You're probably going to want to sit down for this one. And hold your loved ones near if you've got them, because it's time to wake up from our slumber of lies?apparently Jurassic Park is, in fact, not scientifically accurate. All because of one little, mistyped mosquito.
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Supporters of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning protest outside of the gates at Fort Meade, Md., Tuesday, July 30, 2013. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge he faced, but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges, more than three years after he spilled secrets to WikiLeaks. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Supporters of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning protest outside of the gates at Fort Meade, Md., Tuesday, July 30, 2013. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, the most serious charge he faced, but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges, more than three years after he spilled secrets to WikiLeaks. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., Tuesday, July 30, 2013, after receiving a verdict in his court martial. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy ? the most serious charge he faced ? but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges, more than three years after he spilled secrets to WikiLeaks. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
In this July 30, 2013 photo, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md. Few Americans in living memory have emerged from obscurity to become such polarizing public figures _ admired by many around the world, fiercely denigrated by many in his homeland. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2011 file photo, unidentified Occupy London protesters demonstrate outside the High Court following news that the City of London Corporation has won its legal bid to evict anti-capitalist protesters from outside St Paul's Cathedral, in London. Few Americans in living memory have emerged from obscurity to become such polarizing public figures _ admired by many around the world, fiercely denigrated by many in his homeland. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)
FILE - In this July 26, 2013 photo, Zach Callahan, right, and supporters of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, march outside Fort Lesley J. McNair, in Washington. Few Americans in living memory have emerged from obscurity to become such polarizing public figures _ admired by many around the world, fiercely denigrated by many in his homeland. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The honors and accolades proliferated over three years: international peace prizes, solidarity campaigns by celebrities, an effort to designate him ? in absentia, of course ? as grand marshal of San Francisco's gay pride parade.
All the while, Bradley Manning was imprisoned by the military, branded a traitor by the U.S. government and reviled by many Americans. Some called for his execution for giving troves of classified secrets to WikiLeaks for global distribution.
Few Americans in living memory have emerged from obscurity to become such polarizing public figures ? admired by many around the world, fiercely denigrated by many in his homeland.
The contrasting portraits of Manning were summarized by his defense attorney, David Coombs, during the trial that culminated Tuesday with Manning's acquittal on a charge of aiding the enemy and his conviction on charges of espionage, theft and computer fraud.
"Is Pfc. Manning somebody who is a traitor, who has no loyalty to this country, or the flag?" Coombs had asked. "Or is he a young, naive, good-intentioned soldier who had human life, in his humanist beliefs, center to his decision?
"Which side of the version is the truth?"
His supporters embraced the second of those versions, as illustrated by a full-page ad last week in The New York Times, headlined "WE ARE BRADLEY MANNING." The ad's 850 signatories included writer Alice Walker, activist intellectual Noam Chomsky, singer Joan Baez, and Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers who has praised Manning as a worthy heir to his legacy.
"This 25-year-old, openly gay soldier from Oklahoma does not deserve to spend one more day in prison for informing the public of our government's policies," the newspaper ad said. "We will not relent until this American hero is free."
His detractors had a different view.
"We need to get very, very serious about treason," Fox News analyst Ralph Peters said on a recent newscast. "And oh by the way, for treason ? as in the case of Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden ? you bring back the death penalty."
The lead prosecutor at Manning's trial, Maj. Ashden Fein, depicted the Army private as a "gleeful, grinning" malefactor who savored the glory of being a whistleblower.
"The only human Pfc. Manning ever cared about was himself," Fein said.
From the highest levels of the U.S. government, civilian and military leaders argued that Manning had violated pledges made to get his top secret clearance, potentially endangered U.S. agents, and made classified information accessible to America's enemies.
"Some information which is sensitive, which does affect the security of individuals and relationships, deserves to be protected and we will continue to take necessary steps to do so," said Hillary Rodham Clinton while serving as secretary of state when Manning released classified diplomatic cables.
One leaked dispatch referred to the president of Turkmenistan as "a practiced liar" and "not a very bright guy." Another said Sweden engaged in military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. in contradiction with its public stance of nonalignment.
One of Manning's leading defenders believes he decided to reveal secrets without any expectation of fame.
"I don't think he intended to become a hero in the sense of having followers all over the world," said Emma Cape, campaign organizer for the Bradley Manning Support Project. "I do think he was intending to do the right thing, knowing his actions would affect people all over the world."
"It was very brave what he did," Cape said. "He is a hero to people not because he is Superman ... but because he's somebody who stood up for democracy and government transparency and accountability at a time when it was needed."
Widney Brown, senior director of international law and policy for Amnesty International, said Manning ? whether it was his goal or not ? had become a symbol.
"His revelations have become symbolic of challenging a post-9/11 world in which national security has gone awry," she said. "It has piqued the imagination and interest of people who are asking if 9/11 gave carte blanche for the government to do whatever it wants as long it says it's in the name of national security."
Support for Manning has been particularly notable in Europe, where he was widely viewed as a conscience-stricken whistleblower incurring the wrath of American authorities for disclosures that embarrassed them.
The Geneva-based International Peace Bureau this month awarded Manning its annual peace prize. Several European lawmakers have urged the U.S. to free him outright. Vigils and protests have regularly been held in his honor outside of U.S. embassies across the continent.
"Manning is a true patriot, not a traitor," British gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell said Tuesday. "At great personal sacrifice, he exposed grave crimes that were perpetrated and then hidden by the U.S. government and military."
With his slight build and bespectacled, boyish looks, Manning embodied neither a superhero nor arch-villain. Indeed, Widney Brown suggested his case provided a counterpoint to the macho imagery that sometimes envelops military and national security matters.
Norm Kent, a criminal defense lawyer and publisher of the South Florida Gay News, likened Manning to the Chinese man shown in an iconic photograph confronting a line of army tanks amid Beijing's Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
"I'd like to think Manning is one of the people who rose to the moment when he was faced with a moral crisis," Kent said. "Maybe, having been a gay man and an outcast before, and understanding what it was like to be alienated, he wasn't afraid to become the little engine that could."
Steven Bucci, a foreign policy expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Manning's personal traits would contribute to a mixed legacy.
