was Washington's candidate for the JIM page 11
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Top News/
Ex-GSA chief Martha Johnson apologizes to Congress - Politico

Seung Min Kim (Top Stories Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:24:51 PM
Sochi residents forced to learn English ahead of Olympics

Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:55:13 PM
Martha Johnson, the former General Services Administration administrator who lost her job over a lavish Las Vegas conference thats become an icon of federal waste, will personally apologize before a congressional committee Monday for the junket that squandered hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. In her prepared remarks, released in advance of Mondays hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Johnson will also testify that the biennial GSA conference was once economical and straightforward but had become a raucous, extravagant, arrogant, self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled federal workers. Continue Reading Leaders apparently competed to show their people how much entertainment they could provide, rather than how much performance capability they could build, she will say, according to her remarks. I am extremely aggrieved by the gall of a handful of people to misuse federal tax dollars, twist
contracting rules and defile the great name of the General Services Administration, she will say. Further, I am affronted by the insensitivity of the leaders to the culture they were condoning and am appalled that a handful of people can undercut public confidence in the GS and, indeed, all of government. But she notes that as the head of the agency, I am responsible. I deeply regret that the exceedingly good work of GSA has been besmirched. The House hearing Monday launches a weeklong congressional inquiry into how exactly the General Services Administration a once-obscure agency charged with managing federal property spent more than $800,000 for the Las Vegas conference in October 2010 for 300 employees. The hearing will also focus on Jeff Neely, a top GSA official who was charged with organizing the four-day conference but is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against selfincrimination in Mondays hearing. The career civil servant, who could also be facing a Justice Department probe into allegations of theft and contracting violations,
told investigators that he felt he didnt need to get competitive bids because he was paying for quality, according to the Washington Post. The controversy over excessive government spending at a time of fiscal belt-tightening fueled extensive public outrage when an April 2 report from the GSAs inspector general detailed the $822,751 of taxpayer dollars spent for the conference at the M Resort Spa Casino in Las Vegas. The inspector general found that IG found that many of the expenditures on this conference were excessive and wasteful and that in many instances GSA followed neither federal procurement laws nor its own policy on conference spending. Examples of such expenditures included $75,000 for a bicyclebuilding exercise and $3,200 for a mind-reader. The embarrassing episode led to the resignation of Johnson, and several other top GSA officials were either fired or placed on administrative leave. Democrats have tried to highlight the fact that costs for the biennial conference jumped under previous administrations; for example, the 2006 GSA Western
Regions Conference in Oklahoma City cost $323,855 and the 2008 conference in New Orleans cost $655,025. Issa speculated earlier Monday that perhaps billions of dollars could have been spent for the conferences a pattern of spending that could have started under the George W. Bush administration. Wasteful spending is a problem that transcends multiple administrations and multiple Congresses, Issa said in a statement before the hearing. But its incumbent on the present administration and the current Congress to mandate a culture that prevents this type of waste and mismanagement, no matter what happened before them. Three other congressional hearings one in the House and two in the Senate are scheduled for this week. 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.
The people of Sochi are going to learn English whether they like it or not. The initiative is part of the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics. -English words and short phrases, together with their translations, will start appearing all over town from billboards and plasma screens, to shops and public transport. Locals will pick up 662 words before the Games begin. City officials say that an average resident will come across each new word five times a day. They will learn not only how to say "hello" and "goodbye," but also how to give directions in English. The first word they learnt today was "welcome." 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.
Top News/ Sports/
11
INSURGENT
plotting similar strikes, said Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a spokesman for the chief of police for north and northeast Afghanistan. The Taliban, the Islamist militia that once ruled most of Afghanistan, said the attacks were in retaliation for the killing of 17 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province last month. A U.S. Army staff sergeant, Robert Bales, has been charged with those killings. But Jeff Dressler, an expert on the Haqqani network at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said that the coordination seen in the Kabul attacks indicates a Haqqani-led network was behind them and that the planned but disrupted attacks in the north may also have been Haqqani-linked. "This is likely their unofficial announcement marking the start of the spring fighting season," Dressler said. Though the attacks didn't succeed, he said, "The target selection was likely
intended to send a message to the U.S., U.K., Russia and the Afghans that this will in fact be a bloody year for all forces in Afghanistan, particularly the east of the country." U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said he could not confirm that the embassy itself was the target of the attacks but said gunfire had been heard in the vicinity. In a statement from London, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the British Embassy was one of the targets, but "every member of embassy staff is safe." "The Afghan National Security Forces responded to the attacks bravely, promptly and effectively, once again illustrating the significant progress that has been made in ensuring that Afghans can look after their own security," Hague said. The embassy premises sustained "limited damage," he said, and its staff "dealt with this dangerous situation extremely
professionally." Several rocket-propelled grenades landed in the compound of the Japanese Embassy, a spokesman for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign affairs said. Embassy staff members were moved to the compound's underground air-raid shelter. No one was wounded, the spokesman said. India also said it had no reports of its citizens being wounded. CNN's Masoud Popalzai, Barbara Starr and Nick Paton Walsh contributed to this report. 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.
Development deadlock: Moscow architects fail to decide Hotel Russias fate

JIM
World Bank," he said. "There was never really a contest. Some developing countries probably figured this out and put up a strong candidate to embarrass the west, hoping that this will lead to a more open process in the future. Don't bet on that. The west won't give up its hold over these institutions until they need something from the emerging markets." 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.
US Olympic hopeful banned for HGH use

(Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:39:23 PM
Olympic weightlifting hopeful Pat Mendes has been suspended for two years after testing positive for human growth hormone.
expensive landscape analysis. In the last ten years, over 300 historic building have been Moscow's top architect has demolished in Moscow, among slammed the entries for a contest them 50 protected by the state. A to redevelop the site of the recent audit showed that at least demolished Hotel Russia. 43 per cent of Moscow's landmark -He says the submitted projects sites are not being looked after have succeeded only in giving an properly; out of a total of roughly idea of what ought not to be built. 4,000 monuments in Moscow, Disappointed with home-made only 593 are fully protected. projects, the meeting concluded in Meanwhile, Moscow's plans to launch an international Architectural Committee has contest. come up with new rules Meanwhile, the architects union regulating the construction of will draw the competitions ban t o w e r b l o c k s . I t w a n t s t o list, numbering the things they do introduce height-restrictions for not want to see. Among those are each district of the city. any giant or grotesque buildings, The idea is to prevent new high-rise buildings, or columns. It buildings from marring the view is also forbidden to use anything of the historic components of that poses danger to the UNESCO Moscow's skyline, including -protected monuments. numerous churches, Stalin-era The project, they believe, is skyscrapers and the North River better to be released on the citys Terminal. budget, that way Moscow would The Architectural Committee preserve its rights on the area. also wants an outright ban on new The best option is to restore the buildings that might spoil the places historical view, say view of Moscow's most iconic activists of the architectural watch sights, such as Christ the Savior movement. They insist that the Cathedral. planning should be motivated by This entry passed through the the historical network of local Full-Text RSS service if this is streets. your content and you're reading it T h o s e i n c h a r g e h a v e n o on someone else's site, please read understanding of how the citys the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentcenter should be planned, the only/faq.php#publishers. Five activists say.What they should Filters recommends: Donate to actually do is to perform an Wikileaks.
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:15 PM
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Top News/ Business/ Sports/ Featured/
Andrea Rossi: una UK Raises Brit's Death in China Talks fabbrica di E-Cat anche - Wall Street Journal in Europa - GreenStyle
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:56 PM
Toronto Star UK Raises Brit's Death in China Talks Wall Street Journal By CASSELL BRYAN-LOW LONDONBritish government ministers are raising the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in China during meetings with senior Chinese officials who are visiting London this week to discuss trade and
BASE METALS: Copper Slips On Weak US Housing Andrea Rossi: una Data - Wall Street Journal Protocol for fabbrica di E-Cat anche disarmament
(housing - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:57:10 AM
cultural matters. Fund Transfer Cited in Inquiry on Death of Briton in China New York Times Chinese Media Warn Against Rumors in Bo Xilai Scandal Voice of America British businessman's death spurs probe into murder, greed and China's leadership Fox News CNN- The Atlantic- Huffington Post all 768 news articles
(andrea rossi e-cat - Google News)

Submitted at 4/16/2012 3:11:19 AM
GreenStyle Andrea Rossi: una fabbrica di ECat anche in Europa GreenStyle In questi giorni i greci della Defkalion, che insieme ad Andrea Rossi sono i concorrenti pi accreditati, hanno annunciato i
loro progressi. Il prototipo di Hyperion sar pronto gi a luglio, mentre verr resa disponibile una (housing - Google News) licenza di produzione per... F u s i o n e f r e d d a E - C a t / Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:09:03 PM Aggiornamenti il Democratico Housing fair attracts record E-Cat Rossi: fusione fredda per number of hopeful homeowners energia elettrica. Hyperion e ricercatori U S A . . . Baltimore Sun By Lindsey McPherson, WebMasterPoint.org lmcpherson@patuxent.co At least all 3 news articles a year away from buying a home for herself and her two daughters, Ellicott City renter Nicole Harris decided attending the Howard County Housing Fair would be the perfect way to learn more about the...
Housing fair attracts record number of hopeful homeowners Baltimore Sun
in Europa - GreenStyle
(Andrea Rossi - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 3:11:19 AM
GreenStyle Andrea Rossi: una fabbrica di ECat anche in Europa GreenStyle In questi giorni i greci della Defkalion, che insieme ad Andrea Rossi sono i concorrenti pi accreditati, hanno annunciato i loro progressi. Il prototipo di
BASE METALS: Copper Slips On Weak US Housing Data Hyperion sar pronto gi a luglio, Wall Street Journal mentre verr resa disponibile una By Tatyana Shumsky Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW licenza di produzione per... Fusione fredda E-Cat/ Aggiornamenti il Democratico E-Cat Rossi: fusione fredda per energia elettrica. Hyperion e ricercatori USA... W e b M a s t e r P o i n t . o r g (Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News) all 3 news articles
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:00:56 PM
Coe marking London Olympics countdown

With the opening ceremony just over 100 days away, Sebastian
YORK (Dow Jones)--Copper futures turned lower Monday on data showing US home builders' confidence in the housing market (Dave Winer's "Scripting News" slipped in April for the first time weblog) in seven months. The most Submitted at 4/16/2012 8:03:46 AM actively traded contract... and more A great gesture on the part of Google to strengthen the open web. 1. Donate one of your patents to the public domain. Break new ground here. Establish Coe is working on the final a protocol for disarmament. touches for the London Olympics he hopes will make the difference between "a good and a great games."
Business/
13
This Tiny Brand Strategy Firm Makes The Big Decisions For PepsiCo, Dominos and More
Gus Lubin (Business Insider)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:14:45 PM
PepsiCo is a $100 billion corporation with nearly 300,000 employees. It has an enormous marketing department. It also has relationship with TBWA Worldwide, a giant advertising company. Yet Pepsi trusts some of its biggest decisions to a tiny brand strategy firm staffed by former ad men and recent college grads. We asked Redscout CEO Jonah Disend how his team gets special insight into brands and why major corporations trust them. The ah-ha moment Redscout was founded in 2000 by Disend, a strategic planner at DDB who was frustrated that his ideas weren't getting through. "I felt like a used car salesman," Disend says, "whereas if the product were really intuitive, the marketing would be easy." Redscout asks clients to pay for brand strategy consulting before they hire an ad company. "Dominos and Gatorade spent lots of money on advertising that didn't move the needle, but that changed when they hired us," he says. The concept behind Redscout is
to get a bunch of smart people to look at a brand from multiple angles and come up with a smart idea. This is a radical departure from the popular obsession over consumer testing and quantitative analysis. As for how Redscout's smart people can come up with better ideas than Pepsi's smart people, Disend says his firm offers "head space" as well as a second opinion. Redscout focuses on insights that don't turn up in testing. "Most companies tell you what consumers are saying. We want to focus on what they aren't saying," Disend says. "You used to hear about time famine, but that didn't make sense to us because you look how much time people spend watching TV. It turns out the issue is really energy famine," Disend says, sharing an insight from a few years ago when researching energy drinks for PepsiCo. Disend looks for good lateral thinkers from a variety of backgrounds, from industrial design to business school. His company is rare in the industry in that it hires some people straight out of college. Recently Disend and a team of
which offered a drink for before, during and after exercise. The point of the G Series was not just to sell units of "prime" and "recover," but also to reestablish Gatorade as a drink for serious athletes. Redscout was also behind the famously successful Domino's rebranding campaign. "What we realized is they were so focused on delivery that they were competing with FedEx more than with other food companies. What they needed was to focus on their product," Disend says. Redscout came up with the strategy, Crispin Porter + Bogusky came up with a brilliant ad campaign and Dominos hybrid brand strategists went treatments were effectively the recorded its fastest sales growth in down to Mexico City to do same. Redscout came up with the history. research for Pepsi. They observed Advantage Acne Control Kit. By Much of Redscout's work is and talked to people buying Pepsi bundling multiple products, Clean behind the scenes, including in movie theaters, restaurants and & Clear branded itself as a serious involvement with several major grocery stores. treatment. What's more the products they can't take credit for. "We try to get that ah-ha moment. c o m b i n a t i o n o f m u l t i p l e "People call us the CMO's secret And this time we really got it," treatments was more effective weapon," Disend says. Disend says. Greatest hits than a standalone product. In every room in Redscout's Disend stole his first client, "It's a point of pride that this kit is office there is a bulletin boards Johnson & Johnson, from his old still on the market after ten years," covered in Post-It notes. employer. Disend says. "Post-it is actually a client I would The challenge with J&J's Clean A few years later Redscout love to have," Disend says. "I & Clear was how to win back helped Gatorade to reverse don't think they take the brand as market share when government declining sales. Redscout came up THIS page 14 regulations meant that all acne with another kit, the G Series,
14
Business/ Technology/ Featured/
This Is Why Google Is Absolutely Terrified Of Facebook

Dan Frommer (Business Insider)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:13:58 PM
THIS
Google is still the biggest, baddest online advertising company on the planet. Its $2.9 billion profit last quarter, announced yesterday, was almost as much as Facebook's revenue for all of 2011. But Facebook has something important that Google doesn't, and it scares Google's pants off: Facebook knows who you are, to an incredible level of detail. Because you tell it. As you'll see, that allows Facebook to tailor its ads to a much finer set of users than Google's search ads currently allow. That's why Google is pushing so hard on Google+. All that profile information you've filled out over the years on Facebook? That's not just there for your friends and colleagues to see, or for self-expression. Facebook is also able to use much of it to target the advertising you see on Facebook. (And,
eventually, potentially all over the Web, the way Google does.) The easiest way to see how powerful this is would be to take a quick spin through Facebook's adcreation tool. It's remarkably simple and straightforward. Just figure out what your ad is for and give it a title, some body text and an image. And then you'll get to the magic: Facebook's targeting page. Here, you can narrow your ad's target by an incredible basket of options. Location, age, gender, precise interests (as volunteered!), Facebook connections, sexual orientation, relationship status, languages, education and specific workplaces. So if you want to reach the 100 people on Facebook who live in California, are between 18 and 36 years old, like "space" and work at Apple or Google, you can. Amazing. Here's what it looks like: Google's search advertising product, on the other hand, only offers a fraction of this targeting. You can target by location,
languages and devices. But it mostly comes down to keywords: What are people searching for or looking at? That's useful information, for sure, especially when you're selling something. But it would be nicer to also be able to target much deeper, the way you can on Facebook. That's why Facebook, even though its business is much smaller than Google's today, represents such a threat to Google. It's only a matter of time until Facebook expands its advertising scale by opening the equivalent of "AdSense" - self-service ads for any site, using Facebook's superior targeting capabilities. That actually goes directly after Google's core business; that could hurt. In the meantime, Facebook has a huge and growing set of data about its users that Google just doesn't. Heck, many (most?) of Google's search users aren't even really "users" at all - they're not logged in, they don't volunteer any personal information, etc.
And that's why Google+ is such a crucial project for Google - to get people logged in, sharing their information and interests with Google - not because Google suddenly wants to be social for the fun of it, but because it's crucial to catch up in ad targeting before Facebook becomes even more of a threat. Also: Facebook's Real Mobile Question, Post-Instagram: Can It Challenge Apple and Google? Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: Facebook's Real Mobile Question, Post-Instagram: Can It Challenge Apple And Google? The Instagram-Facebook Backlash Welcome to Wall Street: The Instagram Buy Is All About Facebook's Investors
far as it could go as a tool to encourage lateral thinking." Click here to tour the office > Please follow War Room on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: 'Judgment Day' Is Rapidly Approaching For JCPenney TOUR: Inside Redscout's New York Office Get Ready For A Big Revamp At Your Local Family Dollar
Hudson River ride

(Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:36 PM
Today's ride took me north on the Hudson, to roughly 148th St. That was the turnaround spot. Map: 59 minutes, 11.07 miles.
Nasa crowdsources ideas for future missions to Mars

Mark Brown
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:25:00 AM
Nasa has enlisted the help of scientists and engineers
worldwide to brainstorm ideas for the next missions to Mars. The ideas could dictate the technologies and systems that would send an orbiter or a robotic
They could even help towards Duncan Geere Continue reading... meeting the president's challenge of sending humans to Mars in the rover to the red planet by 2018. 2030s. By: Mark Brown, Edited by:
Business/ Culture/ Politics-Right/
15
Pippa Middleton In Trouble After Friend Points Gun At Paparazzi

Talia Ralph (Business Insider)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:07:21 PM
The Paris Judicial Police department is "poised" to launch a probe, a source told the Sun. Pippa Middleton, Duchess Kate "Pippa has been photographed; Middleton's sister, is caught in the she's been coached on how to midst of a gun-brandishing behave," Duncan Larcombe, the incident that could carry a Sun's royal editor, told ABC maximum sentence of seven years News. "If she's photographed by in prison, the Sun reported. an unwanted freelance Pippa, 28, was in the front seat of photographer, she smiles, she an Audi convertible in Paris with keeps her head up and she lets the three male friends, when the lawyers doing the arguing behind driver pulled out a pistol and the scenes. She knows much jokingly aimed it at a paparazzi better than this." photographer who was following More from GlobalPost: Toulouse them, according to the Sun. shootings: Suspect Mohammed The French photographer's image Merah under police siege shows Middleton looking back at (PHOTOS) him and grinning as her friend Please follow International on reaches down and aims what Twitter and Facebook. appears to be the gun, ABC News "It was not a real gun. It was just a face up to seven years in prison Join the conversation about this stupid joke," a spokesman for for brandishing a weapon in story reported. More from GlobalPost: Pippa Pippa's friend Arthur de Soultrait, public, the Daily Mail reported. See Also: Middleton signs $600,000 party one of the people in the car, said Even as a fake, Middleton and her Yet Again The Falklands War Monday, USA Today reported. friends could be sentenced to two Is Being Used For Petty Political planning book deal Pippa was apparently taken in for Middleton was in Paris to attend years. Ends questioning by Parisian police, a costume birthday party at Chez More from GlobalPost: Kate Syria's Ceasefire Has Stopped and the incident "sent shock Raspoutine as a guest of Soultrait, Middleton gives her first public Widespread Violence, But The waves through Buckingham whose fashion label Vicomte A speech (VIDEO) Tanks Remain Palace," who refused to comment makes silk ties, according to USA In the wake of the recent string of What The French Elections killings that have swept through Mean For The Eurozone on the incident because Pippa is a Today. If the gun was real, all those France, the incident does not seem private citizen, the Daily Beast involved in the incident could like one that will be taken lightly. reported.
Real Estate News: Global Housing Worries Spur Calls for Fixes - Wall Street Journal (blog)
(housing - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:21:00 AM
Real Estate News: Global Housing Worries Spur Calls for Fixes Wall Street Journal (blog) Global Housing Worries Spur Calls for Fixes: Four years after a deflating US housing bubble sparked a global financial crisis, housing worries in the US and other countries are weighing on the world economy. Dealers Vie for Securities Linked to AIG...
Finally! Tupac as a Hologram

(The Feed)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:41:58 AM
[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Alphabetic is awesome alphabet animation [video]

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:54:00 PM
The alphabet gets a hip makeover with the cool typographical animation skills of BlinkmyBrain.
Not your mama's ABCs. Via Vimeo. ABCs look cooler with different
typography. Permalink| Leave a comment
16
News Wire/
Military Looks to Arctic for New Strategic Advantage

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:56 PM
Mar. 19, 2011: Crew members look out from the USS Connecticut, a Sea Wolf-class nuclear submarine, after it surfaced through ice in the Arctic Ocean. The U.S. and other countries are building up their military presence in the Arctic to help exploit its riches - and protect shifting borders. AP Photo /U.S. Navy, Cmdr. Christy Hagen Mar. 19, 2011: Crew members look out from the USS Connecticut, a Sea Wolf-class nuclear submarine, after it surfaced through ice in the Arctic Ocean. The U.S. and other countries are building up their military presence in the Arctic to help exploit its riches - and protect shifting borders. AP Photo /U.S. Navy, Cmdr. Christy Hagen Apr. 27, 2003: A polar bear approaches the tail of the USS Connecticut, a Sea Wolf-class nuclear submarine, after it surfaced through ice in the Arctic Ocean. The photo was taken through the periscope of the submarine, which was on exercises in the Arctic. AP Photo/ U.S. Navy Next Slide Previous Slide YOKOSUKA, Japan To the
world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, longdreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. By Arctic standards, the region is
already buzzing with military activity, and experts believe that will increase significantly in the years ahead. Last month, Norway wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever -- Exercise Cold Response -- with 16,300 troops from 14 countries training on the ice for everything from high
intensity warfare to terror threats. Attesting to the harsh conditions, five Norwegian troops were killed when their C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed near the summit of Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain. The U.S., Canada and Denmark held major exercises two months ago, and in an unprecedented
move, the military chiefs of the eight main Arctic powers -Canada, the U.S., Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland -- gathered at a Canadian military base last week to specifically discuss regional security issues. SUMMARY MILITARY page 17
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MILITARY
ON ICE: World eyeballing natural resources in Arctic Circle, as warming planet makes access easier: 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its untapped natural gas is in the Arctic Russia the most aggressive in establishing itself in the area Norway recently wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever None of this means a shooting war is likely at the North Pole any time soon. But as the number of workers and ships increases in the High North to exploit oil and gas reserves, so will the need for policing, border patrols and -- if push comes to shove -- military muscle to enforce rival claims. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its untapped natural gas is in the Arctic. Shipping lanes could be regularly open across the Arctic by 2030 as rising temperatures continue to melt the sea ice, according to a National Research Counci l analysis commissioned by the U.S. Navy last year. What countries should do about climate change remains a heated political debate. But that has not stopped north-looking militaries from moving ahead with strategies that assume current trends will continue. Russia, Canada and the United States have the biggest stakes in the Arctic. With its military budget stretched thin by Iraq,
Afghanistan and more pressing issues elsewhere, the United States has been something of a reluctant northern power, though its nuclear-powered submarine fleet, which can navigate for months underwater and below the ice cap, remains second to none. Russia -- one-third of which lies within the Arctic Circle -- has been the most aggressive in establishing itself as the emerging region's superpower. Rob Huebert, an associate political science professor at the University of Calgary in Canada, said Russia has recovered enough from its economic troubles of the 1990s to significantly rebuild its Arctic military capabilities, which were a key to the overall Cold War strategy of the Soviet Union, and has increased its bomber patrols and submarine activity. He said that has in turn led other Arctic countries -- Norway, Denmark and Canada -- to resume regional military exercises that they had abandoned or cut back on after the Soviet collapse. Even non-Arctic nations such as France have expressed interest in deploying their militaries to the Arctic. "We have an entire ocean region that had previously been closed to the world now opening up," Huebert said. "There are numerous factors now coming together that are mutually reinforcing themselves, causing a buildup of military capabilities in the region. This is only going to increase as time goes on." 'The Navy is entering a new realm
in the Arctic.' - Walter Berbrick, War College professor Noting that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe, the U.S. Navy in 2009 announced a beefed-up Arctic Roadmap by its own task force on climate change that called for a three-stage strategy to increase readiness, build cooperative relations with Arctic nations and identify areas of potential conflict. "We want to maintain our edge up there," said Cmdr. Ian Johnson, the captain of the USS Connecticut, which is one of the U.S. Navy's most Arctic-capable nuclear submarines and was deployed to the North Pole last year. "Our interest in the Arctic has never really waned. It remains very important." But the U.S. remains ill-equipped for large-scale Arctic missions, according to a simulation conducted by the U.S. Naval War College. A summary released last month found the Navy is "inadequately prepared to conduct sustained maritime operations in the Arctic" because it lacks ships able to operate in or near Arctic ice, support facilities and adequate communications. "The findings indicate the Navy is entering a new realm in the Arctic," said Walter Berbrick, a War College professor who participated in the simulation. "Instead of other nations relying on the U.S. Navy for capabilities and resources, sustained operations in the Arctic region will require the Navy to rely on
other nations for capabilities and resources." He added that although the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet is a major asset, the Navy has severe gaps elsewhere -- it doesn't have any icebreakers, for example. The only one in operation belongs to the Coast Guard. The U.S. is currently mulling whether to add more icebreakers. Acknowledging the need to keep apace in the Arctic, the United States is pouring funds into figuring out what climate change will bring, and has been working closely with the scientific community to calibrate its response. "The Navy seems to be very on board regarding the reality of climate change and the especially large changes we are seeing in the Arctic," said Mark C. Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences University of Colorado. "There is already considerable collaboration between the Navy and civilian scientists and I see this collaboration growing in the future." The most immediate challenge may not be war -- both military and commercial assets are sparse enough to give all countries elbow room for a while -- but whether militaries can respond to a disaster. Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Londonbased Center for Strategic and International Studies, said
militaries probably will have to rescue their own citizens in the Arctic before any confrontations arise there. "Catastrophic events, like a cruise ship suddenly sinking or an environmental accident related to the region's oil and gas exploration, would have a profound impact in the Arctic," she said. "The risk is not militarization; it is the lack of capabilities while economic development and human activity dramatically increases that is the real risk." Print Email Share Comments Recommend Tweet Related Slideshow Creatures of the 'Lost World': Found at Antarctic Vents Odd Sea Life from British Antarctic Survey Related Stories Specific genes linked to big brains and intelligence How to recycle your old technology Space shuttle Discovery mounted atop jumbo jet for ride to Smithsonian Share This Article Newsletter Signup Sign up for free e-mail news alerts from FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. Newsletter Signup 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 MILITARY page 23
18
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Deadly Midwest Twisters Leave Widespread Damage

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:56 PM
April 15, 2012: An entrance sign to the town of Thurman, Iowa. County Emergency Management Director Mike Crecelius told the Associated Press that about 75 percent of the 250-person town was destroyed by severe weather Saturday night. Fox News April 14, 2012: Blaine Hyatt, Rush Center, walks around his yard in Kansas. AP Next Slide Previous Slide Residents across the Midwest and Plains states surveyed damaged homes for salvageable items Sunday, after more than 100 tornadoes were reported in the region earlier, killing at least 5 in Oklahoma -- including three children. Emergency crews, meanwhile, were trying to repair downed power lines. A tornado hit just after midnight Sunday in Woodward, Okla., about 140 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. City Manager Alan Riffel says 89 homes and 13 businesses were destroyed. State medical examiner spokeswoman Amy Elliot says a man named Frank Hobie and his two daughters, ages 5 and 7, died
after the tornado hit their mobile home park. She says the other victims were Darren Juul and a 10-year-old girl who died when the home they were in a few miles away was hit. The men's ages and the children's names haven't been released. Elliot says a critically injured child was air lifted to a Texas hospital. Retired firefighter Marty Logan said he spotted the tornado when it knocked down power lines, causing flashes of light, and saw a radio tower's blinking lights go black shortly after midnight. He later saw a man emerge from a twisted, wrecked sport utility vehicle that had been tossed along the side of the road. "The guy had blood coming down his face," Logan said, adding that he saw people walking down the street covered in blood when he went to a hard-hit neighborhood. "It was scary, because I knew it was after midnight and a lot of people were in bed." Search teams were scouring rubble for trapped and injured as the sun came up. "They're still going door to door and in some cases, there are piles of rubble and they are having to sift through the rubble," said Michelann Ooten, an Oklahoma emergency management official. The National Weather Service
said the storm systems were weakening and that additional tornadoes were unlikely. But forecasters warned that strong thunderstorms were expected as far east as Michigan. In the tiny western Iowa town of Thurman, piles of toppled trees lined the streets in front of homes where missing walls and roofs exposed soaked living rooms. Longtime resident Ted Stafford recalled feeling his home shake, then hearing three windows shatter as the storm hit. He said he was amazed that no one in town was seriously injured. "We're all OK, fortunately. Nobody's hurt. We can fuel this recovery with beans and coffee," the 54-year-old said while standing on the broken concrete of what had been his home's new basement foundation. "I've seen storms in Thurman. I've lived here my whole life. And this is by far the worst I've ever seen." The storms were part of an exceptionally strong system that the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, which specializes in tornado forecasting, had warned about for days. The center took the unusual step of warning people more than 24 hours in advance of a possible "high-end, life-threatening event." Forecasters had worried the storms would hit overnight, when
people are less likely to hear warning sirens and pay attention to weather reports. At the storm's height, tornadoes popped up faster than they could be tallied. The center's spokesman, Chris Vaccaro, said the weather service had received at least 120 reports of tornadoes by dawn Sunday. He warned the threat wasn't over for those across several states in the nation's interior. Forecasters predicted the possibility for storms Sunday in a swath that stretched from southern Texas to northern Michigan. The American Red Cross summoned volunteers to drive relief trucks from Oklahoma City to aid the rescue crews in and around Woodward he said were pressed to the limit by the immediate disaster response. "They're in chaos mode," said Rusty Surette, a regional communications director for the American Red Cross in Oklahoma City, speaking of authorities in Woodward. Numerous tornadoes were reported in Kansas, though mostly in rural parts of the western and central sections of the state. A reported tornado in Wichita that struck late Saturday night caused damage at McConnell Air Force Base and the Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing plants.
A mobile home park was heavily damaged in the city, although no injuries or deaths were reported. The county where Wichita is located was declared a state of disaster and said preliminary estimates suggest damages could be as high as $283 million. A hospital in Creston, about 75 miles southwest of Des Moines, suffered roof damage and had some of its windows blown out by the storm, but patients and staff were not hurt. Medical center officials were calling other area hospitals to determine how many beds they had available in case they needed to move patients. In Nebraska, large hail shattered windows and tore siding from houses in and around Petersburg, about 140 miles northwest of Omaha. In southeast Nebraska, an apparent tornado took down barns, large trees and some small rural structures. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Print Email Share Comments Recommend Tweet Share This Article Newsletter Signup DEADLY page 21
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19
Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation

(Reuters: Top News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:25:59 PM
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a joint news conference with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos after their meeting at Casa de Huespedes during the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena April 15, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque By Brian Ellsworth CARTAGENA, Colombia| Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:25pm EDT (Reuters) - President Barack Obama patiently sat through diatribes, interruptions and even the occasional eye-ball roll at the weekend Summit of the Americas in an effort to win over Latin American leaders fed up with U.S. policies. He failed. The United States instead emerged from the summit in Colombia increasingly isolated as nearly 30 regional heads of state refused to sign a joint declaration in protest against the continued exclusion of communist-led Cuba from the event. The rare show of unity highlights the steady decline of Washington's influence in a region that has become less dependent on U.S. trade and investment thanks to economic growth rates that are the envy of
the developed world and new opportunities with China. It also signals a further weakening of the already strained hemispheric system of diplomacy, built around the Organization of American States (OAS) which has struggled to remain relevant during a time of rapid change for its members. Seen as an instrument of U.S. policy in Latin America during the Cold War, the OAS has lost ground in a region that is no longer content with being the backyard of the United States. "It seems the United States still wants to isolate us from the world, it thinks it can still manipulate Latin America, but that's ending," said Bolivian President Evo Morales, a fierce critic of U.S. policy in Latin America and staunch ally of Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chavez. "What I think is that this is a rebellion of Latin American countries against the United States." NEWFOUND UNITY In all fairness to Obama, the outcome had little to do with his conduct or even that of secret service agents whose indiscreet encounter with prostitutes in the beachside city of Cartagena, Colombia, overshadowed much of the proceedings.
He was in fact commended by several presidents for listening politely to political leaders, helping soften perception of U.S. officials as arrogant and domineering. "I think it's the first time I've seen a president of the United States spend almost the entire summit sitting, listening to the all concerns of all countries," said Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "This was a very valuable gesture by President Obama." But Obama's staid charm was unable to paper over growing differences with the region. Facing a tough re-election race this year, Obama had no room to compromise on the five-decadeold U.S. embargo on Cuba that is widely supported by conservatives in the United States, and particularly the anti-Castro exile community in Florida, a key state in a presidential vote. U.S. insistence that Havana undertake democratic reforms before returning to the hemispheric family led to a clash with a united front of leftist and conservative governments that see Washington's policy toward Cuba as a relic of the Cold War. The unexpected result was a diplomatic victory for Havana. The newfound regional unity on Cuba may augur a growing
willingness across the political spectrum to challenge the U.S. State Department on thorny issues for years considered taboo. That could include insistence that the United States assume greater responsibility for reducing consumption of illegal narcotics as an alternative to the bloody war on drugs and its rising toll on Latin America. "From the so-called Washington consensus ... toward a nascent consensus without Washington for a united Latin America," tweeted Venezuela's foreign ministry, referring to orthodox economic policies advocated by Washington in the 1990s. NEW DIPLOMACY, NEW ECONOMY The stark divide over Cuba - with 32 nations in favor of inviting it to future summits and only the United States and Canada opposed - will fuel arguments that the OAS is an outdated institution for regional diplomacy. The OAS already faces competition from alternative forums such as the Union of South American nations (Unasur) and the Chavez-backed Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (Celac). Despite the new winds blowing in regional diplomacy, economics is driving the changes as much as politics.
Once seen as monolithic block of basket-case economies dependent on U.S. support, Latin American countries are coveted investment destinations with sophisticated financial systems that have innovated in areas ranging from energy to aviation. Chinese companies eager to pump oil, harvest soy and build badly needed infrastructure are showering them with offers of investment and financing. With the U.S. economy still struggling to stay above water and foreign aid budgets seen dwindling, Washington has fewer sticks to brandish and fewer carrots to offer. "This summit was a reminder, a wake-up call, that the traditional way of doing business vis-a-vis the region is eroding," said Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America. (Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Anthony Boadle and Jackie Frank) 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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News Wire/
Citigroup buoyed by capital markets, economy

(Reuters: Top News)
headwinds," said Gary Townsend, CEO of Hill-Townsend Capital. "It's a good quarter without being A woman walks into a Citibank as superlative as JPMorgan's branch in New York January 17, was." 2012. JPMorgan Chase & Co topped C r e d i t : R e u t e r s / S h a n n o n Wall Street profit expectations on Stapleton Friday, helped by some of the By David Henry same macro trends - a better Mon Apr 16, 2012 11:31am EDT economy and more active capital ( R e u t e r s ) - C i t i g r o u p I n c ' s markets. quarterly profit beat Wall Street The results support investor estimates as the third-largest bank expectations for a recovery in the cut expenses and benefited from first quarter after the European an improved economy and more debt crisis roiled markets late last active capital markets after a year, and they augur well for dismal end to 2011. other major banks such as Profit was boosted by loan G o l d m a n S a c h s G r o u p I n c , growth in the lender's core Morgan Stanley and Bank of Citicorp division, strong fixed America Corp, all due to report i n c o m e p e r f o r m a n c e , a n d results this week. continued improvement in credit But the KBW index of bank quality that allowed Citigroup to stocks is already up more than 20 release reserves set aside for bad percent this year, and investors loans. are now turning their attention to Shares of the New York-based determining the strength and lender, which received multiple extent of the recovery, which still bailouts during the financial lags the optimism of early last crisis, were up 91 cents, or 2.7 year. percent, at $34.32 in Monday Citigroup Chief Financial Officer morning trading on the New York John Gerspach said demand for Stock Exchange. loans remains soft in the country "They continue to progress. They and Europe but continues strong have headwinds that maybe only in emerging markets. Bank of America has, but they Loan growth in the first quarter seem to be managing those was particularly strong for trade
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:31:17 AM
finance, he added in a conference call with reporters. Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said in a statement, "While the operating environment improved in the first quarter, there is still much macro uncertainty and we will continue to manage risk carefully." NET INCOME FALLS Citigroup's first-quarter net income fell 2 percent to $2.93 billion, or 95 cents a share, from $2.99 billion, or 99 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding the impact of certain accounting adjustments for changes in the value of debts and credits, Citigroup earned $1.11 a share. The average Wall Street forecast was $1.00, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue from the company's ongoing securities trading and investment banking business declined 12 percent from the strong quarter a year earlier but rose 65 percent from the weak 2011 fourth quarter. Revenue for the whole company, excluding the accounting adjustments, was up 1 percent from a year earlier and 17 percent from the fourth quarter, to $20.2 billion. Expenses were down 7 percent
from the previous quarter and were flat with a year earlier, reflecting seasonal factors and the company's commitment to bring costs down for the year, Gerspach said in the conference call. Citigroup's 2011 fourth-quarter earnings missed analysts' estimates and executives were grilled over the company's control of its expenses, which rose 4 percent in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. Expense control has become an increasingly important issue for banks because their profits are being squeezed by low interest rates and tighter regulation. Stock analyst Glenn Schorr of Nomura said Citigroup's new cost numbers showed "good expense control." The banks results were boosted by a $1.2 billion release of badloan reserves. Delinquency rates for the company's North American credit card and retail banking customers declined 31 percent from a year earlier. International consumer credit costs fell 3 percent. Last month, Citigroup was one of only a handful of large financial institutions that failed to win approval from regulators for a dividend increase or share
buyback. In the weeks leading up to the setback for the capital plan, Pandit convinced analysts that Citigroup had rebuilt its balance sheet to the point that it had so much more capital than needed in an economic downturn that it would to be allowed to raise its quarterly dividend from a nominal penny a share to as much as 10 cents. Pandit was expected to take questions from analysts on the matter during a conference call later in the morning. In the first quarter, a set of assets the company has been selling off or running down since the financial crisis declined 29 percent from a year earlier to $209 billion, or 11 percent of total Citigroup assets. (Reporting by David Henry in New York and Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina. Editing by John Wallace and Paritosh Bansal.) 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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21
Retail sales strength eases growth worries

(Reuters: Top News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:38:13 AM
Shoppers browse at Macy's Manhattan department store in New York, January 12, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON| Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:38am EDT (Reuters) - Retail sales showed unexpected vigor in March as Americans shrugged off high gasoline prices and bought a range of goods, suggesting economic growth in the first quarter was probably not as weak as many had feared. Retail sales increased 0.8 percent, the Commerce Department said on Monday, after rising 1.0 percent in February. Last month's gains, which surpassed economists' expectations for only a 0.3 percent rise, could prompt analysts to raise their forecasts for firstquarter consumer spending, the main driver of the economy. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3.0 percent rate in the fourth quarter and growth in the Jan-March period was seen at around 2.5 percent. "It's a clear sign that U.S. consumer spending remains
strong. On balance I think it's the latest sign here that the economy is outpacing a lot of its major counterparts in recovery," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington. However, the growing optimism over the economy was tempered by a separate report showing that manufacturing in New York state slowed sharply this month as shipments of goods weakened. Factories, however, hired more workers and received higher prices for their goods, giving the report a mixed tone. The New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Monday its "Empire State" manufacturing activity index fell in April to 6.56, the lowest reading in five months, from 20.21 in March. "We'll have to see if that's a oneoff or the start of a trend. If manufacturing slows down, that will certainly be a headwind to the economy," said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial in New York. Another report also showed confidence among homebuilders slipped in April for the first time in seven month amid expectations of a slower sales pace in the next six months.
Stocks on Wall Street were narrowly mixed in early dealings, while prices for Treasury debt were little changed. The dollar rose modestly against a basket of currencies. BROAD-BASED SALES GAINS The rise in sales last month was broad-based, even though Americans paid 27 cents more per gallon of gasoline than they did the prior month. So far, Americans appear to be taking rising gasoline prices in stride, thanks to a mild winter that has cut heating bills. Motor vehicle sales rose 0.9 percent after increasing 1.3 percent in February. Auto sales have accelerated in recent months, boosted by pent-up demand by households. A devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused disruptions to auto production last year and left dealers without models that consumers wanted to buy. Excluding autos, retail sales climbed 0.8 percent last month after advancing 0.9 percent in February. Elsewhere, gasoline sales receipts increased 1.1 percent after rising 3.6 percent in February. The rise
in gasoline sales reflected high prices at the pump. Excluding autos and gasoline, sales advanced 0.7 percent in March, adding to the prior month's 0.5 percent gain. Details of the report showed some strength, suggesting consumer spending will continue to support growth. Last month, clothing store receipts rose 0.9 percent, while sales at building materials and garden equipment suppliers jumped 3.0 percent - the largest gain since December. Unseasonably mild weather has helped to boost sales at clothing retailers as well as purchases of building materials and garden equipment. So-called core retail sales, which exclude autos, gasoline and building materials, rose 0.5 percent after increasing by the same margin in February. Core sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of the government's gross domestic product report. Sales at restaurants and bars edged up 0.3 percent, while receipts at sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores rose 0.5 percent. Sales of electronics and
appliances increased 1.0 percent, the largest gain since October, while receipts at furniture stores climbed 1.1 percent. A second report from the Commerce Department showed business inventories increased 0.6 percent to a record $1.58 trillion as auto dealers restocked to meet increased demand for motor vehicles from consumers. Business sales increased 0.7 percent to a record $1.24 trillion in February, after advancing 0.4 percent the prior month. At February's sales pace it will take 1.28 months for businesses to clear shelves, unchanged from January. (Additional reporting by Leah Schnurr, Luciana Lopez and Ryan Vlastelica in New York:; 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.
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News Wire/
Was US-Born Terror Leader Killed by Rival Jihadist?

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:56 PM
May 11, 2011: American-born Islamist militant Omar Hammami speaks during a news conference in Somalia. AP U.S. intelligence officials are scrambling to confirm reports that Omar Hammami, the Americanborn leader of an Al Qaedaaligned terror group in Somalia, has been executed. Unconfirmed reports surfaced in Somali media claiming the alShabaab jihadist was hunted down and beheaded on orders from a rival leader in the network. A U.S. intelligence official told Fox News that, if true, Hammami's death could be a turning point in the recruitment of Americans and western Europeans by al-Shabaab -- as Hammami was thought to play a prominent role in that western outreach. "Our folks have been looking for anything on this," the intelligence official told Fox News, adding: "We have not been able to confirm this report." Significantly, web postings on
the recruitment of some two dozen young men of Somali descent from the Minneapolis area. Print Email Share Comments Recommend Tweet Related Stories Al Qaeda-Linked American Terrorist Unveiled, as Charges Await Him in US Share This Article Newsletter Signup Sign up for free e-mail news alerts from FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. Newsletter Signup 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.
jihadist forums have surfaced that speak of the American's death. Somali media reports claim Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane is accused of ordering the execution. Hammami reportedly said last month in a statement that other Shabaab leaders had him fearing for his life. Hammami, born in 1984, grew up outside Mobile, Ala., in the city of Daphne. But the American has been in war-torn Somalia for several
years. In that time, he has emerged as one of the most recognizable and outspoken voices of terrorist propaganda. He was going by the name of Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or "The American." Al-Amriki first surfaced in the terror group in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV aired a report about the "common goal" of Al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. The report described al-Amriki as "a fighter"
and "military instructor," but he concealed his face with a cloth wrap throughout the report. In April, he showed his face for the first time, during a highlypolished, 30-minute recruitment video posted online. It featured anti-American hip-hop music and sporadic images of Usama bin Laden. Hammani's death could be a blow to the Al Qaeda affiliate, at least for its western recruiting efforts. Al-Shabaab was responsible for
News Wire/ World News/
23
Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News

(Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News)
MILITARY
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'Swift and certain sanctions' needed on school truancy Telegraph.co.uk

(Nation - Google News)
Arts International Company has left Europe for America. Fans saw them off at London [...] This entry passed through the Shen Yun Performing Arts Full-Text RSS service if this is Departs Europe After Successful your content and you're reading it Tour on someone else's site, please read After five full houses at the the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentLondon Coliseum, a whistlestop only/faq.php#publishers. Five p e r f o r m a n c e i n P a r i s , a n d Filters recommends: Donate to p e r f o r m a n c e s i n Z u r i c h , Wikileaks. Stockholm, The Hague, Frankfurt, and Berlin, Shen Yun Performing
their child attend school. Government advisor says truancy Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:05:03 PM crackdown means three-year-olds The Guardian should have... The Independent 'Swift and certain sanctions' Schools advised to monitor needed on school truancy truancy early Financial Times Telegraph.co.uk If parents are fined for children's As the Education Secretary absence, teachers must attend too announced reforms on dealing The Guardian w i t h s c h o o l t r u a n c y , t h e Channel 4 News- The Press Government's Expert Advisor on Association- Morning Star Online Behaviour, Charlie Taylor, says all 296 news articles parents should lose part of their child benefit if they cannot make
The Road to Baghdad: Preparing for the Next Round of Iran Nuclear Talks
(World Politics Review: Articles)
Russia and Germany -- and Iran when they meet again in Baghdad Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:37:00 AM late next month. International ISTANBUL -- Amid the mostly negotiators declared the talks with positive spin following the Iran Iran, the first held in 15 months, a nuclear talks in Istanbul on success, noting the more serious Saturday, one person who wont and constructive stance adopted have long to celebrate is Helga b y t h e I r a n i a n d e l e g a t i o n Schmid. The European Union compared to previous meetings. deputy foreign policy chief was However, the marathon talks charged with the daunting task of studiously avoided going into coming up with a detailed agenda specifics on substance for fear of and substantive work plan to derailing the accomplishment of present to the six nations of the getting back to the negotiating P5+1 group -- the United States, table at all. United Kingdom, China, France, Schmids job over the next five
weeks will be to flesh out, in consultation with her Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri, the substantive plan for how to move forward on the basis of the broad principles agreed to Saturday. First, the parties agreed that Iran, as a signatory to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), is obligated to prove that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful energy purposes, as it claims. If it does so, the P5+1 also reiterated, Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear energy program -including, tacitly, the right to
enrich uranium for civil nuclear purposes. The parties also agreed to work toward resolving international concerns about Irans nuclear program based on a step-by-step process, on a reciprocal basis. That means that if Iran agrees to confidencebuilding measures, such halting its 20 percent uranium enrichment activities and removing its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium from Iranian territory, the international community would in turn agree to offer something in return, such as
providing nuclear fuel for Irans medical reactor or easing a set of sanctions. ... 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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World News/
The New Rules: Globalization in a PostHegemonic World

CTBT or Not, Nuclear Test Detection and Monitoring Remains Critical

Submitted at 4/16/2012 7:12:00 AM
wisdom centers on Chinas great weaknesses, challenges and Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:32:00 AM overall brittleness. Amazingly, International relations experts are where we spoke of a U.S.-China pretty much down on everything G-2 arrangement just a few nowadays. America, we are told, short years ago, now there is a is incapable of global leadership: sense that no one is in charge. too discredited overseas, too few Political scientist Ian Bremmer resources back home, too little dubs that reality a G-Zero will -- period. For a brief moment world, arguing in his soon-to-bethere, while China held up the published book, Every Nation global economy during the recent for Itself, that such an era begets financial crisis, much credence a free for all competition that is was given to the notion that we worrisome, but hardly Hobbesian. were on the verge of a Chinese After casually dismissing a worstcentury. But that popular vision case G-Subzero world in which has also waned surprisingly s t a t e s a r e s u p e r s e d e d b y a quickly, and now the conventional generalized anarchy, Bremmer
frets -- briefly -- about a second Cold War between China and America. But he spends most of his time regretting the global orders turn toward regionalism following the global financial crisis. ... 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.
Senate for ratification and has been engaging with senators and their staffs on the issue. Mitt On March 30, the National Romney has not taken a position Research Council of the National on the CTBT one way or the Academies of Science (NRC) other, but Republican presidents released to the public an have a strong record of important new study on the achievements in arms control, so technical issues raised for the U.S. it would be a mistake to assume by the Comprehensive Nuclear that Senate ratification of the Test Ban Treaty. Packed with well CTBT is out of the question -documented data, the 200-page should the GOP nominee win in study will surely inform the November. Of course, despite the p o l i c i e s o f t h e n e x t best case put forward by the administration, no matter who White House, the Senate might w i n s t h e W h i t e H o u s e i n again block ratification. ... N o v e m b e r , a s i t c o n s i d e r s This entry passed through the w h e t h e r t o p u r s u e S e n a t e Full-Text RSS service if this is r a t i f i c a t i o n o f t h e C T B T . your content and you're reading it Signed by then-President Bill on someone else's site, please read Clinton signed in 1996, the CTBT the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentfailed to win Senate ratification only/faq.php#publishers. Five when it was brought to a vote in Filters recommends: Donate to 1999. The Obama administration Wikileaks. announced early in its tenure that it would resubmit the CTBT to the
Beginning of the end for Basin Plan - Land

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:19:50 PM
Stuff.co.nz Beginning of the end for Basin Plan
Land BY COLIN BETTLES THE community consultation period for the Murray Darling Basin Plan ended yesterday after 20 weeks, 100 public meetings, and 5562
submissions. In total, the Murray Darling Basin Authority with about 15000 to 20000 people in various... Go with the flow: states unite to sink Murray-Darling plan The
Australian Murray-Darling plan would spark exodus, says report Nambucca Guardian News Community wraps up its thoughts on Murray-Darling water reform
ABC Online The Canberra Times- Ninemsn all 128 news articles
World News/ Food/
25
Arms case against Kripa transferred to Crime Branch - Indian Express

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:14:55 PM
Indian Express Arms case against Kripa transferred to Crime Branch Indian Express The case filed against former Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh at Nirmal Nagar police station on Friday night for possession of live ammunition exceeding permissible limits was transferred
to the Crime Branch on Monday on the orders of the city... Maharashtra files report on probe against Kripashankar in SC Hindustan Times Mumbai Congress leader Kripashankar Singh booked for possessing illegal arms India Today Kripa in line of fire, this time for excess ammo Mumbai Mirror The Asian Age all 27 news articles
Galloway 'advance party for army' - ic Dumfries.co.uk

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:04:19 PM
Jury chosen for conker murder trial - The Press Association

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:00:00 PM
BBC News Galloway 'advance party for army' ic Dumfries.co.uk Respect's George Galloway has returned to the House of Commons, insisting he is "just the advance party" for the army "mustering in the North". The Bradford West MP, who overturned a 5000 majority to
storm home with a 10000-vote lead in last month's... Bradford West MP George Galloway sworn in to Parliament BBC News Galloway: I'm heading army of the alienated Morning Star Online First Bradford, now the rest of the North, warns George Galloway Yorkshire Post The Guardian- Politics.co.uk all 136 news articles
Campbell Newman dumps Police Media paints negative picture Minister David Gibson over claims of West Bengal government, he drove while ... - Herald Sun says Mamata Banerjee - NDTV
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:06:37 AM
ABC Online Campbell Newman dumps Police Minister David Gibson over claims he drove while... Herald Sun Police Minister "drove car while his licence was suspended" Premier will today appoint new minister to police portfolio One of Queensland's shortest-serving
ministers - 14 days POLICE Minister David Gibson has been forced to resign by Queensland... Campbell Newman police minister David Gibson forced to resign The Australian New Qld Minister resigns over unlicensed driving ABC Online Qld Police Minister David Gibson resigns BigPond News The Daily Telegraph all 41 news articles
North London Today Jury chosen for conker murder trial The Press Association A jury has been selected in the trial of a 15-year-old boy accused of killing a student who complained about youngsters throwing conkers at him in north London. The youth, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, denies murder. Steven Grisales murder trial: teenager in dock North London Today Trial to begin of teenager accused of Steven Grisales murder in Edmonton This is Local London Boy goes on trial over conker killing ITV News all 14 news articles

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:15:46 PM
NDTV Media paints negative picture of West Bengal government, says Mamata Banerjee NDTV PTI | Updated: April 16, 2012 23:41 IST Kolkata: Stung by criticism of her government's choice of newspapers for stateaided libraries and a professor's
arrest over circulation of a cartoon showing her in poor light, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata... CMs raise mistrust at security meet Indian Express BJP criticises Mamata Banerjee for offering financial benefits to imams Economic Times Parties must put up united front on security: Cong Zee News Hindustan Times- IBNLive.com all 125 news articles
Season's Best: Strawberries

(Cooking Light: Editor's Picks)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 3:00:00 AM
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Strawberries are one of the brightest, sweetest flavors of spring. Find out our favorite ways to enjoy strawberries this season.
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World News/ Technology/ Finance/
We are a border state,gives Surplus push diminishes Dealers acquire taste for us special security package: diplomatic ranks Diageo's spirits Sukhbir - Indian Express Sydney Morning Herald
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:09:43 PM
Indian Express We are a border state,gives us special security package: Sukhbir Indian Express Asserting that being a border state, Punjab had to battle inimical forces and narcoterorrism, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday sought a `Special Security
Package' for the state to overcome the challenges effectively. Badal seeks special security package for border state Punjab to fight narco... Business Standard Sukhbir Badal seeks special security package Zee News MC elections in five cities as scheduled: CM Hindustan Times Times of India- Punjab Newsline all 12 news articles

Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:55:06 AM
Surplus push diminishes diplomatic ranks Sydney Morning Herald AUSTRALIA is suffering a diplomatic deficit, even as the government cuts more from the
foreign service, with at least 25 of the 96 countries with embassies in Canberra without an Australian equivalent in their capital. The government's drive for a... Foreign service trim and slim WA today all 17 news articles
Rachel Cooper (Finance News Business news from the UK and world)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:53:50 PM
Cove Energy gave oil and gas punters something to smile about on an otherwise lacklustre day as the explorer put itself up for sale, prompting speculation as to who could snap up the Aim-listed business.
Intel SSD 330 announced for the budget enthusiast

Cory Gunther (SlashGear)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:43:44 PM
come in 60GB, 120GB, and 180GB choices starting at $89 and ending with the 180GB for $234. Today Intel has officially Basically $1.25 per GB here from announced their SSD 330 series, Intel. If youve been wanting a their new line of SSD (solid state great low capacity drive for the drives) aimed for the budget OS, or would like to set up some c r o w d w h i l e s t i l l o f f e r i n g speedy SSDs in a Raid array excellent performance. These new these would be a good place to drives are for those looking for a start. good price/performance ratio The new Intel SSD 330 come while not attacking the wallet. built on 25nm silicon to be more Below are more details on efficient and offer less power performance as well as pricing consumption, but Intel still claims information. some impressive performance. While we still wait for quality Offering 500MB/sec in read and performance to come at the $1 per write speeds, not to mention GB level these are getting pretty nearly 33k in input output speeds. close. The new SSD 330 will Toss a few of these impressive
SATA for up to 500 MB/s reads Intel announces new SSD for the data center Intel ships small 313 Series SSDs for Ultrabooks Intel announces PCIe 910 series SSDs [ via Intel] Intel SSD 330 announced for the budget enthusiast is written by Cory Gunther& originally posted on SlashGear. available nationwide starting 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All today at your favorite retailers. right reserved. Story Timeline PS3 Intel SSD upgrade: Faster game loading, but at a cost Intel SSD 510 Series: 6Gbps
price/performance SSDs into that new Core i7 machine, add in the NVIDIA GTX 680 and youll be good to go. More details are available from Intel at the link below. These are expected to be
Technology/
27
Why 500px Plus Has Photographers Fired Up

Jon Mitchell (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 4:00:13 AM
compare? It's more than just a matter of user experience. There are differences in the paid plans, Photos are one of the Web's most and 500px Plus seems targeted at valuable emotional currencies. Flickr's weaknesses. Photographers deserve a good 500px Plus home online to host, showcase $19.95/year and share their work. Thus far, Unlimited uploads, storage and Flickr has been that home, but it access has left photographers wanting. Unlimited number of The insurgent site 500px launched c o l l e c t i o n s its Plus plan this week, and we Market functionality, including asked digital photographers digital downloads and canvas whether this is finally the home prints for purchase they've always wanted. Analytics on photo performance "A lot of people are wedded to and follower engagement Flickr since it's been around for ages," says Taylor Hatmaker, Flickr Pro s e n i o r e d i t o r a t T e c c a a n d $24.95/year henofthewood on Flickr. "The Unlimited uploads, storage and problem is that the experience access hasn't evolved. I find myself Unlimited number of spending more time clicking c o l l e c t i o n s through labyrinthine menus than Basic account statistics engaging with the community which is arguably still Flickr's When comparing the overall greatest strength - or even services, Flickr does have some uploading my photos." advantages. It's the older and "I reluctantly maintain a Flickr more established network, so it P r o a c c o u n t t o k e e p m y has the network effects of already photography in the cloud," having friends there. Its forums Hatmaker says, "but 500px's are thriving and celebrated. elegance caught my eye, and I've But 500px has a stylish interface been wanting to haul everything a n d m o r e a t t r a c t i v e p h o t o over since." presentation, arguably the most So how do these two services important feature for a photo site.
It has a great new uploader app for the Mac and a gorgeous new viewer on the iPad. Flickr's growth has slowed under Yahoo, and 500px is shipping worthy features for the 2012 Web at a prodigious rate. And for the paid accounts, 500px Plus offers the same features and more for less money. But what about the less tangible parts of the experience? What Photographers Want @ JonMwords@ achockley speaking for myself anyone that can improve on or take out flickr is welcome.It's too low end. Go 500px. Jan (@jandroid) April 10, 2012 "While Flickr increasingly seems like a disorganized virtual shoebox crammed full of photos, 500px feels sleek and elegant, with much more of a professional portfolio vibe," Hatmaker says. "It's hard to say if Flickr's resolute, still-thriving community will migrate any time soon, but 500px is poised to pick up the baton that Yahoo dropped years ago." Alfred Maskeroni, design director and photographer at Adweek, thinks 500px is aiming slightly lower on the professional totem pole than Flickr, though it
might just be messaging. "My mom would always tell me that she was afraid to get a 'Pro' Flickr account, because she wasn't worthy of such a title," he says. "500px's 'Plus' and 'Awesome' plans target Flickr for sure, but aren't attempting to give users the presumption that it's to be taken too seriously," Maskeroni says. "But it may be setting its target demographic a little low. Pros may be a little put off by this, but it's looking like it's not stopping anyone from posting really great work." "Frankly, [500px] display[s] photos better than Flickr ever has," says Jason Stoff, editor and photographer at Encor.es. Stoff signed up for 500px Plus as soon as it became available. "Flickr has been iterating their product this year (slowly), but 500px has far greater momentum - they've released a fantastic iPad app, for one. They greatly improved their site design recently. They've introduced a market feature that I'm excited to try." But while photographers seem to agree that 500px offers a more appealing experience, they keep coming back to the strength of Flickr's forums and community, and it's enough to keep some of
them from letting go of Flickr. @ JonMwords my take on the 500px thing: not bad for storage, but Flickr's strength is in groups/ communities and an open API Aaron Hockley (@ahockley) April 10, 2012 @ JonMwords a little of both, but Flickr's Groups feature is key to building connections with shared interests Aaron Hockley (@ahockley) April 10, 2012 "I probably won't be canceling my Flickr membership anytime soon," Stoff says. "I've got years' worth of photos and goodwill built up there. But they should be worried that professional photographers [who are willing to pay for services they use] may flock to 500px sooner than later. There's a lot of space between 'probably won't cancel' and 'unconditionally love.' I used to love Flickr." "Ultimately, Maskeroni says, "I really think the only thing getting in the way from 500px to truly be a 'Flickr-killer' (if that is the goal) is if they can pull off a legitimate forum structure. If there's one thing photographers like to do, it's TALK."
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Technology/
How to Choose a Startup Incubator

