Liberty Newspost June-25-2012 by Liberty Newspost

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- 25/06/12

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Court Rejects Corporate Campaign Spending Limits - Wall Street Journal (Top Stories - Google News)

reconsider Citizens United or at least its application to the Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:08:36 PM Montana case. He said Montana's A Wall Street Journal Roundup experience "casts grave doubt on WASHINGTON—The U.S. the Court's supposition that Supreme Court declined to independent expenditures" by reconsider its 2010 Citizens corporations and unions "do not United ruling lifting restrictions corrupt or appear to do so." on corporate and union political The majority turned away pleas c o n t r i b u t i o n s , s u m m a r i l y from the court's liberal justices to overturning the Montana Supreme give a full hearing to the case Court in a case involving a b e c a u s e m a s s i v e c a m p a i g n Montana state law limiting spending since the January 2010 corporate political spending. ruling has called into question In an unsigned decision, the court some of its underpinnings. said "there can be no serious The same five justices said in doubt" that the holding in Citizens 2010 that corporations have a United v. FEC applies to the constitutional right to be heard in Montana state law. "Montana's election campaigns. The decision arguments in support" of the state paved the way for unlimited court ruling "either were already spending by corporations and rejected in Citizens United, or fail labor unions in elections for to meaningfully distinguish that Congress and the president, as case," the decision said. long as the dollars are Four liberal justices dissented independent of the campaigns from the decision. Justice Stephen they are intended to help. The Breyer, writing for the dissenters, decision, grounded in the freedom said he would have preferred to of speech, appeared to apply [unable to retrieve full-text

equally to state contests. But Montana aggressively defended its 1912 law against a challenge from corporations seeking to be free of spending limits, and the state Supreme Court sided with the state. The state court said a history of corruption showed the need for the limits, even as Justice Anthony Kennedy declared in his Citizens United opinion that independent expenditures by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, as well as Sen. John McCain and other congressional champions of stricter regulations on campaign money, joined with Montana. Two liberal justices who were in dissent in Citizens United—Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer—already had challenged Justice Kennedy's view that the independent campaign spending content]

could not be corrupting by virtue of the absence of links to a campaign. When the court blocked the Montana ruling in February, Justice Ginsburg issued a brief statement for herself and Justice Breyer saying that campaign spending since the decision makes "it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations 'do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.'" Justice Ginsburg appeared to be referring to the rise of unregulated super PACs that have injected millions of dollars into the presidential and other campaigns. She said the case "will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway." The corporations that sued over the law said it could not remain

on the books after the Citizens United decision. Montana urged the high court to reject the appeal, or hold arguments and not issue what the court calls a summary reversal. The prevailing side in the lower court almost always strives to avoid high court review. But Montana and its supporters hoped a thorough debate over the Citizens United decision would lead to its reconsideration or at least limits on its reach.—The Associated Press contributed to this article. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Egypt's Islamist president takes revolution to palace (Reuters: Top News)

into Mursi's powers to act but exposes him to blame for any failures. By Edmund Blair and Marwa Critics at home and in the West Awad called it a "soft coup". CAIRO| Mon Jun 25, 2012 One pressing concern - on which 3:49pm EDT many Egyptians are likely to (Reuters) - Mohamed Mursi, judge his performance - will to be Egypt's first freely elected to revive the economy of the president whose powers have world's most populous Arab already been curbed by the army, nation. began work on a coalition on Monday's stock market rally, at Monday after touring his new least partly fuelled by relief that palace, once home of Hosni the vote and result passed off M u b a r a k w h o b a n n e d h i s without violence, may encourage movement for three decades. the new president, but he still has Declared winner on Sunday a to prove to wary longer-term week after a tumultuous run-off investors that Egypt is on the road vote that pitted him against a to recovery. former air force chief, the Islamist Egyptian newspapers welcomed faces the challenge of meeting sky Mursi's win over Ahmed Shafik, -high expectations in a nation Mubarak's last prime minister, as t i r e d o f t u r m o i l w h i l e t h e a victory for the people, although economy is on the ropes. many more liberal-minded But his campaign pledge to Egyptians worry his conservative complete the revolution that group will slowly whittle away at toppled Mubarak last year but left social freedoms. the pillars of his rule intact will Further afield, his win has had an come up against the entrenched immediate impact beyond Egypt's interests of the generals who are borders, inspiring Islamists who in charge of the transition to have risen up against autocrats democracy. across the Middle East and swept Shortly before the historic to power in North Africa. Israel presidential vote, a newly elected worries its 1979 peace deal with Islamist-led parliament was Egypt, never warm, will cool dissolved by the army based on a further. court order, and the generals Palestinians in Gaza, however, issued a decree setting limits on are delighted. the president's remit, which cuts Iran saw his election as an Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:49:35 PM

"Islamic awakening" - though Tehran and the Muslim Brotherhood follow different, often opposing forms of the faith. Iran's Fars news agency published an interview in which Mursi called for restoring full ties between Cairo and Tehran to build strategic "balance". A Mursi aide said he gave the interview 10 days ago. DRAMATIC REVERSAL OF FORTUNES A security official said Mursi, 60, and his wife took a tour of their new home, once Mubarak's main residence - a dramatic change of fortunes full of symbolism for a former political prisoner whose group was pursued remorselessly during Mubarak's 30-year rule. An aide said Mursi then went to the Defence Ministry for talks with the head of the ruling military council's Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and the armyappointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri. They discussed forming a new government at the meetings, which Egyptians will see as a sign that real power still lies with the army. As president, Mursi can appoint the cabinet. His aides say he has already reached out to politicians from outside the Brotherhood such as reformist Mohamed ElBaradei, who has yet to publicly respond. But legislative powers

remain with the army while the parliament is dissolved, restricting his power to act. Egypt's army-appointed government, led by al-Ganzouri who also served in the 1990s as prime minister under Mubarak, submitted its resignation on Monday but was asked to stay on temporarily until Mursi, who has yet to take the oath of office, put a team together, Information Minister Ahmed Anis said "The revolution reaches the republican palace," wrote AlShorouk newspaper. Another, AlAkhbar, quoted from Mursi's victory speech: "I am a servant of the people and an employee of the citizens". It is a sentiment widely spoken: the sense that at last, perhaps, Egyptians have a leader who can be "fired". Celebrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square - theatre of the revolution that overthrew Mubarak extended through the night. Some Brotherhood followers were still celebrating, surprised by their victory that broke a six-decade tradition of presidents plucked from the military. "STRENGTH TO NEGOTIATE" "It was a little surprising that the army acknowledged his win," said 40-year-old teacher Adel Mohamed who was in the square when the result was declared after

a nervous week's wait since the vote. "The pressure from the street, from the revolution, will give Mursi strength to negotiate." From Syria's opposition who are seeking the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad came word that Cairo was again a "source of hope" for a people "facing a repressive war of annihilation". But millions of Egyptians, and the Western powers, looked on with unease at the prospect of the long-suppressed Brotherhood making good on its dream of an Islamic state. Israel has been particularly nervous, urging its neighbor to respect their peace deal. It worries that the Brotherhood's win will embolden Palestinian Islamists opposed to Israel. "Darkness in Egypt," headlined Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he "respected" the result and said he saw future cooperation with the new administration. An aide to Mursi said during Mursi's campaign that he would delegate meetings with Israeli officials to his foreign minister, unlike Mubarak who often met top Israelis. Mubarak went to Israel only once, for the funeral of assassinated Prime Minister EGYPT'S page 6