"People see a troubled young man as much as a hero or a complete villain," Bucci said. "I don't think there are many people who think he's Benedict Arnold, but they think he broke the law and his reasoning is skewed. I don't know that he's going to become a folk hero except for the most rabid civil libertarian kind of folks."
Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said he initially shared the perception that Manning was psychologically frail, but changed his view after hearing the private testify while pleading guilty to some of the charges leveled against him.
"I had an image that turned out to be completely false," Ratner said. "I was shocked by his intelligence, his politics, the firmness of his voice. It showed a person with tremendous presence."
"His plea was so moving," Ratner said. "Someday maybe people will read it and begin to understand what it means to act on your conscience."
___
Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/craryap
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By Barry Moody
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's supreme court convenes on Tuesday to rule whether Silvio Berlusconi should be jailed and banned from public office for tax fraud, a verdict that could endanger Italy's shaky coalition government.
A ruling against the former prime minister would be his first definitive conviction and signal the end of an era in which he has dominated Italian politics for two decades through his media power and political skill.
It could also plunge the government - an uneasy coalition of Enrico Letta's center-left Democratic Party (PD) and Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PDL) - into crisis and bring renewed uncertainty to the euro zone third's largest economy that could reverberate across the bloc.
The five judges of the Cassation Court - Italy's highest -will hear a final appeal by Berlusconi against a 1-year jail sentence and 5-year ban from office handed down by lower courts for the fraudulent purchase of broadcasting rights by his Mediaset media empire.
The court may take up to three days to deliver its ruling.
Berlusconi, 76, accuses leftwing magistrates of trying to bring him down in more than two dozen court cases since he stormed to power for the first time in 1994.
Although they are waiting for a signal from Berlusconi, PDL hawks have called for everything from a mass resignation of its government ministers to blocking Italy's motorways if the court rules against him.
Fabrizio Cicchitto, a senior PDL parliamentarian, said the media magnate had faced 30 trials. "If this is not a political use of justice what is?"
The departure of Berlusconi from parliament if he is convicted would also raise major questions about the future of his party, which depends on his charisma and wealth.
But a greater risk to the government could come from Letta's faction-ridden PD, many of whose members are already deeply unhappy with being in a coalition with their old enemy, and may refuse to continue if he is found guilty.
CHAOTIC
However, both President Giorgio Napolitano, who dragged the parties into a coalition in April after a two-month crisis that followed inconclusive elections, and Letta himself are adamant that Italy cannot afford more instability as it struggles to climb out of its worst postwar recession.
Both of the major parties may also be reluctant to precipitate an election whose result could be even more chaotic than the February vote and boost support for the populist 5-Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo.
Berlusconi has for months kept his hawks on a tight leash, saying the government must continue.
However, political sources say this stance was dictated by Berlusconi's lawyers, who wanted to avoid upsetting the supreme court judges. The mercurial magnate's reaction if he is found guilty is uncertain.
Berlusconi's lawyers have filed 50 objections to the supreme court, which will rule only on legal procedure and whether the previous appeal court properly justified its sentence.
The court has three choices: convict Berlusconi, acquit him or send the case back to the appeal court because of legal errors. It could also postpone a decision, probably until September - a move advocated by moderate politicians who want to avoid a summer crisis.
Even if Berlusconi is found guilty, his ban from public office depends on a vote by his peers in the Senate which could take weeks or months.
The scandal-plagued mogul is also appealing against a seven- year jail term handed down in June for abuse of office and paying for sex with Moroccan-born nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug alias "Ruby the Heartstealer" when she was underage.
(Additional reporting by Catherine Hornby and James Mackenzie; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlusconi-faces-verdict-could-endanger-italian-government-233240702.html
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Authorities say an 18-year-old man was the driver in a single-car crash that killed Texas A&M freshman football player Polo Manukainiu (mah-NOO'-ky-uh-noo) and a friend who was joining the Utah football team this fall.
New Mexico State Police spokesman Emmanuel Gutierrez says Siaosi Salesi Uhatafe (oo-ha-tah-feh) Jr. crashed the SUV he was driving late Monday when he over-corrected the vehicle. It rolled several times near the town of Cuba, in northern New Mexico.
The crash killed three passengers: 19-year-old Manukainiu, 13-year-old Andrew Uhatafe and 18-year-old Gaius Vaenuku, who was joining the Utes this season.
Authorities says the driver was the only one wearing his seat belt. He and his father, Salesi Uhatafe, suffered minor injuries and were the only survivors.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Texas A&M said Tuesday that redshirt freshman Polo Manukainiu and a friend who was joining the Utah football team this fall were among three people killed in a single-car rollover crash in the high desert of northern New Mexico, stunning both schools just days before fall practices begin.
Manukainiu, a 19-year-old defensive lineman for the Aggies, and 18-year-old Utah recruit Gaius "Keio" Vaenuku were killed, officials from both schools said.
The wreck happened Monday evening on U.S. 550 near Cuba, about 85 miles north of Albuquerque, apparently as the group was returning to suburban Dallas, where three of them had ties to prep football power Trinity High School in Euless.
New Mexico state police said Manukainiu and Vaenuku were passengers in a southbound 2002 Toyota Sequoia that drifted off the sagebrush-lined highway, according to Texas A&M. The driver overcorrected and the vehicle rolled several times.
Alcohol wasn't involved and it appeared that the driver, who was not immediately identified, was the only one wearing a seatbelt, authorities said.
Manukainiu and passenger Andrew "Lolo" Uhatafe died at the scene after they were ejected from the vehicle, the Texas A&M statement said. Vaenuku was pronounced dead in an ambulance that responded to the accident.
Survivors included Salesi Uhatafe and his son Salesi Uhatafe Jr., an incoming freshman football player for Utah and a stepbrother of Manukainiu. Both suffered only minor injuries, authorities said.
Manukainiu had apparently traveled to Salt Lake City for some relaxation, tweeting Sunday: "It's always good to get away from the Texas Heat for the weekend. Utah got that breezeeeeeee."
On Monday, hours before the accident, he tweeted: "22 hour drive back to Texas on no sleep. Oh my."
Manukainiu played football at Trinity High School in Euless, west of Dallas, and was part of the Aggies' 2012 signing class. He was a recreation, parks and tourism science major, the school said, and is survived by his mother, Lima Uhatafe of Euless.
