Barbara Walters returning to 'The View' on Monday

NEW YORK (AP) ? Barbara Walters says she's returning to "The View" on Monday.

She's been sidelined for several weeks. But now she's "had enough rest and it's time to come back," Walters reported by phone during Tuesday's edition of the ABC talk show.

Walters was hospitalized on Jan. 19 after fainting and cutting her head at a party in Washington. The 83-year-old said she had chickenpox and a fever at the time but didn't realize it. She suffered a concussion and got six stitches. She was released 10 days later and since then, has been resting in her New York home.

"No more chickenpox," she told her fellow panelists in the studio during her phone call.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barbara-walters-returning-view-monday-164021415.html

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Genomic detectives crack the case of the missing heritability

Monday, February 25, 2013

Despite years of research, the genetic factors behind many human diseases and characteristics remain unknown. The inability to find the complete genetic causes of family traits such as height or the risk of type 2 diabetes has been called the "missing heritability" problem.

A new study by Princeton University researchers, however, suggests that missing heritability may not be missing after all ? at least not in yeast cells, which the researchers used as a model for studying the problem. Published in the journal Nature, the results suggest that heritability in humans may be hidden due only to the limitations of modern research tools, but could be discovered if scientists know where (and how) to look.

"The message of our study is that if you look hard enough you will find the missing heritability," said the senior researcher, Leonid Kruglyak, Princeton's William R. Harman '63 and Mary-Love Harman Professor in Genomics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Kruglyak worked with first author Joshua Bloom, a Princeton graduate student; Wesley Loo, a 2010 Princeton graduate now a graduate student at Harvard University; Thuy-Lan Lite, Class of 2012, who is working at the National Institutes of Health for a year before starting graduate school; and Ian Ehrenreich, a past Princeton postdoctoral researcher now at the University of Southern California.

"We don't think there is some fundamental limitation ? such as that there are things we don't understand about how genes behave ? that is holding us back," Kruglyak said. "Instead, we should be able to detect the heritability in humans if we use the right tools."

Passed down from parent to child, genes determine not only eye color and other physical characteristics but also the risk of diseases. Some inherited diseases are caused by a mutation in a single gene. These single-gene disorders have well-defined patterns of inheritance that can be used to predict the chances that an individual will inherit the disease.

However, many diseases and physical traits arise due to multiple genes, multiple locations within genes, and even the regions of DNA between genes. Across the genome ? which is an individual's total genetic content ? small variations in DNA code can, when added together, increase or decrease the likelihood that a person will develop a disease or characteristic.

Height, for example, results from variations in DNA at multiple locations on the genome. Researchers have detected about 180 locations in the human genome where small alterations in the DNA code can have an influence on how tall or short a person is. Nonetheless, these locations account for only 13 percent of the expected contribution genetic code has on a person's height.

Type 2 diabetes also has missing heritability: About 40 identified genome locations are associated with the risk of developing the condition, but those account for only 10 percent of the estimated genetic influence. Finding the missing heritability for diseases like type 2 diabetes, Crohn's disease and schizophrenia could help inform prevention and treatment strategies.

In the present study, the researchers scanned the genomes of yeast cells for DNA variations ? which can be thought of as spelling errors in the four-letter DNA code ? and then matched those variations with qualities or characteristics inherited from the cells' parents. This type of study, known as a genome-wide association study (GWAS), is a common tool for searching for diseases and traits associated with variations in the genome. The researchers detected numerous DNA variations that, when added together, accounted for almost all of the offsprings' inherited characteristics, indicating that there was very little missing heritability in yeast.

Although the search for heritability was successful in yeast, finding missing heritability in humans is far more complicated, Kruglyak said. For example, interactions between genes can contribute to heritable traits, but such interactions are difficult to detect with genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which are the primary means by which geneticists look for DNA variations associated with diseases or traits. In addition, environmental factors such as nutrition also can influence gene activity, and these influences can be elusive to the genome-wide study. GWAS also may be inadequate at detecting common DNA spelling errors that have only small effects, or it may fail to find DNA variations that have a large effect but are rare.

The study sheds light on the role of nature (genetic factors) versus nurture (environmental factors) in determining traits and disease risk, according to Bert Vogelstein, director of the Ludwig Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

"The nature versus nurture argument has been brewing for decades, both among scientists and the lay public, and 'missing heritability' has been problematic for the 'nature' component," said Vogelstein, who was not involved in the Princeton study.

"This beautiful study demonstrates that the genetic basis for heritability (nature) can be precisely defined if extensive, well-controlled experiments can be performed," Vogelstein said. "Though the results were obtained in a model organism, I would be surprised if they didn't apply, at least in part, to higher organisms, including humans."

Kruglyak said that one approach to finding the missing heritability in humans might be to apply genome-wide scans to large families, rather than focusing on large populations as is currently done. Family studies take advantage of the fact that the same genetic variations will be more common in families ? and thus easier to detect. However, the disadvantage of family studies is that the detected genetic variations may not be widespread in the population.

For the study in yeast, the team examined the offspring of two yeast cells, one that is commonly used in laboratory studies and the other in wine making. Although yeast usually reproduce asexually, under certain conditions, such as lack of food, two yeast cells will mate and produce offspring that, like human children, receive roughly half their genetic material from each parent. "Our study involves thousands of 'kids' from a single set of parents," Kruglyak said.

The team first sequenced the genomes of the two parent cells and then conducted scans for DNA variations in the genomes of 1,008 offspring. Yeast do not inherit height or disease risk from their parents, but they can inherit the ability to survive in adverse conditions. The researchers tested the parents and their offspring for the ability to grow under various conditions, including different temperatures, acidity levels, food sources, antibiotics, metal compounds, and in drugs such as caffeine.

The researchers then looked for associations between the DNA variations inherited from the parents and growth ability, and determined that the DNA variations accounted for nearly all of the resilience noted in the offspring.

###

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126988/Genomic_detectives_crack_the_case_of_the_missing_heritability

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Skeptical Syrian opposition to attend Rome talks

US Secretary of State John Kerry reacts after listening a reporter's question during a joint news conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague, not seen, following their meeting in central London, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. This is the first overseas trip for the US Secretary of State in his new role. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, pool)

US Secretary of State John Kerry reacts after listening a reporter's question during a joint news conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague, not seen, following their meeting in central London, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. This is the first overseas trip for the US Secretary of State in his new role. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, is greeted by US Ambassador to Germany Philip Murphy on arrival at Tegel International Airport in Berlin, with James Melville, Jr., Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Berlin, on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first official trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague, right, watches as US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, answers a reporter's question during a joint news conference following their meeting in central London, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. This is the first overseas trip for the US Secretary of State in his new role. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, accompanies British Foreign Secretary William Hague as they leave Downing Street in London, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Kerry kicked off his first official overseas trip by meeting with British leaders in London on the first leg of a hectic nine-day dash through Europe and the Middle East. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, second from left, speaks alongside U.S. Ambassador Louis Susman, third from left, during a visit to the U.S. Embassy, London, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Kerry was in London for the first leg of his debut overseas trip ? a hectic nine-country dash through Europe and the Middle East. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

BERLIN (AP) ? Skeptical Syrian opposition leaders agreed Monday to attend an international conference in Rome after first threatening to boycott the session that was to be the centerpiece of Secretary of State John Kerry's first overseas mission in his new job.