Tim Devaney and Tom Stein (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:00:34 AM
Director James Cameron On The Secrets of Making 3D Profitable [Live Video 10:40am PT]
Jon Orlin (TechCrunch)
Incubators are hot. There are more than a thousand in the U.S., and the proliferation is causing some tech-industry watchers to fret. The flock of incubators is spawning a glut of wanna-be entrepreneurs ready to quit their jobs, commit their lives to a 10week incubator program and end up with nothing but broken dreams and a souvenir hoodie. But that's their problem. Your problem - if you're building a cool startup and you don't have millions from Andreessen Horowitz- is how to choose the incubator that will nurture your company and launch you toward fame, fortune and a Facebook acquisition. Here's how. If you do have a startup, odds are you went to college. And, depending on what you got up to on weekends in your dorm room, you probably remember the application process. You should select an incubator the same way. "Incubators are the new grad schools for entrepreneurs," says Naval Ravikant, who knows a thing or two about the startup process. He founded Epinions and Vast.com, invested in Twitter and
FourSquare, and now runs AngelList and Venture Hacks. "There are incubators like Stanford and MIT, and there are incubators like University of Phoenix. They give different levels of help, and they have different prices - they ask for different amounts of equity." Of course, the choice is not entirely up to you. If you want a spot at one of the top incubators, your innovation must be good enough to qualify. You don't just waltz into Harvard Business School - and you don't just pull up a chair at TechStars or Y Combinator. (In fact, getting a seat at a superior incubator is three times harder than getting into Harvard Business School.) But let's say you're good enough to go anywhere. In that case, your selection process is easy. Choose from the handful of first-rate incubators. (Here's the Forbes top 10.) "Go to one of the elite incubators, and you'll be looked upon more kindly by investors and potential employees once you graduate," says Ravikant. "These programs make it easier to land funding and recruit employees." But suppose you're not TechStars material. Then you can't simply rely on reputation to choose an incubator. You have to do your homework. Ravikant suggests
asking the important questions: "Who are the mentors? Are they successful entrepreneurs? And what are the class sizes? Is it six startups to a mentor or 30? And look at demo day. Demo day is like career day at school. At school, you look at which recruiters show up. At an incubator, look at which investors show up. And ask how the incubator's graduates have done, how many get funded." If you don't get your first choice, don't worry. You'll soon have many more incubators to choose from. Though some bemoan the incubator boom, it's not likely to slow any time soon. The economics are just too compelling. Incubators typically take between 5% and 8% ownership in their participating companies in exchange for a 10week program. They graduate dozens of companies. And even if the majority of those graduates fall on their faces, incubators still produce a better economic outcome than just about any investment channel outside of bigtime venture capital. That's a good thing, Ravikant says. "Finally, we're seeing some innovation in the venture business." Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
films. Making money doing 3D hasnt been easy. But, Cameron has James Cameron, director of the figured out a way to make it work. just-released 3D version of In the past, he has told Hollywood T i t a n i c , a s w e l l a s A l i e n s , to stop making trash 3D movies. Terminator, Avatar and so many The NAB program describes the other major blockbusters, is session saying: spilling some secrets today. Hes CPG will reveal the strategy and s p e a k i n g a t t h e N a t i o n a l the details behind 5D productions, Association of Broadcasters including the ESPN Winter X convention in Las Vegas about Games where 35 rigs were used to how to make money making 3D a c c o m p l i s h t h e l a r g e s t 5 D movies. The event starts live at production in history. See how 10:30am PT. only the 5D methodology enables The original Titanic and the 3D broadcasters to increase revenue re-release has just passed $2 by integrating 3D into their billion in lifetime ticket sales. The existing 2D business model. only other movie to top $2 billion TechCrunch is getting our own is Camerons Avatar. exclusive interview with Cameron His company, Cameron | Pace later today. If you have some Group (CPG), with his partner good questions for him, put them Vince Pace, has been a leader in in the comments and well try to 3D technology. They have been ask as many as possible. involved in more than 200 sports productions and dozens of feature
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:43:46 PM
Back-to-Life 3D Performances - The Tupac Coachella Hologram by Musion is Incredibly Convincing (TrendHunter.com)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends)
Dre and Snoop Dogg, festivalgoers were graced and amazed by the Tupac Coachella hologram Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:07:02 AM from the deceased rap legend. The ( TrendHunter.com) This Sunday, set, which included hits like in an effort put forward by Dr.
Technology/ Featured/
29
Path, Instagram, and the Greater Fool Theory

Rafe Needleman (CNET News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:57:58 PM
Path 2.0 has a new, attractive, and intuitive interface for sharing moments and viewing what your close friends are posting. Now we know why Facebook didn't build a good mobile app. It didn't have to. It could afford to pay $1 billion for a 14-person company, Instagram, that managed to figure out the secret sauce for winning over smartphone picture-takers. So, clearly, Path is next, right? Not exactly. Path has a lot going for it, but it's lacking some key elements. It's a valuable company, but arguably over-valued given its recent funding news: A $40 million funding round from Redpoint Ventures (source: AllThingsD). Here's what Path has: The best user interface for social content creation. Path is a model for dozens of mobile startups. Not in functions, but in the way it works for users. Nearly every startup CEO I talk to who's working on a mobile app that looks halfway
decent tells me that Path served as a design inspiration. Path is also a good front-end to Facebook. This is its hidden feature. It's easier and more fun to use Path to post a picture to Facebook with Path than it is to use Facebook's own mobile app (I'm speaking of iPhone apps here). While Path is known as standalone micro-social network, it has utility beyond its own walls. These two characteristics make Path valuable. But Instagram valuable? Not really, because Path is not a social Powerhouse. As Om Malik notes, Path is no Instagram. It is, by design, a network of small networks. There are no celebrities on Path because nobody on the network can have more than 150 friends. Another thing Path isn't: A threat to Facebook. The limited nature of the Path social model means that the system isn't generating the same social graph and interest graph data that Facebook is profiting from. There are (currently) no Path apps buttressing the business, either. It's just not a platform that's
siphoning off the activity of Facebook's most passionate social photographers, as Instgram was becoming. And for that, Path is valued at $125 a user ($250 million valuation on a reported 2 million users). Facebook is the ballpark of $100 a user (it will probably be less on IPO). By this thinking, Instagram was a bargain at about $33 a user. Is Path overvalued? By any sane
analysis, yes. In fact, I could argue that Path's latest funding puts it in a dangerous no-man's land of valuation. It's a good product with a good team and it's worth a lot. But more per user than Facebook? That may be an unrecoverable position. Instagram's$500M valuation also looked loopy, until the moment Facebook bought it for $1 billion. It would be folly to think that Path can never recover its valuation in acquisition, because you never know how much Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Apple is willing to pay to keep a core product out of the hands of competitors. Dave Morin Demos Path 2 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.
SEC Filing: First Round Capital Raising $135 Million For New Fund
Leena Rao (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:48:58 PM
DNC Chief Called on to Release Tax Returns

Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:16:00 AM
Democratic National Committee
chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been called on to release her personal income tax returns. The r e q u e s t w a s m a d e b y h e r Republican Karen Harrington of c o n g r e s s i o n a l o p p o n e n t , Florida.
From a recent SEC filing, it looks like early stage investment firm First Round Capital is raising $135 million for a new fund, First Round Capital IV, L.P. Managing partners Josh Kopelman, Chris Fralic, Robert Hayes and Howard Morgan are all named in the filing and it appears that the funding hasnt been raised yet. First Round Capital is best known for making mainly early stage investments in startups. Past investments include Path, Fab.com, TaskRabbit, Get Satisfaction, Mashery and Birchbox. First Round previously raised $124.6 million back in 2010. This newest raise would be the fourth fund for the firm. In other news, the firm just brought on Scribds Head of Business Operations and Recruiting Jack Leidlein as its new Head of Talent. And you can check out First Rounds annual holiday video here. Other early stage investors who are currently raising funds include Chris Sacca for Lowercase Spur and Dave McClure for 500 Startups. Weve contacted First Round and will update this post if we hear back.
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Technology/
Google's Marissa Mayer asked to join Wal-Mart's board

Lance Whitney (CNET News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:32:22 PM
Google's Marissa Mayer Google Vice President Marissa Mayer may be adding Wal-Mart board director to her resume. The vice president of Local and Maps for Google was nominated today by Wal-Mart for election at the retail giant's annual shareholder meeting on June 1 as a new board member. Mayer, who has held her current job at Google since 2010, oversees product management and engineering for the company's various local and mobile products. Prior to that, she was the vice president for search products and user experience. She joined Google in 1999 as its first female engineer and has been credited with launching hundreds of products throughout her career. Beyond her current role, Mayer is seen as a powerful and visible
force both inside and outside Google. In 2010 she became the youngest person to join Google's operating committee, where she has been able to influence the direction and strategy of the company. In the same year she and her husband hosted a $30,000-a-plate fundraising dinner for President
Obama. In nominating Mayer to its board, Wal-Mart is clearly looking for a tech-savvy and influential player who can help the company's online business strategy. "We are on the cusp of a massive transformation in the way people shop in our increasingly connected world," Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton said in a statement. "Marissa's insights and expertise in the technology and consumer areas are valuable assets to Wal-Mart as we move forward." 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.
Livescribe and Dropbox bring handwritten notes to the cloud

Rue Liu (SlashGear)
integration, it will automatically sync the notes and audio Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:13:42 PM recordings directly to a folder in Livescribe has partnered with Dropbox. Simply use the enclosed D r o p b o x t o m a k e i t s E c h o software to sync the smartpen smartpen even more productive with your Dropbox account. for busy note-takers. The Echo However, the Echo smartpen smartpen will now be able to doesnt exactly sync notes and automatically sync its notes audio recordings on the fly. In directly to a users Dropbox order to sync your pencasts with account. And since about 46 Dropbox, you will have to dock percent of Livescribe users also your Echo with your PC as the use Dropbox, this is a perfect smartpen itself doesnt support match for storing handwritten any WiFi capabilities. n o t e s i n t h e c l o u d t o b e Livescribe and Dropbox bring c o n v e n i e n t l y a n d s e c u r e l y handwritten notes to the cloud is a c c e s s i b l e f r o m a n y w h e r e . written by Rue Liu& originally The Livescribe Echo smartpen posted on SlashGear. can record a users handwritten 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All n o t e s a s w e l l a s a u d i o a right reserved. combination the company calls a pencast. With Dropbox
Technology/
31
Canon unveils 4K lineup, DSLRs, lenses, and display

Rue Liu (SlashGear)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:48:03 PM
Canon has unveiled a new product lineup that boasts super high-definition 4K technology. The new equipment includes the EOS-1D C Digital SLR camera along with four EF Cinema zoom lenses, two Cinema EOS cameras, and an advanced display to round out Canons 4K imaging solutions designed for professional photography, video, and motion picture cinematography. The new EOS-1D C Digital SLR can record video in 4K 4096 x 2160-pixel resolution or in Full HD 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution. It features an 19.1-megapixel fullframe 24mm x 36mm Canon
CMOS sensor with the ability to record 8-bit 4:2:2 Motion JPEG 4L video. ISO goes as high as 25600 for exceptional image quality for motion picture recording even in low-light conditions.
Canons two digital cinematography cameras, the Cinema EOS C500 and the Cinema EOS C500 PL are designed for industries that require top notch picture quality such as in premium Hollywood
films. They are both capable of capturing 4K resolution video to be outputted uncompressed RAW for external recording. Lastly, four new EF Cinema zoom lenses will work with the Cinema EOS C500 digital cinematography camera to deliver 4K resolution images, while a new 4K display technology will provide a solution to previewing these high-resolution images for a complete professional workflow in 4K. Canon unveils 4K lineup, DSLRs, lenses, and display is written by Rue Liu& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jaw-Dropping Hefty Hamburgers - The 8-Pound StrasBurger is Available at Concessions in Washington (TrendHunter.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 8:56:02 AM
( TrendHunter.com) The 8-Pound StrasBurger is a gigantic beef burger that is available on the concessions at Nationals Park in Washington. This burger's patty is entirely beef made from a combination of ground...
iPhone case doubles as a Magna Doodle

Mike Schramm (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:00:00 PM
I think this is great, and I assume that other "children of the '80s" will agree. The iFoolish is a silly name for an iPhone case that's actually got a working Magna Doodle on the back. Sure, they
can't use the name, but that's a Magna Doodle all right. A little magnet on a pen that you can use to draw a series of what I believe are iron filings up to the drawing surface. You've seen these things before -- draw whatever you want on them, and then use the little slider at the bottom to throw off the magnetic field again and then
clear the board. Sure, you could just as easily do
this on the iPhone's screen itself (and in fact, there is indeed an app for that). But this is the real thing, helpfully attached to the back of your iPhone case. You can pick up the iFoolish for 19.99, which is around $24 US. [via iPhone Savior] iPhone case doubles as a Magna Doodle originally appeared on
TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
32
Technology/
BRAVEN SIX portable Bluetooth speakers sound great, charge your iOS device
Steven Sande (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:45:00 PM
There are a lot of portable Bluetooth speakers on the market that can work with your iOS devices, but not many that deliver high-end sound and can also charge your favorite Apple product. Utah-based BRAVEN has announced the SIX line of Bluetooth speakers that offer a lot of power -- both the electrical and sonic kinds. The BRAVEN 600, 625e, and 650 all provide classic looks, great sound, and that charging capability. The BRAVEN 600 (US$149.99, see image at top) is crafted out of aircraft-grade
aluminum, comes in Ash Grey and Moab Red, and can play up to 14 hours on a charge. The 625e ($179.99) is perfect for outdoor use, packaged with a waterproof bag and equipped with a USB flashlight, and able to power your
iPhone or iPod touch for up to 16 hours. The 650 ($189.99) is the top of the line, equipped with aptX and AAC audio encoding for flawless sound, and can provide up to 20 hours of extra play time for your iPhone or iPod touch.
If you have multiple BRAVEN speakers, it's easy to daisy-chain them for extra sound power. The image below shows four of the BRAVEN speakers tied together to create a mini sonic wall. All of the speakers will be available in June, 2012 and as of today they'll be on pre-order. BRAVEN SIX portable Bluetooth speakers sound great, charge your iOS device originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Realized Rodent Hotels - Celebrate Small-Sized Living at the Hamster Villa in Nantes, France (TrendHunter.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 8:46:03 AM
( TrendHunter.com) Rodent living at the Hamster Villa hotel will only cost guests $148 per night where they can live like rodents. At this hotel in Nantes, France guests can eat, sleep, drink and even exercise on a...
Apple updates Cards and iBooks apps

Michael Grothaus (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:16:00 PM
Apple has released updates for its Cards and iBooks apps. The iBooks 2.2.1 update is relatively minor, only addressing some
stability and performance improvements and fixing an issue which prompted users to sign-in with their Apple ID at unexpected times. In addition to stability and performance improvements the Cards 1.1 update also adds some
new card styles, including cards for Mother's Day, new Get Well
card designs, and additional cards for birthdays, thank you and more. Both apps are free downloads. Apple updates Cards and iBooks apps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 16 Apr 2012
14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Technology/
33
Apple's Cards app gets Mother's Day addons

Josh Lowensohn (CNET News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:24:55 PM
at different times during the month in a number of other countries ( Wikipedia's cheat After six months of letting its sheet is here). greeting cards app sit on the App Alongside the Mother's Day Store without any new designs, cards, Apple's added 28 different Apple seems to have gotten hip to "get well" cards, and added to the the idea of adding new ones for number of designs for birthdays holidays where cards are the and "thank you" cards. In the norm. update fix list, Apple also says it Today that comes in the form of a has improved the checkout new update that adds 28 different process, and the app's verification cards for Mother's Day, which is of whatever address cards are May 13 in the United States, and being sent to.
Apple introduced Cards alongside the iPhone 4S last year. Similar to the photo printing services bundled into Apple's
iPhoto and Aperture, buyers use their Apple ID account to make payments. The Cards app also added the rather unique function
of sending buyers a push notification when their card was delivered if it's shipped in the U.S. as part of a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service. 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.
Wired nominated for five PPA awards, and we need YOUR help
David Rowan
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:21:02 AM
It's awards season -- and we're pleased to say that the Wired team has today been shortlisted in five categories in the Professional Publishers Association (PPA)
awards. We're up for Consumer Magazine of the Year, alongside titles including GQ, Men's Health and Radio Times; Consumer Media Brand of the Year, against competition s u c h a s art director Andrew Diprose is FourFourTwo, Stylist and Elle; shortlisted for Designer of the
Year (Consumer Media), along with entrants including Paul Solomons of GQ, Elle's Marissa Bourke, and Meirion Pritchard of Wallpaper*; and Wired's publisher, Rupert Turnbull, is shortlisted in the category Publisher/Manager of the Year
(Consumer Media). By: David Rowan, Edited by: Nate Lanxon Continue reading...
Meet Us in St. Louis on May 3

David Strom (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:30:55 AM
Last November, ReadWriteWeb held several meetups at various
cities around the world, as recounted here. Our midwest staff enjoyed doing it so much that we decided to hold another one May 3. You are all invited to attend,
just let us know you are coming. The meetup will be held at the offices of Mercury Labs in the trendy midtown section of St. Louis from 6-8 p.m. Mercury is a
cool cinema and communications company with a number of tech clients; our thanks to them for sponsoring the event. As with our previous meetups, you will get a
chance to hob-nob with midwestern editors and connect with other uber-geeks from around the city.
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Technology/ Culture/
TechCrunch Meet -Ups: Now With How Can I Stop More Pitocin Someone
John Biggs (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:49:46 PM
EC investigation delays Project Oscar NFC roll-out Christian World Adoption

Katie Scott
in time, beginning to look more and more like an ancient, Bacchanalian fertility god. While I know that a TechCrunch Rich writes: Hey, I know I must meet-up can invigorate start-up have mentioned this last Tuesday, founders and encourage investors that my wife was going to have a to write checks, did you know babywell after I got home from Alan Henry (Lifehacker) they can also induce labor? One the TechCrunch meetup, we went Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:00:00 AM attendee, Richard Moormann, to the hospital. No kidding! above, visited with us in Norfolk This hefty 9.5 lb 20.5 package is Dear Lifehacker, More last week and subsequently went hungry and eats real well. home to find his wife in labor. I Congratulations, Richard, and c a n o n l y a t t r i b u t e t h i s best of luck with the little one. happenstance to the fact that I am,
Impersonating Me Online? [Ask Lifehacker]
Everywhere. The venture would provide a one-stop shop for companies, including advertisers, An near field communication who want to use NFC technology (NFC) venture fronted by three of to facilitate payments with mobile the UK's biggest mobile network wallet apps. They could create an operators will not be launched in app and then sign up to Project the UK in time for the Olympics, Oscar, which will provide access following the decision by the to the in-phone technology (which E u r o p e a n C o m m i s s i o n t o includes secure access to the investigate it. phone owner's bank details). Project Oscar was announced in By: Katie Scott, Edited by: Nate J u n e 2 0 1 1 b y V o d a f o n e , Lanxon Continue reading... Telefnica and Everything
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:15:00 AM
Christian World Adoption is one of the largest international adoption agencies in the United States. Since 1991, Christian World Adoption has placed thousands of children from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. These children now enjoy the love and security of a forever family. Christian World Adoption currently offers
adoption programs in Bulgaria, ready, call our friendly adoption China, Ethiopia, Guatemala, c o u n s e l o r , t o l l f r e e , a t Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia 1 . 8 8 8 . 9 7 A D O P T . and Ukraine. Explore our website to learn more about international adoption. Then, when youre
Policy/
35
A Nation of Spoiled Brats - Interview by David Rothkopf

DAVID ROTHKOPF (Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:58:34 AM
Financial Times columnist Ed Luce explains the real reason for American decline. INTERVIEW BY DAVID ROTHKOPF| APRIL 16, 2012 Financial Times columnist Edward Luce has written a new book called Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent that has received welldeserved acclaim and recognition not only for its superb reporting of the on-ground reality of America's current economic crisis but also because it is an unflinchlingly brave book. Luce does not shy away from conclusions that are hard for many Americans to hear, nor does he cop out and offer up the happy ending many in his audience may want to read. Rather, he offers what is most needed now: an objective, profoundly thoughtful look at the underpinnings of America's economic troubles, what makes the current crisis different from those of the past, and where we are likely headed from here. Luce recently sat down with Foreign Policy CEO and Editor-at-Large David Rothkopf. Here are some of the highlights of their conversation. Foreign Policy: The debate about
whether the U.S. is declining is raging. In fact, it is likely to be central to the upcoming election. Your book takes a strong stance on the subject. Can you
summarize your view? Edward Luce: Well, there are two types of decline. The first is relative economic decline, and I think this should be
uncontroversial. Funnily enough, America had about 31 percent of it isn't yet fully uncontroversial, the global economy, so just under but it should be: namely, that a third. And by 2010 it was down America's share of the global economy is diluting. In 2000, NATION page 36
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to 23.5 percent, just under a quarter. That is a remarkable shift. So relative economic decline shouldn't be something we debate too much because it's happening and it's going to continue to happen. And I think the U.S. share would be likely to fall to a little more than a sixth in the next decade or so, unless there are dramatic changes in the pattern and distribution of global growth. One of the reasons why I emphasize this is because there's one very accomplished author whom I generally admire, Bob Kagan. His book, The Myth of American Decline, makes the point that America's share has been unchanged for 40 years and unchanged between the turn of the century and now. The facts are wrong. And I picked that up because the president picked it up and essentially cited the core pieces of Kagan's argument in the State of the Union [address]. While it's understandable President Obama wants to refute the idea that he's America's declinist-in-chief -- and it is a line of attack from Mitt Romney -- I do think it means that we're going to have a 2012 election where on both sides, both candidates will start on a false premise: that relative economic decline is simply to be ignored or dismissed. And I'd describe that as a kind of intellectual ostrich position. FP: But relative economic decline, while a great subject for political conversation, actually shouldn't matter to the American people. Because if the pie is
getting bigger, your slice of the pie can get bigger and it can still be relatively smaller than everybody else. In other words, everybody can be doing better in a world in which everybody else is also doing better, right? EL: Absolutely. And, in many ways this should be a cause for celebration. To take the historical context of which you're very aware, the Industrial Revolution around 1750 onward lifted 15 percent or so of the world's population -- generally the Europeans and the Americans more latterly -- into a different stratosphere of economic growth and of human development and of life expectancy, and left the remaining 85 percent behind, many of whom were under colonial rule as the bit-part rawmaterials suppliers to this Industrial Revolution. The fact that that the 85 percent is now catching up in this Great Convergence is something to be expected -- it's going to happen and it should be celebrated. It reduces poverty and expands markets. The question is at what speed it is happening and how we are responding to it. FP: OK, so relative decline is not necessarily a problem for people. What is the other type of decline? EL: The other type is the more important one. It is about how America is responding to these challenges, which includes actions and inactions that have exacerbated some of the trends that we associate with this relative decline. These include the impact
of globalization on the American economy and the impact of really exponential changes in technology on how Middle America lives and works. Washington's reaction to date has only deepened America's problems by turning this into a more pronounced relative decline than it needs to be. FP: There would seem to be several different kinds of flaws with the reaction. One is the one that you referred to in the debate between Obama and Romney, which is denial. Another one is the lack of creativity in the response, not recognizing what has changed and what has not changed. In the last crisis, it seemed like the reaction was to try to make things go back to the way they were. In the context of the book, have you come up with ways to articulate what has changed? Has something fundamentally changed about the way the U.S. economy works and that needs to be understood in order to be able to respond? EL: Yes, there's been much less revisiting of the assumptions in the preceding two or three decades before the Lehman Brothers collapse than you would have expected in 2008. I do see some stirrings now of questioning whether, in a world where there is a lot of mercantilism -- or at least where there are a lot of often very effective governments integrated with their private sectors to compete with the United States and others -- whether it is sensible for America to continue to ignore
those lessons and those examples not just from Asia, but from places like Germany, Brazil, and Canada. The governments in these countries can often play a constructive role in helping their private sectors compete. But by and large, the preponderance of economists and the intellectual elite in America still hews toward the model that led up to the financial crisis. You could say America has lost a paradigm and not yet found a new one. FP: How is this decline different from all other declines? What are the warning signs that this is not your father's recession? EL: Let's pick up the current unemployment numbers and start with those, because we have a few months of welcome decline in unemployment -- 200,000 people or so per month. This has been accompanied by declining incomes for the median wage earner. So incomes are lower each year into the recovery than they were in the previous year, the reverse of what you would expect in your grandfather's or your father's recovery, but very much what you would expect if you look at the previous recovery in 2002, just a more pronounced version of it. So if you look at 2002 to 2007 and you observe the structural forces at play in that business expansion -- mainly that the middle class income dropped, that very, very few jobs were created and that the higher value-added jobs tended for the most part to be replaced by lower paying ones --
those trends became pronounced in the 2009 recovery onwards. That suggests that this is a deep structural problem with the way globalization and technology is impacting the majority of the American workforce. I'm agnostic as to whether this reduces America's overall growth rate. The gains of growth are so deeply skewed to the very highest earners. But there is a lot of evidence in studies of other economies that when you have gross, Latin American-style inequality, growth and competitiveness tend to get advertsely hit. FP: What evidence is there that inequality in the U.S. has gotten worse? EL: There's a lot of evidence, and there's a shrinking school of people denying this evidence. The most powerful piece is also the most recent, and that is the distribution of growth since 2009. The paper by Saez and Piketty from Berkeley University that came out in early March is particularly instructive. It shows not only that 93 percent of the gains in the 3 percent growth America got that year went to the top 1 percent, but also that the top 0.01 percent, namely the top 15,600 families, took 37 percent of the growth. That's the top one in 10,000 people. Even in 20022007 inequality was getting much worse. But in this recovery it is an order of magnitude worse. FP: Hasn't social mobility also NATION page 37
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declined? EL: It's a triple cocktail. As America's inequality is growing to Latin American levels, social mobility has fallen to subEuropean levels. And of course, median wage stagnation and the whole skills globalization problem is deeply entrenched. Far more important than whatever this month's consumer sentiment number is or last month's was -these are the numbers we should be looking at. FP: So historically we are declining relative to other powers. Clearly something big is changing the global economy. Domestically inequality is growing, social mobility is declining, median wages are falling, and core industries like manufacturing are shrinking. And yet, when you listen to politicians, the response is first, in the wake of crisis, we need a stimulus that'll make things go back to the way they were. Then politicians argue that we should go back to manufacturing as it was in the past and somehow wave a magic wand that will make it 1955 again with Cadillacs with big fins rolling out of factories. In the course of your reporting, did you find anybody who's coming up with a new approach? Or is the reason for your pessimism due to the fact that we are oblivious and inclined to apply old formulas to address new problems? EL: I think it is inevitable in life that the No. 1 country, having been number one for so long, will be the most complacent. In
addition, America has so many examples to draw upon of being in a tough spot and pulling out of it, so it's understandable that it has been the slowest to adapt intellectually to the challenges posed by the changing global economy. America is adapting even slower than Britain, in some respects, which might be doing the wrong thing but is at least in a panic and knows it's got to find new answers. FP: Why do you think David Cameron has been more open to new ideas and more inclined to embrace new approaches than many of his American counterparts? EL: Generally speaking, while agreeing with the premise of your question, I would say that Britain's prognosis is actually bleaker than the United States. But Cameron has been casting around for competitiveness policies. Take for example the immigration skills -- the pointsbased system -- in which Britain is looking at how to attract people who generate patents. You can tell there's some degree of thinking about what means it to be competitive, and how do we need to adapt. I'm not sure how impactful any of these measures have been, and I'm not sure how good the UK coalition is at governing. I most certainly think all this is outweighed by the UK's disastrously premature embrace of austerity. One reviewer said my book should be renamed Time to Start Drinking. If I was asked to write one on Britain I might call it
Time to Start Sniffing Glue. FP: So in the U.S., what has the political situation gotten us? EL: People tend to make a fetish out of Washington and blame Washington on itself, as if somehow it is just in suspension from the society that elected it. But some of the reasons for my skepticism about how easy it will be for America to rejuvenate itself stem from that fact that polarization in Washington is deeply rooted in trends beyond the Beltway, in the real America. This is the case with the gradual hollowing out of the middle class and the decline in income or benefits and all the social problems that come with that. The American system is designed to work best when there's cooperation between factions and parties and when there's some degree of working together. It's no surprise, therefore, that when you get the wrong kind of parliamentary politics, namely discipline and ideological divisions, cooperation becomes impossible, gridlock becomes the norm, and it becomes almost inconceivable to imagine the kinds of reforms that in a parliamentary system a majority government can very easily push through. FP: What's the most broken in our system? Is it fiscal fecklessness? Is it gerrymandering? Is it the way the Senate works? Is it filibustering? Is it campaign finance? EL: Those are all symptoms. As a foreigner, I do sometimes see
campaign finance as the root of all evil, but I also understand that the First Amendment makes it very hard for people to envision a scenario where it's going to be properly controlled. And I think the Supreme Court's going in the wrong direction. But when you ask What's the most broken?' there's a richness of embarrassments to select from. Take the Supreme Court, for example. I don't know how they're going to rule on "Obamacare" in June, but I do know that eight of them are pretty much spoken for and there's one swing vote. You could also look at the polarization of the Senate, which can't be explained by gerrymandering since state boundaries are fixed. [It] now has an essential tool of paralysis -- the filibuster -- that the minority use as a matter of routine, as they do in California. I do think in this respect California is very much America's future, in positive technological ways, but also in the political sense. Sacramento is barely capable of functioning. I think Washington is taking on those features and that makes governing really difficult. If you believe that America is a story of essentially the government being out of the way and then the nation flourished, then this might all look fine. But if you have a proper understanding of American history and you know what role government played in American development and in American capitalism, then this isn't fine at all.
FP: Among the things that makes your book great is that you went out and you reported on America. You saw people, spoke to them -followed in Tocqueville's footsteps, as some have suggested. Something's broken; you don't want to blame it all on Washington. What's wrong with the American people? EL: That's a very good question. And I attempt to answer that in different ways, partly though politics. Americans don't participate in politics, or those who don't particularly want to do the rest don't seem to give a damn. And there's a kind of selffulfillingness to that. And they do give a damn, and I can understand why they're alienated. But their very alienation reinforces what it is that alienates them. So you've got this kind of weird tandem of apathy versus fanaticism that reinforce each other. But what I found most interesting, and continue to find most interesting, is the education problem -- the problem of K through 12 and the lack of early childhood learning for those at less advantaged levels, the problems with student loans and with community colleges. I think it's a portal onto America's competitiveness problem. But it's also a cultural problem. The approach of parents to their children's education is a case in point. If we're talking about American values, the first- or second-generation immigrant NATION page 40
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Policy/
The New Islamists - By Olivier Roy