"We lost a terrific young man," Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. "Polo was loved by his teammates and coaches. Anyone who came in contact with him was struck by his sense of humor and smile. My heart aches for his mom and family members."
Texas A&M finished last season ranked No. 5 after an 11-2 season, their first in the Southeastern Conference. They were led by quarterback Johnny Manziel, who became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy, and are expected to be highly ranked again this year.
"Heart hurts waking up to news about Polo," Manziel tweeted on Tuesday. "I think I speak for everyone on our team when I say we love you brother you will be missed."
It is the second such tragedy for Texas A&M in less than two years: Senior offensive lineman Joseph Villavisencio, 22, was killed in a December 2011 car accident after veering head-on into the path of an 18-wheeler 40 miles from College Station. He had spent part of that day delivering gifts to families at a local shelter. Manziel mentioned Villavisencio during his Heisman acceptance speech last year.
Vaenuku was a defensive tackle who had planned to play one year at Utah before going on a two-year Mormon mission, the Deseret News of Salt Lake City reported in January when he committed.
"Everyone who knew Gaius is heartbroken today," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. "He was the kind of young man who lit up a room and his future in football and life had no boundaries. Words cannot express our devastation over the loss of Gaius."
Vaenuku was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and considered playing at church-owned Brigham Young but he said he felt more at home in Salt Lake City playing for the Utes. His bio on the Utah website says Vaenuku he had three brothers and three sisters and enjoyed acting and singing.
The news stunned Trinity High in Euless, where Manukainiu, Vaenuku and Uhatafe Jr. all played football. The team has been one of the best in Texas in recent years, with three state titles in a span of five seasons from 2005-09 and a trip to the championship game in 2010.
Principal Mike Harris said the deaths have affected a majority of the Euless community, where there is a tight-knit Polynesian community.
"They were students with bright smiles that everybody knew and everybody loved," the principal said.
Texas A&M associate athletic director Alan Cannon said Manukainiu was known for his sense of humor and "will be sorely missed as a person you enjoyed being around." He said the football staff was working Tuesday to notify teammates of his death. Players are scheduled to report to campus Sunday to begin practicing for the upcoming season.
Cannon said Manukainiu was to wear jersey No. 90 and that it was too early to determine if players will affix the number to their uniforms as a tribute. The NCAA must approve any such recognition, Cannon said.
---
Associated Press writers Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City and David Warren and Uriel Garcia in Dallas contributed to this report.
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We've already adjusted to the consumer utopia of buying just about everything online with a single click, but waiting for it to show up is still the hardest part. eBay Now
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More than 6,000 degrees conferred to online students
CHICAGO--()--Kaplan University?s 2013 Summer Commencement was held today in Chicago at the historic Chicago Theatre. The ceremony celebrated the hard work, perseverance and achievements of more than 6,000 graduates who earned Associate, Bachelor and Master Degrees from Kaplan University?s Schools of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, Health Sciences, Information Technology, Legal Studies, Nursing and Public Service.
?Fifty years ago, my father delivered his ?I Have a Dream?
Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of human rights leaders Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, delivered the keynote address at each of the two ceremonies held today, addressing more than 700 graduates in attendance and thousands more watching and celebrating via a live webcast. She called on the graduates to continue to pursue their dreams, strive for excellence, and use their education and skills to make a positive impact in the lives of others.
?Fifty years ago, my father delivered his ?I Have a Dream? speech. As you continue to fulfill your dreams, hold on to the tenacity and commitment that brought you to this defining moment. My father understood that intelligence plus character is the true goal of education. He was an educated leader with character and integrity. He was an ordinary person, who had an extraordinary impact on the world. Our world is in great need of more leaders like him and you have what the world is waiting for. I implore you to take your degrees and answer the call!? said Dr. King.
An ordained minister and attorney, Dr. King is the chief executive officer of The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also the author of the book, ?Hard Questions, Heart Answers.?
Kaplan University President Dr. Wade Dyke congratulated the graduates.
?While your individual journeys to this day and stage began on different days and stages in your lives, you have much in common, including a unifying desire to change your lives and others through the path that is education,? said Dr. Dyke. ?As you continue on your life?s journey, take each step with the same motivation and enthusiasm to make a positive difference.?
Earlier this year, some 7,000 degrees were conferred to online students at Kaplan University?s Winter Commencement in Miami, Fla.
About Kaplan University
Kaplan University offers a different school of thought for higher education. It strives to help adult students unlock their talent by providing a practical, student-centered education that prepares them for careers in some of the fastest-growing industries. The University, which has its main campus in Davenport, Iowa, and its headquarters in Chicago, is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (www.ncahlc.org) and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Kaplan University serves approximately 49,000 online and campus-based students. The University has 11 campuses in Iowa, Nebraska, Maryland and Maine, and Kaplan University Learning Centers in?Maryland,?Wisconsin,?Indiana,?Missouri?and?Florida.
Kaplan University?is?part of Kaplan Higher Education Group and Kaplan, Inc., a leading international provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses.?Kaplan, Inc. serves approximately 67,000 students online and through approximately 70 campus-based schools across the United States. Kaplan?s higher education schools offer a spectrum of academic opportunities, from certificates and diplomas to graduate and professional degrees, including a juris doctor degree.?Kaplan serves students of all ages through a wide array of offerings including higher education, test preparation, professional training and programs for kids in grades K-12. Kaplan, Inc., is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company and its largest division. For more information, visit?www.kaplanuniversity.edu.
Source: http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=2e2b452d0f65c75a53298ee4f1877b2f
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Can Eco-Districts help a major city grow sustainably while conserving energy resources? San Francisco?s about to find out.
San Francisco already has a lot of distinct neighborhoods?Chinatown, the Castro,?Haight-Ashbury. Each has its own distinct personality, type of resident, and geographical area. These fascinating neighborhoods formed organically over time, building a strong sense of community that?s almost like tiny cities within a city.
Now, the City of San Francisco wants to manufacture a new kind of district in hopes of?reducing water consumption and waste, and enhancing community-scale energy resources. They will, unsurprisingly, be called Ec0-Districts, and if successful, they could help San Francisco continue to grow without increasing its negative environmental impact.