Opposition leaders had protested what they see as inaction by other nations in the face of violence from Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Kerry not only made a public plea at a joint news conference Monday with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, he also called Moaz Khatib, leader of the Syrian Opposition Council, "to encourage him to come to Rome," a senior U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter, described the conversation as "good" but declined to offer more detail.

Spokesman Walid al-Bunni said the council had decided to send a delegation to Rome after all.

Al-Bunni told Al-Arabiya TV the decision was made based on guarantees al-Khatib heard from western diplomats that the conference would be different and that the opposition would receive real commitments this time. "We will go and we will see if the promises are different this time," he said.

After speaking with Khatib, Kerry flew to Berlin from London, the first stop of his first trip as secretary of state ? a hectic nine-country dash through Europe and the Middle East.

Kerry had also dispatched his top Syrian envoy to Cairo in hopes of convincing opposition leaders that their participation is critical to addressing questions from potential donors and securing additional aid from the United States and Europe.

"We are determined that the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind, wondering where the support is, if it is coming," Kerry told reporters in London after meeting British Prime Minister David Cameron and Hague. "We are not going to let the Syrian opposition not have its ability to have its voice properly heard in this process."

Vice President Joe Biden also reached out Monday in a phone call to Khatib. Biden commended him and other members of the Syrian Opposition Coalition for their courage. He also emphasized President Barack Obama's commitment to a post-Assad government that protects the rights of all its citizens, according to a description of the call provided by the White House.

For his part, Hague said the violence in Syria, especially recent scud missile attacks on the city of Aleppo, was unacceptable and that the west's current position could not be sustained while an "appalling injustice" is being done to Syrian citizens.

"In the face of such murder and threat of instability, our policy cannot stay static as the weeks go by," Hague told reporters, standing beside Kerry. "We must significantly increase support for the Syrian opposition. We are preparing to do just that."

Kerry agreed.

"We are not coming to Rome simply to talk, we are coming to Rome to talk about next steps," Kerry said, adding that he was sympathetic to opposition complaints that they were not getting the support they need to defend themselves against the Assad regime or oust him from power.

"I am very sensitive to that frustration," recalling that as a U.S. senator he was one of several who pushed the administration to consider military aid to the Syrian opposition.

"But I am the new secretary of state ... and the president of the United States has sent me here and sent me to this series of meetings and in Rome because he is concerned about the course of events.

"This moment is ripe for us to be considering what more we can do," he said, adding that if the opposition wants results, "join us" in Rome.

Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Monday the Assad regime was ready to hold talks with opposition leaders, the first time that a high-ranking Syrian official has stated publicly that the government would meet with the opposition. Al-Moallem made his comments after meeting in Moscow with Russian officials.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Moallem's remarks appeared positive but expressed caution about the seriousness of the offer.

"I don't know their motivations, other than to say they continue to rain down horrific attacks on their own people," Ventrell told reporters. "So that speaks pretty loudly and clearly."

If the Assad regime is serious, he said, it should inform the U.N. peace envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi of its readiness for talks. Ventrell said the Assad regime hasn't yet done that.

Obama administration officials have debated whether the U.S. should arm the rebels, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey having said they urged such a course of action. The White House has been unwilling to do so for fears the weapons could end up in the wrong hands. Currently, the U.S. provides only non-lethal support and humanitarian aid.

The United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-year civil war, which began as an uprising against Assad's regime.

Kerry said the Syrian people "deserve better" than the violence currently gripping their country as he stood alongside Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague.

___

Associated Press writers Cassandra Vinograd in London and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-25-Kerry/id-74ec51f991454668a6c40e3ba688ff8b

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China admits pollution linked to 'cancer villages'...

AFP - China's environment ministry has acknowledged the existence of "cancer villages", several years after widespread speculation first began that polluted areas were seeing a higher incidence of the disease.

The use of the term in an official report, thought to be unprecedented, comes as authorities face growing discontent over industrial waste, hazardous smog and other environmental and health consequences after years of rapid development.

"Poisonous and harmful chemical materials have brought about many water and atmosphere emergencies... certain places are even seeing 'cancer villages'," said a five-year plan that was highlighted this week.

The report did not elaborate on the phenomenon, which has no technical definition but gained prominence in domestic and foreign media after a Chinese journalist posted a map in 2009 pinpointing dozens of such "cancer villages".

But the ministry acknowledged that in general China uses "poisonous and harmful chemical products" that are banned in developed countries and "pose long-term or potential harm to human health and the ecology".

Environmental lawyer Wang Canfa, who runs an aid centre in Beijing for victims of pollution, said Friday it was the first time the "cancer village" phrase had appeared in a ministry document.

"It shows that the environment ministry has acknowledged that pollution has led to people getting cancer," he said. "It shows that this issue, of environmental pollution leading to health damages, has drawn attention."

A ministry official who declined to be named could not confirm whether it was the first time it had used the phrase, but said it had previously acknowledged the connection between the environment and human health.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/2wDMcPhiv_0/20130222-china-admits-pollution-linked-cancer-villages

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Heart for the Homeless Concert is March 8 at First Presbyterian Church

REBECCA RENFROE,?from left, Scott Thomas, Patti Rose, Tony Fusaro and Dana Everett promote the annual Have a Heart for the Homeless Concert on March 8.

PIERRE DUCHARME | THE LEDGER

Published: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, February 22, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.

The 12th annual Have a Heart for the Homeless Concert is March 8 at First Presbyterian Church, 175 Lake Hollingsworth Drive, Lakeland. A silent auction begins at 6 p.m. and performances at 7 p.m. Ken Brady and the Casinos and Angel Acosta will headline the event to support Talbot House Ministries. Tickets are $15, available at Talbot House.

Source: http://www.theledger.com/article/20130222/ent/130229776

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Vatican blasts media for influencing pope election with 'false' reports

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election.

Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents.

The reports have suggested the revelations in the dossier, given to Benedict in December, were a factor in his decision to resign. The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the "strength of mind and body" to carry on and would resign Feb. 28.

On Saturday, a day before Benedict's final Sunday blessing in St. Peter's Square, the Vatican secretariat of state said the Catholic Church has for centuries insisted on the independence of its cardinals to freely elect their pope ? a reference to episodes in the past when kings and emperors vetoed papal contenders or prevented cardinals from voting outright.

"If in the past, the so-called powers, i.e., States, exerted pressures on the election of the pope, today there is an attempt to do this through public opinion that is often based on judgments that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the church is living," the statement said.

"It is deplorable that as we draw closer to the time of the beginning of the conclave ... that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions."