OLIVIER ROY (Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:45:44 AM
How the most extreme adherents of radical Islam are getting with the times. BY OLIVIER ROY| APRIL 16, 2012 The following is an excerpt from the book The Islamists Are Coming: Who They Really Are, which will be released on April 18 by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The longstanding debate over whether Islam and democracy can coexist has reached a stunning turning point. Since the Arab uprisings began in late 2010, political Islam and democracy have become increasingly interdependent. The debate over whether they are compatible is now virtually obsolete. Neither can now survive without the other. In Middle Eastern countries undergoing political transitions, the only way for Islamists to maintain their legitimacy is through elections. Their own political culture may still not be democratic, but they are now defined by the new political landscape and forced in turn to redefine themselves -- much as the Roman Catholic Church ended up accepting democratic institutions even as its own practices remained oligarchic. At the same time, democracy will not set down roots in Arab countries in transition without
including mainstream Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, or Islah in Yemen. The
so-called Arab Spring cleared the way for the Islamists. And even if many Islamists do not share the democratic culture of the
demonstrators, the Islamists have to take into account the new playing field the demonstrations created.
The debate over Islam and democracy used to be a chickenNEW page 39
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and-egg issue: Which came first? Democracy has certainly not been at the core of Islamist ideology. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has historically been strictly centralized and obedient to a supreme guide, who rules for life. And Islam has certainly not been factored into promotion of secular democracy. Indeed, skeptics long argued that the two forces were even anathema to each other. But the outside world wrongly assumed that Islam would first have to experience a religious reformation before its followers could embark on political democratization -- replicating the Christian experience when the Protestant Reformation gave birth to the Enlightenment and then modern democracy. In fact, however, liberal Muslim intellectuals had little impact in either inspiring or directing the Arab uprisings. The original protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square referred to democracy as a universal concept, not to any sort of Islamic democracy. The development of both political Islam and democracy now appears to go hand-in-hand, albeit not at the same pace. The new political scene is transforming the Islamists as much as the Islamists are transforming the political scene. Today, the question of Islam's compatibility with democracy does not center on theological issues, but rather on the concrete way believers recast their faith in a rapidly changing political environment. Liberal or
fundamentalist, the new forms of religiosity are individualistic and more in tune with the democratic ethos. The Evolution When Islamism gained ground during the 1970s and 1980s, it was initially dominated by revolutionary movements and radical tactics. Over the next 30 years, however, the religious revival in Arab societies diversified, and social shifts reined in radicalism. The toll of death and destruction that radical Islamism left in its wake also diverted interest in militancy. Even the proliferation of media free from overbearing state control played a role. In the mid1990s, Al-Jazeera became the first independent satellite television station in the Arab world. Within a generation, there were more than 500 such stations. Many offered a wide range of religious programming -- from traditional sheikhs to liberal Muslim thinkers -- which in turn introduced the idea of diversity. Suddenly, there was no single truth in a religion that has preached one path to God for 14 centuries. Islamists also changed both through victory and defeat -- or a combination. Shiite Islamists won a political victory in Iran's 1979 revolution, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rose to power. But three decades later, the world's only modern theocracy was increasingly ostracized by the world, leading many Islamists to ask, "What went wrong?" In Algeria, Sunni Islamists were
pushed aside in a military coup on the eve of an election victory in 1992. The party was banned, its leaders imprisoned. A more militant faction then took on the military, and more than 100,000 people were killed in a decadelong civil war. The bloody aftermath of the Arab world's first democratic election had a ripple effect on the calculations of Islamist groups across the region. As a result of their experience with the power of government repression, Islamists increasingly compromised to get in, or stay in, the political game. In Egypt, the Muslim Brothers ran for parliament whenever allowed, often making tactical alliances with secular parties. In Kuwait and Morocco, Islamists abided by the political rules whenever they ran for parliament, even when it meant embracing those countries' monarchies. Morocco's Justice and Development Party recognized the sacred dimension of the king in order to participate in elections, while Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood publicly supports the king despite growing discontent among the Arab Bedouin tribes. A generation of Islamic activists forced into exile also played a major role in redirecting their movements. Most leaders or members ended up spending more time in Western countries rather than Islamic nations, where they came into contact with other secular and liberal dissidents as well as non-government organizations such as Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Freedom House. These new connections facilitated the flow of ideas, and their movements' evolution. In the 1990s, exiled activists increasingly framed their agendas in terms of democracy and human rights. They acknowledged that simplistic slogans like "Islam is the solution" were not enough to build programs or coalitions capable of removing dictators. Rachid Ghannouchi, co-founder of Tunisia's Ennahda Party, concluded almost 20 years before the Arab uprisings that democracy was a better tool to fight dictatorships than the call for either jihad or sharia. The Social Revolution Islamists have changed because society has changed too. The rise of Islamists has reflected the social and cultural revolutions within Muslim societies as much as a political revolution. A new generation has entered the political space, especially in the major cities. It is the generation of Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt's uprising against Hosni Mubarak. When the uprisings began, two-thirds of the Arab world's 300 million people were under the age of 30. They are better educated and more connected with the outside world than any previous generation. Many speak or understand a foreign language. The females are often as ambitious as their male counterparts. Both genders eagerly question and debate. Most are able to identify and even shrug
off propaganda. The shift does not necessarily mean the baby-boom generation is more liberal or more secular than their parents. Many Arab baby boomers are attracted by new forms of religiosity that stress individual choice, direct relations with God, self-realization, and self-esteem. But even when they join Islamic movements, they bring along their critical approach and reluctance to blindly follow an aging leadership. The transformation is visible even among young Egyptian Salafis, followers of a puritanical strain of Islam that emphasizes a return to early Islamic practices. They may wear baggy trousers and long white shirts in imitation of the Prophet Mohammed. But they also often wear shiny sunglasses and sport shoes. They are part of a global culture. For decades, the Salafis opposed participation in politics. But after the uprisings, they completely reversed course. They jumped into politics, hastily registering as political parties. At universities, clubs of young Salafis -including females -- have joined public debate forums. The influence of the current baby -boom generation will be enduring. Their numbers are likely to dominate for much of their lives -- potentially another 30 to 40 years -- because the fertility rate has plummeted almost everywhere in the Arab world since their birth. NEW page 41
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spirit that might be conjured up in a Tiger Mom or in some Italian family in Brooklyn in which parents force kids to study at night is a truly American value. I have no nostalgia for what I didn't experience, but I do feel that the swing towards celebrating the child, elevating the child, overpraising the child, boosting constantly at every opportunity the self-esteem of the child, assuming the child is a fragile little eggshell that can be broken at any moment, is something quite un-immigrant and therefore quite un-American, and also a great disservice to the child. I think that tells more about the neediness of their overworked parents' desire for the love of their child than it does for their upbringing skills, which would be to inoculate the children for the world they expect, to show them you can fail, that C grades happen, that reprimands are sometimes deserved. This is a sort of amateur psychological point I'm making, but there are a lot of educationists that I've talked to and a lot of scholars of education as well as teachers in this book who made me realize this is a cultural problem at the ground level with how kids' minds are prepared for the future. And if the future is about minds, it's not a trivial alarm to raise. I'm not the first to raise it, but it struck me that education is perhaps the most fertile way of answering your question about what is wrong with Americans. I should add that exactly the
same problems are visible and talked about in Britain. And it's exactly the same level of concern about how easy or how quickly education can be turned around given just how much of a societal problem it is. This isn't simply a question of whether teachers are paid enough or children tested enough. I quote John Hennessey, head of Stanford, a very admirable man who really knows what he's talking about, a very good scientist, but also a brilliant university administrator. He said, "Look, it took decades for us to get into this problem in education, and it's going to take decades to get out." FP: You went through Gary, Indiana, and you talked to people in Gary. They were at a casino. They were in a town that was devastated. I had this sense of hopelessness for these people. There is no future. There is not going to be a manufacturing resurgence that they're going to take advantage of. Casinos are kind of strange machines that seem to prosper by sucking the last bits of economic vitality out of a community, because the poor and the old go there and give up their money. And so for a moment, it looks like something is prospering, but at the end of the day it's accelerating decay. I mean, is that your view? It seems like another component of your point about spoiled children. What is your feeling in terms of the problems of the grown-ups? EL: Part of the reason I to talk about these casinos is to use them
as a metaphor for the bankruptcy of public policy, particularly urban public policy. Casinos, sports arenas, and convention centers don't generate income for those who've lost their jobs. The casino is a particularly apt metaphor for the intellectual bankruptcy of thinking, because, if done well, you can generate short-term income and tax revenues. But the costs are pushed back a little bit further, so the balance sheet doesn't show what it's really doing to your community, which is drastically raising all sorts of social bills that you're going to have to pay, whether it be about policing or by prison services or a penal system or indeed the further decay of the community. FP: Because casinos, particularly lotteries, are sort of last-stage predators, junkyard dogs or vultures. They're preying on economic carrion. Do we have a cultural problem? EL: It's very difficult to answer that question. If there were a real modern-day, contemporary Tocqueville around with that spirit and that sensibility, touring America with no other purpose other than to take the temperature of the American character and of what is it, what would he say that would be different from what the Tocqueville of the 1830s said? And what was it that Tocqueville of the 1830s most highlighted? I think it was America's sense of egalitarianism. It really impressed him. The sense that people essentially treat each other as
equals outside of their jobs, that there is this instinctive social egalitarianism in those days... FP: Has that been turned around on its head? EL: Yeah. Britain, which is the least socially mobile portion of Europe, has the same level of social mobility as the United States. Some countries like Germany have more than twice America's social mobility. Tocqueville would have looked at statistics -- and how accepted this reality is now becoming among America's elites. Among economists, it's all about returns and skills. And apparently, if you make X million on Wall Street, this is because you're worth it. This is how valuable you are. Now I can understand it with Steve Jobs. I can understand it with plenty of entrepreneurs. But it's hard though in the financial sector to extend that logic. Having said that, I think if you took a poll you would find great approval of Steve Jobs and great disapproval of the Wall Street bonuses. Public sensibility does make a very clear division on that. I do understand that distinction, because Steve Jobs was a genuine innovator. And I agree with Paul Volcker that the ATM is about the only innovation you can cite from Wall Street. It was a good innovation, but let's not classify derivatives and various pieces of financial engineering as innovations. FP: The other point is pragmatism. Do the Americans today have the spirit necessary to
tackle these problems? EL: I think there's demand for it. Americans might be ignorant about the Middle East or Europe, but they're certainly aware of their own situation. They are certainly aware of the problems here. And I think, as [GE CEO] Jeff Immelt said, if globalization were put to a referendum in America, it would lose -- which is troubling, and it's one measure of the degree of alarm and distemper felt out there, which I come across the whole time whenever I'm outside of the Beltway. The question of whether that pragmatic instinct that Tocqueville best described is now missing is more a question about whether the market signals are working in American politics anymore. Because the consumers want some kind of change; they want some kind of recognition of the degree of pain and strain they feel nowadays in their lives, to which they are not accustomed. The system seems unable to respond. Democracy is a market as well, and it doesn't seem to be working. So the question is what stops democracy from being a market in America? To answer that we go back to the world of money in politics; we go back to the world of Latin Americanization of American society; we go back to some of the institutional factors like gerrymandering. But we also go back again to the American people, to the consumers. NATION page 42
Finance/
41
NEW
The Three Camps During the centuries-old debate about Islam and democracy, Muslim religious scholars and intellectuals fell into three broad camps. The first camp rejects both democracy and secularism as Western concepts that are not even worth refuting. In this fundamentalist view, participating even in everyday politics, such as joining a political party or voting, is haram, or religiously forbidden. This has been the position of the Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, the Taliban in Afghanistan and, for decades, the various Salafi schools across the Arab world. The second camp claims that returning to the "true tenets" of Islam will create the best kind of democracy. In this conservative view, the faithful may deliberate to understand the true path, but the idea that religion is the ultimate truth is not negotiable. These Islamists invoke the concept of tawhid, or the oneness, uniqueness and sovereignty of God, which can never be replaced by the will of the people. The second camp also invokes Muslim practices to claim modern political ideology meets the basic requirements of democracy. For example, it often points to the shura or advisory council, where ideas were debated before
submitting proposals to the leader --as the equivalent of a parliament. The third camp advocates ijtihad, or reinterpreting Islam to make it compatible with the universal concept of democracy. This position is more common among lay intellectuals than among clerics. But the opening up the doors of ijtihad, which conservative scholars had believed were closed in the Middle Ages, has already produced its own spectrum of ideas, not all in agreement. The Islamist reformers often have a larger audience in the West than in their own countries -- and not just because of censorship and harassment. Some are deemed to be too intellectual, too abstract, or tied to an artificial theology. Their philosophical approach is disconnected from popular religious practices and the teachings at most madrasas, or religious schools. The Future The new Islamist brand will increasingly mix technocratic modernism and conservative values. The movements that have entered the political mainstream cannot now afford to turn their backs on multiparty politics for fear of alienating a significant portion of the electorate that wants stability and peace, not
revolution. But in countries undergoing transitions, the Islamists will face a tough balancing act. In Egypt, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood cannot cede its conviction that Islam is allencompassing. Yet it risks losing popular support unless it can also reconcile Islam with good governance and human rights. To do that, the Muslim Brothers may have to translate Islamic norms into more universal conservative values -- such as limiting the sale of alcohol in a manner more similar to Utah's rules than to Saudi laws, and promoting "family values" instead of imposing sharia norms on women. Many Islamist movements still do not share the democratic culture of the uprisings. But given their own demographics and the wider constituency they seek, they will increasingly have to take into account the new political playing field created by the demonstrations -- even within their own movements. The exercise of power can actually have a debilitating effect on ideological parties. And for all their recent political success, Islamists also face a set of constraints: They do not control the armed forces. Their societies are more educated and
sophisticated in their worldviews, and more willing to actively express their opinions than in years past. Women are increasingly prominent players, a fact reflected in their growing numbers in universities. Ironically, elected Islamists may face opposition from the clergy. Among Sunnis, Islamists usually do not control the religious institutions. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood does not control Al Azhar University, the Islamic world's oldest educational institution dating back more than a millennium. The Brothers may have won a plurality in parliament, but none of them is authorized to say what is or is not Islamic without being challenged by a wide range of other religious actors, from clerics to university scholars. The biggest constraint on Islamists, however, may be economic realities. Focusing simply on sharia will not spawn economic development, and could easily deter foreign investment and tourism. The labor force is outspoken and does not want to be forgotten, but economic globalization requires sensitivity to international pressures too. The newly elected Islamists face political rejection if they do not deliver the economic goods. Israel is still unpopular and anti-
Western xenophobia has visibly grown, but Islamist movements will need more than these old issuesto sustain their rise to power. The Arab uprisings have shifted the battle lines in the Middle East, and Islamists will find it harder to play on the ArabIsraeli conflict or tensions with the international community. At the moment, the most dangerous divide is persistent tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. The differences are symbolized by deepening political fault lines between the Sunni religious monarchy in Saudi Arabia and Iran's Shiite theocracy, but they ripple across the region -from the tiny archipelago of Bahrain to strategically located Syria. Just as Islamism is redefining the region's politics, Islamic politics and sectarian differences are redefining its conflicts. 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.
Spain plans to strip regions of powers in bid to calm markets

Louise Armitstead (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
Madrid is plotting to strip Spain's regions of their powers in a radical bid to convince global
investors that the nation can control its finances.
42
Economy/ Sports/
NATION
FP: Final question is what does all this mean for the rest of the world? If you're in China; if you're in India; if you're in Singapore looking at the U.S. as a stabilizer, when you see this descent, what do you think the impressions ought to be? Should there be looking for new leadership, finding new structures, giving up on American leadership, expecting a period of fumbling on the part of the United States? What are the geopolitical consequences of the conclusions of your book? EL: I think you could get a paradoxical one in the short term, and you might already be seeing it in Asia, which is that the more America's punch declines, and the more China's reach extends, the more popular America's going to get in that neighborhood. We're all going to remember that America is a country of immigrants that welcomed people from all over; that America is a country that has universal values, however annoying and selectively they might sometimes have been applied. This could never possibly apply to China. And that's without mentioning China's political
system, which is obviously not democratic. So I think the paradoxical shortterm response might actually shore up American power in parts of the world where it is in greater demand than there was before. But that's the short term. If you look at that asymmetry, and when America says it seeks to sustain its global footprint, it's not talking about closing down bases. Indeed, it's setting up new bases in places like Australia. It's going to find it hard to afford this indefinitely. It's very expensive. In contrast, all China seeks to do is to challenge American supremacy in its own backyard. They have asymmetric goals here. The Chinese increased their defense budget this year by 11 percent. America's allegedly cut its defense by 8 percent. Actually, it's probably a bit of smoke and mirrors there. It's a high and inflated baseline. So maybe America left its defense budget essentially flat. But if you have that for a few years all of a sudden the talking point that's always on the tip of our tongues -- namely, that America spends more on its military than the next 10 countries
combined -- isn't going to be true any longer. It doesn't take too many years like these for that to cease to be true. I hope that in the near future America will be able to remind itself that strength comes from its domestic economic muscularity and the degree to which America can again be a beacon to the world, a model worth emulating, rather than by the range and deployment of its weaponry, or by the spending power of those at the top. But I'm not optimistic -given the trajectory of the debate today and in recent years -- that things will necessarily shake out that way. I wish I could see more cause for hope. 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.
Mish on Coast-to-Coast Radio Tonight 10:00PM PST Discussing the Global Economy
noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mish Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
I will see if Coast-to-Coast will agree to let me take come calls from listeners, and if so perhaps I will be on longer. Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:15:00 PM I will be on Coast-to-Coast late Mike "Mish" Shedlock night syndicated radio talk show h t t p : / / with George Noory to discuss the globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. state of the US and global com economies, jobs, stimulus efforts Click Here To Scroll Thru My by the FED and ECB, housing, Recent Post List Mike "Mish" healthcare, the stock market, and S h e d l o c k i s a r e g i s t e r e d gold. investment advisor representative Most major metropolitan areas of f o r S i t k a P a c i f i c C a p i t a l the country have a station that will Management. Sitka Pacific is an pick up the broadcast. About three asset management firm whose million listeners tune in nightly. goal is strong performance and Here is a link to a map of Where low volatility, regardless of to Listen to Coast to Coast in your market direction. Visit http:// area. www.sitkapacific.com/ You can also pick up the account_management.html to broadcast on SIRIUS XM learn more about wealth Satellite Radio - XM TALK 168. m a n a g e m e n t a n d c a p i t a l Please tune in if you can. My preservation strategies of Sitka scheduled time is 15 minutes near Pacific. the beginning of the show but there may be a lead-in of general news for 5 minutes or so first.
Kenya's Wesley Korir, Cherop win Boston Marathon

(Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:04:24 PM
Wesley Korir, a Kenyan citizen and permanent resident of the United States, won the Boston Marathon on Monday in a heat-
slowed time of 2 hours, 12 minutes, 40 seconds that was almost 10 minutes behind the world best established here a year
ago by Geoffrey Mutai.
Economy/
43
EUR Surging As FX Repatriation Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Tyler Durden
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:57:10 PM
Back in October, there were those who were confused how it was possible that European sovereign bond yields could be exploding to their highest in a decade, even as the EURUSD keep grinding higher. We explained it, and said to prepare for much worse down the road. Sure enough, much worse came, and was promptly forestalled as both the Fed expanded its swap lines and lower the OIS swap rate, and the ECB "begrudgingly" ceded to LTRO 1+2 (that this resulted in nominal price gains was to be expected - after all humans enjoy being fooled when price levels rise when in reality just the underlying monetary base has expanded). But how did the EURUSD spike fit into all this? Simple - FX repatriation. This was explained as follows: "the sole reason for the EUR (and hence S&P and global 100% correlated equity risk) surge in the past 9 days is not driven by any latent "optimism" that Europe will fix itself, but simply due to the previously discussed wholesale asset liquidations(as none other than the FT already noted), which on the margin are explicitly EUR positive due to FX repatriation, courtesy of the post-sale
conversion of USDs to EUR s. Which means that the ever so gullible equity market has just experienced one of the biggest headfakes in history, and has misinterpreted a pervasive European, though mostly French, scramble to procure liquidity at any cost by dumping various USD -denominated assets, as a risk on signal!" It appears we are now back into liquidation mode, and the higher Euro spread surge, the faster EURUSD will rise as more
and more FX is "repatriated." In other words, as back in the fall of 2011, the faster the EURUSD rises, the worstr the true liquidity situation in Europe becomes: a critical regime change, which will naturally fool the algos who assume every spike up in EURUSD is indicative of Risk On, and send ES higher when in reality, the underlying situation is diametrically opposite. For those who missed the article back in October 2011, here it is
French bond yields (the FrenchBund 10 year spread just hit an all time record yesterday) as well as continuing deterioration in credit spreads across core European nations, yet, on the other, ii) the euro, especially in that critical pair the EURUSD, has seen one of its most explosive rises in recent history, which as Zero Hedge pointed out yesterday, has totally decorrelated with the French-Bund spread, to which it had been firmly 'pegged' previously. As a result of ii), equity markets have surged due to legacy correlation arbs, which see Euro strength, and hence dollar weakness, as an empirical signal of equity "cheapness", which in turn leads all algos to treat a rise in the EURUSD as a buying signal. So how is it that even with the interbank liquidity situation in Europe frozen and getting worse, further keeping in mind that again: European banks are now expected The Biggest Market Headfake to (or have already commenced Ever: Is A Wholesale French see yesterday's move in PrimeX) Bank Liquidity Run The Sole engage in widespread asset Reason For The Euro, And S&P, liquidations, that broad market Surge? risk is perceived as cheap? Over the past two weeks, there is Simple. As the following note by one simple thing that has been Deutsche Bank's Alan Ruskin b u g g i n g s k e p t i c a l m a c r o explains, the sole reason for the observers: namely the paradox of EUR (and hence S&P and global i) just how ugly the European 100% correlated equity risk) surge funding and liquidity situations have gotten, on the one hand, EUR page 44 confirmed by the blow out in
44
EUR
in the past 9 days is not driven by any latent "optimism" that Europe will fix itself, but simply due to the previously discussed wholesale asset liquidations(as none other than the FT already noted), which on the margin are explicitly EUR positive due to FX repatriation, courtesy of the postsale conversion of USDs to EUR s. Which means that the ever so gullible equity market has just experienced one of the biggest headfakes in history, and has misinterpreted a pervasive European, though mostly French, scramble to procure liquidity at any cost by dumping various USD -denominated assets, as a risk on signal! In other words, an internal bank run has somehow been interpreted to be stock positive... And there is your explanation for not only the paradoxical surge in the EURUSD and S&P, but why the correlation between the EURUSD and the Bund-France spread has completely broken down. Expect all of this to promptly, and very violently, correct once the market understands what an idiot it has been in the past two weeks. From Deutsche Bank: In the last few days there has been talk that European bank repatriation of capital may be behind EUR strength. Setting aside the timing of asset sales, and the reduced universe of potential
bidders for these assets, it is worth considering what happens when a European bank sells USD assets. European banks in aggregate are regarded as having a still sizable shortfall of USD liabilities. The BIS has done some of the most comprehensive work on the USD shortage (see in particularly working paper: www.bis.org/publ/ work291.pdf). The most recent data for the end of 2010 (see the latest BIS annual report page 104), suggested the funding shortage had declined by at least half compared to before the 2008 crisis. More recently. the dependence on cross currency funding has gone up again, with the decline in US money funding. (DBs Bill Prophet showed EUR region CDs of 7 of the 10 largest US money funds fell by over $70bn from May through September). Given this collapse, it is likely that European banks that do successfully sell USD assets, will try maintain the corresponding USD liability to mitigate against USD term funding that may not be rolled in the future. If a European bank sells a USD asset, it probably reduces the European Bank shortage of USDs by the sales amount. A smaller USD shortage, at the margin reduces the risk of a short USD squeeze of the sort seen in 2008, and to that extent is a minor USD negative,
and EUR positive. It also fits with the EUR cross currency basis swaps coming in slightly of late, although this almost certainly has more to do with global risk appetite. This marginal USD negative, EUR positive impact, should not however be confused with a foreign exchange transaction whereby USDs are converted into EUR. Even Deutsche Bank is scratching its head to explain the dichotomy between the funding market and general risk. They do, however, provide the only real explanation, as opposed to the widely trumpeted by market cheerleaders ridiculous explanation that this is merely the latest "hope" rally. Ridiculous, because if that was the case, one would see a thawing of interbank liquidity and defaults spreads. As Zero Hedge readers know, 100% the opposite has happened. Note also that the EUR is going in the opposite direction to much purer gauges of EUR tensions in the bond market. The collapse in OATS today is a major story. This is not least because France is experiencing the negative side of its (still) AAA status and being a member of the core - the fiscal transfers are going toward the periphery and away from the core in terms of ability to tap the EFSF for bank recaps, and possibly bond insurance/guarantees. In the
past, we have noted that the periphery flows fleeing toward the core has tended to leave the EUR trading like a closed system to the outside world, which is one explanation for surprising EUR resilience to periphery travails. The latest French balance of payments data ( http:// www.banque-france.fr/gb/ statistiques/economie/economiebalance/ec...) again shows large French portfolio inflows that are very surprising, although the large errors and omissions do suggest the data is incomplete. (In the future, Target 2 balances will be another vehicle to use to check the degree to which inflows are being concentrated in Germany solely). In any event, instability in the French bond market has the capacity to significantly reduce points of refuge for risk averse funds at the EURs (shrinking) core, and adds to DB FX teams doubt about the sustainability of the EURs rally... And so on. Naturally, the Eurocrats will be delighted to associate the run up in risk assets and the European currency as a confirmation that the market is interpreting further lies, innuendo, and confusion as a risk on indicator, and is encouraging their behavior, when nothing is further from the truth. However, the biggest beneficiary of the recent move is none other
than the insolvent French banking system, whose very own liquidity run has caused asset values to soar, on an epic misinterpretation of underlying market signals, and thus sell even more into market strength, when in fact the market should be selling alongside France... As for unwind catalysts for this most insidious market move, we are confident that the inability of the G20 to come up with any resolution over the weekend in Paris, nor the Eurozone Summit in one week to actually present any relevant details vis-a-vis the continent's bailout, or the EFSF's expansion into some multi-trillion Bailoutstein monster, will not be met too happily by a market which has just realized it has been thoroughly fooled by the cashcrunched French banking system. 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.
Economy/
45
RICH BERNSTEIN: 3 Things You Should Know About Financial Asset Correlation
Sam Ro (Money Game)
grossly under-diversified," he writes. "Diversification is not dependent on the number of asset Rich Bernstein, founder of classes, but rather it depends on Richard Bernstein Advisors and the correlations among those asset f o r m e r C h i e f I n v e s t m e n t classes." Strategist of BofA Merrill Lynch, Bernstein lists three things just published a white paper titled investors should keep in mind Diversification Remains Difficult. when diversifying their portfolios. Diversifying portfolios by adding 1) Correlations are dynamic l o w c o r r e l a t e d a s s e t s i t s rather than static. Investors should something Bernstein has written not assume that past correlation m u c h a b o u t . B u t h e ' s n o t studies are accurate today. For convinced investors are getting example, correlations today are correlations yield any desired the message. vastly different from those of ten result by using different time "In particular, we remain quite years ago. periods or frequency of returns. concerned that investors appear 2) One can make short-term
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:31:26 PM
For that reason, we examine the trend in correlations. We believe this is a much more meaningful statistic because it incorporates longer-term investment results. 3) As was true six years ago, treasuries are the only major asset class that has negative correlation to equities. As such, we continue to maintain larger-than-consensus weights in treasuries in our asset allocation strategies to help reduce portfolio volatility. Here's a chart from Bernstein's paper showing how correlations have changed in the last ten years: Please follow Money Game on
Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: A Simple American Investment That's Having Another Awesome Day Today Frank Holmes: The Gold 'Love Trade' Is Still On Morgan Stanley: Goldilocks Would Be Pleased By South Africa's Economy
California Home Prices Have Their First Year Over Year Gain In 16 Months
Ben Duronio (Money Game)
pace by historical standards. In fact, sales jumped significantly in Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:36:10 PM most regions of the state, with For the first time in 16 months, many areas experiencing doubleCalifornia home prices have digit gains, said C.A.R. President posted a gain on a year-over-year L e F r a n c i s A r n o l d . T i g h t basis, according to a press release inventory and robust home sales, from the California Association of particularly in the San Francisco Realtors. Bay Area, fueled the substantial While home sales were down increase in the March median 9.2% last month and up 1.6% statewide, the housing market home price. from March 2011. As Business continued to perform at a solid Single family homes were up
Wire states, the single month increase was the largest since March of 2004. Don't Miss The 10 States Where Homebuyers Are Saving Big On Foreclosed Homes > Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: WOLFGANG MNCHAU:
Here's The Real Reason Markets Are Freaking Out About Spain KRUGMAN: Europe Is Committing Suicide Evidence Collected By A Private Investigator Suggests That OJ Simpson's Son Was The Real Killer
46
Economy/ Culture/
Here's Bruce Berkowitz Santelli On The Massive Presentation Making A Chain Of Bull Case On Bank Of America
Julia La Roche (Money Game)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:50:00 PM
Insolvency
Tyler Durden
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:13:43 PM
Fairholme Capital Management's Bruce Berkowtiz still likes Bank of America even though the stock hammered his fund's returns in 2011. The fund manager recently released a so-called "case study" on the Charlotte, North Carolinabased bank as to why it's a good investment. [via ValueWalk] Basically, his argument is that the stock is still trading well-below book value and the bank will start to see "incredible earnings power" thanks to reductions in risks and expenses as part of Project "New BAC" As of December 31, 2011, Fairholme had more than 104.1 million shares in BofA, according to Bloomberg Data citing a 13F regulatory filing. Berkowitz
started building his stake in Bank of America more than a year after it acquired Countrywide Financial in 2008. Bank of America's stock is up more than 57% YTD. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.
While it is not unusual for everyone's favorite truth-seeker in Chicago to cut to the chase and simplify the over-complex world of data and nuance that is thrust upon us day after day, CNBC's Rick Santelli outdoes himself today. Initially addressing the retail sales and housing data dichotomy, Rick jumps above the See Also: noise of day-to-day data and Bank Of America Is Suing Itself focuses on what is critical - in his In Foreclosure Suit view - the weather and the debt. If WOLFGANG MNCHAU: only he had used the term "It's the Here's The Real Reason Markets debt stupid" as it would have Are Freaking Out About Spain made for better headlines but the K R U G M A N : E u r o p e I s clip below should help anyone Committing Suicide and everyone decide on whether this dip is for buying or fading/
waiting. In the end, Santelli notes, " It is simple. There are questions about weather and questions about debt. First one we'll know more about in the next two or three months. [For the] latter, we'll have to look toward our neighbors in Europe to see how it ultimately turns out and see if our political class is going to do a better job than the European bureaucracies." 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.
Discovery Carnage Lab