?To aid in the fulfillment of these goals, the program is implementing a tool called Eco-Districts ? a community of property owners, businesses and residents within a neighborhood that collaborate to develop and initiate sustainable development projects in their area,? reports ArchDaily. ?Using a set of performance metrics, neighborhoods can shape their projects with custom strategies for their community.?
So what exactly will these Eco-Districts look like? Well according to the SF Planning Department, there will be four different types of Eco-District, and true to form, they all have creative names.
The Blank Slate
In a Blank Slate district, most of the land is?undeveloped and typically owned by a single property owner. With very little existing development to work around, this type of district enables??horizontal infrastructure development to be implemented in advance of vertical development to help optimize Eco-District goals.?
The Patchwork Quilt
In a Quilt District, there is both undeveloped, underdeveloped, and developed land, owned by different property owners implementing development projects under different time frames. This presents more of a challenge than the Blank Slate. The goal with a Quilt is to align ?development time frames to maximize opportunities to meet environmental goals.? The community will be encouraged ?to build on its existing character and to integrate the physical qualities of the area as part of its character.? (San Francisco?s Central Corridor is an example of this type of Eco-District in action.)
The Strengthened Neighborhood
This is one of the most exciting types of Eco-Districts, because it?s a neighborhood that?s already at capacity, but perhaps not operating at optimal efficiency with regards to energy resources. In this district,?the Office of Economic and Workforce Development?s?Invest in Neighborhoods Initiative, would use strategies of ?tactical urbanism? to ?bolster distinctive character and support eco-friendly behavior.?
The Industrial Network
Cities can?t be all parks and courtyards. In every metropolis, there is a section dedicated to industrial purposes, where power is made, and where distribution and repair of all types of services for energy resources occurs.?Aligning these industries so that their operating and distribution systems can work more efficiently is the primary focus of the Industrial Eco-District.
In each of these neighborhoods, similar tactics to increase sustainability will be deployed, all in line with the waste-reduction goals of the city and state. Coordinated neighborhoods could take advantage of group purchasing of solar power at lower rates, or perhaps even a community-shared solar installation.
?An eco-district could also set up an?efficient district energy system, which produces steam, heated water and chilled water at a central plant and distributes the energy to multiple connected buildings, so they do not need to have their own boilers or chillers,? writes Sustainable Development Policy Director Laura Tam. ?An eco-district organization could facilitate water reuse between properties, too, such as harvesting rainwater from multiple properties to irrigate a neighborhood park or street landscaping.?
The possibilities, when communities are organized and invited to participate in their own planning process, are endless. Learn more about how other cities?Austin, Boston and Seattle?have already put Eco-Districts to work at ecodistricts.org.
Images: Wikimedia Commons,?Jihee Chung, SWA Group
Source: http://ecosalon.com/san-francisco-to-conserve-energy-resources-with-eco-districts/
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CLEVELAND (AP) ? One of three women held captive in a Cleveland home for a decade made her first public appearance at a concert featuring the rapper Nelly a day after her abductor pleaded guilty to kidnap and rape charges.
Amanda Berry showed up at the daylong RoverFest concert in Cleveland on Saturday night, walking on stage with her family and waving at the cheering crowd. Wearing sunglasses and dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, Berry smiled broadly while acknowledging the applause, but she didn't address the crowd. Nelly called Berry back to the stage after his music set.
The appearance came a day after Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, pleaded guilty to 937 counts in a deal that will send him to prison for life without parole, plus 1,000 years.
Berry, now 27, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight disappeared between 2002 and 2004 when they were 16, 14 and 20 years old. They escaped in May when Berry kicked out part of a door and called to neighbors for help.
Shane French, the host of the syndicated talk radio show Rover's Morning Glory on WMMS in Cleveland, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday that he was surprised when Berry showed up at the annual festival. French, who goes by the name Rover on radio, said he had issued an impromptu invitation on his show a few weeks ago but didn't know she was listening.
"I just said that she had 10 years of partying to make up for and she should come," French said.
He said he was surprised when security guards told him Berry had arrived.
French said Berry at first refused to go on stage but then agreed and asked if he would go with her.
"She didn't say why she decided to come, but some of her family members told me they listen to my show every day and had been to RoverFest in the past," French said.
He said a couple of the women with Berry cried, overcome by the crowd's cheers for Berry.
"I didn't see her cry, but I think she was pretty overwhelmed by the response that the crowd gave her," he said of Berry. "She just seemed to be having a great time."
French said he hasn't invited her to appear on his radio show.
"I figured that when she want to tell her story, she'll make the arrangements, and it would have been pointless to even ask," French said.
Castro, 53, who was arrested and jailed shortly after the women escaped, was accused of raping and beating the three repeatedly. He also fathered a 6-year-old daughter with Berry, authorities say.
The women said they were relieved by the conviction and looking forward to the end of the legal proceedings.
Each said she had been kidnapped after accepting a ride from Castro, who had remained friends with DeJesus' family and attended vigils over the years marking her disappearance.
Castro was accused of restraining the women, sometimes chaining them to a pole in a basement, to a bedroom heater or inside a van. The indictment included two counts of aggravated murder related to accusations that he punched and starved one of the women until she miscarried.
Earlier this month, the three women offered thanks on YouTube for emotional and financial backing they've received since going "through hell and back."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amanda-berry-surprises-cleveland-concert-crowd-130013567.html
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RIO DE JANEIRO - Hundreds of thousands of young people who slept under chilly skies in the white sand of Copacabana beach woke up Sunday in eager anticipation of Pope Francis' final Mass for World Youth Day, the culmination of the emotional homecoming for the first Latin American pope.
The mayor of Rio de Janeiro estimated some 3 million people would turn up for Sunday's Mass, and hours before the service even began, nearly the entire 4 kilometre (2.5 mile) crescent of Copacabana's broad beach overflowed with pilgrims, some of them taking an early morning dip in the Atlantic.
The all-night beach party had a festive air, with pilgrims wrapped in flags and sleeping bags to ward off the cold. They danced, prayed and sang ? and stood in long lines in front of the armadas of portable bathrooms along the beachfront.
"We were dying of cold but it was worth it," said Lucrecia Grillera, an 18-year-old from Cordoba, Argentina, where Francis lived for a time before becoming pope. "It was a tiring day, but it was a great experience."