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi was asked how specifically the media was trying to influence the outcome; Lombardi didn't respond directly, saying only that the reports have tended to paint the Curia in a negative light "beyond the considerations and serene evaluations" of problems that cardinals might discuss before the conclave.

Some Vatican watchers have speculated that because the Vatican bureaucracy is heavily Italian, cardinals might be persuaded to elect a non-Italian, non-Vatican-based cardinal as pope to try to impose some reform on the Curia.

While Lombardi has said the reports "do not correspond to reality," the pope and some of his closest collaborators have recently denounced the dysfunction in the Apostolic Palace.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, for example, criticized the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy. He made the comments Friday, the penultimate day of the Vatican's weeklong spiritual exercises that were attended by the pope and other officials. Ravasi, himself a papal contender, was chosen by Benedict to deliver daily meditations and on Saturday Benedict praised him for his "brilliant" work.

The divisions Ravasi spoke of were exposed by the documents taken from the pope's study by his butler and then leaked by a journalist. The documents revealed the petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism and even allegations of a gay plot at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

The three cardinals who investigated the theft had wide-ranging powers to interview even cardinals to get to the bottom of the dynamics within the Curia that resulted in the gravest Vatican security breach in modern times.

Benedict too has made reference to the divisions in recent days, deploring in his final Mass as pope on Ash Wednesday how the church is often "defiled" by attacks and divisions from within. Last Sunday, he urged its members to overcome "pride and egoism."

On Saturday, in his final comments to the Curia, Benedict lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that have defaced God's creation. But he also thanked the Vatican bureaucrats for having helped him "bear the burden" of his ministry with their work, love and faith these past eight years.

The Vatican's attack on the media echoed its response to previous scandals, where it has tended not to address the underlying content of accusations, but has diverted attention away. During the 2010 explosion of sex abuse scandals, the Vatican accused the media of trying to attack the pope; during the 2012 leaks scandal, it accused the media of sensationalism without addressing the content of the leaked documents.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vatican-blasts-false-pre-conclave-reporting-130526801.html

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Florida Friday: Woman shot by oven while trying to make waffles

By now, we?re all familiar with the ubiquitous ?Florida Man? stories. But for today?s Florida Friday, we bring you news of Florida Man?s lesser-known feminine (sorta) counterpart, Florida Woman. Faster than meth high, dumber than a flying cinder block, she fights sanity in an invisible trailer and lassos decorum with a python she won in a bug-eating contest. Florida Woman this week took the form of 18-year-old Aalaya Walker. Walker was in St. Petersburg visiting her friend JJ, and at some point, they both got hungry, so she decided to warm up the oven to make some waffles. That?s when she found out JJ keeps his bullets in the oven, because one exploded and shot her. So I guess technically, this is all Florida Man?s fault after all.

A few moments after Walker, 18, preheated the oven in the apartment, at 218 24th St. N., there was an explosion. Walker was peppered with shell casing fragments though technically not shot.

I like that they use ?peppered.? Because in Florida, shell-casing fragments are the spice of life.

Her friend, Jarvarski Sandy, 25, told police he had left his Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun in the oven drawer but had put the magazine, with four rounds in it, in the oven itself, the police report says.

The magazine exploded about 9 p.m. ET, spraying casing fragments at high speed and striking Walker. She managed to pick some of the fragments out of her leg and chest and then took a bus to the hospital, where she was treated and released.

?She took a bus to the hospital.?

Sandy ?stated that he does not have a temperature gauge on the oven so he estimates the temperature based on how far the knob is turned,? according to the police report, which was obtained by the Times. ?I observed that the inside of the oven was damaged.?

Hold on, you mean to tell me these two captains of industry had an oven with no temperature gauge?

No charges were filed. Sandy, who works at a Wal-Mart store, has no criminal record and a concealed weapons permit.

Look, I don?t want to make a gun-control argument here, but let?s just point out that the guy who works at Wal-Mart and stores his guns in the oven HAS A CONCEALED WEAPONS PERMIT.

And after all that, the most shocking part of this story to me is that you can cook waffles in an oven. Seriously though, how the f*ck does that work? Is there a type of waffle iron that you have to heat in the oven first?

?.Wait, wait, no, I just pieced it together. I will bet you a thousand dollars that she was trying to make FROZEN waffles in the oven because Chef Boyardon?t over here doesn?t have a toaster. Aaaand suddenly the world makes sense again. Nice work, team.

It?d make a good Naked Gun bit if she?d tried to warm up the oven, gotten shot, and then put the waffles in the toaster oven, only to discover he?d stashed a Derringer in there. In any case, apt story, because when a Florida woman gets pregnant, it?s commonly said that she ?has a gun in the oven.?

[via TampaBayOnline, MSNBC]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uproxx/filmdrunk/~3/Btlb8lBxaoI/florida-friday-florida-woman-shot-by-oven-while-trying-to-make-waffles

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French actor Depardieu gets Russian home address

French actor Gerard Depardieu arrives for the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

French actor Gerard Depardieu arrives for the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

French actor Gerard Depardieu speaks at the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

French actor Gerard Depardieu speaks at the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

French actor Gerard Depardieu speaks at the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

French actor Gerard Depardieu arrives for the opening ceremony of the Illusion movie theater after its restoration in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013. President Vladimir Putin granted Depardieu Russian citizenship last month and on Saturday he is set to get registered as a resident of the city of Saransk. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

MOSCOW (AP) ? French actor Gerard Depardieu got a new permanent address in Russia ? 1 Democracy Street ? on Saturday, adding a final touch to his quest to get Russian citizenship.

After receiving his Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin last month, Depardieu had it stamped with the new address in Saransk, a city of 300,000 about 640 kilometers (400 miles) east of Moscow.

The actor has been at the center of a heated debate over tax exiles as France's Socialist government proposes a hefty tax on the rich, but he has denied that he accepted the passport to escape the taxman.

Saransk is the provincial capital of the Mordovia region, home to a sprawling web of Soviet-era prison camps, where one of the members of the Pussy Riot band is serving her two-year sentence for an irreverent "punk prayer" against Putin.

He said at the ceremony that he appreciated the symbolism of his new address.

"I want to be an ambassador of democracy to the world," he said, according to Russia Today television, which quoted him as saying that "Russia is a country with a great democracy."

Saransk has otherwise mostly retained Soviet-era street names. Democracy Street is surrounded by Proletariat, Communist, Soviet and Bolshevik streets.

Depardieu, who has starred in films such as "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac," enjoys broad popularity in Russia and received an enthusiastic welcome in the city. Showing off his knowledge of local history, Depardieu likened himself to Yemelyan Pugachev, the chief of a peasant rebellion in the 18th century.

"Yemelyan Pugachev was a peasant tsar who came to Kazan and to Saransk," Depardieu said, according to Russia Today. "I am like Pugachev: I am a peasant, and I want to be tsar of Saransk."