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Supreme Court Allows Immigration Checks - Wall Street Journal JESS BRAVIN (Top Stories Google News)

unclear Monday, as immigrants and advocates scrambled for answers from legal analysts and Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:04:12 PM law enforcement. Most opponents B y J E S S B R A V I N A n d of the law reacted with relief at TAMARA AUDI the ruling, but some immigrant WASHINGTONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The Supreme advocates said implementation of Court struck down much of the law could still pose problems Arizona's effort to crack down on for immigrants. illegal immigrants but left one key "There's still going to be a lot of part intact in a ruling that gave uncertainty until it's clear how b o t h s i d e s o f t h e d e b a t e police will approach this," said something to cheer. Joe Rubio, lead organizer for In a 5-3 ruling, the court said Arizona Interfaith NetworkArizona in effect had tried to set Industrial Areas Foundation, a up a parallel enforcement system network of community organizing that punished illegal immigrants groups. "The state is going to more harshly and interfered with h a v e t o m o n i t o r t h i s v e r y congressional authority over the c a r e f u l l y " t o a v o i d r a c i a l nation's borders. The court p r o f i l i n g , h e s a i d . rejected parts of the state law The court left open the possibility known as SB1070 that made it a that the surviving provision could crime for illegal immigrants to be challenged depending on how seek work and that authorized it is applied. It acknowledged warrantless arrests of people concerns that the provision could suspected by state and local police lead to abuses, such as prolonged o f c o m m i t t i n g d e p o r t a b l e detention of arrestees while their offenses. status was being checked. But the court upheld for now the Under the law, immigrants can be law's directive that state and local questioned about their status when police check the immigration they are stopped for other reasons. status of people they stop when S i n c e m u c h i s l e f t t o they suspect them of lacking interpretation by local officers, authorization to be in the U.S. The t h e a p p r o a c h b y p o l i c e justices observed that federal law departments to enforcement of the already requires immigration law may vary widely, immigrant officials to respond to status advocates said. checks from local authorities. "The government of the United The impact of the ruling was States has broad, undoubted

power over the subject of immigration and the status of aliens," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a majority including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. "Immigration policy can affect trade, investment, tourism and diplomatic relations for the entire nation, as well as the perceptions and expectations of aliens in this country who seek the full protection of the laws," the court said. While "the problems posed to the State by illegal immigration must not be underestimated," Justice Kennedy wrote that Congress had established a "careful framework" for immigration intended to balance interests involving employers, families and diplomatic relations as well as law enforcement. The court's three most conservative members, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, each filed separate dissents saying they would have upheld the entire Arizona lawâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or, in Justice Alito's case, all but one provision. None joined the dissent of the other, suggesting disagreement over the basis for upholding the state law. The majority "deprives States of what most would consider the

defining characteristic of sovereignty: the power to exclude from the sovereign's territory people who have no right to be there," Justice Scalia wrote. Justice Elena Kagan, who served as solicitor general during earlier stages of the litigation, was recused from the case. With immigration likely to be a major issue in the November election, the survival of the statuscheck provision was a consolation prize for backers of the Arizona crackdown, giving them as well as the Obama administration a way to claim victory. President Barack Obama said he was pleased that the court struck down the three provisions and said the decision "makes unmistakably clearâ&#x20AC;Śthat Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform." He called on Arizona not to enforce the surviving provision "in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans." Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed the measure in 2010, called the ruling a "legal victory." Ms. Brewer said she recently issued a new order to train officers to enforce the law without racial profiling. "I am confident our officers are prepared to carry out this law responsibly and lawfully," she said in a statement.

Joe Arpaio, the controversial sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, said Monday that the most important part of the state's immigration law had been upheld. "It shows cops can ask someone if they're here illegally when you stop them for another crime," Mr. Arpaio said. He added, however, that "you like to get everything." The law's opponents also said they were pleased with the ruling. "God answered our prayers. This is a big victory," said Magdalena Schwartz, the pastor of a Hispanic evangelical church in Mesa who opposed the law. Many families in her church are in the U.S. illegally. "My families are so happy, so relieved. They have peace. They can live their lives. They can stay in Arizona." For undocumented immigrants, the high court's ruling could make it easier to look for a job in Arizona and reduce the risk they could be arrested by local police simply for lacking papers. However, if they were stopped for another reason, police in Arizona would be more likely to check their immigration status in cases where police in other states might not bother. "This was a good decision on the part of the court and really helps the country dodge a pretty SUPREME page 8

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Supreme Court has split verdict on Arizona immigration law (Reuters: Top News)

immigrants to carry immigration papers at all times, banned illegal immigrants from soliciting work Members of the media gather for in public places, and allowed a stakeout in front of U.S. police arrest of immigrants Supreme Court in Washington without warrants if officers June 25, 2012. believed they committed crimes Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas that would make them deportable. By James Vicini and Jonathan " A r i z o n a may have Stempel understandable frustrations with WASHINGTON| Mon Jun 25, the problems caused by illegal 2012 2:02pm EDT immigration ... but the state may (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme not pursue policies that undermine Court upheld a key part of federal law," Justice Kennedy Arizona's crackdown on illegal wrote for the majority in a 25immigrants on Monday but struck page opinion. down three other parts of the state The decision in part was an law, delivering a mixed ruling for e l e c t i o n - y e a r s e t b a c k f o r the Obama administration on President Barack Obama, but was f e d e r a l p o w e r t o e n f o r c e less of a defeat than had been immigration statutes in the United envisioned after oral arguments States. before the justices in April. The In an opinion by Justice Anthony majority opinion's sweeping Kennedy, the country's highest rhetoric could cloud state efforts court by an 8-0 vote upheld the to try to curb illegal immigration. Arizona law's most controversial Justice Kennedy stressed that the aspect, requiring police officers to federal government has "broad, check the immigration status of u n d o u b t e d p o w e r " o v e r people they stop for any reason. immigration, pointing to how But in a split verdict, the justices federal policy could affect trade, also ruled that the three other i n v e s t m e n t , t o u r i s m a n d provisions of the Western state's d i p l o m a t i c r e l a t i o n s . 2010 law that were challenged in The majority that struck down c o u r t b y t h e O b a m a three challenged parts of the administration went too far. The Arizona law also included Chief votes on those provisions were Justice John Roberts, as well as either 5-3 or 6-2, with the more the more liberal justices Ruth conservative justices in dissent. Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer These three provisions required and Sonia Sotomayor, the nation's Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:02:45 PM