Francis headed into the final hours of his first international trip riding a remarkable wave of popularity: By the time his open-sided car reached the stage for the vigil service Saturday night, the back seat was piled high with soccer jerseys, flags and flowers tossed to him by adoring pilgrims lining the beachfront route.
The vigil drew a reported 3 million flag-waving, rosary-toting faithful, higher than the 1 million at the last World Youth Day vigil in Madrid in 2011, and far more than the 650,000 at Toronto's 2002 vigil.
Many of those watching the vigil had tears in their eyes as they listened to Francis' call for them to not be "part-time Christians" and to build up their church like his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, was called to do.
"Jesus offers us something bigger than the World Cup!" Francis said, drawing cheers from the crowd in this soccer-mad nation.
After Sunday's Mass, Francis meets with the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as a thank-you audience with some of the 60,000 volunteers who organized the youth festival. He leaves for Rome Sunday night.
Saturday night's vigil capped a busy day for the pope in which he drove home a message he has emphasized throughout the week in speeches, homilies and off-the-cuff remarks: the need for Catholics, lay and religious, to shake up the status quo, get out of their stuffy sacristies and reach the faithful on the margins of society or risk losing them to rival churches.
In the longest and most important speech of his four-month pontificate, Francis took a direct swipe at the "intellectual" message of the church that so characterized the pontificate of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Speaking to Brazil's bishops, he said ordinary Catholics simply don't understand such lofty ideas and need to hear the simpler message of love, forgiveness and mercy that is at the core of the Catholic faith.
"At times we lose people because they don't understand what we are saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an intellectualism foreign to our people," he said. "Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to fish for God in the deep waters of his mystery."
In a speech outlining the kind of church he wants, Francis asked bishops to reflect on why hundreds of thousands of Catholics have left the church for Protestant and Pentecostal congregations that have grown exponentially in recent decades in Brazil, particularly in its slums or favelas, where their charismatic message and nuts-and-bolts advice is welcome by the poor.
According to census data, the number of Catholics in Brazil dipped from 125 million in 2000 to 123 million in 2010, with the church's share of the total population dropping from 74 per cent to 65 per cent. During the same time period, the number of evangelical Protestants and Pentecostals skyrocketed from 26 million to 42 million, increasing from 15 per cent to 22 per cent of the population in 2010.
Francis offered a breathtakingly blunt list of explanations for the "exodus."
"Perhaps the church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas," he said. "Perhaps the world seems to have made the church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions. Perhaps the church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age."
Francis asked if the church today can still "warm the hearts" of its faithful with priests who take time to listen to their problems and remain close to them.
"We need a church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy," he said. "Without mercy, we have little chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of 'wounded' persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love."
___
Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja and Bradley Brooks contributed to this report.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/night-beach-slumber-party-faithful-wake-eager-popes-124303876.html
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A group of Russia?s most prominent lawyers have penned an open letter warning that the country?s constitutional order is under threat from authorities? abuse of the law.
More than 50 of Russia's leading legal experts, most of them distinguished professors of law, have signed an open letter?warning that Russia's constitutional order is "under threat." The letter decries what it calls the systematic abuses of the rights of citizens by authorities bent on silencing political opponents.
Skip to next paragraph Fred WeirCorrespondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.?
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It's a small signal, but one that suggests some of Russia's most educated people are feeling a deepening disquiet over the country's radically-changing legal landscape and what increasingly looks like a deliberate official effort to re-purpose criminal law as a tool for intimidating dissenters and imprisoning political opponents.
"As people who are professionally engaged [with the law], we feel we have the right to state that on the 20th anniversary of the [1993] Constitution of the Russian Federation?that the constitutional system of the country is under threat. The basic provisions of the Constitution and, above all, the constitutional definition of Russia as a law-governed state, have become, essentially, an empty declaration," the letter says.
Though the brief letter is a general declaration that mentions no specific cases, it was almost certainly prompted by the 5-year prison sentence handed to anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny?last week, in a case that had twice been dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence and only revived after he became politically active as a leader of the anti-Kremlin street opposition.
In a stark illustration of the political considerations guiding the case, Moscow's top prosecutor quickly ordered the regional court that had convicted Mr. Navalny to release him pending his appeal?? not the usual procedure in Russian criminal cases. Many analysts say that most likely happened because the Kremlin wants to keep Navalny on the ballot for September mayoral polls in Moscow, so that he can be handily defeated by the state-backed incumbent Sergei Sobyanin before being packed away to prison.
Indeed, the growing numbers of Russian protest leaders and independent politicians?who've found themselves hit with criminal charges over the past couple of years defies the law of averages and leads to a stark analytical choice. Either the type of people who challenge Russia's rigged rules of "managed democracy" tend by nature to be hard-core criminals, or else Russian courts are being guided by a political hand to enforce the laws ? at best ? with extreme selectivity.
"How can we speak about a law-governed state when we see a war being waged against the public influence of the emerging civil society in this country?" the open letter continues. "The word 'war' is no mere figure of speech in this context, because we can not help observing that almost all public institutions of power are coordinating their actions [in the assault on civil society]. This includes state institutions whose very purpose is to protect the constitutional and fundamental rights of the individual."
For the past few months, dozens of nongovernmental organizations have been threatened with forced closure?if they refuse to adopt the self-incriminating label "foreign agent" ? which connotes "spy" in Russian ? under a new law that appears designed to eliminate all organizations that receive any amount of foreign funding and engage in any sort of public outreach that authorities deem "political." ?As many as 100 groups have been targeted: from those that engage in human rights activism, election monitoring, anti-corruption activities, advocation of prison and military reform, and providing legal defense to political offenders to with those whose inclusion on official hit-lists defies logical explanation.
"The legislative work of the Parliament has acquired a distinctly prohibitive and repressive character," the letter adds.
The pro-Kremlin majority in the current State Duma, elected almost two years ago amid what are now widely-accepted allegations of mass voting fraud, has since passed a series of tough laws that seem designed to eliminate any organized, legal expressions of opposition in Russia. In addition to the NGO law, they include new legislation to curb street protests; impose tough criminal penalties for "slander," which critics warn will make investigative journalism virtually impossible; expand the definition of "treason" to potentially implicate almost any Russian who works with foreigners; impose potentially tough control over the Internet; and effectively criminalize any public expression of anti-religious sentiment or "non-traditional" ? read: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ? sexual orientation.