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:00:56 AM
Discovery Carnage Lab : Videos : Discovery Channel You need the Flash Player version 10.1.0.0 or higher and a JavaScript enabled browser to
view this site. Playlist ( 20) Info 2012 http://dsc.discovery.com/ About This Playlist Discovery videos/discovery-carnage-lab/ Carnage Lab Discovery Channel's Advertisement Carnage Lab is home to wild Discovery Channel Favorites videos full of destruction. Come our sites check out the Carnage Lab at video Discovery to have your mind mobile blown! List Added: April 10, shop
stay connected corporate Discovery Channel Videos CONTENT LINKS 15 Enterprise Feedback Management CRM Integration 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.
Economy/ Culture/
47
Diving Birds of the Dinosaur Era

Brian Switek (Wired Top Stories)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:58:00 PM
Argentina Default Risk Surges On YPF Nationalization, CDS Approach 1000 bps
Tyler Durden
world - indicative only of massive internal problems in the South American nation. But do not It would appear that the recent worry, as Lagarde and her friends renewed excitement down in the will just bring a bigger bag around Falklands was indeed the writing to the next G-20 meeting as we on the wall for a nation that is are sure the IMF's members will n o w d e s p e r a t e e n o u g h t o have enough money to deal with nationalize foreign entities. Argentina AND Europe. Argentina, still unable to access Chart: Bloomberg Average: capital markets years after its Your rating: None Average: 5( 1 restructuring appears to be hitting vote) an irrational wall again as its CDS This entry passed through the has exploded wider recently, and Full-Text RSS service if this is even more so today with the YPF your content and you're reading it news, to near 1000bps- its widest on someone else's site, please read in 4 months. Simply put this is not the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentrational in any game-theoretic only/faq.php#publishers. Five strategy and is frighteningly Filters recommends: Donate to i n d i c a t i v e o f a s u p r e m e Wikileaks. (irrecoverable) defection from friends-with-benefits status of the
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:24:14 PM
When in the depth of the winter, a full hundred miles from the nearest land, one sees a loon in the path of the steamer, listens to its weird, maniacal laughter, and sees it slowly sink downward through the green waters, it truly seems a hint of the bird-life of long-past ages. William Beebe, The Bird: Its Form and Function, 1906. In 1872, Yale paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh described a very peculiar bird. The fossil avian, found in the Cretaceous strata of Kansas, looked like a loon with a mouth full of sharp teeth. He called his find Hesperornis regalis. The bird was more than a bizarre creature from an ancient era. The fact that Hesperornis had teeth testified to the remote origin of avians. The celebrated English naturalist Thomas Henry Huxley, quite taken with the bird after being introduced to it by Marsh during a 1876 tour of America, pointed out that Hesperornis
diminished the anatomical hiatus between archaic birds and the dinosaur-like creatures Huxley hypothesized were the avian rootstock. Teeth were an ancient, reptilian feature, and so Hesperornis was a skeletal mosaic of old and new traits. And while Huxley was insistent that the direct line of descent between reptile and bird had not yet been found, creatures such as Hesperornis, the archaic bird Archaeopteryx, and the dinosaur Compsognathus illustrated that the transformation between reptile and bird was possible. In time, though, Hesperornis fell out of the evolutionary spotlight. The aquatic bird, which chased after fish in a shallow sea which cleft North America in two during the Late Cretaceous, was far too specialized to be of much help in determining the finer points of avian ancestry. But Hesperornis remains important to our understanding of avian evolution in another way. We now know that birds are dinosaurs they just happen to be the only lineage of the diverse and disparate group that survived to
the present day. And, as far as we know, the first members of the avian lineage evolved around 150 million years ago. Avian dinosaurs flourished alongside their non-avian counterparts the evolution and radiation of birds is part of the dinosaurian success story. The bizarre nature of Hesperornis and its close relatives helps put this tale in context. By 80 million years ago, at the latest, birds had radiated into disparate forms, including marine divers with greatly reduced wings. In the video above, part of the Royal Tyrrell Museums ongoing paleontology lecture series, Joe Sanchez explores the natural history of Hesperornis and kin birds which lived and died in a long-lost Cretaceous sea. 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.
48
Culture/ Featured/
America Is Living Like the Prodigal Son

(Christianpost.com > Most Popular)
confusion in his mind.....and this leads to economic disaster, among other things. Likewise, when man April 13, 2012| 11:48 am feeds his love for money, this Which came first...the chicken or often leads to sexual promiscuity. the egg? Likewise, sensual The two are somehow joined i n d u l g e n c e i s i n t r i c a t e l y together in unholy matrimony. i n t e r w o v e n w i t h v o r a c i o u s Remember....holy matrimony spending habits. The prodigal son i n v o l v e s o n e m a n a n d o n e had it good at home. But he woman. Anything else is a wanted more, and he wanted it counterfeit. immediately. His lust for money The prodigal son was feeding the was fueled by his lust for sensual desires of his flesh. Unfortunately, pleasure, and "vice" versa. that mutant is a bottomless pit. It He took his inheritance which will bleed you dry and leave you was intended to provide for future with nada. America is bleeding needs. He wasted it on wild living badly today. Sexual immorality is in the moment. He was clueless to rampant, as is overspending. This what was happening while he was lack of self-control eventually in the midst of his sensual storm. catches up with the body, the soul, In America today, the promotion and the economic survival of the and practice of sex outside of nation. The only way to fix both m a r r i a g e i s d o i n g m o r e t o problems is to recognize where increase the national debt than you went astray from God's plan. any other single factor. Blindness Without that recognition and a in one area produces blindness in s i n c e r e t u r n i n g t o G o d i n the other. Just ask the prodigal repentance, there is no way to son. avoid complete destruction. God made sex. God gave man In time, the prodigal son "came to and woman sexual desires. Sex his senses." (Luke 15:17) He within marriage between a man remembered how good he had it and a woman is a good thing. back at home. He decided to Outside of God's plan, there is humble himself before his father. chaos. When man feeds his sexual It worked. His father was a loving temptations, he creates financial man. "But while he was still a
long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) What incredible mercy this wayward son was shown! In the same way, God's love is available for all those who come to their senses and decide to return home. Like us on Facebook The Gospel is a message of forgiveness for those who have strayed from God. The death of Christ on the cross provides the way home to redemption and righteous living. The resurrection of Christ provides the assurance of eternal life for those who have come home to God through faith in Jesus. The story of the prodigal son ends with much jubilation. The story of America is still being written. America began as a nation of people who honored the Lord and His Word. Sex outside of marriage was clearly seen as an abomination to God. As the people of our nation honored God, the Lord blessed this people with spiritual health and financial prosperity. That was then....and this is now. The sexual revolution has produced financial desolation.
The nation is adrift and a long way from home. While some in our land call for people to return to the Lord in this one nation under God, others call just as intently for people to continue pursuing sexual immorality and massive spending. They don't necessarily use those words to describe it, but it's not hard to interpret their goal and their vision for our one nation under the united nations. You and I are a part of this country. We cannot force people to "come home," but we can choose to do it ourselves. We can also lovingly invite others to do it. Who knows....God may have yet another revival up His sleeve for this wandering son known as America. Without the Lord's divine intervention and the repentance of His people, America will continue to bury herself in debt and in sexual destruction. The prodigal son turned around before it was too late. Let us fervently pray that professing Christians in America make the same decision. The Lord gave this promise many centuries ago: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and
seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14) The solution is not complicated...but that doesn't mean it will be easy. Resisting lust and greed never has been man's strong suit. But it's a heck of a lot harder to resist when you have run away from home with pockets full of cash and a heart full of sensuality. Meanwhile, there is a loving Father at home who is watching, waiting, and longing for the safe return of His chosen one. READ: WHAT IS TRUE REVIVAL? Dan Delzell is the pastor of Wellspring Lutheran Church in Papillion, Neb. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Post. 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.
Pakistan's Message to the West

Thomas Joscelyn (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:55:00 AM
On Sunday, insurgents launched
a series of coordinated attacks on Western embassies in Kabul, as well as other targets throughout A f g h a n i s t a n . A f g h a n i s t a n s Mohammadi, said that at least two interior minister, Bismillah Khan
detained terrorists one captured in Kabul, the other in Jalalabad have told authorities that the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network is responsible.
Culture/ Featured/
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Thousands Witness 'Holy Fire' Miracle in Jerusalem

Bush of Mount Sinai as mentioned in the Old Testament. Orthodox Christians say the Holy April 15, 2012| 10:30 am Fire miracle occurs every year on (Photo: Reuters/Ints Kalnins) The special ceremony at the the day before their Easter. The Orthodox believers light candles Church of the Holy Sepulcher, miracle has been documented with "holy fire", lit on Orthodox built at a site where Jesus was each year for over 1,000 years. Easter Day in the Church of the crucified and buried, was attended Christians in many countries, Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of by Christian pilgrims and clerics i n c l u d i n g G e o r g i a , G r e e c e , Jerusalem and taken to Latvia, wearing their robes amid the U k r a i n e , R u s s i a , R o m a n i a , during an Orthodox Easter service presence of Israeli police, riot- B e l a r u s , B u l g a r i a , C y p r u s , in Riga April 14, 2012. prevention forces and border Lebanon and Egypt, watch the (Photo: Reuters/ Ammar Awad) security guards. ceremony live on television each Orthodox nuns and a priest hold "I am here because I would like to year. After the ceremony, the candles during Easter mass in the see the Easter Week from the Holy Fire is brought to some of Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Holy Land, because I think it is a these countries. Jerusalem's Old City April 15, very unique experience," The The Holy Fire ceremony 2012. Associated Press quoted Nerea typically begins at noon with a (Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad) Craditotto, a Spanish pilgrim, as procession involving singing of Greek Orthodox Patriarch of s a y i n g . E a s t e r n O r t h o d o x hymns by the clergy who take J e r u s a l e m M e t r o p o l i t a n churches and others will celebrate three rounds of the church. The Theophilos (C) walks during Easter on Sunday. Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Easter service in the Church of the The Christians and clergy or another Orthodox Archbishop Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old standing close to the tomb area lit then offers a prayer, removes his City April 15, 2012. their candles first and then passed robe and enters alone into the (Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad) on the flames to others queuing in sepulcher after being examined by An Orthodox priest throws rose alleys outside the ancient church. Jewish Israeli authorities to prove petals at the crowd as a procession The Holy Fire is revered by many he has nothing to light the fire. arrives to the Church of the Holy as the power of Resurrection of Like us on Facebook Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City Jesus and the fire of the Burning Awaiting the Holy Fire, the
for Orthodox Easter mass April 15, 2012.
congregation chants Kyrie Eleison, or "Lord, have mercy." When the patriarch comes out of the tomb, he offers prayers and distributed the flames to the congregation. Some pilgrims have claimed that flames received from the Holy Fire do not burn their hair, faces or clothes during the first 33 minutes of its appearance. On Sunday, the Latin Patriarch of the Roman Catholic Church in Jerusalem will lead Easter mass at Holy Sepulcher. Protestants will attend a morning service in the Garden Tomb outside Jerusalem's walled Old City. READ ABOUT CHRISTIANS CELEBRATING PASSOVER 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.
Taking a quiet, personal approach to PR can pay off in social media

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:02:00 PM
Introverts can put their more thoughtful tendencies and their preference for one-on-one conversations to good use in public relations efforts on social media, Darcy Silvers writes. Social networks lend themselves to a personal touch and listening campaigns, both of which play to an introvert's strengths. And if you're really not the talkative sort, image-based networks such as Pinterest offer other ways to drum up buzz, she writes. Full story at SmartBlog on Social Media by SmartBrief. More SmartBrief stories. Permalink| Leave a comment
Iran's Armenian Connection

Emanuele Ottolenghi (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:13:00 PM
On March 20, Armenian defense
minister Seyran Ohanyan visited Washington, D.C. Talks focused on U.S. defense assistance to the small republic, and regional issues were also discussed, but there is
no evidence that Ohanyans U.S.
counterpart, Leon Panetta, raised the question of Armenias excessive coziness with Iran. But he should have.
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Culture/ Finance/
MacBook Pro 5 Invasive Species That Might Conquer the World 2012 Release Date Set for May?
Melanie Radzicki McManus (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
began climbing up buildings and telephone poles, smothering cars and homes and becoming a Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:00:56 AM general nuisance. And it's still We humans think we're so smart. around today. But boy, do we do some not-so- Unfortunately, that's hardly an smart things. Case in point: isolated incident. For years, kudzu. The Japanese introduced it people have brought non-native to the United States at the 1876 species into their countries Centennial Exposition. Americans because they're pretty, or because thought the leafy, sweet-smelling they may be able to solve a plant was so lovely, they began problem. For instance, some using it for ornamentation. Then might have imported amphibians as forage for livestock. The or birds to eat insects that were government even got into the act, destroying local crops. Except i n s t r u c t i n g t h e C i v i l i a n things didn't exactly work out as Conservation Corps to plant p l a n n e d . L a c k i n g n a t u r a l kudzu for erosion control. Yet no predators, the non-native species one spent a millisecond pondering o f t e n t h r i v e d i n t h e i r n e w how this non-native plant might surroundings to the point where react in its new environment. Big t h e y b e c a m e p r o b l e m s - mistake. sometimes, rather big ones. Kudzu loved the climate in the Today, such invasive species are Southern U.S., and took off like found around the globe, and their wildfire there, growing up to 60 presence outside of their native feet (18.3 meters) per year. It areas is damaging the world's
ecosystems and threatening biodiversity, costing people billions of dollars in reparations, eradication efforts and preventive measures [source: EarthTrends]. Although many governments have wised up and enacted tight controls on travelers, imported goods, plant nurseries and more, plenty of non-native species continue to be tracked around the globe unintentionally, by hiding in people's shoes and luggage or hitchhiking on boat hulls, for example. Some -- like the five on this list -- seem almost unstoppable. 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.
BTG Pactual chief Andre Esteves fined 350,000 for 'insider dealing'
Jonathan Rusell (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:58:14 PM
Andre Esteves, the billionaire (288,250) by Italian regulators chief executive of Brazilian for alleged insider dealing. investment bank BTG Pactual, has been fined 350,000
and 15-inch MacBook Pros will be thinner than the current versions, but could still be slightly April 13, 2012| 4:43 pm thicker than the ultra-thin (Photo: REUTERS/Jason Reed) MacBook Air. The new products A visitor walks into an Apple allegedly could be released with s t o r e i n C l a r e n d o n , n e a r Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 Ivy Washington, August 10, 2011. Bridge chipset, which are set to be available from later this month. A source from Apple's supply An anti-glare retina display could chain in China has said that a new also be included, following much 15-inch MacBook Pro could be of the technology recently seen in ready as early as in the next three Apple's newly released third weeks, according to a report in generation iPad the New iPad. "How to Arena." The 13 inch MacBook Pro should The Economic Daily Times of be available by June, with a 17 China has also suggested that the inch version being made available new MacBook Pro is currently later this year as well. June should being produced at Foxconn and also see a new iMac desktop Q u a n t a C o m p u t e r . T h e releases, according to rumors. publication has said that it will be READ: WOULD JESUS TEXT? reading for shipping in June. This entry passed through the The new MacBooks are highly Full-Text RSS service if this is anticipated by Apple users, with your content and you're reading it many rumors suggesting that the on someone else's site, please read new version MacBook Pros could the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentlook similar to the current super- only/faq.php#publishers. Five thin MacBook Air. Filters recommends: Donate to Rumors suggest that the new 13 Wikileaks.
Culture/ Talk/
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Spidey Lashes at the Lizard Win a Trip to Meet Kristen Stewart in England in New Amazing SpiderMan Trailer From Japan For I'm a Huge Fan!
PopSugar (PopSugar)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:53:14 AM
Angela Watercutter (Wired Top Stories)
Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman hits theaters June 1 and we can't wait! To celebrate the film and Kristen's amazing fans, we're giving away an exciting trip. One lucky winner and a friend will fly to England, to get the A-list treatment, all before meeting - and interviewing Kristen in person as part of our I'm a Huge Fan series! This is our first international I'm a Huge Fan so there will be tons of surprises along the way. We're looking for one of Kristen's biggest fans, so prove you're it by taking our quiz and see if you can get them all correct. Check out the official rules here. Hurry, the sweepstakes ends April 26 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Snow White and the Huntsman opens in theaters nationwide on June 1! NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Sweepstakes starts 10:00 a.m. PDT 4/16/12 and ends 11:59 p.m.
PDT 4/26/12. Open only to legal residents of 49 United States and DC (RI excluded). 18+. Click here for official rules. Void where prohibited. Sponsor: Sugar Publishing, Inc. Step 1: Like PopSugar on Facebook! Step 2: Log into your PopSugar account. If you're not already a member, register now for free. (You need to be logged in before you take the quiz below.) Step 3: Take our quiz below and good luck! Take the Quiz
since the last Spidey trailer was released back in February. We again see him scaling up to the Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:10:00 PM window of Gwen Stacy ( Emma The new Japanese trailer for The Stone), for example. Amazing Spider-Man goes a little Still, this little taste of the darker deeper into Peter Parkers conflict side of Dr. Connors he really with his fathers former partner, does seem more genial in the U.S. Dr. Curt Connors (aka The trailer, doesnt he? is enough Lizard). to remind fans that the webActually, it goes really deep slinger is coming. The Amazing check out that gash on Peter Spider-Man, directed by Marc Parkers chest in the clip (above), Webb, hits theaters July 3. which surfaced over the weekend. This entry passed through the Thanks to you Peter, everything Full-Text RSS service if this is changed, Dr. Connors (played by your content and you're reading it Rhys Ifans) intones ominously in on someone else's site, please read the trailer. Ready to play god? the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentApparently, Peter Parker ( only/faq.php#publishers. Five Andrew Garfield) is ready to play Filters recommends: Donate to Spider-Man, whipping around the Wikileaks. city at break-neck speed, mostly in footage thats been around
Fixing My Most Common Gmail Annoyance [Video]

Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:00:00 AM
Every Gmail user's dealt with this annoyance: You're writing an email, you copy and paste some text from another page, and the text's formatting comes along for the ride. It's not the end of the world, but then everything you type after that is formatted the same. Ugh. So now you do what? Keep the formatting? Switch to composing in plain text? Hunt for Gmail's default font and size? More
TED: Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine? - Atul Gawande (2012)

TEDTalks (TEDTalks (video))
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:28:38 AM
extraordinary (and expensive) treatments, but they are losing their core focus: actually treating Our medical systems are broken. people. Doctor and writer Atul D o c t o r s a r e c a p a b l e o f Gawande suggests we take a step
back and look at new ways to do medicine -- with fewer cowboys and more pit crews.
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Culture/ News Photos
Leaked Microsoft Office 15 video hints at SkyDrive, Office 365 integration

ArsTechnica (Wired Top Stories)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:14:00 PM
Which gadget came first?

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:00:56 AM
GSA executive asserts right to remain silent ABC6OnYourSide.com

(news photos - Google News)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:21:40 PM
By Matthew Braga Following a leaked roadmap of Microsofts upcoming Office 15 productivity suite last week, a new video has been posted hinting at SkyDrive and Office 365 integration as well. Shared by Rafael Rivera of Within Windows earlier today, the video depicts a typical morning commute by car or train, where files stored in Microsoft cloud can be accessed wherever you go so its easy to pick up where you left off. Though this functionality currently exists in Office 2010, its likely Microsoft is looking to put its cloud services front and center with the latest release. For tablet deployments of Windows 8,
this could be the companys answer to Apples iCloud/iWork document sync. Office 15 is rumored for release in 2013, with a public beta coming this summer. Office 15s first run introductory video: 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.
Nowadays, it seems like amazing new gadgets are unveiled about once a week. You buy a tiny phone one day, and a tinier, cooler one will come out tomorrow and make yours obsolete. But not too long ago, it was a big deal when some of these gadgets launched. Can you remember which of these iconic products appeared on the market first? (Note: Many of these gadgets were introduced in Japan or Europe first, but for the purposes of this quiz, we'll stick with the North American launch dates.) 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.
ABC News (blog) GSA executive asserts right to remain silent ABC6OnYourSide.com Updates with key figure invoking 5th Amendment right at hearing; AP Photos. By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The central figure in a General Services Administration spending scandal has asserted his right to remain silent at a... Cheers! Photos Show Embattled GSA Official Enjoying Wine and Soak in Spa Tub... ABC News (blog) all 397 news articles
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth Round Out Their Weekend With Big Movie News
Lauren Turner (PopSugar)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:59:40 AM
Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth stopped by a Whole Foods in LA on Saturday. The duo got together for the grocery
run after Miley spent much of last week focusing on her fitness routine. Miley showed skin in her workout gear as she went to and from a Winsor Pilates class multiple times. She had a chance to relax this weekend, and tweeted
about watching old episodes of
Prison Break and painting her nails with friends. Liam may have a had a few days off, but he was still working hard on the big screen since The Hunger Games held onto its top spot at the box office for the fourth weekend in a
row. Liam will get to work on the movie's sequel, Catching Fire, later this year, but first it looks like he'll film Paranoia alongside Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman this Summer. View Slideshow
Culture/ Politics-Left/
53
Asylum time-lapse both divine and disturbing [video]

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:06:00 PM
Michelle Williams and Matilda Stick Together For a Sunny Brooklyn Weekend Karzai wants
Lauren Turner (PopSugar)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:46:19 AM
Any asylum is bound to evoke some horrifying images in the minds eye, but none more so than the subject of Drew Geracis stunning time-lapse. It took he and his team seven months to compile the 35,000 separate still images that make up this haunting piece. The site was built in the 1920s and has been closed for decades, left to decay, though Geraci doesnt disclose any other information about the location. This project is a combination of traditional HDR, tone-mapping, and standard time-lapse techniques. With the use of the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero
and a Merlin head, we were able to capture the grit and the grime of this wondrous place, like it had never been captured before. Full story at Vimeo via Digital Photography School. Videos youll never forget. Permalink| Leave a comment
Michelle Williams and Matilda Ledger were out and about together in Brooklyn this weekend. On Saturday, Matilda rode her scooter alongside Michelle as they ran errands and yesterday morning they were back out to pick up coffee and groceries. There was no sign of Michelle's new love interest, Jason Segel, after he was first spotted with the Williams-Ledger ladies in their neighborhood late last month. It doesn't seem like Michelle was far from Jason's
'intelligence failure' probed

(AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:48:59 AM
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said intelligence failure allowed the Taliban to carry out the latest attacks in mind though, since he was spotted Kabul and elsewhere in the carrying an iPhone case featuring country. a picture of Michelle and the "The terrorists' infiltration in words "I love you" around LA. Kabul and other provinces is an intelligence failure for us and View Slideshow especially for NATO and should be seriously investigated," Karzai said in a statement on Monday. The president however, praised the "bravery and sacrifice of the KARZAI page 54
Think of Supermarkets Like Obstacle Courses to Avoid Overspending and Buying Items You Don't Need [Shopping]
Adam Dachis (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:30:00 AM
Supermarkets use plenty of
marketing tricks to try and get you to buy more than you actually want or need. The Consumerist and Consumer Reports point out
that looking at your local grocery
store like an obstacle course can help you avoid these spending traps. More
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Gaming/
KARZAI
security forces who quickly and timely reacted to contain the terrorists". In his first reaction after the series of attacks targeting Western embassies and NATO bases, which continued till Monday morning, Karzai said that "Afghan security forces proved to the people that they can defend their country successfully". Gun battles between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters in the capital, Kabul, ended after almost 18 hours of fierce fighting, according to government and police officials. "The latest information we have about the Afghan parliament area is that the attack is over now and the only insurgent who was resisting has been killed," Hashmatullah Stanikzai, the Kabul police chief's spokesman, said on Monday. Click here to follow our Afghanistan Live Blog There were conflicting reports regarding the number of casualties in the co-ordinated attacks that targeted mainly western installations in Kabul, which the Taliban described as the launch of a "spring offensive". Afghanistan's defence ministry said 32 gunmen and three Afghan soldiers were killed in the operation against the multiple assaults, Reuters news agency reported. But Bismillah Mohammadi, the Afghan interior minister, said
36 fighters, eight members of security forces and three civilians were killed and 44 others wounded in the gun battle, the AFP news agency reported. Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said: "They [Taliban] have been able to strike right in the heart of the city, supposedly the most well protected part of Afghanistan." "There are now of course, serious questions about intelligence failings that allowed the Taliban to effectively lay siege of the city for almost 18 hours," he said. 'Peace efforts' The Afghan capital awoke on Monday to a second day of explosions and heavy gunfire as a joint operation by Afghan and international forces worked to defeat the fighters holed up in one building in the heart of the city and another near the Afghan parliament. Afghan-led forces fired one rocket-propelled grenade after another into a building in the centre of the city, where gunmen began the co-ordinated attacks on Sunday in the capital and three eastern cities. Janan Mosazai, Afghan foreign ministry spokesman, said: "It is nearly impossible to stop all attacks by terrorists who continue to have sanctuaries and receive ideological, financial and logistical support outside Afghanistan." "We will continue to fight the
terrorists who pose a threat and danger to Afghanistans security and stability and its young democracy," he said. "At the same time we will continue to pursue peace efforts with armed opposition groups, including the Taliban and other groups. "And for that we are engaging not only leaders within the Taliban and other opposition groups, but also countries in the region, particularly the Islamic Republic of Pakistan." 'Spring offensive' The attacks on Sunday, which targeted embassies, government buildings and NATO bases, underscored the security challenge facing Afghan security forces as their US and NATO allies plan to leave by the end of 2014. These were the the worst attacks in the capital since the Taliban was overthrown 11 years ago. A Taliban spokesman said the violence marked the start of their annual spring offensive which heralded the fighting season, adding that "a lot of suicide bombers" were involved. From the perspective of one neighbourhood in Herat It said the main targets were the German and British embassies, and the headquarters of Afghanistan's NATO-led force, all in Kabul. Bombers struck across Afghanistan in co-ordinated
attacks, with explosions and gunfire shaking the diplomatic area of Kabul as Taliban fighters took over nearby buildings and tried to enter parliament. The assault appeared to repeat the tactics of an attack in Kabul last September when fighters entered construction sites in several places to use them as positions for rocket and gun attacks. Some legislators grabbed weapons and started fighting when gunmen fired on the parliament building. On Monday morning, Al Jazeera's Smith reported from Kabul that police had been seen removing bodies from the site of an assault on Taliban attackers who had been holed up in a construction site next to the Kabul Star hotel. Afghan security forces, who are responsible for the safety of the capital, were scrambling to reinforce areas around the socalled "Green Zone" diplomatic section of the city centre. 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.
Nicalis remaking 1,000 Spikes for Wii U and 3DS eShop

Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:00:00 PM
One of our favorite Xbox Live Indie games is headed to the 3DS and the Wii U. More specifically, Nicalis will be bringing a remake of the ridiculously punishing Aban Hawkins & the 1,000 Spikes in time for the Wii U launch, reports RevoGamers. Cheekily titled Aban Hawkins & the 1,001 Spikes, the game will feature a new 4-player multiplayer, new graphics and sound. The original was a lot of fun, and the quick, brutal platforming action should certainly be right at home on the 3DS. Aban Hawkins & the 1,001 Spikes is scheduled to arrive on the eShop this year. Nicalis remaking 1,000 Spikes for Wii U and 3DS eShop originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
Politics-Left/
55
World Bank names US doctor as new president

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:15:51 PM
Korean-born physician Dr Jim Yong Kim, centre, is reportedly prominent in global health circles [GALLO/GETTY] The World Bank has named a US doctor, Jim Yong Kim, as its next president, despite criticism of the selection process by his only rival for the job. While the US nominee faced a challenge for the first time ever, the World Bank's most powerful shareholders, the US, Europe and Japan, came out in support on Monday for the Korean-American who now holds the powerful job of doling out money to developing countries. Before the meeting of World Bank directors, Ngozi OkonjoIweala, Nigeria's finance minister, herself a veteran of the institution, criticised the way the US has held a lock on the position since the organisation was launched. Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds, reporting from Washington, DC, said there was some dissent from member states over Kim's qualifications. "He's not an economist, but then again, now is the time that people say that the World Bank needs to look at other issues such as climate change, food supply, water [scarcity] and diseases, like
bird flu," said Reynolds, adding that Kim has significant experience in developing countries. "Even so, there is a growing feeling that the process needs to be opened up, so that the US doesn't always get the post," he added. A third candidate, Jose Antonio Ocampo, the Colombian former
finance minister, dropped out on Friday also complaining that the selection process was purely political and not merit-based. There had been some hopes from critics of the bank that the powerful emerging BRICS economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - might coalesce around Okonjo-Iweala. But those were scotched when
Moscow on Friday publicly endorsed Kim. 'Democratic tenets' By a tacit agreement dating to the sister institutions' founding, the US has always chosen the World Bank head while Europe supplies the leader of the International Monetary Fund. But like the leadership succession last year at the IMF, the race to
head the Bank has sparked muscle -flexing by newly empowered emerging economies and poorer countries which have called for a more open process based on merit. "We have come some way because it's no longer in the smoke-filled rooms of Europe WORLD page 57
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Politics-Left/ Food/
Norway mass killer denies 'criminal Easy Marinara guilt'

Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:01:54 PM
The proceedings from the specially adapted Oslo District Court were broadcast live to 17 The trial of a Norwegian accused local courthouses around the of killing 77 people in twin country to accommodate more a t t a c k s l a s t y e a r h a s b e e n than 770 survivors and families of adjourned until Tuesday, with the victims figuring as plaintiffs. suspect pleading not guilty but Breivik arrived in court for the arguing he acted in self-defence. morning's opening session in Oslo Anders Behring Breivik, 33, told amid tight security and massive a court in the Norwegian capital media attention, with proceedings Oslo on Monday he killed eight set to focus on whether or not he people in a car bombing and 69 is legally sane. others in the town of Utoeya - Jo Stigen, a law professor at the mainly youths attending the University of Oslo, told Al governing Labour party summer Jazeera the trial was a "fascinating camp - because he opposed case", but that it was a peculiar multiculturalism promoted by the situation where the accused party. claims responsibility for the "I acknowledge the acts, but not killings and "now pleads he criminal guilt," Breivik said, committed them in self-defence". referring to the July 2011 attacks "To me it sounds a pretty absurd over which prosecutors accuse argument," Stigen said. him of committing acts of terror. "If he is declared insane his He said he acted against "Muslim mission totally will fall apart. So invasion of Europe" in what is it is extremely important to be being seen as an unprecedented considered insane and to be held trial in Norway's history. criminally responsible." The prosecution said he would If convicted, Breivik faces a 21begin his testimony when the trial year sentence that could be resumes. extended indefinitely if he is still Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting considered a threat to society. f r o m O s l o , s a i d B r e i v i k ' s If deemed to be insane, he would testimony would not be shown face closed psychiatric care, live. possibly for life.
Court not recognised Upon his entrance to the court, Breivik lifted his right fist in an apparent far-right salute. "I do not recognise the Norwegian courts. You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism", Breivik told the court, adding that he wished to be tried in a military court. "I do not acknowledge the authority of the court." Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen, the lead judge, responded, telling Breivik that he would have time to make statements later on in the trial. Breivik displayed little emotion as the prosecutor read out a list of those killed and how they had died as well as his charges, but later appeared tearful as the court was shown a 12-minute film that he had posted online on the day of the attacks. Entering his plea on Monday, he said he had acted in self-defence. His lawyers had earlier said he would argue that his actions were "cruel but necessary". Breivik has said he acted alone against those he considered to be "state traitors" for opening Norway up to multiculturalism and allowing a "Muslim invasion"
of Europe. The trial is expected to focus on whether or not Breivik is criminally sane and therefore accountable for his actions. A first court-ordered psychiatric exam found him insane, while a second opinion came to the opposite conclusion. Five judges will consider psychiatric evaluations presented to the court, with a verdict expected to be handed down in July. But many Norwegians feel Breivik will use the trial as a showcase for far-right views expounded in a more-than 1,500page document published online prior to the attack. In that self-styled manifesto, Breivik described a trial as offering "a stage to the world". 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.
Entres
Submitted at 4/16/2012 3:00:00 AM
Of all the shortcut ingredients for the healthy cook, a good marinara is one of the finest because it delivers the pleasures of slowcookingin a jar. If you've ever put up your own sauce, you know the work involved. A good factory marinara (and please see the buying notes on the next slide, because there are a few things to look for) is thick, packed with flavor from herbs and garlic, and, above all, tastes like concentrated summery-tomatoey goodness. Think about what those qualities can do for your everyday cooking: add body to stew or chili; make a tangy braising liquid for meaty lamb shanks; and turn out hearty, gooey baked pasta. Next Marinara Buying Notes 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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and the US that the spoils are shared between the IMF and World Bank positions, between those two centres of power," Pravin Gordhan, South African finance minister, said on Monday. "This time the invitation was open to anybody to nominate a candidate. [But] "the question is whether the process subsequent to that ... has followed through on basic democratic tenets." South Africa endorsed OkonjoIweala's quest to succeed president Robert Zoellick, the former US diplomat who will leave at the end of his five-year term in June. Health experience The executive board met on Monday to select Kim, whom the Bank said was chosen by
"consensus". The position is crucial for much of the developing world. The president oversees a staff of 9,000 economists, development experts and other policy specialists, and a loan portfolio that hit $258bn in 2011, including $43bn in new loans and grants. Despite the grumbling from outside the US-Europe axis, the appointmemnt of Kim, a medical doctor with deep experience fighting HIV/AIDS in developing countries and head of prestigious Dartmouth College, marks a significant change from the American bankers and diplomats who have been tapped to lead the bank in the past. But critics worry Kim's experience is not broad enough to
handle all of the fields the World Bank deals with, from infrastructure development to environmental protection. Kim has travelled to around a dozen countries to introduce himself, however, apparently convincingly enough to earn solid respect. 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.
News of the world in photos: Street battles in Aghan capital - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:16:28 AM
Kabul on Monday after killing Taliban militants,... PHOTOS: Taliban's Kabul blitz Rediff meets bloody end Rediff News of the world in photos: Afghan Gun Battle Ends, Many Street battles in Aghan capital Militants And Security Forces Seattle Post Intelligencer Killed ( PHOTOS) IBTimes India AFP PHOTO/ JOHANNES Afghan Taliban bombs diplomats EISELE A body of a Taliban & NATO HQ in revenge to US ( fighter lies on the ground inside PHOTOS, VIDEO) RT the building where Taliban Payvand- Ninemsn fighters launched an attack in all 3,868 news articles Kabul on Monday. Afghanistan said its forces regained control of
'Simpsons' Finally Reveals True Location Of Springfield

Alex Moaba (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:33:22 PM
After a week of conflicting reports about the true location of " The Simpsons'" hometown of Springfield, series creator Matt Groening sought to clear up some of the confusion -- by telling people to stop guessing. In the opening credits of Sunday night's episode, Bart can be seen in detention writing on the
chalkboard, "The true location of Springfield is in any state but yours," over and over again. The basis of the confusion originated in an interview that Groening, a Portland, Oregon native, gave to Smithsonian Magazine in which he talked about how he was influenced by "Father Knows Best." The series was set in a fictionalized town called Springfield, which he thought growing up was the Springfield in his home state.
Groening told the magazine, "When I grew up, I realized it was just a fictitious name. I also figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do." That quote was widely misinterpreted, and reports surfaced all over the Internet that Groening had set "The Simpsons"
in Springfield, Oregon, 100 miles away from his hometown. Groening later clarified to TV Guide that the Springfield on "The Simpsons" was not in Oregon. After his latest statement on the topic, it looks like the joke is on anyone who spent any time trying to read between the lines to solve a TV mystery that doesn't appear to have an answer.
Mike Ryan: Who Won Big On 'SNL' This Week?

Mike Ryan (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:06:43 PM
Didn't it feel like "SNL" just came back from a long hiatus? Now it's already gone again for another three weeks (returning May 5). If Kristen Wiig, Jason MIKE page 58
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MIKE
Sudeikis and Andy Samberg really are leaving at the end of the season, it appears that the Greatest Hits tour is already in full swing. With only three shows remaining, off we go to Week 19's Poll! 1. Andy Samberg(Last Week: 10) Not one, but two digital shorts. And Jorma Taccone even returned to direct "Laser Cats 7" ... Not to mention Samberg's turn as a 13year-old boob-loving " Game of Thrones" consultant. It appears that Samberg has decided not to leave quietly. 2. Jay Pharoah(Last Week: 14) Pharoah was everywhere this week. Every so often, Pharoah will take over the show like he did this past Saturday, but then he'll disappear during the following three shows. Let's hope that trend ends. 3. Taran Killam(Last Week: 3) As I declared back in January, it's becoming quite obvious that the keys to the show are being handed over to Taran. 4. Jason Sudeikis.(Last Week: 2) Man, Sudeikis is going to ride out the Romney train until his last show, isn't he? 5. Fred Armisen(Last Week: 5) Without "Garth and Kat" next season, perhaps this means there
will be more appearances from Nicholas Fehn. 6. Kristen Wiig(Last Week: 1) Now that the Greatest Hits tour stopped at "Garth and Kat," "Penelope" and (hopefully) "Two A-Holes" are still left for the encore. 7. Bill Hader(Last Week: 8) I get the feeling that Hader is going to step aside a bit as this season winds down, making room for his departing co-stars. 8. Vanessa Bayer(Last Week: 11) A lot of "straight man" roles for Bayer this week. Which is interesting because even with Wiig leaving, it appears that McKinnon will be picking up a lot of the slack on the "wacky" type characters. 9. Bobby Moynihan:(Last Week: 7) Sure, he sold the hell out of his "Empire State of Mind" dance. But Moynihan's highlight this week was playing a crestfallen George R. R. Martin. 10. Nasim Pedrad(Last Week: 12) I really enjoy Nasim, but I do not enjoy her Kim Kardashian -for no other reason than I find it just as annoying as the real person. Perhaps that's the point. 11. Seth Meyers(Last Week: 13) I just don't get what's going on
with "Update." I mean, I love "Update," but I don't like "Update" at this supersonic pace that Meyers has set for the last few shows. Perhaps too many sketches were being cut for time near the end of the show? Regardless, having "Update" suffer in exchange does not seem like a reasonable trade off. 12. Kenan Thompson(Last Week: 10) A few supporting roles and that's it. I do really hope that we see "What's Up With That?" again this season. Please make this happen, Kenan. Please do not let Sudeikis leave the show without letting him dance in his red tracksuit one last time. 13. Kate McKinnon(Last Week: 6) The good news is, even though her airtime was quite a bit less than last week's debut, she was still very much around. 14. Abby Elliott(Last Week: 4) If it weren't for Kesha (I refuse to spell it "Ke$ha), Elliott may have been shut out this week. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
FCC Fines Google, Says It Was Deliberately Impeding Street View Investigation
Mary Beth Quirk (The Consumerist)
including Canada, France and the Netherlands. Google, obviously, disagrees Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:00:00 PM with the FCC's filing. The Federal Communications "As the FCC notes in their report, C o m m i s s i o n i s g o i n g a f t e r we provided all the materials the Google, even though they've regulators felt they needed to officially cleared the company of conclude their investigation and charges that it had collected WiFi we were not found to have data illegally with its Street View violated any laws," a Google Cars. While they didn't do that on spokesman said in a statement. purpose, the FCC says Google "We disagree with the FCC's was deliberately obstructing the c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n o f o u r investigation into those charges. cooperation in their investigation They're fining Google $25,000 and will be filing a response." for not helping regulators deal Previously: Google In Hot Water w i t h t h e m a t t e r , s a y s t h e For Collecting Data From Your Washington Post. Wireless Networks "For many months, Google Google fined by FCC for deliberately impeded and delayed i m p e d i n g S t r e e t V i e w the Bureau's investigation by p r o b e [ W a s h i n g t o n P o s t ] failing to respond to requests for This entry passed through the material information and to Full-Text RSS service if this is p r o v i d e c e r t i f i c a t i o n s a n d your content and you're reading it verifications of its responses," the on someone else's site, please read filing said. the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentGoogle had claimed that the data only/faq.php#publishers. Five collection was accidental, and has Filters recommends: Donate to b e e n i n v e s t i g a t e d i n o t h e r Wikileaks. countries outside the U.S.,
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Greg Mitchell: Will Pete Campbell TSA Testing Screening of Mad Men Commit Suicide -- To Machines So You Don't Have To Deal With Agents the Music of Beethoven?
Greg Mitchell (TV on HuffingtonPost.com)
new Journeys with Beethoven book I had to be surprised and delighted to catch all the Ludwig Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:40:03 PM references out of nowhere in Did a Beethoven-soaked Man Sunday night's show -- although it Men hint at a Pete Campbell sustained my claim that he is suicide coming later in the everywhere in our culture. season? First, Pete finally gets Don up to There were hints coming out of a dinner party at his house in the the pre-season publicity that one suburbs -- and rocks LvB on his major character would die this big new console stereo. Ken says year (1966), and already we have it sounds like there's a "tiny had a Betty cancer scare -- which orchestra" in there. Living in Cos may still not be vanished -- and a Cob in a house instead of a NYC very ill Don and now Pete's apartment he can play it as loud as problems. Death has marked the he wants, he boasts. "Do you like season, what with the Richard the music?" he asks, and Don Speck nurse slaughter last week replies, "I do." and the Charles Whitman mass Then the episode ends with a killing from the University of voice over of Ken reading from a Texas tower this week. story that he has apparently And I'm sure few missed Pete's written under a new pseudonym seemingly esoteric reference to relating to Beethoven's struggles owning a shotgun last night. Will ( b e f o r e w h i c h P e t e ' s l a t e s t he end up directing it at a humiliations may seem pale, or "varmint," or himself, or others? perhaps not). Finally, the opening In this episode he has, among of the Ninth's "Ode to Joy" other things, asked a hooker to section -- in ironic counterpoint to treat him as a "king" and then lost the sad fade out with Pete -an office fistfight with Lane, after played over the credits. suggesting a client saw him as a Here's a transcript of the Ken 'homo." voiceover: " The Man with the How does Beethoven figure in? Miniature Orchestra by Dave A s k e e p o f t h e R o l l O v e r , Algonquin. There were phrases of Beethoven blog and co-author of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that
still made Coe cry. He always thought it had to do with the circumstances of the composition itself. He imagined Beethoven deaf and soul-sick, his heart broken, scribbling furiously while Death stood in the doorway, clipping his nails. Still, Coe thought, it might have been living in the country that was making him cry. It was killing him with its silence and loneliness -making everything ordinary, too beautiful to bear." This made me recall Beethoven's famous "suicide note" -- his Heiligenstadt Testament, written after he realized that his deafness was unstoppable and would proceed to total. He promised to end his life but did not follow through, apparently making one more effort at finding out if High Art could save him. He filed the lengthy note away in a drawer, where it was only discovered after his death. He had written it during a long stay in the country setting he loved, at Heiligenstadt, which he found did not bring him peace. Clip from show:
Mary Beth Quirk (The Consumerist)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:00:00 PM
Who needs a person with a pen and a black light to say a boarding pass and identification passes muster? The Transportation Security Administration is testing a system that would screen those materials with a machine, instead of a visual check from an agent. USA Today says tests began last week at Washington-Dulles International Airport and will commence at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston tomorrow, followed by San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 23. Some important factors that need to be thoroughly reviewed over the next several months how fast passengers can make it through the line with the machines, as well as how accurate the devices are at screening passes
and IDs. The machines will simply scan barcodes on both documents and compare them. No information will be stored. If something is flagged or needs another look, an agent will check things out more closely. "For efficiency, it is fantastic," says Domenic Bianchini, TSA director of checkpoint technology. "We think it's a valuable technology, and we think over time we will see the real value added." TSA tests airport check-in system[USA Today] From ConsumerReports.org: 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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Music Monday: When We Were Nine

(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:00:00 AM
understood them. This was an amazing song to me, something I saw danced wildly to at an Nine's a pretty great age. On the elementary school talent show. one hand, you're still a kid, and But it's narrating some of the most everything that happens is brand horrifying situations plaguing the new. On the other hand, you're an early 90's. We lived in a dubious established person, and you've got area of Houston at the time and I some solid ideas about life. Nine's wonder now what my mom must too young to be cool and too old have thought when I played that to not be trying. It's the perfect song at full volume and sang hard, age to start discovering music, outlining all the ways I could have and most of us look back fondly died. But I turned out ok, I stuck at the music we heard when we to the ditches and oil spills that I were nine. was used to. Today's Music Monday covers Jason Hinklin-Lauderdale, the music we all listened to at that Writer: Whitney Houston - How tender, formative age. As you'll Will I Know find out soon, Scott's got some Don't you judge me. I could've special guests helping him out. been Mr. Cool Nine-Year Old and However it's his weekly thing, so said I was into The Cure or The he gets to go first. That's fair, isn't Police or The The. I could've it? easily told you about how Scott Lydon, Hero Of Music Reading Rainbow introduced me Monday: Queen Flash Gordon to hip-hop and how I fell in love When I was a kid, the greatest memories of this song for all the was Foreign Hits and it's a good posters off the wall from seeing with beats and verbosity, or how thing in my life was my dad. hipster points in the world. And one indeed! But before you queue Pearl Jam, Warren Zevon, and Peter Cetera's Glory of Love and Seeing a movie with him was the Flash Gordon with my dad is still it up, check out this week's Music whatnot, and totally had a rockin' Simply Red's Holding Back The perfect way to spend a Saturday one of my all-time greatest movie Monday selections below, starting AOL connection. "Networking" Years hold a special sad place in with... appealed to the burgeoning geek afternoon. When he took me to experiences. my heart for reminding me of Inside you'll find a few more Gatzby Huber, Boss Mod: in me, plus the rest of the album see Flash Gordon, I didn't know every couple's skate I ever missed what it would be, I just knew I'd favorite childhood songs from Warren Zevon - Networking ( w h i c h i s h a r d t o f i n d o n out on. And the truth is, in 1986, I be seeing it with him. And guess other members of our blogging This was a tough choice: there YouTube) had some really great, did like that stuff a whole dang what? Flash Gordon was pretty team. After you've read them, was a lot going on, musically, darkly-themed songs... which lot. much the greatest movie I'd seen why not add a link and story of right around then. Grunge was played well with discovering But there's only one song that at that point in my life. But the your own in the comments? starting to hit, I just learned about William Gibson. I still consider inspired me to smear my mother's soundtrack? The unstoppable high Trading is really the best part of a crazy thing called punk, and I "Transverse City" to be the makeup all over my face and -energy Queen soundtrack? playing "When I Was Nine" was starting to branch out from u n o f f i c i a l t h e m e s o n g o f dance in nothing but my Scoobywhatever my brother was listening N e u r o m a n c e r . Forget about it! Years later I See you after the jump! Doo underwear in front or a Before we begin, remember our to... which is to say, The Grateful Kristy Tye, Social Media Expert: learned about the "cool" bands I mirror while singing into a missed, like Suicide and The new Spotify playlist will be Dead. My dad was a big influence TLC - Waterfalls hairbrush at the top of my lungs. Pretenders, but you know what? I featuring a great selection from here; two of the few things we When I listen to a lot of songs MUSIC page 61 wouldn't give up my childhood l a s t w e e k ' s M u s i c M o n d a y could always relate on were music now that I loved when I was comments. The theme of that mix and computers. He'd bring us y o u n g , I r e a l i z e I n e v e r
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I'm pretty sure that means it was my favorite. R.I.P. Whitney. I would've never asked my mom to buy me that New Edition album if I had known what would happen. Sean Adams, Writer: Presidents of the United States of America Lump Chris Ballew, lead singer of the Presidents of the United States of America, was the third member of the trifecta (along with Michael Stipe and that guy from Live) that lead the 9 year old me to believe that having a completely bald head was cool. This feeling didn't stick with me for long, but the PUSA song "Lump" did. Sure, I didn't really understand all of the lyrics ("She spent her twenties between the sheets" means she built a lot of blanket forts, right?) but the song's simple, repetitive chorus was enough to hold my attention, and even now it's still one of my favorite songs. AND THEY PLAY GUITARS IN A SWAMP IN THE VIDEO!!! C'MON!!! HOW COOL IS THAT??!?!?!? Delanie aka Thunderthighs, Forum Mod: Henry Mancini, Baby Elephant Walk Music wasnt around much in my house. I don't remember the radio on in the car with my parents or in the house. Most of my exposure to music came from TV shows like the The Monkees or The Banana Splits unless my parents were in control of the TV, then it was Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw.
I can still belt out a verse of Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me when needed. But my best musical memory as a child comes from the organ teacher that lived across the street, Mrs. Pratt. My parents said that she was one of the leading organ instructors in Texas and her husband had a beautiful deep bass voice. Some summer nights, when all our doors and windows were open (before AC), wed hear Mrs. Pratt playing the organ and Mr. Pratt singing along. On the weekends, I would wonder over to their house and she would play Baby Elephant Walk from the movie Hatari. I loved this upbeat song and its fast pace. Her hands would be flying over the keys and her feet on the pedals. This was the song I begged to learn when I started playing the piano a few years later. To this day, "Baby Elephant Walk" brings back sweet memories of those afternoons in the Pratts living room. So no Billboard Top 100 songs for me when I was 9 years old. I was sitting and enjoying the music from a wonderful woman that I will never forget. Sam Kemmis, Writer: Billy Joel Uptown Girl The innocence of youth is nowhere better demonstrated than in my wholehearted love of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" a decade after its release. The phrases "musical taste" and "shrill, cloying chorus", were unknown to my young mind, and I was
therefore able to enjoy "Uptown Girl" qua"Uptown Girl" in 1993. The years since have worn down my enthusiasm like a lathe, but the song's message of unrequited love, class struggle, and looking so fi-i-ine still rings out. Perhaps Mr. Joel's genius, like the chiming of Santa's sleigh bells, can only be heard by those who still believe. Amy Nance, Writer: Milli Vanilli - Girl, You Know It's True Easter basket. 1989. The chocolate bunny, as hollow as my broken 9-year-old heart when I heard the news. "Girl, You Know It's True." Only it wasn't. Still, I played that cassette over and over. It was a regular in rotation with Roxette's She's Got the Look. and Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract. Ah, MC Skat Kat. Ironic that you turned out to be more real. Guess they shoulda blamed it on the rain. Ba-dum CHING! What? Too soon? Jason Toon, Boss Writer: The Police - Every Breath You Take One day, music didn't matter much to me; the next day, it did. It was sometime in the spring of 1983. My grandma's neighbors were babysitting me and my siblings. One of their many and boisterous kids - he seemed almost grown to me at the time, but was probably 12 or 13 - was listening to St. Louis's top 40 station, KHTR. He asked me what my favorite songs were. I didn't know. He told me his favorites were "Electric Avenue" and
"Every Breath You Take", and that if I waited a little while, I'd hear them both on the radio. I did, and they were great. I spent that whole day listening to KHTR with him. By the time my parents picked me up that night, I was in love with pop music. A summer of obsession followed. I listened to America's Top 40 every Sunday, impatiently fidgeting through the sappy quietstorm ballads that have been erased from what we talk about when we talk about '80s music. I bought every rock mag I could get my hands on, from RockLine to Circus. Whenever I got my hands on $6.98, I bought a new tape. I stayed up late for Friday Night Videos and the local Saturdaynight knockoff. When my mom gave me a few bucks to buy a souvenir on a family trip to Six Flags, I spent it on a huge Men at Work poster. And when I went over to my cousin's house, we no longer played with Little People we got out her little box of 45s. I didn't know that 1983 would be the greatest year for pop singles in my lifetime, with the Billboard Top 100 populated by Michael Jackson, Prince, David Bowie, Madness, Culture Club, the Human League, the Stray Cats, the Clash, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Duran Duran, and Joe Jackson. I had no idea I was coming along just as the New Wave was cresting into commercial success and creative exhaustion. I just knew it was all
unbelievably exciting and that I would never be the same. And none of those classic songs, to this day, still evokes that rush like "Every Breath You Take". My adult self would never claim the Police as a favorite. They can get way too dull and pompous sometimes, even on Synchronicity - no, especially on Synchronicity. But this video brings that summer back: late at night in the living room of a little brick house, my mom dozing on the couch with bowl of popcorn in her lap, the curtains swelling faintly in the humid breeze, and me, the only waking soul in the house, astonished at the pure pleasures of the music coming from the TV, and dreaming of what new wonders I might hear next. Now it's your turn. Call up your inner child and ask them what song used to be their favorite, and then post it in the comments below. And after that, why not stop into our Turntable.fm room for some Music Monday mixin'? It's better than homework and vegetables combined! Also, where applicable, images are taking from the corresponding Wikipedia page and are used here under fair use.
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TV's "Green Millionaire" No Brake failure spurs Longer As Wealthy, Must recall of 3,000 Can Refund $2 Million To Customers -Am Spyder bikes
Chris Morran (The Consumerist)
shipping and handling fee, without clearly disclosing that they would be charged $29.95 for Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:15:00 PM a two-month subscription to an eBack in 2010, we warned you magazine, or $89.95 for a oneabout how those late-night year subscription. The defendants infomercials for The Green allegedly violated the FTC Act by Millionaire appeared to just be a failing to disclose the subscription way to trick people into incredibly program, that customers would expensive m a g a z i n e have to cancel it to avoid subscriptions. Looks like those additional charges, the program's suspicions were right, as the cost and how to cancel it, and people behind the scheme have when they must cancel to avoid agreed to refund around $2 charges. They also allegedly million to bilked consumers. debited or charged consumers' For those not familiar with the bank or credit card accounts Green Millionaire, the ads w i t h o u t t h e i r c o n s e n t , featured a man named Nigel m i s r e p r e s e n t e d t h e b o o k ' s Williams who would shout in his contents, and used unsubstantiated sorta-English accent that he had endorsements. the secrets for scoring free solar The FTC had filed a lawsuit panels, or how to get gratis gas for against Williams and others life. And all this information was involved in Green Millionaire, but available in a free book. Sign me today it announced the parties had up! reached a settlement. Oh wait here's what the According to the settlement, the Federal Trade Commission has to d e f e n d a n t s c a n n o l o n g e r say: misrepresent: The Green Millionaire websites * that any product, program, or allegedly asked consumers to service is offered on a "free," provide their credit card or bank " t r i a l , " " n o o b l i g a t i o n , " o r account number to pay a small " d i s c o u n t e d " b a s i s ;
* the amount a consumer will be charged or billed; and * the timing of any charge or the length of any trial period. They are also banned from making blatantly false statements, like that anyone can get free gas for life, put solar panels on their roofs for free, and make their electricity meter go backward. Part of the $2 million to be recouped from the Green Millionaire gang includes Williams' personal property two parcels of land and a mobile home, and a 2005 BMW. If any of the defendants are found to have misrepresented their finances to the FTC (which would be a shock), they will immediately be held to their portion of the full $5.7 million judgement. From ConsumerReports.org: 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.
Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)

Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:29:59 AM
Brake failure spurs recall of 3,000 Can-Am Spyder bikes Bombardier Recreational Products has recalled certain 2010 Can-Am Spyder models due to the potential for a complete brake failure. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 3,259 Can-Am Spyder RT roadsters from model year 2010 are recalled because a pin securing the brake pedal connecting rod could come loose and fall off without warning. BRP will notify owners this week and dealers will replace the brake pedal connecting rod free of charge. Owners may contact BRP at 1-888-638-5397 When we sampled the Can-Am Spyder, we found it bulky and reluctant to corner. Several of our
riders felt they much prefer bikes with two wheels. However, the Can-Am Spyder does have antilock brakes, which is an important safety feature. See which other motorcycles and scooters have this life-saving technology. Check out all our motorcycle coverage in our special section. 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
Products/ Gaming/
63
Eee PC Flare 1025C review, Asus's attempt to revive netbooks

Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:59:59 AM
Eee PC Flare 1025C review, Asus's attempt to revive netbooks The Asus Eee PC Flare 1025C features a powerful processor, long battery life, and a low price. But it's still a netbook, and it suffers from the shortcomings of the format. Netbooks could be going the way of the rotary phone: We've seen very few new models in the past several months, and that's not surprising. After all, the Apple iPad and some Android tablets are much more elegant solutions for most of the tasks you'd do on a netbook. But not every manufacturer has given up on netbooks. (That includes processor maker Intel.) After all, they might still fit some niche, particularly when done right, meaning the emphasis should be squarely on portability and price. That's exactly where Asus placed its priorities when it developed the 10.1-inch Eee PC Flare 1025C. It weighs just 2.5 pounds, and battery life is very long at
Thanks to its anti-glare properties, the matte display is easier to view in bright places than the screens on tablets and laptops with glossy displays. But its 1024x600 resolution is lower than that the leading tablets, and colors don't pop for videos and photos. 10.75 hours. And the Flare's price Bottom line: Tablets are a lot more convenient than netbooks, is an easy-on-your-wallet $300. The netbook includes the latest for the most part. You also get Intel Atom dual-core processor access to tons of free apps and a with new integrated graphics. In better browsing experience with a addition are three USB ports tablet. But netbooks have a (although none are for the fastest keyboard and more ports for USB 3.0), an Ethernet connection, connectivity. So if you want to an SD memory-card slot, and an save a little money, and don't care HDMI port. That should be about the power you'd get with a enough ports and connections to laptop or the apps a tablet offers, a keep the most gadget-happy netbook like the Flare might be a viable choice for you. person fully hooked up. But although the Atom is the We'll have a full review of the state-of-the-art netbook processor, Asus Eee PC Flare 1025C with the Flare has nowhere near the o u r n e x t b a t c h o f R a t i n g s . power of a laptop. The keys on S u b s c r i b e n o w ! S u b s c r i b e t o the chiclet keyboard are c o m f o r t a b l y l a r g e , b u t t h e ConsumerReports.org for expert keyboard itself felt cramped to me Ratings, buying advice and at times. As has happened with r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f many other netbooks, I often products. Update your feed accidentally hit the Page Up or preferences Page Down key and found myself typing on the wrong line.
EA allowing banned Origin players access to offline content