Depardieu was registered at an apartment belonging to the relatives of his Russian friend, the head of the Gosfilmofond state film archive, Nikola Bordachev. It is not clear if Depardieu will actually live in the apartment, and he has no requirement to spend any particular amount of time there ? though he promised to visit the city often.

Depardieu's decision to accept citizenship has earned sarcastic comments from Putin's critics, who say the actor is a tool of Kremlin spin.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-23-Russia-Depardieu/id-ec36830fc3d1424e86379ba0d26defc2

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China Gets Tougher on IPOs

Article Excerpt

BY SHEN HONG

SHANGHAI?In the five years since it joined a long queue of companies applying for government approval to list on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Zunyi Titanium Co.'s fortunes have plummeted.

The state-owned company in China's southwestern Guizhou province reported a financial loss for the first nine months of last year, blaming it on fierce competition, and disclosed it has been booted out of its factories by the local government.

In late December, Zunyi announced it was giving up its attempt to list on the smaller of China's two stock exchanges, without elaborating.

It isn't alone. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said ...

Continue reading article with pop up player

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864304578318101227205828.html?mod=rss_world_markets

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Global National - Chinese hacking allegations

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Title: Global National - Chinese hacking allegations

File Size: 321 bytes

Created: Fri, 02/22/2013 - 12:35am

Modified: Fri, 02/22/2013 - 12:35am

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Licence: None (All rights reserved)

Source: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/global-national-chinese-hacking-allegations

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Obama heads to Florida for weekend with the boys

President Barack Obama greets supporters after arriving at West Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in West Palm Beach, Fla. President Obama is spending the weekend in Palm City, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama greets supporters after arriving at West Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in West Palm Beach, Fla. President Obama is spending the weekend in Palm City, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama salutes as he steps off Air Force One after arriving at West Palm Beach International Airport on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in West Palm Beach, Fla. President Obama is spending the weekend in Palm City, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama waves as he walks down the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

PALM CITY, Fla. (AP) ? Faced with a long weekend in an empty White House, President Barack Obama figured he needed a getaway, too, so he put together a golf outing with some buddies.

Not at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland or at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, two Washington-area military posts where he's a regular on their courses.

Instead, he went south, to Florida, to spend the long Presidents Day weekend staying and playing at the Floridian, an exclusive and secluded yacht and golf club on the state's Treasure Coast.

He arrived Friday night after a speech in Chicago and wasn't expected to be seen again in public until he returns to Washington on Monday.

"At this time, there are no public events scheduled or plans for the president to leave the grounds of the golf club," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Saturday.

Call it a weekend with the boys, presidential style.

Eyebrows might have been raised at the thought of the president, any president, high-tailing it out of Washington, without his family, for some "me time" hundreds of miles away from the Oval Office. First lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha are on an annual ski vacation out West.

As it turns out, it isn't at all uncommon for a president to go on vacation on his own.

And, Obama has gone off alone in the past.

During the weekend, the president, a sports enthusiast and avid golfer, planned to practice his putting technique on the club's private, 18-hole course, which opened in 1996, according to golfnow.com, and is owned by Jim Crane, a Houston businessman who also owns Major League Baseball's Astros.

Members of the club and their guests have access to one of eight cottages, a 68-slip deep water marina, the club's 61-foot Viking yacht, a 24-foot Hurricane Deck Boat and the club's private helicopter service with two on-site helipads along the St. Lucie River.

The White House arranged for the reporters who travel with the president to stay at a hotel in Port St. Lucie, about a 25-minute drive away. They were not expected to see the president during the three-day holiday weekend until he boards Air Force One to return home.

Obama's longtime friend from Chicago, Eric Whitaker, joined him on the flight from Chicago to Florida. The two have played golf together in the past. Another regular member of Obama's golf foursomes is White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, who also traveled with the president on Friday.

The White House said it would release the names of those who played golf with the president on Saturday later in the day.

At least one instructor to some of golf's top professionals put out the word that he'd be out on the green with Obama in the afternoon.

"I will be with POTUS this afternoon, playing 9 holes and some practice time," Butch Harmon, Tiger Woods' former swing coach, said in a text to The Associated Press.

POTUS is the acronym for president of the United States.

Harmon was Woods' coach when he turned pro and reached what many believe to be the peak of his game in the early 2000s. He also was Greg Norman's coach when he was No. 1 in the world in the 1990s. Harmon has taught a number of top golfers, including Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Fred Couples and Adam Scott, and annually ranks No. 1 on magazine lists of golf's best teachers.

America's presidents have been taking solo vacations for decades, according to Larry Knutson, a former White House reporter for The Associated Press who wrote a book about presidents and their vacations.

Although Bess and Margaret Truman visited him there just a couple of times, President Harry Truman vacationed most often by himself in tropical Key West, Fla. Many aides, all men, accompanied him.

Truman enjoyed the male companionship and his wife may have stayed away out of a desire to not interrupt his cherished late afternoon and evening games of poker. Truman vacationed in Key West 11 times between November 1946 and March 1952; his wife and daughter joined him for the first time in November 1948, after his surprise victory in that year's election campaign.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt often visited his cottage at Warm Springs, Ga., alone; wife, Eleanor, didn't much care for the place or the Southern atmosphere. Roosevelt was at Warm Springs, on his own, when he died in April 1945.

He also often traveled solo to his home in Hyde Park, N.Y., during World War II. The first lady often did not accompany Roosevelt on his wartime visits to Shangri-La, which is now the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, or when he traveled on the presidential yacht or on Navy warships.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton was in Florida for fundraising and to play in a golf tournament when he stumbled on steps at the home of golf pro Greg Norman and needed surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right knee. He was treated at a hospital in West Palm Beach before being flown to Washington for the operation.

Obama's stay at the Floridian isn't his first get-away without his wife and daughters.

In 2010, as his 49th birthday approached, Obama was left home alone after the first lady took Sasha with her on a trip to Spain, and Malia was away at camp.

Rather than stay in the sprawling White House by himself, Obama fled, taking family dog Bo, home to Chicago for a birthday dinner with friends there that included Oprah Winfrey, her pal Gayle King, Whitaker and White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, a fellow Chicagoan.

___

AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed to this report.

___

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-16-Obama-Boys%20Weekend/id-782b8a0cbb4b4265910e50deea1e5eab

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jca asks: In your opinion, what is better for the economy: cheap consumer goods or having a lot of decent jobs available?

On a national scale, the fact that we can send ?money? (which has no intrinsic value other than an implied promise of redemption for ?something of equivalent value? when repatriated to the issuer) for real stuff, which has whatever value people assign to it, that obviously benefits the country issuing the money. At least it benefits us temporarily. It also benefits the seller of goods, to the extent that the dollars retain most of their perceived value over time, can be accumulated and repatriated for other valuables (whether goods or title to real property) that can be judged on the basis of a relatively stable medium of exchange ? the dollar.

When we welsh on the promise to redeem the money as it is repatriated to us, at a more or less equal value with which it was sent overseas, then the shit will hit the fan.