The legal scholars' open letter charges that Russian law enforcement agencies "cynically violate constitutional and other legal provisions, including by fabricating criminal ... cases against those who criticize the authorities."
And Russian "courts ?? which are the only authority from which citizens might hope to find protection of their rights ? 'legalize' these violations by handing down biased and often patently unjust convictions on the basis of one-sided, and even falsified evidence," the letter says.
"In our country, citizens' rights have frequently been beaten down, and we see the further growth of that old anti-legal tradition best expressed as 'might makes right'. Law in its true sense is disappearing before our eyes ?? because one of its most unshakable foundations ?? the equality of all before the law and the courts ? is being violated. All the institutions that are supposed to defend the law are being systematically degraded," it concludes.?
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The much awaited Google Nexus 7 tablet has started appearing in various retails stores across the country. Users in USA can get their hands on the shiny tablet from Google Play Store?as well. At the event, it was announced that tablet will hit the markets globally but no specific dates were announced. It is expected that Nexus 7 will hit UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and a few more countries in the coming weeks. If you are residing in Canada and cannot wait to get your hands on the device, we have good news for you. Nexus 7 will be available for sale in Canada through Staples starting 31 July.
The news emerges from an alleged Staples ad that has been leaked on the internet. The flyer shows that the next generation Nexus 7 will be available for $249 for the 16GB version, which is $20 higher than the official price. There is no word about the 32GB variant but we suspect that it will be available for $289, a similar $20 higher than the original price offered in Google Play Store.
There is no doubt that many Android enthusiasts want to get their hands on Nexus 7 as soon as they can. So, if you cannot wait for Google to officially release it in Canada, wit for 31 July and get it from Staples. Although, you should know that the after sales support offered by Google is way better than any other retailer.
Source: MobileSyrup
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/geeky-gadgets/~3/8eu8HV5t9ow/
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Nobody can accuse Tom Johnson of over-hyping Canada?s team at this year?s world swimming championships.
?We?re in pretty tough,? said Johnson, part of the Canadian coaching contingent at the worlds that begin Sunday and run until Aug. 4 in Barcelona.
?We?ve got a new group of kids coming around, and we?re just hoping to be able to improve from the selection moment into the world championships. And then once they get there, to be able to convert any morning (heat) swims into semi-final or final swims.?
Past Olympians Brent Hayden, Annamay Pierce and Julia Wilkinson have retired, so Canada is pinning its slight medal hopes on a predominantly young crop of swimmers as a new Olympic cycle begins prior to the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Many of Canada?s swimmers are in their teens or early 20s, and several have been to the world championships and Olympics before, but most have yet to earn shots at medals.
?Qualifying for (semi-finals and finals) is something that we need to be better at, and we?ve recognized that coming out of the (2012) Olympics,? said Johnson, noting Canada only had seven Olympic finalists.
Savannah King, 21, of Vernon, B.C., is among the young hopefuls looking to step up to the podium as she competes at her third world championships in freestyle. A member of the national team since the age of 14, King is looking to excel after she struggled for ?a few years? to become dedicated to competing at international competition.
Bigger than most kids as a teen, she also had to overcome bullying and taunts because of her size and chosen sport.
?It?s hard to be this dedicated to a sport, especially in your teens, especially when you want to be out doing other things,? said King. ?But it?s just the highs you get from it that make it all worthwhile, and the training seems like nothing after those great moments.?
She will compete in the 400 and 800 women?s freestyle events and 4x200 women?s freestyle relay. The worlds, King suggested, will be a chance for Canada to show its developing strength in the pool.
?We have a young team,? she said. ?There are a lot of young swimmers that are coming up in the ranks and showing that Canadian swimming is not all just high-level athletes that are older and retiring. It seems that we have younger athletes that are coming up and swimming faster than the previous generation. It?s really good to see in the sport.?
Toronto?s Brittany MacLean, 19, is also looking to build on her international success after she earned her way on to the freestyle relay team that placed fourth in London.
The University of Georgia student has battled a nagging shoulder injury and pulled hamstring this year, but she helped Canada win bronze medals in the 4x100-metre and 4x200-metre relays at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia while placing fourth in the individual events over the same distances.
?Right now, my body is holding up as good as I could ask it to,? said MacLean.
Tera Van Beilen, 20, of Mississauga, Ont., hopes to contend in her first world championships. She qualified for her first Olympics, the London 2012 Games, with her best finish a ninth-place showing in the 100-metre breaststroke, before reaching worlds.
?My goal is to make top eight,? said Van Beilen, who is slated to compete in the 50, 100 and 200-metre breaststroke events in Barcelona. ?After a disappointing Olympics, I think that?s a possibility for me.?
Katerine Savard, 20, of Cap-Rouge, Que., also hopes to bring home a medal after winning gold in the 100-metre butterfly and silver in the 50-metre fly at Universiade.
?I had a great chance to see where I was at this point in the year,? said Savard. ?And, I think I saw a good thing, and I hope to be faster.?
Savard will compete in her second world championships after missing the final in the 100-metre butterfly by a tenth of a second in 2011. In June, Savard broke her own national record in the 100 as she posted a time of 57.40 seconds, the second-fastest clocking in the world this year.
On the men?s side, Ashton Baumann, 20, whose father Alex won two individual medley gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, will be one to watch as he competes at the worlds for the first time, in the 200-metre breaststroke.
Ryan Cochrane of Victoria, 24, who won silver and bronze in the 1,500-metre freestyle in the last two Olympics, respectively, is one of Canada?s few medal threats.
He has won four medals over the last two world championships, with two silvers in the 1,500 and a silver and bronze in the 800. But he has struggled in the 400, in which he placed ninth in London and fifth at the 2011 worlds.
As a result, he will use these world championships to gauge his progress after focusing on the 400 in training.
?We made a change, and I?m pretty satisfied with the results I?ve seen so far,? said Cochrane. ?It?s something new, and I feel it?s exciting to utilize that going into the world championships.?
He is also thrilled about the potential that Canada?s youth movement has to offer.
?For a long time, we depended on the older swimmers on the team to drive the direction of the team,? he said. ?It?s exciting that the younger athletes can have the opportunity to be leaders.?