first Hispanic justice. "I am pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of Arizona's immigration law. What this decision makes unmistakably clear is that Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform. A patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system - it's part of the problem," Obama said in a statement. CIVIL RIGHTS Obama said he remained concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law. "Going forward, we must ensure that Arizona law enforcement officials do not enforce this law in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans, as the court's decision recognizes," Obama said. In upholding the police checks, Kennedy said their mandatory nature did not interfere with the federal immigration scheme, and found unpersuasive the Obama administration argument that federal law preempted this part of the law at this stage. He said it was improper to block that provision before state courts had an opportunity to review it, and without some showing that its enforcement conflicted with federal immigration law. Kennedy also left open the

possibility for constitutional or other challenges to the law once it goes into effect. Opponents of the Arizona law also have sued on other grounds that it was unconstitutional and could lead to ethnic and racial profiling of the fast-growing Hispanic population, which represents 16 percent of all Americans. The ruling went to the heart of a fierce national debate between Democrats and Republicans over the 11.5 million illegal immigrants the U.S. government estimates to be in the country. The ruling upholding the police checks was a win for Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who championed the measure and called the decision a "victory for the rule of law." Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who challenges Obama in the November 6 U.S. election, had opposed the federal government's challenge to the law. "Today's decision underscores the need for a president who will lead on this critical issue and work in a bipartisan fashion to pursue a national immigration strategy," Romney said in a statement. SCALIA ANGRILY DISSENTS Justice Antonin Scalia read an angry dissent from the bench, saying he would have upheld the

entire Arizona law. It "boggles the mind" that the president might decline to enforce federal immigration law, Scalia said in apparent reference to Obama's June 15 executive order stopping deportation for certain young people in the United States illegally. Obama has vowed to push for comprehensive immigration legislation if re-elected on November 6. Opinion polls show Hispanics, now equal to 16 percent of all Americans, overwhelmingly support Obama. Most illegal immigrants are Hispanics. Arizona, on the southwest border with Mexico, two years ago became the first of half a dozen U.S. states to adopt laws to drive illegal immigrants out. About 360,000 of the country's illegal immigrants, or 3 percent, reside in Arizona. Most of the state's nearly 2 million Hispanics are in the country legally. The immigration dispute was widely viewed as the second most important case in the Supreme Court's 2011-12 term, behind only the historic legal battle over Obama's healthcare overhaul law. A ruling in that case is expected on Thursday. Roberts said from the bench that SUPREME page 5

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Supreme Court rules it's unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in ... - New York Daily News (Top Stories - Google News)

before concluding that life without any possibility of parole Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:12:06 PM was the appropriate penalty. We Applewhite/AP therefore hold that the Eighth The Supreme Court says it's Amendment forbids a sentencing unconstitutional to sentence scheme that mandates life in juveniles to life in prison without prison without possibility of parole for murder. parole for juvenile offenders.” The Supreme Court says it's Jackson was convicted of being unconstitutional to sentence an accomplice in an Arkansas juveniles to life in prison without robbery that ended in murder. parole for murder, siding with the Kagan was joined in that opinion petitioner in case of Miller v. by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Alabama. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen The high court on Monday threw Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. out Americans' ability to send Chief Justice John Roberts and children to prison for the rest of justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence their lives with no chance of ever Thomas and Samuel Alito getting out. The 5-4 decision is in dissented. line with others the court has "Neither the text of the made, including ruling out the Constitution or our precedent death penalty for juveniles and prohibits legislatures from Miller's co-defendant testified and said: “Cole, I'm God and I've murder,” Justice Elena Kagan said life without parole for young requiring that juvenile murderers against him in exchange for a come to take your life." They later in the court's ruling. “But they did people whose crimes did not be sentenced to life without lighter sentence for his own set fire to his trailer, where the it when high on drugs and alcohol involve killing. parole," Roberts said. m u r d e r , r o b b e r y a n d a r s o n man's remains were discovered. consumed with the adult victim. The decision came in the robbery This entry passed through the charges. The Alabama Court of Criminal And if ever a pathological and murder cases of Evan Miller Full-Text RSS service — if this is Colby A. Smith testified that he Appeals upheld the sentence on b a c k g r o u n d m i g h t h a v e and Kuntrell Jackson. your content and you're reading it and Miller, who was 14 at the the grounds that Miller's sentence contributed to a 14-year-old's Miller was convicted in 2006 of on someone else's site, please read time of the murder, decided to kill was not overly harsh when commission of a crime, it is here. capital murder for beating a man the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentCannon for money, according to compared to his crime, a ruling “That Miller deserved severe with a baseball bat and leaving only/faq.php#publishers. Five reports from the sentencing. the Supreme Court disagreed punishment for killing Cole him to die in a burning trailer Filters recommends: Donate to Smith testified that after he hit with. Cannon is beyond question. But after stealing his baseball card Wikileaks. Cannon with a bat, Miller began "No one can doubt that (Miller) once again, a sentencer needed to collection and $350. The killing bashing the victim with the bat and Smith committed a vicious examine all these circumstances occurred in 2003.

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SUPREME continued from page 3

significant bullet,'' said Todd Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, which opposed the law. The law is part of the broader national debate over immigration, which heated up last week when Mr. Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney spoke before a group of Hispanic officials. Mr. Obama touted his announcement the previous week that his administration will stop deporting many young illegal immigrants, while Mr. Romney used his speech to soften his tone on immigration and call for a long -term overhaul that would allow more newcomers to receive green cards. The candidates are both stepping up their appeals to the fast-growing bloc of Hispanic voters. Mr. Romney in a statement Monday said the Supreme Court ruling "represents yet another broken promise by this president. I believe that each state has the duty—and the right—to secure our borders and preserve the rule of law, particularly when the

federal government has failed to meet its responsibilities." Democrats have accused the Arizona law's supporters of having an anti-immigrant agenda, while the law's mostly Republican backers say they want to secure the nation's borders. Similar measures have been introduced in other states, including Alabama, which recently drew unwelcome attention when executives from German and Japanese car makers that the state had pushed to bring there were arrested for failing to produce immigration papers. Congress has been in a long stalemate over immigration, with proposals for a broad overhaul getting little traction. That has led Mr. Obama to use his executive powers to make some changes. The debate comes as Hispanics continue to grow as a share of the electorate, particularly in battleground states such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Mr. Obama won 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008. Polls this year have shown the president with a similar lead, but Mr.