For example, you give me $1, and I give you an apple, which we both agree is worth a dollar, given the relative values we place on ?dollars? and ?apples? today. If I attempt to spend the dollar tomorrow and find that I can only buy half an apple, or not even that much, then your dollar is on a fast track to worthlessness, and you won?t be able to buy much of anything with it, no matter how many you have. This is the current problem in Zimbabwe, and in my lifetime has been the problem in Romania, Brazil and Argentina, to name a few places you might have heard of.

?What is best?, in my own opinion, is when there are no ?intervention? measures to ?prop up? or ?devalue? the dollar (and likewise with the currencies of foreign countries, such as Japan, which has recently been devaluing the ? (yen) in order to make their goods cheaper to export ? and make imports much more expensive for Japanese consumers). This would also require that politicians not create vast new oceans of debt by printing currency that has no backing (which is what the US has been doing, not just for the past four years, but for most of the past hundred years).

The way the system is supposed to work, and nominally has worked for a long time, is that a lending nation, such as China is presently, would accumulate stores of US currency from our ?imbalance? of trade with them, and would repatriate that money to the US by purchasing assets such as real estate, factories? and capital goods? to enable the further expansion of their economy. (At the same time that they were accumulating capital, their own workers? wages would be rising and they would presumably be spending their income on higher-quality consumer goods and food than they?ve been used to, leisure activities and vacations, homes and furnishings, medical devices and ?general health care?, etc. And these would be other ways to repatriate their dollar holdings.)

@josie has a better response, I think. The question does present a false alternative. This isn?t an ?either-or? situation.

Source: http://www.fluther.com/156062/in-your-opinion-what-is-better-for-the-economy-cheap-consumer/

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Fans' Trust chairman backs Football League over Town takeover

SWINDON TOWN: Fans' Trust chairman backs Football League over Town takeover

6:00am Saturday 16th February 2013 in Sport By Sam Morshead

TRUST STFC chairman John Ward has applauded the Football League for their diligence in assessing the sale of Swindon Town to new owners, despite the immense frustration it has caused fans of the Robins.

The takeover of the club to a consortium fronted by Jed McCrory is expected to be officially announced on Monday, ending three weeks of speculation regarding Town?s future.

In reality the sale will have taken less than five weeks to complete but, after the prospective new investors were unmasked publicly so early in the process, some supporters have gained the impression that the saga has dragged on longer than necessary.

Ward is a big believer in sustainability and financial prudence within football and, while he acknowledged that the takeover has not been ratified as quickly as most would have liked, he stressed that the potential dangers of an improper assessment of McCrory?s group by the League would have been much worse.

?The Trust would be the first, if the Football League allowed some cowboys to take over a club, to cry about football not being properly regulated and so on. We therefore can?t necessarily expect them to deal with Swindon at breakneck speed,? he said.

?They have to do their job and they have to do it properly. It is of course a cause for frustration but I don?t think it?s any more than that.

?It?s bad luck that it coincided with the end of the January transfer window when it was rather crucial that Paolo was able to make decisions about players. It was also unfortunate that the Football League is presumably very busy at that stage of the year so it couldn?t necessarily expedite its regulatory bodies regarding us.

?Of course it is frustrating and it must be very frustrating for Paolo as well.

?What is important is we don?t want to be out of the frying pan and into the fire with these guys and therefore it is important that somebody like the Football League does this sort of investigation that the new owners are the sort of people with the integrity and resources to run a football club in the way in which we expect our club to be run.

?The Fitton consortium absolutely did that.?

The Advertiser understands that McCrory?s new board will consist of Martin King, Steve Murrall and Gary Hooper. It is believed that the consortium investing in the club will be able to speak publicly about their takeover at the County Ground for the first time next week.

Source: http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/10232261.Fans__Trust_chairman_backs_Football_League_over_Town_takeover/?ref=rss

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Iraq budget battle opens new front in Kurdish feud

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A dispute between Iraq's government and the autonomous region of Kurdistan over oil rights is delaying this year's national budget, jeopardizing much-needed investment, as the country's finances have become a new front in the long-running feud.

Iraq's cabinet approved the $118.6 billion budget in October, but infighting among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions this week scuttled attempts by lawmakers to pass the draft legislation in parliament.

A year after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's economy is improving and should grow 9 percent this year, the central bank projects, as oil production expands.

However, it still needs investment in everything from infrastructure to transport to rebuild the economy, and key oil and investment laws languish in parliament because of political turmoil.

Lawmakers will try again next week to reach agreement on the 2013 national budget. Further delays would postpone major infrastructure projects and payments to regional authorities in the OPEC producer whose state coffers are financed almost entirely by crude exports.

The budget, which foresees a deficit of $15.5 billion, includes $45.5 billion for investment projects and has allocated $644 million for companies working in Kurdistan.

Iraq has the world's fourth-largest oil reserves and oil resources are at the heart of the broad dispute over territory, oilfields and political autonomy between Baghdad's Arab-led government and Kurdistan, where ethnic Kurds run their own regional administration.

While Kurdistan has a regional government and armed forces, it contributes its oil to national exports and relies on Baghdad for 17 percent of the federal budget, which is financed almost completely by the sale of crude.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law coalition, Sunni-backed Iraqiya Bloc and some other political blocs this week called for Kurds to get no more than 12 percent of the budget based on their minority population, increasing tensions with the northern Kurdish enclave.

The political blocs in Baghdad say Kurdistan's portion should also be cut to make up for the deficit after the autonomous region stopped oil shipments in protest over Baghdad's failure to compensate companies working there.

Kurds say U.S. authorities assigned them 17 percent based on their estimates after the 2003 invasion.

Lawmakers said the political blocs also disagree on the amount owed to those oil companies and over the payment of Kurdistan's Peshmerga armed forces.

"Maliki is trying to use the budget to twist our arm," said Kurdish MP Rawaz Khoshnaw. "It's just a political tool that they are using against the Kurdistan regional government."

BACK PAYMENTS

The ongoing turf war over oil and land rights escalated late last year to the point that both the central government and the autonomous region deployed troops to reinforce positions along their disputed internal border.

Maliki's supporters say the budget dispute has also revived a disagreement between the central government, Shi'ite and Sunni blocs over the Peshmerga's role in Iraqi security.

"Peshmerga pointed their guns to the chests of the Iraqi military personnel, and now they want us to equip them and pay their salaries," said Mohammed al-Sayhood, a lawmaker in Maliki's coalition.

Payments to oil companies operating in Kurdistan is still the biggest disagreement in the budget. Kurds says they are owed more than 4 trillion Iraqi dinars, or $3.5 billion, by Baghdad to cover the costs accumulated by oil companies over the past three years.

But the Iraqi government allocated just 750 billion Iraqi dinars ($644.33 million), accusing the Kurdish of illegally shipping some of its oil out of the country instead of contributing to the national budget.

The central government in Baghdad says it alone has the authority to exploit and export the country's crude, but the Kurds say their right to sign deals is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution and have granted contracts to companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total.