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SBA Awards Grants to 20 Universities and OrganizationsWASHINGTON ? Supporting programs for innovative, technology-driven small businesses under SBA?s Federal and State Technology (FAST) partnership program, the U.S. Small Business Administration has granted 20 awards, of $95,000 per award, for FY 2013 to 20 state and local economic development agencies, business development centers, and colleges and universities. Candidates were submitted by the governors of all 50 U.S. states and territories.
The FAST Program is designed to stimulate economic development among small, high technology businesses through federally-funded innovation and research and development programs like the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR).??The project and budget periods are for 12 months, starting October 1, 2013.
?The FAST program is an important catalyst for helping America?s cutting-edge entrepreneurs continue to drive innovation and create good jobs,? said Karen G. Mills, SBA Administrator. ?The partnerships developed through these programs will play a critical role in helping high-growth potential small firms take those next steps to help drive our local economies.?
The recipients include:
- Arizona?Arizona Commerce Authority
- Arkansas?Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas
- Connecticut?Connecticut Innovations, Inc.
- Delaware?University of Delaware
- Louisiana?Louisiana State University and A&M College
- Michigan?BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting LLC
- Mississippi?Innovate Mississippi
- Missouri?The Curators of the University of Missouri
- Montana ?Montana Department of Commerce
- New Mexico?Technology Ventures Corporation
- New York?The Research Foundation for the State University of New York
- North Dakota?University of North Dakota
- Ohio??Ohio Aerospace Institute
- Oregon??Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center
- Pennsylvania?Ben Franklin Technology Partners Corporation
- Puerto Rico?Inter American University of Puerto Rico SBTDC
- South Dakota ?Governor?s Office of Economic Development
- Tennessee?Tennessee Technology Development Corp. dba Launch Tennessee
- Vermont?Vermont State Colleges
- Wisconsin?Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin System
FAST provides up to $95,000 per award to pay for outreach and technical assistance to science and technology-driven small businesses.? The program places particular emphasis on helping socially and economically disadvantaged firms compete in the SBA?s SBIR and STTR programs.
FAST funding awardees demonstrated how they will help support areas such as:
* small business research and development assistance,
* technology transfer from universities to small businesses,
* technological diffusion of innovation benefiting small businesses,
* proposal development and mentoring for small businesses applying for SBIR grants; and,
* commercializing technology developed through SBIR grants.
Proposals were evaluated by a panel of SBIR program managers. The SBA, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation jointly reviewed the panel?s recommendations and made awards based on proposal merit. The grant requires varying levels of matching funds from each participating state and territory.
Companies supported by the SBIR and STTR programs often generate some of the most important breakthroughs each year in the U.S.?? For example, about 25 percent of R&D Magazine?s Top 100 Innovations come from SBIR-funded small businesses.
More details about FAST grants are here:
http://www.sbir.gov/about/about-fast-partnership-program
For more information about the SBIR and STTR programs, visit SBA?s website at:
http://www.sba.gov/about-sba-services/7050
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Side lit by a stage light Pope Francis addresses the youth gathered at the World Youth Day Welcome Feast on the Copacabana beachfront in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 25, 2013. Francis addressed the young pilgrims from 175 nations gathered on the famous beach. Francis is on the fourth day of his trip to Brazil. Holding the umbrella is Vatican Master of Ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini. (AP Photo/Stefano Rellandini, Pool)
Side lit by a stage light Pope Francis addresses the youth gathered at the World Youth Day Welcome Feast on the Copacabana beachfront in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 25, 2013. Francis addressed the young pilgrims from 175 nations gathered on the famous beach. Francis is on the fourth day of his trip to Brazil. Holding the umbrella is Vatican Master of Ceremonies, Mons. Guido Marini. (AP Photo/Stefano Rellandini, Pool)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Pope Francis' killer pace is wearing out his aides.
The 76-year-old Argentine Jesuit, who lost most of one lung following an infection in his youth, has been acting like a man half his age during his first international trip as pope, adding in events at the last minute to his already full schedule and gamely going with the flow after heavy rains forced major changes in the World Youth Day agenda.
His spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, noted Thursday that such vigorous activity has been the norm at the Vatican ever since Francis came to town, saying the Vatican's usually staid bureaucrats were getting "stressed out" by his pace ? and that that was a good thing.
But he quipped: "I'm happy we're half-way through because if it were any longer I'd be destroyed."
Francis added two unscheduled events Thursday to an already full day: a morning Mass with some 300 seminarians from the region, and then a meeting at Rio's cathedral with some 30,000 Argentine pilgrims.
Asked when Francis would actually return to his home country, Lombardi revealed that there were no plans for a trip to Argentina in 2014 as had been widely expected.
Rather, he said, the pope planned to visit another continent given he had already been to Brazil in 2013 and, as he announced somewhat unexpectedly on Wednesday, would be returning in 2017 to mark the 300th anniversary of the discovery of the statue of the Virgin of Aparecida, Brazil's patron saint.
Lombardi didn't say which continent might get a papal visit in 2014, but mentioned Africa, Asia or the Holy Land as possibilities.
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Clear communication at the Fed: The impossible dream?
The Wall Street Journal has a new article on the Fed and how it intends to try to improve its easy money communications policy.
Fat chance.
Let me try to make this as simple as possible.?
The Fed will never succeed in making its communications clearer or even understandable because its policy is inconsistent and in fact involves basic contradictions. Even if it confronts that, it will not be able to make its policy choice clear..
'Forward guidance' is the first oxymororn in the Fed's arsenal: The Fed has offered us several different kinds of' forward guidance'. It has said that it will keep interest rates low for an extended period of time. It has said it will keep interest rates low essentially at zero until a specific period of time. It then changed that point in the future to which it promised to keep interest rates that low. And, recently it has replaced this policy with something new called 'forward guidance' that offers a profile for the Fed funds rate - a very specific profile.?
Now, here comes the 'Magic'
On one level the Fed calls this 'forward guidance' that is supposed to help us make decisions about the future because it has laid out this?futuristic yellow brick road?for us to follow.
The contradiction is that even this 'forward guidance' is of a conditional nature and not what it seems. The Fed is not pledging to keep interest rates on this path, it is simply saying that it's the Fed's most likely view but that if the economy turns out to be different than policymakers anticipate POLICY will be different too- but it downplays that potential fork in the road.?