Mike Schramm (Joystiq)
themselves. To get back online, players will need to appeal the ban, for which EA has quietly made things a instructions can be found here. little easier for those banned from EA does say that most bans are its digital Origin service, allowing only temporary, but just in case e v e n t h o s e s c o r n e d b y t h e you want to speed up the process, company to access single player we'll say this: Offering crop c o n t e n t i n p u r c h a s e d a n d sacrifices to an idol of John downloaded games. Previously, Ritticello certainly can't hurt. gamers who behaved badly on EA allowing banned Origin official EA forums or otherwise players access to offline content caused their accounts to be originally appeared on Joystiq on r e v o k e d w e r e l o c k e d o u t Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:30:00 EST. completely, but now EA is saying Please see our terms for use of that by switching the Origin client feeds. over to offline mode, players can Permalink| Email this| Comments at least play bought games by
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:30:00 PM
64
Products/ Featured/
2011-2012 Toyota Prius V A big thing hybrid will get an exhaust Google could do problem fixed
(Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog) Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:59:59 AM
2011-2012 Toyota Prius V hybrid will get an exhaust problem fixed Toyota Motor Corp. announced a service campaign to fix its brand new Prius V, a wagon-like vehicle in its wildly popular gas-electric hybrid line. Similar to the hybrid sedan, the roomier Prius V captures the "waste heat" from its exhaust system. However, flawed components in the recovery system may cause the Prius V to leak engine coolant. According to the Wall Street Journal's report, Toyota blames weak exhaust actuators for the problem in about 28,000 Prius V hybrids worldwide. About 8,000 of the 2011-2012 hybrid wagons are in Japan, where its sold as the Prius Alpha. The campaign will replace the weak actuators in the exhaust-heat-recovery systems for free. The exhaust waste heat recovery system is used on Toyota's gas-
strength and better definition to the legal relationship between users and companies would imho Submitted at 4/16/2012 8:02:35 AM do a lot to support freedom on the popular vehicle in both the U.S. I'm getting all kinds of ideas just net. and Japanese markets, this is the considering the possibility that Quick ideas. 1. Create a for-pay first model year for the Prius V Google could be a friend to the email service that doesn't suck. 2. and the lighter compact Prius C open web. Become a registrar, and help hatchback. However, our Cars Here's a problem Google played a people create new presences on experts advise in Consumer p a r t i n c r e a t i n g a n d c o u l d the Internet. Again for-pay. No Reports new car buying advice to therefore play a part in solving. free rides. When a user calls avoid first-generation car models. Before the Internet, businesses someone answers. And if you Check out Consumer Reports had customers. And consumers don't pay your bill no service. 3. electric hybrid engine to keep its Guide to fuel economy for ideas had vendors. Same relationship. That registrar service could be engine warm when turned off. on how to save money at the gas Goods and services flow in one used by Tumblr or Soundcloud to This in turn improves the hybrids' pump. And if you're shopping for direction, and money flows in the make their services better. fuel efficiency by decreasing the a new fuel-efficient vehicle, check other. This practice had been Obviously there's a lot to say amount of fuel needed during a out Consumer Reports' Guide to going on for centuries, so all about this. But it should be cold engine start. (For more alternative fuels. kinds of laws had developed something we're thinking about, i n f o r m a t i o n , s e e C o n s u m e r Sources: establishing conventions and and every bit of progress in T o y o t a a n n o u n c e s s e r v i c e penalties. We all had a fairlly g e t t i n g b a c k t o s e n s i b l e Reports' Hybrids 101: Guide to gasoline-electric hybrid cars and campaign to fix exhaust on 28,000 good idea of what we were relationships should be seen as a Prius V hybrids[AutoBlog] powertrains.) e n t i t l e d t o , a n d w h a t o u r good sign. I think the more we do Consumer Reports experts Toyota to Correct Flaw in Prius o b l i g a t i o n s w e r e . of that, the stronger we will all be recently tested the Prius V wagon Exhaust Systems[Wall Street Now we have a new kind of in the future. and noted a very good fuel rating Journal] Subscribe now! relationship, and we're totally in When I ask why Google isn't S u b s c r i b e t o u n c h a r t e d w a t e r s . T h a t ' s a leading, this is the kind of stuff of about 41 mpg. That's a small drop compared to the 44 mpg ConsumerReports.org for expert problem for free speech, imho. I'm thinking about. results from Toyota's older Prius Ratings, buying advice and And whatever we can do to add sedan, one of the top three Best r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f and worst cars for fuel economy products. Update your feed in Consumer Reports' annual preferences April auto issue. The Prius sedan has been a
Sports/
65
Flyers fight their way to 3-0 lead over Penguins - Chicago Sun-Times
(- Bing News)
Danny Briere, Matt Read and Max Talbot each scored two goals to lead Philadelphia to an 8-4 By DAN GELSTON AP Sports victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday Writer April 16, 2012 9:36AM in a fight-filled game in the P h i l a d e l p h i a F l y e r s S c o t t Eastern Conference quarterfinal. Hartnell, hair flying, winds up a Giroux and Wayne Simmonds punch as he and Pittsburgh also scored to help the Flyers take Penguins Craig Adams battle a 3-0 lead in the combustible bestd u r i n g o n e o f s e v e r a l of-seven series. Game 4 is simultaneous fights going on in Wednesday night in Philadelphia. the third period of Game 3 in a The Flyers scored 20 goals in the first-round NHL Stanley Cup first three games. playoffs hockey series, Sunday, Our goal is to finish it right April 15, 2012, in Philadelphia. away, Briere said. The Flyers' 8-4 win puts them The goals might be hard to find ahead 3-0 in the series. (AP Photo on a highlight reel. This one was /Tom Mihalek) all about the brawls more suitable storyidforme: 28981378 for a UFC card. Three players tmspicid: 10468954 were tossed in the first period. fileheaderid: 4818578 There was a rare fight between PHILADELPHIA Fists were superstars when Crosby squared flying faster than shots on goal. off against Giroux. Sidney Crosby and Claude Giroux No one got the better end of that even became knotted in the scrap. But by the end, Flyers fans pushing, pulling and shoving, a serenaded the Penguins with pair of superstars willing to mix it booming chants of You cant up to prove which team was the beat us! baddest on the ice and the All three games were kind of scoreboard. weird games, Giroux said. I The Penguins and Flyers talked guess I like weird games because trash, laid the smack down, and we always finish by winning. played one wildly entertaining Jordan Staal and James Neal game. The result was still the scored twice for a Penguins team same. The Flyers rallied from pushed to the limit by its hated, another early deficit for a decisive intrastate rival. Marc-Andre Game 3 victory that placed them Fleury was benched after allowing on the brink of an improbable six goals in two periods. He has sweep. allowed a whopping 17 goals in
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:27:06 AM
hockey, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. A couple of the best players in the world dropping the gloves going at it. Would I rather have G keep his gloves on? Sure. But when hes fighting Sidney Crosby, thats playoff hockey. Thats this series. Crosby ignited the scrum when he twice jabbed goalie Ilya Bryzgalovs glove against the ice. Giroux, third in the NHL in points this season, shoved Crosby from behind. Crosby, clearly not caring the first three games. about his history of concussions, Coach Dan Bylsma said Fleury retaliated by shoving Girouxs would start, the next four head against the glass. games. While the 20,092 fans dressed in Hard to imagine at this rate, their matching Hulk Hoganespecially with NHL scoring inspired orange T-shirts roared, leader Evgeni Malkin (109 points) Timonen and Letang exchanged yet to score a goal for the s h o t s , a n d V o r a c e k a n d Penguins. Pittsburghs Steve Sullivan each The Flyers played a postseason were penalized for roughing. video that billed their run as the Timonen and Letang were both Fight to the Cup. They never hit with 5 minutes for fighting and expected a first period that would were ejected because they were have left those old Broad Street assessed a major penalty after the Bullies smiling. original fight had started. E a c h t e a m h a d t h e i r t o p Crosby insisted the Penguins defenseman Pittsburghs Kris werent getting rattled. Letang and Philadelphias Kimmo Theres more than one team Timonen tossed. So was getting in those things, he said. Penguins forward Arron Asham. You can make a story all you But the scene ripped straight out want about us getting frustrated. of the pages of Ripleys came Theyre doing the same things we when Giroux and Crosby went at are. Its intense. it against the backboard. The on-ice violence was just In the end, thats really playoff warming up.
Flyers forward Brayden Schenn rammed Paul Martin into the boards, turned around and was crosschecked in the upper body by Asham. Asham jumped a defenseless Schenn and connected with a vicious right to earn the match penalty a penalty imposed on a player who deliberately attempts to injure or who deliberately injures an opponent in any manner. Asham could get suspended for the punch. As the game wound down, Crosby yanked the back of Scott Hartnells jersey and the fireworks went off again. Simmonds, Neal and Pittsburghs Craig Adams also were socked with penalties. The slugfest on the ice overshadowed the one on the scoreboard. Staal scored only 3:52 into the game to give the Penguins the first goal for the third straight game. It marked the 13th time out of the last 15 games the Flyers have trailed 1-0. At that point, the Flyers had been outscored 7-1 in the first period in this series. The Flyers rallied from a 3-0 hole in Game 1, and deficits of 2-0 and 3-1 in Game 2. They did it again. Talbot tapped a rebound toward Fleury that the FLYERS page 66
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Penguins goalie tried to stab at with his glove. The puck trickled by for the tying goal. Briere scored consecutive goals off a 5-on-3 power play and a one -timer to leave Fleury reeling. I thought the first two games in Pittsburgh were crazy, he said. This one was even wilder. Neal scored the first of his two goals to make it 3-2. Read ended the period when he snagged the puck behind the net, skated around and buried it for a 4-2 lead. Crosby and Bryzgalov jawed at each other as the teams skated toward the locker room. Philadelphias lead stood even as the 108-point Penguins attacked with their offense instead of their fists in the second period. Neal and Read swapped goals to open the second. Staal knocked in a rebound to help the Penguins close to 5-4. Simmonds, though, took a perfect entry pass from Braydon Coburn and backhanded in the fast-break attempt for the insurance goal. That was their third power-play
goal and the Flyers also had a short-handed score. The Penguins were assessed 46 penalty minutes, and the Flyers 34, through the first two periods. I dont like them, because I dont like any guy on their team, Crosby said. Fleury, having a series to forget, was replaced by Brent Johnson to open the third. New goalie, same result. Giroux scored 27 seconds into the third on Philadelphias first shot of the period. The scoring continued and so did the hard hits. Neal flattened Game 2 star Sean Couturier in the waning minutes and sent the Flyers rookie center to the locker room. Players from both teams including Schenn and Crosby had to be separated during a melee along the boards. Neal appeared to target Girouxs head in the third, though the Flyers star ducked and landed softly on the ice. We saw Neal going after Seans head and Claudes head, Briere said. Obviously, he had a plan in mind.
Its a plan Bylsma wants to avoid. The way the game was called, there was a lot of extracurricular activity during and after the plays, he said. Thats an area of the game we want to stay away from. We dont want to be involved in those situations against this team. Notes: The Flyers hold a 3-0 lead in a playoff series for the 11th time. ... Johnson made his third career postseason relief appearance for the Penguins. ... The Penguins have lost six straight playoff games. 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 Dan Nosowitz (Popular Science the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- - New Technology, Science only/faq.php#publishers. Five News, The Future Now) Filters recommends: Donate to Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:43:40 PM Wikileaks. Robotic Prison Guard Reuters Back in November, South Korea announced that a project to create robot prison guards was underway. And just as predicted, the robo-guards are ready for their first tests. Check out video (complete with prisoner/robot interaction) after the jump. The robot looks pretty different from the last time we saw it--a little less cheerful, a little more Cylon-y. But the features seem to be intact: it's equipped with
Video: Mood-Sensing Robot Prison Guard Begins First Real-World Test in Korea
cameras and microphones, so guards can communicate with prisoners remotely. The robots are designed to prowl around autonomously (though they can also be controlled manually with an iPad), and have a system that monitors the mood and behavior of prisoners. Anything out of the ordinary, and it sounds the alarm, bringing human guards running. The project is currently in the testing stage, presumably at a prison in the coastal city of Pohang. [ Reuters]
Gaming/ Science/
67
Nintendo showing Wii U Mario game at E3

JC Fletcher (Joystiq)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:00:00 PM
Video: Tupac Shakur Resurrected Via Hologram to Perform at Coachella

Clay Dillow (Popular Science New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
In an article about the Louvre's 3DS integration, Spanish newspaper El Mundo said that Miyamoto revealed plans to show a new Super Mario game for Wii U at E3. However, without a direct quote, it seemed likely that he had been talking about the Wii U and the (confirmed) 3DS Super Mario game, and the two had become conflated. The other, less likely option, is that Miyamoto had let slip the existence of an
unannounced game, which is out of character for anyone at Nintendo. However, that's exactly what happened. Eurogamer received confirmation from Nintendo. "In a recent interview, Mr. Miyamoto confirmed that a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U system will be shown at this year's E3 Expo," the Nintendo representative told the site. "We'll have more to announce about our plans for the E3 Expo at a later date." During the last E3, Nintendo
Amerikaz Most Wanted and Hail Mary, but not before greeting Coachella-goers with a "What the ---- is up Coachella?"--a festival Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:30:38 AM Tupac Resurrected that did not even exist at the time In the future, we will all live of his death. Which is all a bit showed a Wii U game(above) forever--at least if our body of u n n e r v i n g b u t u n d e n i a b l y based on New Super Mario Bros. work is popular enough to warrant a w e s o m e . Wii. It's possible that demo may resurrection. Just ask Tupac Check out Holo-Tupac's entire have evolved into this new game, Shakur--now deceased for nearly performance below, but be this is or it could be something totally 15 years--who showed up in f o r e w a r n e d : different. All we know at this holographic form to perform characteristically very NSFW. Or point is that it's a "Super Mario alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. for younger audiences. This video D r e a t C o a c h e l l a o v e r t h e is simply very not safe. Bros. game." [via io9] Nintendo showing Wii U Mario w e e k e n d . The ridiculously realistic game at E3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 hologram arrived on stage to wow 13:00:00 EST. Please see our fans with renditions of 2 of terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
68
Science/ Food/
The Viking Mars Missions 25 Best Budget May Have Discovered Recipes Life in 1976
Submitted at 4/16/2012 3:00:00 AM
Freshly ground black pepper Cooking spray Uncooked couscous In honor of our 25th anniversary, Water Clay Dillow (Popular Science the soil. biological sources on Earth, like we compiled a collection of our Cherries New Technology, Science Related Articles Experiment temperature readings from a lab readers' best-loved budget recipes Green onions News, The Future Now) Confirms Viking Actually Did r a t , t h e a n a l y s i s c o r r e c t l y from the past 25 years. Based on Dry-roasted almonds Find Organic Compounds on clustered the biological readings research from MyRecipes.com, Lemon rind Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:46:02 AM Since the Viking Mars probes Mars 30 Years Ago Is This the with the active Viking experiment we pulled the Cooking Light Lemon juice traveled to the red planet back in Machine That Will Finally Find data, separate from the non- recipes that received the most View Recipe: Pork Chops with 1976, NASA has sent several Life On Mars? Life on Mars: biological data in the control votes and highest star ratings. Cherry Couscous Next Bacon more probes, landers, and rovers H o p e f u l l y I t ' s D e a d T a g s experiments. All that essentially What makes these recipes budget- Pierogi Bake to the Martian surface to study the Technology, Clay Dillow, life on means that the cluster analysis, friendly? Each recipe will feed a This entry passed through the planet's geology and search for mars, Mars, microbial life, nasa, when fed a good deal of data from family of 4 for $10 or less. Full-Text RSS service if this is signs of microbial life. But the Space, viking mars missions both biological and non-biological First up is Pork Chops with your content and you're reading it evidence for life may have been That's exactly what happened. But sources, correctly separates the Cherry Couscous. on someone else's site, please read hidden in Viking's data all along. other experiments aboard Viking two types of data. And when it Price:$2.39 per serving the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentA new analysis of the data didn't back up the LR, and NASA does so, it lumps the Viking data Pantry Checklist: only/faq.php#publishers. Five collected by probes Viking 1 and scientists had to dismiss the LR's into the "biological" category. Olive oil Filters recommends: Donate to Viking 2 suggest the missions findings as anomalous. That's not concrete evidence for Bone-in center-cut pork chops Wikileaks. found evidence of microbial life But now an analysis by a microbial life on Mars. It's merely Salt more than three decades ago. University of Southern California concrete evidence that there is a The new analysis centers on one neurobiologist (and former NASA stark difference between Viking's of the three experiments carried space shuttle project director) and LR experiment data and the by the probe: the Labeled Release a mathematician from Italy's control experiment data. And it's (LR) experiment. This instrument University of Siena could reverse evidence that the Viking data searched for signs of life by that thinking. They used a tracks with biological rather than mixing samples of Martian soil technique called cluster analysis, non-biological data. More study is with droplets of water containing which clusters together similar- necessary (isn't it always?), but if nutrients and radioactive carbon. looking data sets, to see what the cluster analysis is to be If the soil contained microbes, the would happen. They found the believed then our first shot at reasoning went, they would analysis created two clusters: one detecting microbial life in the metabolize these carbon atoms for the two active experiments on soils of Mars may have hit pay and nutrients and release either Viking and the other for five dirt--and we didn't even realize it. methane gas or radioactive carbon control experiments. [ NatGeo] dioxide, either of which would tip Further, when they compared off the probes that life existed in Viking's data to confirmed
Health/
69
Why Women Suffer More Migraines Than Men

Patti Neighmond (Shots Health Blog)
occur in 20 to 30 percent of migraine patients." The brain activity then travels Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:17:00 AM like a wave across the landscape [5 min 24 sec] Download of the brain, moving into areas One in four women has had a that control sensation. Patients migraine. And, it turns out, the feel numbness or tingling, like debilitating headaches affect three pins and needles. Then the wave times more women than men. The h i t s t h e a r e a t h a t c o n t r o l s National Library of Medicine language, and, when that happens, A vintage ad for a headache Charles says, "it can cause remedy plays to women. dramatic difficulty finding words But why? or garbling of speech." Decades ago, these headaches Charles says the pounding pain of were attributed to women's a migraine is believed to be inability to cope with stress, a sort generated from deep within the of hysteria. Now experts are brain. Some scientists think the starting to figure out the factors wave of activity triggers the pain. that really make a difference. Others, including Charles, think Today scientists know a migraine pain occurs simultaneously with is all in your head but not in the electrical wave as it traverses t h a t o l d - f a s h i o n e d s e n s e . the brain. Migraines are biologically based, What triggers a migraine is and they play themselves out as a nearly as complicated as the wave of electrical activity migraine itself. There are t r a v e l i n g a c r o s s t h e b r a i n . environmental changes like Dr. Andrew Charles directs the s o u n d s , l i g h t , s m e l l s a n d H e a d a c h e R e s e a r c h a n d movement. There are genes; Treatment Program in the UCLA migraine risk is hereditary. Department of Neurology. He But there is one major trigger, describes what occurs during a and this is why women have so migraine as a "spectacular neuro- many more migraines than men. physiological event" that involves Neurologist Jan Lewis Brandes, bursts of electrical activity that f o u n d e r o f t h e N a s h v i l l e start in the vision center of the N e u r o s c i e n c e G r o u p , s a y s brain. That, Charles says, is why migraines can be triggered by the headaches include a "visual hormonal fluctuation. Migraines aura, those jagged lines or are slightly more common in boys sparkling lights, that commonly than girls until girls begin
try a new treatment if it became available. That's exactly what UCLA's Charles is trying to come up with in a lab that's stuffed with microscopes, cameras, lasers, computers and a few mice. Charles points to one mouse, under anesthesia, lying on its stomach under a scanner that tracks changes in brain activity after stimulation with a caffeinelike substance. Caffeine can trigger migraines in humans. Finding effective treatment to reduce the number of attacks is critically important, says Charles, because "migraines beget migraines." The more of them you have, the more vulnerable you become to having another. And that lends urgency to finding a way to reduce how often the headaches strike. "We've begun to see from researchers that the frequency of migraine attack is linked to permanent changes in the brain, and I think that changes the playing field for patients and menstruation. And once girls hormones may also be involved. those of us who take care" of b e g i n t o m e n s t r u a t e , a n d But the uncertainty contributes to them, Brandes says. "We really hormones begin to fluctuate up t h e d i f f i c u l t y o f m i g r a i n e need to think carefully about how and down, the number of their t r e a t m e n t . to control the frequency of attacks migraines increases dramatically. There are drugs to reduce the and really need to do it earlier Courtesy of the UCLA Headache pain and length of a migraine. rather than later." Research and Treatment Program Others cut down on the frequency This entry passed through the A PET image of a migraine as it of attacks. But there isn't a cure. Full-Text RSS service if this is develops in the brain of a patient. As many as half of all patients say The main culprit is estrogen, treatment isn't effective for them. WHY page 71 although researchers think other And nearly all say they'd happily
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Health/
Deadly 'Choking Game' Comes With Big Risks

(Shots - Health Blog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:20:00 AM
[3 min 5 sec] Download Michele Galloway went looking for her son, Connor, one morning in their Webster, N.C., home to make sure the seventh-grader hadn't overslept. "I opened the door and I found him," Galloway said. "And he looked like he was standing up beside his bed. And I just said, 'Connor, you're awake.' And then I realized he was not awake." Courtesy of the Galloway family Connor Galloway, age 12, was found dead in his bedroom with a belt looped around his neck. Connor's friends admitted to his mother that they'd been talking about playing "the choking game." She looked more closely. "There was a little gap between his feet and the floor," she said. "And I realized, you know, he had a belt around his neck." The other end of Connor's belt was looped around the top of his bunk bed. At first, police thought Connor had committed suicide, even though he was a happy, popular 12-year-old. But Connor's friends at school admitted they had all been talking about playing "the choking game." "I kept thinking, if I pinch myself,
this is not real," Galloway said. "I'm dreaming. This is not really happening." But it was real. And Connor's parents aren't alone. Similar reports have emerged around the country, sparking alarm among doctors, parents and public health officials, such as Katrina Hedberg, the state epidemiologist in Oregon. Courtesy of the
Galloway family Connor and family. "The choking game is a strangulation activity that some kids participate in, using either their hands or something like a rope or a belt or something like that," she says. Why? Thomas A. Andrew, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner, who has studied the
journal Pediatrics, around 6 percent of more than 5,000 middle -schoolers surveyed in Portland, Ore., have tried the choking game. And about a quarter of them have tried it at least five times, the researchers reported. "With each of those episodes, obviously, just a little bit of the brain is being damaged," Andrew said. "So who knows what the long-term effects may be on children who do this repeatedly?" And no one really knows how often the game is being played or how many kids may have died. Back in 2008, a national estimate put the death toll from the choking game at about 82 between 1995 and 2007. But the study relied on media reports that couldn't be verified independently. And many deaths that weren't reported in the news could have been missed. Cleveland pediatrician Nancy Bass, who has also studied the game, hopes the new research will trend, explains: "As the brain is help parents, doctors and teachers deprived of oxygen, there's this spot kids at risk. The survey sensation of lightheadedness, found that despite the game's which is interpreted as a high. reputation as being a "good kid's And then once the pressure is high," those participating in the released and blood flow is game also engaged in other highrestored in a fashion, they see risk activities, such as drug and stars and the feeling is described alcohol use. "The thing that haunts me is that as a rush," he said. According to a study Hedberg's DEADLY page 71 colleagues published today in the
Politics-Right/ Technology/
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WHY
every parent that I've taken care of their child that has done this did say to me, 'If I just knew. I mean, I saw hickeys or red marks on my child's neck. I saw scarfs tied around the bedpost or the closet rod being bowed,' " Bass said. "And, 'If I would have just known what that meant, I could have talked to my child and gotten them some help.' " In hindsight, Galloway remembers telltale signs about Connor. Since he died, she has gotten involved with a group of other parents who lost children to the game, hoping her story will at
least help prevent more deaths. Galloway and her husband are both teachers. Even so, she said, "Neither one of us had never, ever heard about it before." 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.
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.
Subsidiarity: An Important Principle in Federal Budget Debates

Ryan Messmore (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:00:16 PM
How should ones faith shape his or her engagement in the policy arena? Political Correspondent David SUBSIDIARITY: page 72
Dreamworks Animation joins Walmart's disc to digital program

Daniel Cooper (Engadget)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:59:00 PM
Arab Winter Watch: Uproar in Morroco Over Underage Marriages

(The Feed)
virginity, by a traditional Muslim family eager to salvage its honor. And that was before she Via Washington Post: swallowed rat poison to commit Amina el-Filali, a moon-faced suicide rather than endure what Moroccan peasant girl, seemed she told her mother was an destined for an obscure life in this unbearable marriage. Since dreary little farming village 50 Amina took her life shortly before miles south of Tangiers. But that lunch March 10, she has become a was before she was lured into national cause, an icon for sexual relations at age 15 by a 23- womens groups, human rights year-old unemployed laborer who o r g a n i z a t i o n s , p r o g r e s s i v e took her into a shed next to the p o l i t i c i a n s a n d m i l l i o n s o f eucalyptus grove behind her -Western-oriented Moroccans house. That was before she was who have demanded changing a ushered into an early wedding, law that permits marriage at such with the man who took her a young age. The law under attack
Submitted at 4/16/2012 5:46:53 AM
is based on Islamic jurisprudence and tradition. As a result, the demands for change present a particularly unwelcome challenge
DreamWorks Animation has signed up with Walmart's VUDUpowered disc to digital service. From today, you can take any of the studio's movies (such as Shrek or Kung-Fu Panda) and have them converted to standard quality video for $2 or a HD version for $5. There's no word on if t o M o r o c c o s n e w I s l a m i s t DreamWorks proper would sign government, which was elected in up, but given the complex nature November on a promise to make of its ownership, we won't hold Morocco more Islamic not our breath. Continue reading Dreamworks less. . . Animation joins Walmart's disc to Now, this is something to watch a little bit of warming during digital program t h i s A r a b W i n t e r . . Dreamworks Animation joins Walmart's disc to digital program . Greg Pollowitz This entry passed through the originally appeared on Engadget Full-Text RSS service if this is on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:59:00 your content and you're reading it EDT. Please see our terms for use on someone else's site, please read of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- Comments only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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SUBSIDIARITY:
Brody recently asked that question of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (RWI) concerning the Republican budget plan. In a taped interview for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), Ryan, a Roman Catholic, identified care for the poor as a fundamental tenet in the social teachings of his Church. For Ryan, that teaching means: Dont keep people poor, dont make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life. Help people get out of poverty. Ryan believes his federal budget plan helps accomplish that goal. In a letter last year to thenArchbishop (now Cardinal) Timothy Dolan of New York, Ryan stated that his proposed budget better targets assistance to those in need, repairs the social safety net, and fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans. Furthermore, if the U.S. government continues to drive up the deficit through reckless spending, Ryan wrote that the weakest will be hit three times over: by rising costs, by drastic cuts to programs they rely on, and by the collapse of
individual support for charities that help the hungry, the homeless, the sick, refugees and others in need. In the CBN interview that aired last week, Ryan highlighted an additional principle of Catholic social teaching that informs his engagement in public policy: the principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity holds that decisions are best made at the most local level available. As Ryan noted, when applied to political authority, this means federalism. Subsidiarity also holds that larger, more powerful institutions should refrain from undermining the freedom and integrity of smaller, less powerful ones. This is the aspect of the principle that Ryan picked up on most pointedly: [Subsidiarity means] not having big government crowd out civic society, buthaving enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities. This principle arises out of a larger vision of social flourishing, one in which the common good is advanced through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities,
through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community. Ryan has been attacked by those who hold a different view of governments relationship to social well-being. His critics, including President Obama, seem to prefer that Washington, D.C., play a more direct and comprehensive role in pursuing the common good, even at the expense of civil society organizations that are often better equipped to serve people in need. Some have tried to make the budget debate a conflict between those who do or do not care about the poor. But at its heart, this debate is about two contrasting visions of governments proper rolein relation to prosperity, the common good, and to other institutions in society. Ryan has reminded Americans in generaland people of faith in particularof a principle that deserves more attention in budget discussions. The morality of a budget cannot be evaluated solely in terms of government welfare spending; it must also consider effects to the long-term wellbeing of the poor, the financial viability of the nation, and the
freedom of other social institutions. These criteria inform The Heritage Foundations own proposal for addressing the debt crises, called Saving the American Dream. A federal budget that continues to promote the same unsatisfactory programs and accumulate unsustainable debtwhile crowding out smaller institutions of societyis neither moral nor helpful to the poor. Subsidiary and federalism are important principles that can help drive Americas budget debate in a better direction. 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.
Politics-Right/ News Photos
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Obama Administration Discontinues Transparency Tool

Patrick Tyrrell (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
termination of the program results in the elimination of the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR), including the Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:00:25 AM Since 1993, the Census Bureau publication, downloadable data, has made available detailed data and the On-Line Query System, as a b o u t f e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t well as the annual Federal Aid to expenditures in its Consolidated S t a t e s R e p o r t ( F A S ) . I n Federal Funds Report (CFFR). preparation for the Fiscal Year The 2012 report will be the last 2012 budget, the Census Bureau one. did a comprehensive review of a Through the CFFR website, the number of programs and made the public had access to such data as difficult decision to terminate and federal expenditures made at the reduce a number of existing county level for programs such as programs in order to secure Medicaid, Social Security, and funding for new programs or Medicare as well as for more cyclical increases for other o b s c u r e f e d e r a l s p e n d i n g programs. programs. How much did the Did someone tell the Census federal government send to Bureau that it must end the CFFR Autauga County in Alabama for a in order to expand other, less hazardous materials training transparent data collection? The program? That data was available, Obama Administrations 2012 but now it is concealed. budget appendix includes a The CFFR states: request to expand the Census The U.S. Census Bureau has Bureaus research and production terminated the Federal Financial capabilities in some areas and a Statistics program effective for request to reduce them in others. t h e F Y 2 0 1 2 b u d g e t . T h e It does not name exactly what is
to be terminated but only what is to be expanded. Under the table cuts are not transparent. The old CFFR website refers people to USASpending.gov, with the caveat that not all of the data is available there. For the past two weeks, none of the data was available there. I spoke with the chief of the Federal Programs Branch at the Census Bureau, who pointed me to the archives section of USASpending.gov there. When we click on any of the files that are supposed to contain federal contracts however, we continually got page not found messages. Researchers who want to continue to use data they have had access to since 1993 are out of luck. On Friday, April 13, the data mysteriously returned to the page and is now located there, but the availability of the data remains spottyone day in the last two weeks. With the Obama Administration
outspending all prior Administrations while adding to the astronomical federal debt, the fact that taxpayers can no longer rely on access to where and how their money is being spent at the county and city level is disquieting. So far, Administration officials have been able to brush the lack of transparency under the rug. For the good of the country, that needs to change. Citizens should demand to know what is happening to their tax dollars once they are sucked up by the federal governments vacuum cleaner. 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.
Russias Gunboat Diplomacy: Russian Warships to Patrol Syrias Coast?