Romney is making a strong effort to close the gap. • Both Parties Claim ArizonaRuling Win • Court Rejects Corporate Campaign Spending Limits • Supreme Court Rules Against Life Sentences for Juveniles • Health-Law Decision to Come Thursday • Supreme Court Saves Best for Last • How High Court Could Rule on Health Law

Submitted at 6/25/2012 5:34:03 AM

greenMe.it

E-Cat: sulla fusione fredda Ross… greenMe.it E-Cat, Andrea Rossi ci ha ormai abituati alle rivelazioni col

RT (News RSS : Today) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:52:53 PM

Cowboys and Indians, Russian Cossacks and Napoleon’s soldiers - all gathered together for a day. This isn’t a movie set - these people are all horse enthusiasts who’ve decided to celebrate their W r i t e t o J e s s B r a v i n a t love of history and riding. jess.bravin@wsj.com and Tamara The organizers say its their way of promoting horse riding. Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com This entry passed through the Evgeny Matozov, the man behind Full-Text RSS service — if this is the 'Horse Day' Festival, says "the your content and you're reading it i d e a i s t o s h o w a s m a n y on someone else's site, please read equestrian disciplines as we can the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- so that people can discover how only/faq.php#publishers. Five much fun it’s possible to have Filters recommends: Donate to with horses." Matozov went on to add that they Wikileaks. didn't plan the event for a specific date. "We just thought: why not organize a costumed festival and call it Horse Day," he explained. Held some 50 kilometers west of Moscow, it proved to be a true carnival of costumes – Stetson hats and feather head-dresses, cavalry uniforms and even medieval armour – this really was a day for historic reconstruction fans. But even when it turned out to be a bumpy ride, no one was hurt… contagocce sulla fusione fredda. The Cossacks, the celebrated Ma quando parla, crea sempre horsemen famous since Tsarist curiosità attorno a sé ed alla sua... times, also showed off their unique stunts and combat

E-Cat: sulla fusione fredda Ross… - greenMe.it (andrea rossi e-cat - Google News)

Historic rides: Equestrian enthusiasts organise 'Horse Day' Festival techniques. "I come from a family of Cossacks," says Dmitri Lyubomydrov, one of the participants. "I’ve spent 40 years working with horses. Our stunts and our way of riding is one of Russia’s very important traditions. For us, Cossacks, it’s something sacred. We perform with real cavalry swords – this is no replica!" And Russian traditions met Western customs as local cowboy fans demonstrated Western riding – an equestrian discipline that’s new to Russia but that’s becoming more and more popular. It’s not about high speed or elegant moves but precision, responsiveness and perfect teamwork between horse and rider. With no entry fee and plenty of fun on offer, the festival drew crowds of those who wanted to travel back in time – and everyone had a chance to get in the saddle or put their other skills to the test. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Assange wants World Bank survey: Moscow is Russia's worst guarantee he won’t be sent to the US city for business RT (News RSS : Today)

RT (News RSS : Today)

Moscow Andrey Sharonov, it is caused by objective reasons. Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:44:12 PM "This is a serious negative signal M o s c o w h a s b e e n r a n k e d for us to change the situation, and Russia's worst city for doing that's what we are trying to do," business, according to a recent Sharonov said in an interview on World Bank survey. the sidelines of the St. Petersburg -The survey evaluated business economic forum. conditions in four areas: starting a The other reason is strong business, obtaining planning competition among businessmen permission, registering property, for resources. and connecting to the electricity However, Sharonov said progress grid. has been made in certain areas. There are two areas where A n d s i n c e t h e s u r v e y w a s Moscow particularly stands out conducted, Moscow has improved compared to other cities across by cutting down the time it takes Russia: issuing permits for to issue construction permits. The construction and the huge cost of ultimate goal is creating a oneconnection to the grid. stop-shop system where people In Moscow the cost exceeds even can apply at one office instead of the notoriously expensive prices visiting different institutions to in Vietnam and Nigeria. receive numerous authorizations. As for construction permits, That system has been successfully according to the Deputy Mayor of operating, for example, in Saint

Petersburg. Beyond negative ratings for Moscow, the survey also notes that in some other areas Russia is quite a comfortable place for doing business. For example, registering property is easier and fees are among the cheapest in the world. Russia is among the 30 cheapest economies worldwide to start a business. Russia’s cities of Ulyanovsk, Saransk and Vladikavkaz won the top three spots, respectively. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also the matter of thousands of leaked A British policeman stands guard diplomatic cables, which have put o u t s i d e t h e f r o n t o f t h e the US in an uncomfortable Ecuadorian embassy in central position with its allies and London, on June 22, 2012 (AFP partners worldwide. Photo/Ben Stansall) Assange said that“if the US were After a week holed up in the to guarantee [it would] drop the Ecuadorian embassy in London, grand jury investigation and any WikiLeaks founder Julian f u r t h e r i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f Assange has said he is prepared to WikiLeaks’ publishing activity, go to Sweden for questioning in a that would be an important sexual assault case – but only if g u a r a n t e e … d i p l o m a t i c he is guaranteed that he won’t be commitments do have some extradited to the United States. weight.” T h e A u s t r a l i a n - b o r n Until a decision is made about his whistleblowing boss made a last- asylum application, Ecuador says resort bid for freedom last week, h e w i l l r e m a i n u n d e r i t s when he arrived at the Ecuadorian protection. But Assange faces embassy and asked for political arrest for breaching the terms of asylum. His request is now being his bail if he leaves the West considered by that country’s London building. president, and the ambassador has This entry passed through the been recalled for consultations as Full-Text RSS service — if this is well. your content and you're reading it A s s a n g e a n d m o s t o f h i s on someone else's site, please read supporters believe that once he the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentarrives in Sweden, he will be only/faq.php#publishers. Five extradited to the United States, as Filters recommends: Donate to Washington wants to pursue him Wikileaks. for revealing sensitive information about US military Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:13:15 PM

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METALS-Copper ends up on China buys, US data - Reuters (china - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:37:04 PM

Business Recorder METALS-Copper ends up on China buys, US data Reuters Copper stems slide as trade

Submitted at 6/25/2012 5:42:20 AM

San Francisco Chronicle Pirlo sets the pace in Italy's win over England San Francisco Chronicle

Fusione fredda: la patria è l'Italia tra Ecat Rossi, Athanor e ... - WebMasterPoint.org (andrea rossi e-cat - Google News)

awaits EU summit plan * Some Submitted at 6/25/2012 8:08:29 AM pick-up in Chinese copper restocking * Aluminum recovers WebMasterPoint.org after hitting 2 year low By Chris Fusione fredda: la patria è l'Italia Kelly and... tra Ecat Rossi, Athanor e... Copper ends up on China buys, US data CNBC.com all 49 news articles »

Pirlo sets the pace in Italy's win over England San Francisco Chronicle (Andrea Rossi - Google News)

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — For 120 minutes, Andrea Pirlo mesmerized England with... said De Rossi, who had two excellent scoring chances, hitting the post once.