Kurdistan has enticed oil companies by providing lucrative production-sharing contracts and better operating conditions than in the south of the country.

"It is a very big sum of money," said Jaber al-Jabri, a lawmaker from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya Bloc who is also a member of the Finance Committee, referring to the more than 4 trillion dinars demanded by the Kurds in back payments.

"Most blocs have not agreed to include it in the budget."

(Additional reporting by Isabel Colse in Arbil, Iraq; Editing by Patrick Markey and Susan Fenton)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-budget-battle-opens-front-kurdish-feud-151332493--business.html

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Zim startup launches gifts e-commerce site network | Techzim

As prospects of viable e-commerce business in Zimbabwe increase, startups are launching to meet the opportunities. One such startup, MyZimStore.com, has launched a network of websites to sell gifts and flowers online. The site?s target customers are both internet users in the country and those in the Diaspora.

The network of websites, all centered on the MyZimStore domain, comprises the following websites: myzimflorist.com, myzimgifts.com, myzimwine.com, myzimjewel.com, ourzimwedding.com and myzimleisure.com. According to co-founder Roddy Chakaipa, the idea behind the different addresses for what looks like related products was to create a network of sites that are separate businesses so that they didn?t saturate a single site with too many types of products.

The products sold on the sites are delivered anywhere in the greater Harare area by the next day.

?We didn?t want to deliver just another supermarket solution but something that offers exclusive product and service? said Chakaipa in his communication to us. ?We realized this type of service for specialised goods was so lacking in Zimbabwe and also driven by the fact that people in the diaspora are not able to attend many events such as birthdays, funerals, anniversaries, graduations etc, so how best could they show love and support,? he explained their motivation.

So far MyZimStore.com uses the 2checkout payment processing platform as well direct deposits into their local bank account. He said though that they are looking to implement EcoCash as an option for their local customers. The websites themselves use the Magento open source e-commerce platform.

The other founders of the startup are Jo Powell and Karen Bean. The team feels the time is ripe to get into e-commerce as according to Chakaipa, online business in Zimbabwe as the industry ?is on the verge of exploding.

MyZimStore.com are not the first to target the Diaspora with an online shopping service that delivers to Zimbabwean addresses. Other e-commerce sites with this model include magrosa.com and zimseller.com . A number of websites were also set up during Zimbabwe?s hyper inflationary era to address basic commodity challenges faced in Zimbabwe at the time. Some have since shut down or scaled down operations.

Source: http://www.techzim.co.zw/2013/02/zim-startup-launches-gifts-e-commerce-site-network/

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LG says OLED TV pre-orders top 100, eyes 15 percent rise in 2013 TV sales

SEOUL (Reuters) - LG Electronics Inc said on Thursday pre-orders for its 55-inch next-generation televisions costing over $10,000 have topped 100, and the firm will start selling the TVs on Monday in South Korea as it tries to steal a march on rivals.

Aiming to outdo competitor Samsung Electronics Co and burnish its reputation for TV technology, the world's No.2 TV manufacturer started taking pre-orders for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs some six weeks ago.

Tipped as the technology most likely to replace liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs, LG's OLED model costs up to five times more than LCD equivalents due to flat-screen production challenges.

Samsung has yet to announce when it will start production of OLED TVs.

Given the high price, the new technology is unlikely to sharply boost profit margins, but LG hopes an early move to OLED will help it revive its sinking profitability at a time when Japanese rivals are benefiting from a weakening yen.

December-quarter profits in LG's TV division tumbled to around one tenth of year-earlier levels, as it bumped up promotional spending in the year-end holiday season.

LG said it was aiming to raise flat-panel TV shipments by 15 percent this year.

OLED technology is more energy-efficient and offers higher contrast images than LCD, and is so thin that future mobile devices will be foldable like paper.

OLED displays are already used on Samsung's popular Galaxy S and Note smartphones, but panel makers have yet to address manufacturing challenges to lower costs to compete against LCD panels, particularly for large screens for televisions and computer monitors.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lg-says-oled-tv-pre-orders-top-100-013422655--sector.html

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Why 'zombie' cyberattack is a real concern for Emergency Alert System (+video)

The Emergency Alert System was hacked this week by someone who inserted a warning that zombies were attacking the US. Funny, yes, but the vulnerabilities to cyberattack are real.

By Mark Clayton,?Staff writer / February 14, 2013

Kris Filion, left, and Brittney Filion, walk their dog, Coffee, as they near the finish line during the fourth annual Zombie Run 5k in Traverse City, Mich., last fall. Proceeds from the run/walk going toward TART Trails.

(AP Photo/The Record-Eagle, Keith King)

Enlarge Photos

The Emergency Alert System, intended as a last-ditch measure to enable the president to communicate to Americans in national emergencies, was hacked Monday by someone who inserted messages reporting that the nation was being attacked by zombies.

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While the episode is not without humor, the hoax highlights that the EAS system is vulnerable to far more serious cyberattacks, cybersecurity experts say.

An EAS alert began unexpectedly at 8:36 p.m. on Feb 11, interrupting programming on two Michigan television stations with a message scrolling across the bottom of the screen, that read: ?dead bodies are rising from their graves.? The alert also said the bodies were ?attacking the living.?

In all, three Michigan TV stations were affected by the so-called ?zombie? cyberattack, and another in Great Falls, Mont., was reported to have issued similar alerts. But the real problem is that such vulnerabilities could leave the nation open to fake alerts that look far more real than the ?zombie? message and could potentially panic the public, broadcasters and other cybersecurity experts say.

"It isn't what they said. It is the fact that they got into the system. They could have caused some real damage," said Karole White, president of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters told Reuters. Underscoring the seriousness of the hack, federal agencies were reported to be investigating the attack ? and no hacking group touted that it was responsible, as is common.

The zombie hack attack was particularly disturbing to broadcast engineers who work on the EAS system because of a series of concerns that preceded them.

The attacks followed an 11-hour outage of a key computer system that runs the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) being developed by FEMA and the FCC. The system will eventually include not only the EAS, but digital capability to send alerts to cell phones and websites.

They also followed a threat by the hacktivist group ?Anonymous? to disrupt President Obama?s State of the Union speech on the Internet.

In an ?urgent advisory? this week, the Federal Communication Commission also required TV and radio broadcasters nationwide in the EAS to ?take immediate action? including resetting passwords and securing EAS equipment ?behind properly configured firewalls and other defensive measures.? The FCC did not respond by press time to requests for comment.

Cybersecurity and EAS experts both agree that at least some elements of the EAS system ? which has its roots in the cold war and is intended to be a last ditch measure for the president to communicate with Americans ? are vulnerable to intrusion via the Internet.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/vYF5M9VKyg0/Why-zombie-cyberattack-is-a-real-concern-for-Emergency-Alert-System-video

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Hadiya's mom: State of the Union will be 'bittersweet'

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Cleopatra Cowley, arriving with her son Nathaniel for the wake of her 15-year-old daughter Hadiya Pendleton.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

It's an invitation she wishes she had no reason to accept.