Ariel Cohen (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:00:13 PM
he Admiral Panteleyev, an antisubmarine ship of the Russian Navy, is docked for a goodwill visit at the South Harbor of Manila, Philippines, in February 2012. On April 13, the Russian RIA Novosti news agency quoted a high-ranking source in the Russian defense ministry as saying, A decision was made to RUSSIAS page 74
PHOTOS: Pippa Middleton - 9NEWS.com

Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:16:37 PM
9NEWS.com PHOTOS: Pippa Middleton 9NEWS.com
AFP PHOTO/ CARL DE SOUZA ( Photo credit should read CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/ Getty Images) Maid of honour Philippa Middleton smiles as she travels in a Semi-State Landau in
London after the wedding service for Britain's Prince William and Kate,... Photos: Pippa Middleton Could Face Gun Charges Opposing Views
Pippa Middleton Gun Photos Scandal Erupts in Paris Following Sun Paparazzi Claims LALATE Kate Middleton's Sister Pippa Middleton Faces Arrest In Paris Over Gun... Celebrity Dirty
Laundry CTV.ca- Socialite LifeHollywood.com all 203 news articles
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deploy Russian warships near the Syrian shores on a permanent basis. The source announced that Russias naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean had nothing to do with Syria. Russias naval maneuvering has everything to do with geopolitics. This news comes at a troubling time, as a fragile ceasefire holds in Syria. Russia, which acts as Syrias political sugar daddy and weapons supplier, has continually vetoed attempted U.N. condemnations of the Bashar alAssad regimes bloody clampdown on the opposition. There is practically nothing the Russian warships can do to save Assad. However, the continued naval presence sends a strong signal of a new geopolitical assertiveness and support for a regime that has lost all legitimacy on the international stage. This gunboat diplomacy is sure to aggravate the odd coalition of the U.S., the Europeans, the Gulf monarchies (including the powerful Saudi Arabia), and the Islamist forces (such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists) that are opposing the Assad regime. Perversely, Russias support for the Assad
regime will further radicalize the Sunni Muslims in Russia, from the Northern Caucasus to Tatarstan, including radical Muslim communities called jamaats in the Russian cities. Together with Beijing, Russia has repeatedly torpedoed sanctions aimed at Damascus. Russia continues to arm Syria not just against its neighbors but also against a possible escalation in fighting. Since the Assad regime is broke, it appears that its friends in Tehran are picking up the tab. With President-elect Vladimir Putin about to take power in May, Russia is clearly ignoring the reset policy pushed forward by the Obama Administration and the outgoing president, Dmitry Medvedev. As Stephen Blank of the U.S. Army War College and I wrote in our Issue BriefReset Regret: Russian Global Strategy Undermines American Interests last year: Russia defends Bashar al-Assads murderous regime despite its bloody repression of its own citizens. This is, among other reasons, because Russia has signed an agreement with Syria to return Soviet naval bases in Latakiye and Tartus to Russian
control. Therefore, Russia obstructs U.N. resolutions of censure against Syria. Despite the reset, it is in U.S. interests to find out to what degree Moscow orchestrates or participates in joint activities among these problematic states, including arms sales from Iran and Syria to Hamas and Hezbollah. U.S. policymakers should reassess the reset and develop regional strategies that counter Russias (and Chinas) agendas. Such policies should increase pressure on Iran, the most antiAmerican regional power, and [its satellite] the Assad regime in Syria. 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.
Starz Content Coming to DirecTV Everywhere

Christina Warren (Mashable!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:16:21 PM
DirecTV is adding Starz content to its upcoming TV Everywhere service. The two companies announced an extension to their distribution agreement Monday, one that will provide DirectTV subscribers access to Starz Online and Encore Online content. DirecTV is planning on launching its own DirecTV Everywhere service later this year. As with TV Everywhere initiatives from Comcast, Cablevision and Dish Network, DirecTV Everywhere will give DirecTV subscribers the ability to access programming from the web and mobile devices. As FierceCable notes, Starz is the first programmer that has been identified as one of the suppliers for DirecTV Everywhere. DirecTV Everywhere is still in beta. The Starz partnership is notable, if only because it showcases the shifting strategies that content owners are taking when it comes to licensing content. Until February, Starz content was available to Netflix subscribers. In September, Starz announced that it would not renew its Netflix
pact. Instead, Starz has decided to sign licensing agreements for Dish Networkss Blockbuster Movie Pass service. The battle between subscription streaming and TV Everywhere has continued to play out over the last nine months, driven in part by the success of initiatives such as HBO Go. As a result, Netflix, Hulu and other online streaming services are investing more in original content. DirecTV Everywhere is expected to launch later this summer. More About: directv, directv everywhere, starz, tv everywhere For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Entertainment channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
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Google Covers its NYC Building With Local Artwork

Samantha Murphy (Mashable!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:52:53 PM
TNT Ad Becomes the Second MostShared of All Time

Todd Wasserman (Mashable!)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:05:25 PM
Googles office building in New York City is undergoing routine inspection, but the company couldnt let just any old scaffolding cover part of its faade. The search giant has dressed up the scaffolding outside its building with artwork that tells the story of the neighborhoods history. The building, located in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood, was purchased in December 2010 for a reported $1.9 billion. The search engine giant reached out to local New York artist Dark Igloo to design the artwork which expands an entire city block. It depicts history from nearby hotels and the rise of the meat packing industry to a drawing of the areas first-ever British resident Major
Thomas Clarke. SEE ALSO: Google Buying a Massive Building in Manhattan for $1.9 Billion We saw this as an opportunity to get creative and give something back to the community, a Google spokesperson said. Google also launched a website called Chelsea Illustrated that allows users to find our more information about the artwork and neighborhood. This isnt the first time Dark Igloo has been commissioned to design art for a big organization. They are currently working with the Bonnaroo music festival in
Manchester, Tenn. to create all of the art for the event. Googles 2.9-million-square-foot building is located at 111 Eighth Avenue, between 15th and 16th streets. It was once the home of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and previously served as a 550,000-square-foot office for Google. It also was the work space for data center operations for companies such as Telx. For more Dev & Design coverage: Follow Mashable Dev & Design on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Dev & Design channel Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
for The Force. An ad for the launch of the cable The TNT ad, featured above, channel TNT promoting the takes place in a little town in drama of its programming had a Belgium in a square where nothing really happens. TNTs pretty dramatic debut. TNTs ad has become the second ad agency, Duval Guillame most-shared of all time, according Modem, placed a large red button to Unruly, a video research firm. there and invited passers-by to The ad, which was released on Push to Add Drama. Doing so led to a flurry of April 11, has been shared 3 million times. Only The Force, activity including a clumsy EMS the 2011 Super Bowl ad from u n i t d r o p p i n g a m a n o n a Volkswagen, has been shared stretcher, a bicycle accident, a fistfight and the appearance of a more. David Waterhouse, head of woman on a motorcycle clad in content for Unruly, says the TNT lingerie. The ad, which appeared ad called A Dramatic Surprise on YouTube on April 11, is now on a Quiet Street may well up to 21.5 million views. More About: Advertising, surpass The Force soon since one in seven people who saw Marketing, social tv, unruly, viral Surprise shared it vs. one in 12 videos
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Daily World/
Evening Standard - News

(Evening Standard - News)
Olivier Award http:// www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/ Evening Standard - News Theatre delighted-fabrice-muamba-leavesstar Ruth Wilson thanks her hospital-and-goes-home-just-aharem of hunky men Delighted month-after-nearfatal-heart-attack Fabrice Muamba leaves hospital -7647982.html and goes home just a month after Bolton Wanderers footballer near-fatal heart attack British Fabrice Muamba was today terror supergrass sentence cut by discharged from hospital, almost a two years Boris Johnson's sister: month to the day after he suffered It's my fault son was mugged a cardiac arrest during a game. Black trainee forced out of City Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:06:18 BST police UN observers start talks in http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ bid to save Syria ceasefire Barack n e w s / u k / d e l i g h t e d - f a b r i c e Obama speaks out over US spy muamba-leaves-hospital-and-goes romp with Colombia prostitutes - h o m e - j u s t - a - m o n t h - a f t e r http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ n e a r f a t a l - h e a r t - a t t a c k news/rss/ Home Page RSS 7 6 4 7 9 8 2 . h t m l 2 0 1 2 - 0 4 Description h t t p : / / 16T16:06:18Z Picture of Fabrice www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ Muamba leaving London hospital celebritynews/theatre-star-ruth- posted on Twitter by Bolton wilson-thanks-her-harem-of- W a n d e r e r s F C h t t p : / / hunky-men-7647981.html www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/ Actress Ruth Wilson paid tribute british-terror-supergrass-sentenceto hunky co-star Jude Law as cut-by-two-years-7647957.html she picked up her second Olivier A jailed British terrorist has had Award. Mon, 16 Apr 2012 his sentence cut by two years in a 1 6 : 3 6 : 0 5 B S T h t t p : / / supergrass deal after giving www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ evidence about an al Qaeda-linked celebritynews/theatre-star-ruth- martyrdom plot in New York, it wilson-thanks-her-harem-of- was revealed today. Mon, 16 Apr hunky-men-7647981.html 2012- 2 0 1 2 1 5 : 5 5 : 0 8 B S T h t t p : / / 04-16T16:36:05Z 'Best Actress': www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/uk/ Ruth Wilson won a second british-terror-supergrass-sentence-
cut-by-two-years-7647957.html Martin Bentham 2012-0416T15:55:08Z http:// www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ crime/boris-johnsons-sister-its-my -fault-son-was-mugged7647932.html Boris Johnson's sister has revealed that her son has been mugged three times in London but blamed herself for giving him an expensive mobile phone. Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:21:56 BST http:// www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ crime/boris-johnsons-sister-its-my -fault-son-was-mugged7647932.html Simon Freeman 2012-04-16T15:21:56Z Parents to blame: Rachel Johnson said expensive phones made children t a r g e t s h t t p : / / www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ london/black-trainee-forced-outof-city-police-7647847.html A trainee was forced out of the City of London police after claiming he was a marked man and had been accused of cowardice because he was black, an employment tribunal heard today. Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:45:05 BST http:// www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ london/black-trainee-forced-out-
of-city-police-7647847.html 2012 -04-16T14:45:05Z http:// www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/ world/un-observers-start-talks-inbid-to-save-syria-ceasefire7647825.html UN observers met Syrian officials today to thrash out rules for monitoring the countrys fiveday-old ceasefire, which appeared to be unravelling as regime forces pounded the opposition stronghold of Homs with shells. Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:34:25 BST http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ news/world/un-observers-starttalks-in-bid-to-save-syriaceasefire-7647825.html Zeina Karam 2012-04-16T14:34:25Z http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ news/world/barack-obama-speaks -out-over-u 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.
Ephesians 4:16 (0416-12)

(Verse of the Day)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:00:00 AM
From him [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:16(NIV) Thoughts on Today's Verse... Ephesians and Colossians emphasize that no human being, or even group of human beings, is head of the Church. Jesus is head of the Church. He sets our direction. He is our example. He is our goal for ministry. In addition, Jesus also arranges us in his Body as he chooses, gives us gifts to use to bless each other and God, and holds us together so that we can effectively serve as his presence in the world. So let's set our hearts on Jesus. Let's use his life and love to inspire us and show us how to serve. Let's give him our allegiance and loyalty. He alone is head of his Body, the Church. Let's let him lead! My Prayer... Righteous Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his example, service, obedience, love, and sacrifice. Thank you for his resurrection, exaltation, power, and presence today in your Church and in my life. Father, EPHESIANS page 77
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EPHESIANS
please use me, and my brothers and sisters in Christ with me, to do his work in our world and share your grace with all who are lost. In the name of the Lord Jesus I pray. Amen.
The Ed Morrissey Show: Kevin McCullough

Ed Morrissey (Hot Air Top Picks)
for a year. Marizelas case has a connection here at Hot Air, as she is the Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:36:44 PM cousin of the Boss Emeritus, posted at 1:36 pm on April 16, Michelle Malkin. Michelle is TAKING continued from page 77 2012 by Ed Morrissey trying to spread the word through eager to hear how candidates Today, on the Ed Morrissey Facebook and Q13Fox/KCPQ in would address so relevant and S h o w ( 3 p m E T ) , K e v i n Seattle. We want to encourage fraught a subject. When it wasn't McCullough joins us again to prayers for Marizelas family, and raised by the moderators, he got discuss the intersection of faith also try to reach anyone in the increasingly annoyed, crankily and politics. Kevin and I will talk area who knows where Marizela complained to his wife, and about the continuing fight over might be and ask them to contact ultimately followed her advice: Obamas HHS mandate with the the police. that he should pose the questions Catholic bishops, the Republican The search has its own website he wanted answered himself, nomination and the move to get now, Find Marizela, for the latest because if he didn't take the behind Romney, and much much in the efforts to bring Marizela home. There is also a fund for the initiative no one else would. "So I more. crafted a survey and sent it out to Well also talk about The Binge family to keep the search efforts the top six candidates of each Thinker, Kevin and Stephens going. Be sure to check there and party. The Boston Globe has a exploding success in independent at Michelles site for further window of influence ahead of the talk radio, as well as Kevins new developments, and keep the New Hampshire primary, so the book, No He Cant: How Barack family in your prayers. campaigns took it seriously," he Obama Is Dismantling Hope and Americas Most Wanted is now said. "Some of the candidates Change, being released this week! on the case, too. were eager to participate, while Dont forget about Kevins Michelle has a new update on the others did so only reluctantly and previous book, The Kind of Man case on the one-year anniversary: after much wheedling on my part. Every Man Should Be: Taking a Exactly one year ago today, my Eventually I got to a pretty Stand for True Masculinity, 18-year-old cousin Marizela either. (known affectionately to her comprehensive response." The result was one of the most The Ed Morrissey Show and its family and friends as Emem or useful bits of reporting during the dynamic chatroom can be seen on Mei) Perez disappeared from 2008 election cycle. Taken the permanent TEMS page be the University of Washington together, the survey's twelve sure to join us, and dont forget to campus in Seattle. questions tried to tease out each keep up with the debate on my She is still missing. Those words form on the candidate's notion of what he or Facebook page, too! she'd be able to do unilaterally as Marizela Perez has been missing c o m p u t e r s c r e e n w i t h president, the other branches of TAKING page 78
disembodied disbelief. But my heart is screaming: SHE IS STILL MISSING. WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY?!!!!! The not-knowing is every parents worst nightmare. It brought normal life to a standstill for Marizelas parents, Edgar and Jasmin. And yet, they have to keep living and working and praying for their only daughter. Because that is what they must do. Their strength and dignity through all the suffering has been an inspiration to me. There have been no new developments in Emems case. No word from the police or the medical examiners office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts. And no response from the Google legal department to our request for help in January. Keep the prayers coming. 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.
Taking After Cheney: Obama and Romney on Executive Power

Conor Friedersdorf (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 9:31:08 AM
Both men have embraced the post -9/11 paradigm -- which makes pointed questions on the subject more vital than ever. Reuters Charlie Savage's 2007 book Takeover details how Dick Cheney, a decades-long proponent of a powerful presidency, had all but achieved his goal by the end of the Bush presidency: using his influence in the administration, he helped to set precedents that would expand executive power regardless of which party occupied the White House. Takeover concludes with the prediction that President Bush's successor would determine if this radical new approach would be a post-9/11 aberration or a permanent change in the executive branch. Given his notion of the stakes, little wonder that Savage proceeded to watch the early debates in the 2008 election cycle TAKING page 77
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TAKING
government be damned. It's hard to imagine anything more vital to know about someone seeking to be the country's most powerful individual. Four years later, it's useful to return to the answers submitted by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama- along with the 2011 iteration of the project published at Savage's current home, The New York Times-- for they remain among the most direct statements the candidates have made on this subject, and are likely to figure into the presidential race between them, perhaps in significant ways. The most consequential answers are the ones they gave in reply to this still relevant question: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-offorce authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?) For Barack Obama circa 2007, bombing Iran required Congressional approval. He gave himself little wiggle room: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of selfdefense, the President would be
within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action. As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that "any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress." Whereas Mitt Romney implied, but did not state outright, that it would be okay for the president to act unilaterally: A President must always act in the best interests of the United States to protect us against a potential threat, including a nuclear Iran. Naturally, it is always preferable to seek agreement of all -- leadership of our government as well as our friends around the world -- where those circumstances are available. And in 2011, responding to a similar question, Romney wrote: Ever since the administration of Thomas Jefferson, U.S. presidents have relied on their inherent constitutional powers to authorize the use of military force even in the absence of an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland. If that's all there was to the two men's positions, Obama could try to paint Romney as a dangerously bellicose George W. Bush retread
who supported the ill-conceived Iraq War and might needlessly take us into Iran, even if the Congress and the people decide it's imprudent. Romney would likely retort that the president has a duty to act unilaterally to protect the safety of Americans, something he'd do better than Obama. The debate may yet play out that way. But there are complications. Obama has shown himself willing to violate his promises on executive power, going so far as to take America to war in Libya without congressional approval. He's also inoculated himself against the charge that he won't act unilaterally to keep Americans safe: ordering the Bin Laden raid is a trump card he can play should the accusation arise. Finally, there is evidence that the United States is already covertly acting against Iran. And although it is classified the Obama Administration is prone to unlawful leaks when it finds it can get out politically useful information. Regardless of how the campaign plays out, voters will be choosing in November between a Democrat and a Republican neither one of which would be likely to let Congress get in the way of launching a war they wanted to wage, regardless of what either one of them says on the subject. Another part of the 2007 survey with potential to play a role in the campaign are the following questions: "If Congress defines a specific
interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president's authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?"
Romney's 2007 answers were very different. Rather than commit to the Army Field Manual, he stated that the president should keep secret both the sorts of interrogation techniques to be used and its opinion of whether Congress may validly limit them. As for human rights treaties, Romney stated that "Under what circumstances, if "The President must carry out all any, is the president, when o f h i s d u t i e s i n a m a n n e r operating overseas as commander consistent with the rule of law, -in-chief, free to disregard whether it is our Constitution or international human rights treaties valid international agreements, so that the US Senate has ratified?" long as they do not impinge upon the President's constitutional Said Obama, "No. The President authority." That's a murky caveat is not above the law, and the t h a t r e n d e r s a l l b e f o r e i t Commander-in-Chief power does meaningless depending on one's not entitle him to use techniques n o t i o n o f t h e p r e s i d e n t ' s that Congress has specifically c o n s t i t u t i o n a l a u t h o r i t y . banned as torture. We must send a Romney went farther in 2011: m e s s a g e t o t h e w o r l d t h a t I strongly oppose and will not America is a nation of laws, and a tolerate the use of torture. I nation that stands against torture. support the use of appropriate and As President I will abide by necessary interrogation techniques statutory prohibitions, and have to obtain information from highthe Army Field Manual govern value terrorists who possess interrogation techniques for all knowledge critical to our national U n i t e d S t a t e s G o v e r n m e n t defense. I do not believe it is wise personnel and contractors." And for our country to reveal all of the he did in fact end the torture that precise interrogation methods we the Bush Administration illegally may authorize for use against perpetrated. captured terrorists, and I strongly Obama also stated, "It is illegal condemn the actions taken by and unwise for the President to President Obama to do so. disregard international human On this subject, Romney and rights treaties that have been Obama now appear to at least ratified by the United States agree that torture is wrong. But Senate, including and especially this is misleading, because the Geneva Conventions. The Romney doesn't regard the Bush Commander-in-Chief power does Administration as having tortured not allow the President to defy TAKING page 80 those treaties."
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Video: Catholic bishops not backing down from HHS mandate fight
Ed Morrissey (Hot Air Top Picks)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:21:07 PM
Rupert Murdoch: If you dont like my newspapers, go read a crappy blog instead
Tina Korbe (Hot Air Top Picks)
posted at 1:21 pm on April 16, 2012 by Ed Morrissey A web video launched five weeks ago caught the attention of Fox News yesterday, putting a focus back on the fight between the Obama administration and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, among others, over the HHS mandate on contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients. The ad does not come from the USCCB but from an organization of lay Catholics called Catholics Called to Witness, and uses dramatic production values to underscore a message that while policies on jobs and the economy are negotiable, religious freedom and life are not. The video already has nearly 300,000 views, and Fr. Jonathan Morris reports that the bishops and the laity remain highly engaged and motivated in making the HHS mandate a big issue in the general election and not just the mandate, in terms of religious liberty:
from newspapers light on original reporting and heavy on wire copy and commentary. Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:56:45 PM A quick scan of Murdochs posted at 1:56 pm on April 16, Twitter feed reveals another Watch the latest video at plan on talking about this from 2012 by Tina Korbe possible reason for his video.foxnews.com now until the election, and about Rupert Murdoch has been and disgruntlement with forms of Im genuinely bemused by the at the same pitch as the CC2W ad. remains a man to watch. No, rapid-response communications: Obama administrations decision In 2008, Obama won the Catholic hes not a particularly savory Hes not particularly effective on this issue. The USCCB had vote by nine points on his way to character he introduced those himself at communicating in short been an ally in the ObamaCare a seven-point margin of victory in infamous Page 2 girls! but hes bursts. Its as though he fears hes effort, thanks to a rather generous the national popular vote. He a consummate businessman who about to run out of characters at and utterly mistaken assessment cant afford to lose that edge, and inherited a single newspaper and any moment and so prematurely by the bishops of what the White yet he and Kathleen Sebelius are created an empire just by giving shortens his thoughts. The tweet House would do with the power it so far refusing to take a simple customers what they want. in which he indicts crappy granted them. The Catholic and politically painless step to Maybe hes a little bitter that so blogs is one of his more Church has backed the idea of sideline the issue. Amazing. many weblogs picked up on his c o h e r e n t . universal health care in the US for Heres the original spot, which c o n s u m e r - d r i v e n m o d e l o f Yet, for all that I couldnt help almost a century. The White runs pretty long for this kind of journalism or maybe he at last has but take his tweet personally House could defuse this issue in multimedia argument at over three developed some standards of his (HotAir.com is a blog, after all), I a n i n s t a n t w i t h a m o d e s t minutes. Obviously, CC2W spent own that dont allow for the also couldnt help but agree with e x p a n s i o n o f t h e r e l i g i o u s some significant money on this sacrifice of perfect accuracy for him. No media consumer in this exemption to include church- ad. Obama supporters can claim the sake of a very-nearly-realtime day and age has any legitimate operated businesses such as that this means its an Astroturf publication schedule. Whatever reason to complain about a source hospitals, adoption agencies, effort, but the question is why the reason, Rupert Murdoch is of information. The potential clinics, and charities. It would anyone would bother spending apparently not a fan of the sources are so vast and so mean a difference of at best half a that kind of cash and effort on this blogosphere. numerous that complaints are just million people, and it would get issue if it didnt resonate with Twitchy.com flagged a recent a waste of time. Better for the the bishops off their back and Catholic voters. tweet by the media mogul. consumer to spend that energy back on their side for health- This entry passed through the T w e e t e r s w h o d o n t l i k e finding a source he or she does insurance reform. Instead, they Full-Text RSS service if this is particular newspapers dont have like. have stubbornly stuck to their your content and you're reading it to buy them, Murdoch tweeted. This entry passed through the position that HHS can dictate the on someone else's site, please read Thousands of crappy blogs Full-Text RSS service if this is limits of expression of religious the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- available. your content and you're reading it practice, and alienated a key ally only/faq.php#publishers. Five Among the several responses he on someone else's site, please read w i t h t e n s o f m i l l i o n s o f Filters recommends: Donate to received to that tweet was at least the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentparishioners. Wikileaks. one comment that pointed out the only/faq.php#publishers. Five As Fr. Morris says, the bishops obvious: Blogs have, for better or Filters recommends: Donate to worse, stolen plenty of business Wikileaks. from newspapers, particularly
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anyone. In effect, Obama is committed to never waterboarding a prisoner. As yet, Romney is not. There is an interesting if perverse way that the campaign debate on this subject could play out. Romney could accurately point out that President Obama, who has insisted that torture did happen, is obligated by duly ratified treaty to investigate and prosecute torture if he thinks it occurred. That Obama hasn't done so is inconsistent with his avowed positions on treaties, international law, and presidential obligations. And the possibility of that accurate line of attack is perhaps going to prevent Obama from launching his own attacks on Romney for his position on torture. Politics aside, who is better on the full range of executive power issues? The short answer is that anyone for whom Madisonian
limits on presidential power is the biggest issue should think about voting for a third party candidate. Obama's actions and Romney's rhetoric are both atrocious -- for example, both believe the president can order the extrajudicial assassination of an American citizen so long as he or she is first declared an enemy combatant by the executive branch -- and what they'd do in office between 2012 and 2016 is largely unpredictable because neither is willing to bind himself in fact to any meaningful constraints. There is nevertheless value in limiting the range of actions they can order without betraying their previous statements. That means that, between the two of them, the 2012 campaign may itself help shape the respective constraints they'd face if elected -- if the press cares enough to raise these issues.
More likely than not, neither Obama nor Romney will themselves make it an issue, nor will their surrogates, nor the Democratic or Republican parties. It's all on the media. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/04/takingafter-cheney-obama-and-romneyon-executive-power/255919/ 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.
Reed Hastings takes Comcast to task for skirting net neutrality

Terrence O'Brien (Engadget)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 2:22:00 PM
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings let loose a mini rant on Facebook Sunday, setting his sites squarely on Comcast and its data accounting practices. Highlighting one of the arguments for net neutrality, Hastings pointed out that viewing streaming videos using the Comcast Xfinity app on his Xbox doesn't count against his monthly cap, but other services do. "If I watch last night's SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it doesn't use up my cap at all." It's slightly odd that different rules would apply to the same device using the same connection to stream the same content from different sources -and exactly the sort of preferential and self-promoting behavior that net neutrality advocates are afraid will become the norm in an unregulated market. Of course, Hastings is also irate because his own company would love the
same preferential treatment, but hasn't been able to close any deals. For the full rant hit up the source link. Reed Hastings takes Comcast to task for skirting net neutrality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink paidContent| Reed Hastings (Facebook)| Email this| Comments
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81
Hillary Clinton Loses the Scrunchie in Colombia

David A. Graham (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 11:16:16 AM
The secretary of state lets her hair down in Cartagena -- leading to the inevitable Drunk Texts from Hillary meme. Getty Images Hillary Clinton is seriously having a moment. Her approval ratings are sky-high. Her name is constantly floated as a vice presidential or presidential candidate. She was the subject of one of the year's best memes, then showed how cool she is by actually taking part in it. And now, here are some photos of
Madam Secretary letting her hair down and grooving on the dance floor. Clinton was in Cartagena with the president for the Summit of the Americas, and after several long days of diplomacy, she found time for dancing and drinks at a bar called (siren!) Cafe Havana. Here, have another: The photos, awesome as they are, have already attracted scrutiny -mostly in the form of self-parodic media coverage. Exhibit A is the New York Post, which went with the characteristically classy"SWILLARY" on the wood. Meanwhile, Politico miraculously found a way to turn
this into horserace coverage: "Clinton letting her hair down is the kind of thing that would play well in that presidential run in 2016 that some of her supporters
have suddenly started talking about in the last few weeks." Do they all have a keyboard shortcut for hollow 2016 speculation? Inexplicably, however, we
haven't seen Drunk Texts from Hillary anywhere. Come on, Internet! Make your own versions here and send us your best. Please use a JavaScript-enabled device to view this slideshow This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/04/hillaryclinton-loses-the-scrunchie-incolombia/255950/ 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.
Romney Reportedly Selling Access to 'Presidential Inauguration Retreat'

Matt Vasilogambros (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 10:28:21 AM
For $50,000, donors get special treatment -- assuming the presumptive GOP nominee wins the general election. Reuters MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL Romney Aide Beth Myers to
Lead Vice Presidential Search Gingrich's Billionaire Backer Turns Sights to House Politics No Longer Stops at the Water's Edge For $50,000, Mitt Romney is offering top donors access to a "Presidential Inaugural Retreat," just one of the perks that come with contributions to a fundraising committee called "Romney
Victory," BuzzFeed reports. According to an email obtained from a top Romney supporter in Georgia, big campaign donors can gain valuable access to the former Massachusetts governor, including one perk -- the inaugural retreat -- that assumes Romney wins the White House. The donors, according to ROMNEY page 82
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REDRAY
BuzzFeed, will be named "Founding Members" of the committee, and invited to several events with Romney. Many presidents have offered top donors access to special events at inaugurations, political conventions, and at the White House in the past, including President Obama. However, this treatment is often met by scrutiny and criticism from rivals, including the Romney campaign. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/04/romney-
reportedly-selling-access-topresidential-inauguration-retreat/ 255947/ 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.
which was shot with the RED Epic, images looked fantastic with accurate color and excellent dynamic range, allowing us to see every detail in a contrasty dark scene, where we were able to make out a very dimly lit female actress. The projection was incredibly sharp on the 24-inch screen, despite the film being displayed with 2K for each eye, rather than the maximum 4K. There will be two versions of the REDray projector, including a home theater flavor that supports screens up to 15 feet in size that'll
ring in at under $10,000, and a professional model with support for larger venues. RED CEO Jim Jannard confirmed that the homebound version will ship sometime this year, though he was unable to provide a more precise ship date. We weren't permitted to record video during the screening -which is for the best, considering that there's really no way to do this thing justice -- but you can still flip through the gallery below for an early look at REDray. Gallery: REDray 4K cinema laser projector eyes-on
REDray 4K cinema laser projector and player eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments
REDRAY page 83
REDray 4K cinema laser projector and player eyes-on

Zach Honig (Engadget)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 1:39:00 PM
There's no better way to control the visual experience from shoot to show than to create the camera and the projector. That's likely the thinking behind the REDray, the 4K laser cinema projector making an appearance at the company's NAB booth today. The device supports 2D and passive 3D (up to 120fps in 3D mode), with 4K projection for each eye and has a rated laser life of over 25,000 hours. While the device itself is likely to be hidden behind glass in an elevated projector room, the REDray has the same industrial look and feel of its Scarlet and Epic capturing counterparts, with
a solid matte metal construction, t h e l a s e r p h a s e a d j u s t m e n t There's also a T1.8 50mm lens heavy duty bolts and dedicated o s c i l l a t o r a n d t h e a n g u l a r mounted up front, sufficiently access panels for the lens filter, refraction aberration indexer. c o m p l e t i n g t h e b e a u t i f u l l y
monstrous package. Also on display was the tablet-controlled REDray Player, which includes four HDMI 1.4 video outputs with 7.1-channel audio output, the ability to move 4K video to the internal hard drive and an SD reader for ingesting content. You'll also find dual gigabit Ethernet ports, along with USB and eSATA connectors. The projector experience is much less about the hardware than it is the projections themselves, which certainly did a justice here -especially considering the imaging device's middevelopment status. During a screening of the 3D short Loom, REDRAY page 82
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Klout Gets Romantic! Tawkify.com Is Using Klout Scores to Find You an Intriguing Match!
E. Jean Carroll (The Official Klout Blog)
Submitted at 4/16/2012 12:35:45 PM
Tweet What if there were a magic number which could predict who youll fall in love with? What if there were a number which could forecast who you will not find appealing? What if that number is right in front of everyones eyes-and nobody realizes it reveals the mystery of attraction? We think weve found the magic number. Its your Klout Score. Were Tawkify-the first matchmaking company to use Klout Scores as a measurement of allure and as a prediction of falling in love. In a series of blind experiments (the thirty couples we matched were not told we were using their
Klout Scores), weve found that Klout Scores will predict the brilliance or dullness of matchand how quickly people will click. Amorous fireworks caused by throwing two people together with similar Klout Scores cant be predicted with perfect accuracy, of course, and a Klout Score will never replace our match-making instincts-and sometimes, yes, a lawyer with the Klout Score of 50 will get on the phone with a beautiful graphic designer and speak for seven straight stupid minutes about himself and the beautiful graphic designer will call us afterward and shout Never match me with a moron like that again! But weve found that Klout Scores are an authentic measurement of sophistication, wit, cultural savvy, and appeal-
a much truer and more trustworthy measurement than the typical on-line dating site bullhockey-factors of height, weight, and income. And we think we know why. On dating sites 81% people fib about their weight,
height and how much money they make. ( See Stephanie Rosenblooms New York Times article, Love and Lies). You cant lie about your Klout Score. Any Score over 19 indicates that other people find you attractive,
sophisticated, and beguiling enough to be influenced by you -and were proving your Score can be used to predict if a person we match you with will fall for you. On Tawkify.com, you answer 11 questions, upload your photo and Kenneth Shaw and I will personally match you and set you up on the phone. See this New York Times article about it. And when we put two people together with high Klout ScoresWATCH OUT! Its like a meeting of the gods. E. Jean Carroll Elle Magazine Advice Columnist Co-CEO with Kenneth Shaw of Tawkify.com

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