The Housing Market Has Bottomed, Here's How To Profit iStockAnalyst

WebMasterPoint.org A Bologna il fisico Andrea Rossi aveva dato la prima dimostrazione (housing - Google News) pubblica sul funzionamento dell' E-cat, la macchina per la fusione Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:49:30 PM fredda che da lì, a ogni... The Housing Market Has Bottomed, Here's How To Profit iStockAnalyst I realize this is a bold statement given the dire condition of the U.S. housing market, however I firmly think this is the case. Savvy investors will be able to profit... Pete McMartin: Housing report's and more » recommendations fraught with peril... Vancouver Sun City should insert itself deeper into housing development, says... Global BC Recommendations made in Vancouver affordable housing report 24 Hours Vancouver Open File (blog) all 13 news articles »

Vancouver needs more lowcost options, special housing authority ... - Globe and Mail (housing - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:19:53 PM

Globe and Mail Vancouver needs more low-cost options, special housing authority... Globe and Mail More low-cost options, 'transition zones' and government-subsidized housing among recommendations made by task force.

ANALYSIS-Obama's election-year housing push shows a pulse - Reuters (housing - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:10:05 PM

KGMI

ANALYSIS-Obama's electionyear housing push shows a pulse Reuters By Margaret Chadbourn

WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President BarackObama's election-year to do list for Congress appears

likelyto largely fall... Analysis: Obama's election-year housing push shows a pulse Chicago Tribune

all 14 news articles »

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Microsoft Is A Little Desperate, And Its $1.2 Billion Purchase Of Yammer Proves It, Says Jive's CEO (MSFT, JIVE) Matt Lynley (Business Insider) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:17:00 PM

Microsoft finally announced it acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion today. We couldn't help but notice how frighteningly similar that $1.2 billion number is to the current valuation of Jive, another social networking app for the enterprise — also worth $1.2 billion. Clearly Microsoft was willing to pay a huge premium for an enterprise social networking application. Now it faces the daunting challenge of integrating Yammer, a social networking application for the enterprise, and all its employees with Microsoft's culture in the Office group. That's not to mention all the integrations it's going to require with apps like Office 365, its online document-editing suite, and Skype. But Yammer plugs a hole that Sharepoint, Microsoft's flagship enterprise application, failed to fill. We caught up with Tony Zingale, CEO of Jive, to see what his thoughts were. Here's what we learned: • Sharepoint isn't going anywhere. This deal is just an

acknowledgment from Microsoft that Sharepoint is not a solution to social networking in the enterprise. • Microsoft's biggest challenge will be executing the acquisition. Yammer is joining the Office group in Microsoft and will be coordinating with a bunch of different projects. It will be challenging to coordinate all those new employees. • Microsoft isn't traditionally good at keeping up innovation. Closing an acquisition is a tough process to manage, and that's clothes, as is evidenced by the going to slow down innovation at size of this acquisition. They both Yammer and Microsoft. attempted to go after a social platform in 2007 and 2010, and Here's a lightly edited transcript again they'll try next year. It of the interview: leaves Jive as the only pure-play BUSINESS INSIDER: What's and it validates our leadership. your knee-jerk reaction to the You gotta throw a whole bunch deal? of questions at Microsoft's ability Tony Zingale: Well, it was to execute here. The confusion Silicon Valley's worst-kept secret. around Yammer being a But for one, it's an immense standalone identity but part of the validation of the space. Obviously Office group. integrated with a company like Microsoft, who Skype, Office 365, etc… That's has claimed to have had a social four different groups with a staff platform called Sharepoint, that's trying to innovate as fast as clearly the emperor has no

possible. That's gonna be a tough process to manage. It's gonna slow the innovation down significantly. It's gonna be a tough transition for the Yammer customers that have actually paid them. We see that as an opportunity to bring in more customers. BI: What about the price? It seems awfully similar to Jive's current market cap. TZ: I'm not gonna comment on what our value is, that's why we're a public company, that's why we disclose everything. I'll let our

business results speak for itself. Clearly, a $1.2 billion all cash offer for a company that that is trying to provide a fuller solution than the narrow micro-blogging activity stream… I think it spells absolutely a little desperation on Microsoft's part. They were behind Salesforce.com with Dynamics, the need to integrate Yammer in that to compete with Salesforce and Chatter. I think it shows that this market is massive. If you don't have a viable offering in the space, then you better get one. That price tag speaks to the urgency, the size of the market opportunity, the failings of Sharepoint in the space. The need to have social capabilities in other properties. It just shows that it's all moving in this direction. That's what you do, you acquire and you hope that it's going to fit technically and culturally such that you can pick up the pace of delivery. I think it's going to be very challenging for Microsoft, given the scope of what's required and their ability to executive. That's a hefty price tag. BI: Are there any companies that should be worried right now? TZ: I don't know that anybody's MICROSOFT page 12

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What Becoming A Lottery Winner Does To Your Social Life Jill Krasny (Business Insider) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:22:18 PM

A Reddit user named Ruchizzle recently spilled what it's like to win a million dollars from a scratch-off ticket. Turns out winning isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when your friends start to treat you like their personal ATM. Here's what he had to say about the experience: What he kept after taxes: "I took the lump sum, and after taxes the amount I got was about $400,000. People don't realize your win counts as income and you're in a much higher bracket. So when April rolls around, you still owe another $80-$100,000." On losing friends who asked for money: "Sometimes people are a bad investment. They ask for money and treat you like an ATM." Yes, he still has a day job: "It makes it easier to come to work knowing I have a financial cushion." How he celebrated his win: "Debt was the first thing to go,

then I added a few things to our house... It is hard not to go out and buy a luxury car ... but my overall focus is on having a comfortable life." Why he chose the lump sum: "I believe the annuity would've been about $35,000 a year for 20 years after taxes. I decided to go with the lump sum because I don't want to deal with the extra taxes for the next two decades. And who knows if I will live that

long." He didn't play the small tickets: "I know it's a lot of money, but I don't smoke or drink so that's my vice. I avoid the $1 or $5 tickets." SEE ALSO: 14 lottery winners who blew it all > Please follow Your Money on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story »

MICROSOFT continued from page 11

worried. if you're talking about Google, and the ability of Office 365 to compete with Google Docs, I don't think they're worried. I don't think Salesforce is worried with Dynamics and Chatter. I don't know if WebEx is worried with its ability to compete with Skype. The guys that should be worried were the guys that were limping on top of Sharepoint. All these privately held companies that were hanging around and latched on to Sharepoint, those guys are in deep trouble today. Public companies that have proven positions in the spaces, I don't think they should be worried. BI: Does this mean that Sharepoint is dead? TZ: Sharepoint, take it for what it is: an outstanding and world-class content management system. It's

employed in most enterprises around the world, it's great at that. What it is not is a social platform that exists inside and outside the enterprise that's movable, that can go to the cloud. One that embraces other enterprise applications. Sharepoint is not that. The hope is that Yammer can fill that gap in short order. It remains to be seen from an execution point of view if they can close the gap. Sharepoint is alive and well for what it was designed and delivered to be. Please follow SAI: Enterprise on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story »

Ed Miliband is wrong to buy into the 'immigration is a problem' line - The Guardian (Nation - Google News)

country and which fuels the racist myths and prejudice... Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:03:49 PM Labour's mea culpa on Daily Mail immigration Financial Times Ed Miliband is wrong to buy into Tony Blair on Labour's the 'immigration is a problem' line immigration proposals BBC News The Guardian Sorry, Ed? What's your plan for It's sad to see the Labour leader immigration? The Sun ( C h a n g e r u l e s o n m i g r a n t Workpermit.com- eGov monitorworkers, says Miliband, 22 June) Gulf Times is also buying into the general all 17 news articles » "immigration is a problem" line pursued by so many people in this

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It Was An Awesome Year For Big Bank Executives' Compensation Myles Meserve (Business Insider) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:22:41 PM

Banking revenues and earnings were not stellar in 2011. But still, some bank bosses saw double-digit annual pay raises. The Financial Times reports that top US and European bank executives, including Brian Moynihan of Bank of America, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, have seen annual pay raises averaging at 11.9%. The study, completed by Equilar, shows that with the 11.9% annual pay increase to 15 bank CEOs, total compensation for the 15 executives reached an average of $12.8 million for 2011.