In other words the Fed's 'forward guidance' doesn't seem to be any different than the typical economist forecast which says well on one hand this could happen on on the other hand that could happen. The Fed wants us to focus on 'this' hand and on 'this hand' only.
But beyond that, anyone who has paid any attention to the Fed or to what I've written above, is aware that 'forward guidance' should come with a subscript: the letter "t." This is because the the Fed's 'forward guidance' is only the Fed's 'forward guidance' that exists at a particular period, t.. And as we can see (and have seen, in fact) the Fed already has changed the nature of its forward guidance several times in the past.
So since the Fed's 'forward guidance' that it's offering us now, admittedly is conditional, and since the Fed already has exhibited substantial changes in the way it's characterized its 'forward guidance' in the past, why should we consider 'forward guidance' a tool at all - that is other than a broken tool? And, how can the Fed possibly change its communications to make this oxymoron clearer ? that is unless it were to give up on the idea of 'forward guidance' altogether?
When Mario Draghi tried to adopt forward guidance at the European Central Bank a day or so after he expressed his intention to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time using almost exactly the old language that the Fed had used, Jens Weidmann, head of the Bundesbank, said quite specifically that 'forward guidance' would not keep the ECB from raising rates if monetary policy rules and price stability required it.
So what good is it anyway? The ECB exchange cuts right to the quick of it; doesn't it?
There is nobody at the Fed issuing this kind of blunt clarification or countermanding statement to Fed Chairman Bernanke. But it should be quite clear that the Fed is trying to deal from the top of the deck and the bottom of the deck at the same time. And this is why its communication message goes astray.
There may be some academic framework in which 'forward guidance' has some application and in the end can work. I suppose if you and pose the idea that 'forward guidance' exists and has credibility you can move ahead to solve equations based upon its existence. But in the real world the Fed cannot really provide true 'forward guidance'. In the real world 'forward guidance' is necessarily conditional and once 'forward guidance' is conditional it ceases to exist or to be useful or evento be guidance (it might well be misguidance).?
Moreover, once 'forward guidance' has been offered in the past and has changed it undermines the impact and the potential usefulness not to mention the outright lack of veracity in trying to use it EVER again.
Except to this Fed...
I think that the Fed has an intellectual model of 'forward guidance' that is inapplicable to the real world and it doesn't understand that. I think when we recognize the intrinsic pitfalls of the policy of 'forward guidance' outside of an academic framework we begin to understand why the Fed communicates its policy intention so badly.
Problems beyond forward guidance and its flawed yellow brick road
In addition to all that messiness, we have the other wishy-washy aspects of Fed policy that have to do with an unemployment rate threshold that is not a trigger and may not be meaningful whatsoever. And as the Chairman begins to wander off into that weird Wonderland of guidance that once again doesn't exist (telling us what may happen when/if unemployment goes below 6.5%) it's no wonder that people get confused. On one hand the Fed seems so eager to please to provide us with benchmarks but on the other hand it recognizes that it can't provide us with benchmarks unless it's sure that they are going to serve the stated purpose it wants to put them to. At that point the Fed confronts a dilemma.So it has given us meaningless numbers!
Therefore, every time the Fed tries to tell us something that's very specific it winds up having hedge it with caveats and conditional statements that have to be elaborated and clarified at a later date. This is why Fed communication strategy can never be successful. It's just not possible.
This all traces back to Ben Bernanke embracing the dual mandate with a two-pronged objective. Even Yogi Berra knows that when you come to the fork in the road, you should take it. Not Ben. He wants them both.
The Fed has long had this same policy mandate but under Paul Volcker and continuing under Alan Greenspan the Fed had argued that it pursued its goal of maximum sustainable growth best when it achieved price stability.In that it successfully had hammered the two tines of that fork into a single cutting edge. But Bernanke unbundled the strategy to reveal two separate prongs of short run objectives. He brought open conflict back to policy.?
He opened a can of worms, worms that continue to crawl across the table at the FOMC each meeting. These worms are not trained nor controllable and they continue to be the basis for the Federal Reserve trying to give us guidance on policy that simultaneously tugs it in different directions.
To make matters worse the Fed seems to have its own separate judgment or conscience working in the background apart from its stated policy metrics. The Fed seems to be wary of the size of its balance sheet at long last and wants to address that even though its policy metrics do not conform to that desire ?
So right now even with the unemployment rate well above the Fed's threshold level of 6.5% (whatever the heck that means) and with inflation under-shooting its long run target (2%) and even decelerating, the Fed Chairman is trying to point everyone to the prospect - in fact, what he deems as the likelihood- of the Fed trimming back on its quantitative easing later in the year.
That seems to be 180 degreees wrong, doesn't it?
To justify this at the last meeting's press conference the Fed Chairman finally told us that the factors that govern quantitative easing are different from those that govern the Fed's ordinary policy, effectively trying to drive a wedge between the fact that the factors governing ordinary policy are calling for the Fed to ease further while the Fed is trying to guide us toward a policy that will see it easing by less using QE. (All this completely ignores the fact that QE was adopted to solve the Zero Bound issue and was viewed at first as an extension of the Fed funds policy. So why QE forces now move it in the opposite direction of the Fed funds rate's governing forces is no small trick)
Only Jim Bullard among FOMC members seems to be bothered by the fact that the Fed's inflation objective is calling for it to do something very different from what it's doing.
As you can see I think the main problem with Fed policy has nothing to do with economics and everything to do it logic. Any logician could look at this and understand the conflicts inherent in what the Fed is trying to do.
The Fed by this time has drunk too much of its own Kool Aide and cannot see how foolish its own policy really has become.?
When I was a youngster I remember learning the meaning of the expression that 'you can't have your cake and eat it too'. I think it's an expression that the Fed needs to confront and come to an understanding about. Because, when it comes to 'forward guidance' the Fed very much wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants that in many other aspects of policy as well as I hope I have made clear above. ?
At least I hope it is clearer than the Fed's communication policy. And I hope it clarifies the problems with the Fed's communications policy.
?
END
Source: http://robertbrusca.blogspot.com/2013/07/clear-communication-at-fed-impossible.html
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