The mother of Chicago gun-violence victim Hadiya Pendleton will be in the audience for Tuesday night's State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. ? and she is expecting a flood of mixed emotions.

"It's bittersweet,"?Cleopatra Cowley said after she and her husband landed in Washington on Monday evening. ?Because it?s as a result of losing my daughter, but it?s also exciting to have an opportunity like this.? ?

Her presence in the House of Representatives chamber as President Obama delivers his annual address to the country will be a poignant reminder of the toll of gun violence in America.

Cowley ? who was invited as a guest of the first lady, according to White House aides ? said she will be listening to the speech with an open mind.

?I really just want to hear what he has to say,? she said. ?Then I can formulate my opinion.?

Cowley?s 15-year-old daughter was shot dead two weeks ago while hanging out with friends in a park near school, just days after she returned from Washington, where her marching band competed for a chance to be in President Obama's inauguration parade.

Police believe Hadiya was the innocent victim of a gang member who mistakenly thought the teens were rivals on his turf.?

The majorette quickly became a figure in the national debate over guns and a symbol of Chicago's stubborn murder rate. Chicago police announced Monday night that were charging two young men with murder in connection with the shooting.

The First Lady was among hundreds at her funeral Saturday, which was attended by hundreds of people, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan,?Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

?That was amazing,? Cowley said.

?My daughter really wanted to perform directly in front of the president and first lady and didn?t have the opportunity. Having the first lady at her homegoing was like Hadiya having an opportunity to perform because of all the friends and family who gave feedback about her.?

She said she also appreciated Michelle Obama?s low-profile at the funeral.

?She didn?t have a desire to have it be about her. She wanted to attend as a mom,? Cowley said.

Before the State of the Union, Cowley and her husband, Nate Pendleton, will attend a hearing on gun safety called by Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who spoke about Hadiya during an earlier hearing the day after her death.

Related:

?Flashpoint: Guns in America?: An NBC News special report

How to watch the State of the Union with NBC News

?

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/11/16927519-hadiyas-mom-state-of-the-union-will-be-bittersweet?lite

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Grover Norquist dragged into GOP civil war

Grover Norquist dragged into GOP civil war.

Excuse the indirect link, National Review seems to be down at the moment.

National Review, via Democratic Underground:

Former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, one of the most influential players in the Republican party, is privately battling the Club for Growth.

Last week, at a closed-door retreat in northern Virginia, Barbour told a large gathering of congressional staffers, including several leadership aides, that party officials should discourage donors from funding the high-profile conservative group.

Insiders say Barbour?s comments came during a question-and-answer session at the Ripon Society?s annual symposium, which was held at Mount Vernon, the home of former president George Washington.

Sources say Barbour was asked about the group?s growing influence, and then he urged the aides and strategists to fight back. Many in the audience applauded Barbour for his remarks, according to two sources in the room.

That would be the same Grover Norquist who had previously so terrified the entire GOP with an idiotic pledge never to raise taxes that they spoke his name only in whispers, lest he appear and drag them down to hell or something. Now, he?s a scapegoat.

One of the really entertaining aspects of the GOP civil war is watching each of the factions (and there are many) blame the others for their problems. They?re all pointing fingers at everyone else and they?re all right. The anti-immigrant kooks can blame the anti-choice rape theorists. But the anti-choice rape theorists can just as easily blame the anti-immigration kooks. Barbour, an old-style southern strategy type, can legitimately blame economic flatearthers and like Norquist. But Norquist could just as legitimately claim that people who chase only the white voter ? like Barbour ? are a fatal flaw in the Republican Party.

In short, they?re all right that those other frootloops scare off voters, but they fail to see that they?re frootloops themselves. It?s a battle for the soul of the party and, no matter who wins, the GOP as a whole will lose.

[image source]

Source: http://quickhits.tumblr.com/post/42947041332/grover-norquist-dragged-into-gop-civil-war

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Software tracks terrorists ? and you ? via social networks

Suzanne Choney , NBC News ? ? ? 18 hrs.

Web software designed by the defense firm Raytheon can scour Facebook, Twitter and check-in sites such as Foursquare to create an instant dossier covering a suspect's likely geographic locations and activities.

Raytheon calls it Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT), and privacy advocates think it goes too far. "This sort of software allows the government to surveil everyone," Ginger McCall, attorney and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Open Government program, told NBC News Monday.

"It scoops up a bunch of information about totally innocent people. There seems to be no legitimate reason to get this, other than that they can."

While some "terrorists," or those who might be threats to national security, use social networking, it's doubtful many of them show check-ins at local clubs or coffee shops, said McCall.

"The likelihood of this actually pulling in actual terrorists is low ? it seems to be a lot of white noise," she said.

NBC News contacted Raytheon about RIOT. In an emailed statement Monday, the company would only say this:

Raytheon, as a leader in cybersecurity, offers advanced capabilities to government customers. We're focused on providing them the best available solutions that meet their constantly evolving requirements.

A report about RIOT was first published Sunday by The Guardian, which shared a video it obtained about how RIOT works. (We can't embed the video, but you should have a look at it on The Guardian's site.)

In the video, Raytheon's Brian Urch, principal investigator for RIOT, shows how easily the software can track one of Raytheon's employees, named Nick. The system combines Nick's Foursquare check-ins with the GPS data encoded automatically on his posted photos. The system creates a pie chart of Nick's most favorite spots to visit, and reveals without question what time he likes to hit the gym.

"6 a.m. appears to be the most frequently visited time at the gym, so if you ever did want to try to get a hold of Nick ? or get a hold of his laptop ? you might want to visit the gym at 6 a.m. Monday," Urch says ominously.

A Raytheon spokesman said in an email to the Guardian that RIOT is not being used right now, but rather is "a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation's rapidly changing security needs."

And just because this software neatly packages information in ways that can prove awkward or even incriminating, it is not breaking through privacy barriers to get it. Instead, it uses what people have voluntarily posted for public consumption. The key is, therefore, knowing what you're posting.

Users need to be careful, said privacy lawyer McCall. Social networking sites "work very, very hard to push more data into the public realm, and often users have no idea how much data is being made publicly available, and the companies make it very difficult for users to control their own information."

For example, she said, "other people can check you in" at a location, even though "it may not be data that you put out there. On Facebook, it allows your friends to check you in, and if your friends don't set their privacy setting" so that others can't see that, "you can be tagged and checked in."

"I went to a concert with a friend a month ago, and she likes to publicize those things on Facebook," McCall said. "So it was on there that she was at a certain club with Ginger McCall."

"When (most users) sign up for sites like Facebook or Foursquare," she said, "they never would guess that their information is about to be aggregated," and perhaps even "used to track them down" with software such as Raytheon's RIOT.