The main driver of the rising annual pay raises comes from a average 22% rise in stock and options awarded. The increase in stock and options awards has been used to offset cash bonuses awarded, as banking regulators crack down on cash awards. Jamie Dimon's pay, the highest in

the group of 15, was $23.1 million in 2011. And they say Wall Street's not back... Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story »

Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News (Epoch Times | National, World, China, Sports, Entertainment News)

Top Stories Greece’s new finance minister has resigned just a week after he took the job, in a sign that there is still much work to do to ahead of a European Union summit. Chinese leader Hu Jintao has fought a hard and long battle to gain control of the military, and only in the last year succeeded in doing so. A high-ranking former military official in South Korea says nuclear threats from North Korea are much more serious than we

think. The difference recently in Denmark, where Hu visited, was that journalists from major newspapers joined in the protests. Greece’s new prime minister, Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy formed a coalition government with two other parties last week, will miss the upcoming European Union [...] This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Two men arrested over travel agent's murder - ABC Online (Nation - Google News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:56:17 PM

Sydney Morning Herald Two men arrested over travel

agent's murder ABC Online By South East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel Two men have been arrested in

Thailand for the stabbing murder of Perth travel agent Michelle Smith in Phuket last week. Ms Smith was in Phuket with a group of Australian travel agents on a

business trip. Men arrested over Aussie mum Michelle Smith's murder in Thailand NEWS.com.au Thai pair 'confess' to Aussie

agent's murder The Australian Warrants issued for Aussie's Phuket murder Brisbane Times all 259 news articles »

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Egypt's Islamist president takes revolution to palace (Reuters: Top News)

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Supreme Court has split verdict on Arizona immigration law (Reuters: Top News)

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Could Eyes in the Sky Turn Into Weapons of Terror? (FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:07:12 PM

• A small surveillance drone flies over an Austin stadium, diligently following a series of GPS waypoints that have been programmed into its flight computer. By all appearances, the mission is routine. Suddenly, the drone veers dramatically off course, careering eastward from its intended flight path. A few moments later, it is clear something is seriously wrong as the drone makes a hard right turn, streaking toward the south. Then, as if some phantom has given the drone a self-destruct order, it hurtles toward the ground. Just a few feet from certain catastrophe, a safety pilot with a radio control saves the drone from crashing into the field. From the sidelines, there are smiles all around over this neardisaster. Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the University of Texas at Austin's Radionavigation Laboratory have just completed a successful experiment: illuminating a gaping hole in the government’s plan to open US airspace to thousands of drones. They could be turned into

weapons. “Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,” Humphreys told Fox News. In other words, with the right equipment, anyone can take control of a GPS-guided drone and make it do anything they want

it to. “Spoofing” is a relatively new concern in the world of GPS navigation. Until now, the main problem has been GPS jammers, readily available over the Internet, which people use to, for example, hide illicit use of a GPS-tracked company van. It’s also believed

Iran brought down that U.S. spy drone last December by jamming its GPS, forcing it into an automatic landing mode after it lost its bearings. 'Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane.' - University of Texas Radio

Navigation Laboratory researcher Todd Humphreys While jammers can cause problems by muddling GPS signals, spoofers are a giant leap forward in technology; they can actually manipulate navigation COULD page 17

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computers with false information that looks real. With his device -what Humphreys calls the most advanced spoofer ever built (at a cost of just $1,000) -- he infiltrates the GPS system of the drone with a signal more powerful than the one coming down from the satellites orbiting high above the earth. Initially, his signal matches that of the GPS system so the drone thinks nothing is amiss. That’s when he attacks -- sending his own commands to the onboard computer, putting the drone at his beck and call. Humphreys says the implications are very serious. “In 5 or 10 years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,” he told Fox News. “Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.” Drones have been in widespread use in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, but so far, GPS-guided unmanned aerial vehicles have been limited to the battlefield or southern border patrols and not allowed to fly broadly in U.S. airspace. In February, under pressure from the Pentagon and drone manufacturers, Congress ordered the FAA to come up with rules to allow government and commercial use of UAVs over American soil by 2015. The plan could eventually see police drones keeping watch over U.S. cities,

continued from page 15

UAVs monitoring transmission lines for power companies, or cargo plane-size drones guided by GPS pilotlessly delivering packages across the country. FedEx founder Fred Smith has said he would like to add unmanned drones to his fleet as soon as possible. The new rules have raised privacy concerns about a "surveillance society," with UAVs tirelessly watching our every move 24/7. But Humphreys’ experiments have put an entirely new twist on the anxiety over drones. “What if you could take down one of these drones delivering FedEx packages and use that as your missile? That’s the same mentality the 9-11 attackers had,” Humphreys told Fox News. It’s something the government is acutely aware of. Last Tuesday, in the barren desert of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, officials from the FAA and Department of Homeland Security watched as Humphrey’s team repeatedly took control of a drone from a remote hilltop. The results were every bit as dramatic as the test at the UT stadium a few days earlier. DHS is attempting to identify and mitigate GPS interference through its new “Patriot Watch” and “Patriot Shield” programs, but the effort is poorly funded, still in its

infancy, and is mostly geared toward finding people using jammers, not spoofers. The potential consequences of GPS spoofing are nothing short of chilling. Humphreys warns that a terrorist group could match his technology, and in crowded U.S. airspace, cause havoc. “I’m worried about them crashing into other planes,” he told Fox News. “I’m worried about them crashing into buildings. We could get collisions in the air and there could be loss of life, so we want to prevent this and get out in front of the problem.” Unlike military UAVs, which use an encrypted GPS system, most drones that will fly over the U.S. will rely on civilian GPS, which is not encrypted and wide open to infiltration. Humphreys warns it is crucial that the government address this vulnerability before it allows unmanned aerial vehicles broad access to U.S. airspace. “It just shows that the kind of mentality that we got after 9-11, where we reinforced the cockpit door to prevent people hijacking planes -- well, we need to adopt that mentality as far as the navigation systems for these UAVs.” • Print • Email • Share • Comments • Recommend