? Via Gizmodo

Check out Technology, GadgetBox, DigitalLife and InGame on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/super-search-engine-tracks-terrorists-you-social-networks-1B8327842

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Help Name Two Of Pluto's Moons

Pluto's currently known moons (Credit: NASA/HST)

Far from the Sun planetary bodies can hold onto many more moons. The latest count for Pluto is five satellites, and the most recent two need names.

Back in 2011 and 2012 it was announced that Hubble Space Telescope observations of the Pluto system had spied first one and then another new candidate moon. For a long time the only known satellite of this distant dwarf planet was the object Charon. With about 12% of Pluto?s mass Charon orbits once every 6 days and 9 hours ? close enough to cause the center-of-mass of the system to actually lie outside Pluto?s surface.

But in 2005 astronomers spotted additional satellites, Nix and Hydra. These were inferred to have masses barely 0.03% that of Pluto, mere crumbs about 40 to 60 kilometers across orbiting some 2-3 times further out than Charon. And now we know that there are at least two more moons, currently designated as P4 and P5.

It?s a fascinating example of how the long-term stability of planetary satellites improves with distance from a star. Even though Pluto is a mere 0.00218 times the mass of the Earth, out at this distance from the Sun the gravitational tides that make it hard for inner planets to keep moons are so small that satellites can abound.

It?s not all good news though. P5 was detected because observations were made to help plan for NASA?s New Horizons spacecraft flythrough of the Pluto system in 2015. Going at some 30,000 miles an hour, New Horizons is exceptionally vulnerable to damage from even the tiniest chunks of material. Finding P4 and P5 adds evidence to suggest that Pluto may be surrounded by lots of tiny pieces of stuff ? perhaps remnants from a collision between Pluto and a Kuiper belt object that helped form the larger moons.

New Horizons is already so far from Earth that signals take about 4 hours to reach it, so real-time piloting through the Pluto system is not an option. Luckily it may be that just a simple course correction is needed to pass a little further from Pluto than originally planned to minimize the risk of collision.

Regardless of that, tradition has it that the moons P4 and P5 need ?proper? names. There?s a mandate from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that these follow the naming of the rest of the Pluto system ? drawing on Greek or Roman mythology about the Underworld. However if good enough alternatives are thought up it?s possible the IAU would be tempted.

And here?s where YOU can play a role. The SETI Institute has just launched a ?Pluto Rocks? website where anyone can pitch in to vote for both their favorite classical name choices for P4 and P5, and write-in for something original.

So why not take a little time to help name some of the latest moons in our solar system!

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=e6f922fdeb67e39ccb2a938a102bbd8f

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Why Americans Are Saying No to Domestic Drones

Draganflyer X4-P, drone-like surveillance helicopter.

Courtesy of Draganfly Innovations Inc

In the past year, the American public has begun to pay more and more attention to the issue of domestic surveillance drones. And now, recent events suggest we might be seeing the emergence of a genuine national movement against the use of surveillance drones by law enforcement. With any luck, this may even set the stage for a wider dialogue about the increasingly intrusive technologies that are intended to catch crooks?but that all too often cast an overly broad net.

Last week, after an especially raucous city council hearing, the Seattle police department terminated its drones program and agreed to return the purchased equipment to the manufacturer. This came just days after both houses of the Virginia state legislature passed historic bills imposing a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by law enforcement and regulatory agencies in the state. In Florida, a potentially even more significant bill imposing a judicial warrant requirement on police use of drones continued to march toward passage. Similar legislation has been proposed in at least 13 other state legislatures around the country so far.

Of all the threats to privacy that we face today, why have drones caught the attention of the American public to such a remarkable degree?

One possibility is that there?s something uniquely ominous about a robotic ?eye in the sky.? Many privacy invasions are abstract and invisible?data mining, for example, or the profiling of Internet users by online advertisers. Drones, on the other hand, are concrete and real, and the threat requires no explanation. But they are just the most visible example of a host of new surveillance technologies that have the potential to fundamentally alter the balance of power between individuals and the state. Physically tailing a suspect requires teams of police officers working 24/7, but now police can slap GPS devices on a suspect?s car and then sit in the station house tracking his movements on a laptop. Now that the wholesale surveillance of American life is becoming cheap and easy, legal protections are all the more important.

The drone issue has also gained momentum because the concern over it is bipartisan. While Democrats get most of the credit for pushing back on national surveillance programs, it was the Republican Party?s 2012 platform that addressed domestic surveillance drones, stating that ?we support pending legislation to prevent unwarranted or unreasonable governmental intrusion through the use of aerial surveillance.?

The ACLU of Virginia, for instance, teamed up with one of the state?s most conservative lawmakers to introduce a drone regulation bill in the state House of Delegates, while its Senate companion bill was introduced by a progressive. Florida?s drone regulation legislation is being almost entirely pushed by conservatives?and in most states, the legislative efforts we?ve seen so far have been conservative or bipartisan. Privacy issues are always less partisan than many other political questions, but the support for action on drones from both left and right has been remarkable.

It?s notable how different all of this is from the way surveillance technologies are normally adopted. There has actually been an opportunity for debate before drones have been widely deployed. We have the Federal Aviation Administration to thank for this state of affairs. At least for now, drones are largely banned by the FAA, which is concerned about the obvious safety issues: We can?t have our skies filled with flying robots colliding with passenger aircraft or plummeting into people?s houses. (This state of affairs will not last: Congress has ordered the FAA to integrate drones into the national airspace by 2015.)

What we usually see happen with new law enforcement technologies is that agencies quickly and quietly snap them up, making their deployment a fait accompli before the public even learns of their existence, let alone has a chance to debate their privacy implications or democratically decide upon the correct balance between privacy and police power. At that point, taking privacy into account is an uphill battle because the tax dollars have already been spent and the technology integrated into the department?s approach to crime fighting.

With drones, on the other hand, because of the safety and regulatory issues they raise, we have a chance to do it right. The American public and our elected representatives can, for once, get ahead of the deployment curve?we can raise awareness, propose protections, and build support for them before the problems hit us in the face. If done right, this moment of hyperawareness about privacy could become a more permanent state of affairs: Ryan Calo of Stanford?s Center for Internet and Society suggested in a December 2011 paper that because of their ?disquieting? nature, drones ?could be just the visceral jolt society needs? to spark broader changes in how Americans conceptualize privacy problems.

Ultimately, the best solution on drones would be for Congress to pass strong, uniform rules protecting everyone across the nation and putting privacy concerns to rest. For example, law enforcement agents should not make drones general tools of surveillance but should instead utilize them only where they have a specific reason to believe that use of one will turn up evidence of criminal activity. Ideally, those protections would become a model for other, perhaps less vivid but equally intrusive technologies such as cellphone location tracking. But unless and until Congress acts, state and local resolutions and rules are the best thing Americans can do to protect our privacy from the enormously invasive potential of domestic surveillance drones. The upsurge in local activism around the country is just what?s needed to make this happen.

This article arises from Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and?Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the?Future Tense blog?and the?Future Tense home page. You can also?follow us on Twitter.

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