• Tweet Related Images • Researchers usd a 'GPS spoofer' to take control of a small unmanned plane and send it false signals -- and they believe the same vulnerability could exist in the military's unmanned vehicles. Related Slideshow Predators, Raptors and More: The Wide World of Drones Related Stories Judge upholds Indiana Facebook ban for sex offenders Lulzsec hackers plead guilty at London court As efforts to work with allies begin, Pentagon guidelines lay out cyberwar rules Evolving US way of war means less brawn, more guile, and reliance on drones, computer attacks Share This Article Newsletter Signup Sign up for free e-mail news alerts from FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. Newsletter Signup This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

the court's last day of the term will be Thursday, and that all remaining opinions are expected to be issued that day. He did not specifically mention the healthcare case. The court's ninth member, liberal Justice Elena Kagan, did not take part in the immigration ruling believed to be because she worked on the case in her prior job as Obama's solicitor general. Last year, the court upheld a different Arizona law that penalizes businesses for hiring illegal immigrants. Obama on June 15 announced an important change in U.S. immigration policy. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States as children could be able to avoid deportation and get work permits under the new policy. The Supreme Court case is Arizona v. United States, No. 11182. (Reporting by James Vicini, Joan Biskupic and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Howard Goller and Will Dunham) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Turkey: Syria Fired at Another One of Our Planes (FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:07:12 PM

• June 24: Turkish coast guard searches for the Turkish warplane which was downed by Syria on Friday off Samandagi in Hatay province in the eastern Mediterranean. AP A second Turkish plane has been shot at by Syria, Turkey's deputy prime minister said, as it was searching for the wreckage of a fighter jet downed by Syria last week. Bulent Arinc told a televised news conference Monday that Syrian forces opened fire on a CASA search and rescue plane following the downing of a RF-4E reconnaissance jet in international airspace on Friday. Arinc did not say whether the search and rescue plane was hit. He says the Syrian side ceased fire after a warning from the Turkish military. Turkish officials have said the jet mistakenly strayed into Syrian airspace Friday, but was warned to leave by Turkish authorities and was a mile inside international airspace when Syria shot it down. The Turkish pilots

are still missing. Syria has said it was unaware that the F-4 Phantom jet belonged to Turkey, and that it was protecting its air space against an unknown intruder. In the past, Israeli warplanes have penetrated Syrian airspace by flying over the Mediterranean coastline. Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the downing was an accident, caused by the "automatic response" of an officer commanding an anti-aircraft gun. The man saw a jet coming at him at high speed and low altitude and opened fire, Makdissi said. On Monday, foreign ministers from the 27 European Union countries condemned Syria's downing of the first Turkish jet, but said the bloc would not support military action in the troubled country. "What happened is to be considered very seriously," said Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. Having gotten his denunciation out of the way, he let the other shoe drop: "We do not go for any interventions." But after the downing, Turkey immediately called a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body, on

Tuesday to discuss the incident. Any NATO member can request such consultations if their territorial integrity has been threatened. Turkey said Monday it would push NATO to consider Syria's downing of the jet as an attack on the whole military alliance. Arinc said Turkey retained its right to "retaliate" against what he called a "hostile act," but he added, "We have no intention of going at war with anyone." Turkey will push NATO to consider the armed attack under Article 5 in a key alliance treaty, Arinc said. Article 5 states that an attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against all members. The North Atlantic Council -which includes ambassadors of the 28 NATO countries -- works by consensus and all members must approve any action. The meeting Tuesday comes after Turkey requested it under Article 4 of the treaty, which allows a NATO ally to request such a consultation if it feels its territorial integrity or security has been threatened. Asked if Turkey will insist on the activation of Article 5 of NATO, Arinc said, "No doubt, Turkey has

made necessary applications regarding Article 4 and Article 5." A Turkish government official said the government was trying to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on Syria, where activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed in the 15-month uprising. The Associated Press contributed to this report. • Print • Email • Share • Comments • Recommend • Tweet Related Stories Over 30 members of Syrian military reportedly defect to Turkey Share This Article Newsletter Signup Sign up for free e-mail news alerts from FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. Newsletter Signup This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

The verdict after 19 years: Gilham killed one person, not three Maroondah Weekly (Nation - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:13:03 PM

Stuff.co.nz The verdict after 19 years: Gilham killed one person, not three Maroondah Weekly Nineteen years after Helen and Stephen Gilham were stabbed to death in their southern Sydney home, their son Jeffrey was finally acquitted of the crimes by the highest court in NSW. In a judgment that was scathing of the prosecution case and has... Gilham walks free after court acquits The Australian Jeffrey Gilham's uncle Tony Gilham was angry after his nephew walked away from... The Daily Telegraph Key parts of the appeal killer Jeffrey Gilham used to seek his freedom Brisbane Times ABC Online- Courier Mail all 343 news articles »

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New home sales race to two-year high in May (Reuters: Top News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 11:50:16 AM

heel of the economy's recovery from the 2007-09 recession. "The housing market recovery remains on track. While we still have a long ways to go, healing is taking place and we are starting to see improvement," said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reports last week showed a jump in home building permits and a fourth straight month of gains in the median price of previously owned homes. Underscoring the firming tone, new home sales in May were up 19.8 percent from their year-ago level. Still, they stand at only a quarter of the peak reached in July 2005 and the sector remains constrained by an oversupply of previously owned homes. "The level of new home sales in May was still quite depressed but the combination of more affordable prices and ultra-low mortgage rates appears to be supporting a decent rise off the bottom for housing demand," said Michael Feroli, an economist at

JPMorgan in New York. Residential construction is expected to contribute to gross domestic product this year for the first time since 2005. But there are fears that foreclosures, which are rising again after a brief lull, could erode demand for new houses. New home sales account for only 7.5 percent of the overall market. BUILDERS RUNNING A TIGHT SHIP The data did little to support shares of U.S. homebuilders, which were sharply lower on Monday along with the broader stock market. In the face of the foreclosure wave, builders are carefully managing their stocks, which is helping to lift new home prices off the bottom. The median price of a new home rose 5.6 percent in May from a year ago to $234,500. While the inventory of new homes on the market edged up 0.7 percent to 145,000 units last month, it remained near record lows. "There is very little speculation in residential real estate. Houses are

being built and sold only in the few places where there is clear demand," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. "As a result, sales are likely to continue to improve some time to come." At May's sales pace it would take 4.7 months to clear the houses from the market, the lowest since October 2005 and down from 5.0 months in April. New home sales last month were buoyed by a 36.7 percent jump in the Northeast to the highest level since July 2009, and a 12.7 percent rise in the South to a twoyear high. Sales in the West fell 3.5 percent and were down 10.6 percent in the Midwest. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Dave Zimmerman) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Bridge Pictures (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:56 PM

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{ document.location.href="http:// entertainment.howstuffworks.com /hsw-shows/sysk-crowd-sourcedquiz.htm"; }

Key Indian handler of 26/11 attack Abu Hamza held Economic Times (Nation - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:08:53 PM

NEWS.com.au Key Indian handler of 26/11 attack Abu Hamza held Economic Times NEW DELHI: Lashker-e-Taiba's pointsman for Indian operations and a key handler of the 26/11 attack module, Syed Zabiuddin alias Abu Hamza/Abu Jundal, has been arrested by the Delhi Police. He is being touted as the biggest catch in the Mumbai attack... Mumbai Police get warrant for Zabiuddin Ansari's custody The Hindu Key suspect in Mumbai attack held GreaterKashmir.com Mumbai court issues warrant against 26/11 accused Ansari Daily Pioneer Indian Express- IBNLive.comLivemint all 396 news articles »

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Welfare should be celebrated, not a dirty word The Guardian (Nation - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:04:24 PM

Daily Mail Welfare should be celebrated, not a dirty word The Guardian David Cameron eschews a "culture of entitlement" (PM sets out Tory plan to slash benefits, 25 June). But surely that is precisely what a liberal democracy is supposed to aspire to: a society in which we are entitled as citizens not only to vote and to... Welfare Wales: 'Confusion' on regional benefits BBC News David Cameron's benefits crackdown 'will cause homelessness' Metro Cameron floats welfare cuts for activists' benefit Financial Times Daily Mail- Yahoo! News UKThe Independent all 745 news articles »

Shinde points fingers at Deshmukh, babus Times of India (Nation - Google News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:09:58 PM

IBNLive.com Shinde points fingers at Deshmukh, babus

Times of India MUMBAI: Union power minister and former Maharashtra chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday deftly passed the buck for granting approvals to Adarsh

society, pointing fingers at his predecessor and successor Vilasrao Deshmukh,... Adarsh scam: Former chief ministers depose before panel NDTV

Shinde shifts blame on Deshmukh Indian Express Shinde puts 'Adarsh' blame on Deshmukh Daily Pioneer Deccan Herald- Zee News- India Today

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As Tsunami Debris Washes Ashore in US, Costs Pile Up (FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:07:12 PM

• More than 15 months after a powerful magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami in Japan, some of the estimated 1.5 million tons of debris is starting to wash up on U.S. beaches. Among the items: a soccer ball in Alaska, a fishing boat in Washington State and a large dock in Oregon. Cleaning up beaches is usually done for free by volunteer groups, but this kind of global garbage is different. “We have a fabulous network of Oregonians that care for their coast and will emerge to help remove debris,” says Charlie Plybon of the Surfrider Foundation. “But we need money for the eventual disposal of that debris.” The Oregon Parks Department agreed to pay a contractor $84,000 to dismantle and dispose of the 66-foot long steel and concrete dock. That’s more than half the state’s beach cleaning budget for two years. Washington State has set aside $100,000 for tsunami debris pickup knowing it’s not nearly enough. Now it's looking for help from the other Washington. “The

cost of the debris cleanup is going to be unknown at this point,” says Gov. Christine Gregoire. “The primary financial responsibility for the cleanup lies with the federal government.” But so far the feds have told the states they’re pretty much on their own. An official with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, testified in front of a U.S. Senate panel saying a federal funding plan has not been made and in most cases the local governments will have to pay. That’s not sitting well with West

Coast lawmakers. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, introduced a bill that would provide $45 million in federal money for debris cleanup. “This is an emergency,” says Begich. “We would see no different if there was a tornado, a hurricane or earthquake. We would be right there assisting.” The difference is this disaster is slow moving and widespread. The U.S. Coast Guard did sink the ghost ship. Meantime, the Canadian government is helping British Columbia, which had a

motorcycle and trailer drift on shore. But it’s only the beginning. The debris, believed to weigh as much as four Empire State Buildings, will arrive over the next three years. The first big wave is expected in the fall when storms bring a lot more than rain and wind to the coast. Some groups have estimated the total coast of tsunami debris cleanup will top $200 million. • Print • Email • Share • Comments • Recommend

• Tweet Related Images • FILE - Clothing lie in heaps at the site of a neighborhood destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in Rikuzentakata, Japan. Share This Article Newsletter Signup Sign up for free e-mail news alerts from FoxNews.com and FoxBusiness.com. Newsletter Signup TSUNAMI page 22

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The Continentalist: Europe Nears Its Hamiltonian Moment (World Politics Review: Articles)

Germany -- and hope that France does, too. Submitted at 6/25/2012 6:02:00 AM I already explained last week in The European Union’s solidarity this column that the Germans are vs. sovereignty game of chicken losing patience with the other EU goes another round this week with member countries, especially the EU Council meeting on June France, that don’t “get” the 28, and its key actors are France argument for why currency and and Germany. France, and others, political oversight must be joined are seeking a banking union and together tightly. Germany wants (Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News) ultimately eurobonds; German political concessions on fiscal Chancellor Angela Merkel wants oversight from all eurozone Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:12:18 PM collective oversight on spending countries before increasing fiscal Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps beforehand. Who gives in first is solidarity. And for all that the will have their first showdown on the crux of this negotiation, and it Germans might be criticized for in the opening night of the U.S. boils down to a question of trust. their handling of the EU’s crisis My take on the subject at this management over the past two Olympic swimming trials. s t a g e o f t h e e v e n t s : T r u s t years, this time Germany is right:

Lochte, Phelps advance to final of loaded 400 IM

If the proposed banking union and a common European guarantee scheme for deposits, let alone a complete fiscal union, were a marriage proposal, it is time for the other countries to put up their political dowry. ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Graft charges framed against Virbhadra - The Hindu (Nation - Google News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:16:32 PM

India Today Graft charges framed against Virbhadra The Hindu

In a major setback to Union Minister for Small, Micro and Medium Industries Virbhadra Singh a trial court here on Monday charged him with bribery and criminal misconduct in the infamous CD case, under Sections

120 B of IPC and Sections 7, Court frames charges against 11,... Virbhadra Indian Express Cong in bindover graft-hit NDTV- India TodayVirbhadra Daily Pioneer IBNLive.com Court frames charges against all 141 news articles » Virbhadra, wife over corruption charges Business Standard

'No way back' if Scots leave union, says Darling Financial Times (Nation - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:15:57 PM

ITN 'No way back' if Scots leave union, says Darling Financial Times By Brian Groom and Hannah Kuchler The battle lines for one of the longest referendum campaigns in modern political history were drawn on Monday when Alistair Darling warned Scots there would be “no way back” if they voted to leave the United Kingdom. Just say no: Alistair Darling Mirror.co.uk Even Alex Salmond must be daunted by the campaign to keep Scotland in the... Daily Mail Campaign to keep Scotland in UK begins Herald Sun The Guardian- BBC News- The Independent all 304 news articles »

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In Saudi Arabia, Need Firms 'less prepared' for Stability Makes for low-carbon Continuity Likely world - Ninemsn (World Politics Review: Articles)

(Nation - Google News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 6:08:00 AM Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:04:15 PM

Click on the tabs above to view the most popular & emailed articles. Home Briefings Columns Trend Lines Features Reports Documents Media Roundup Leading Indicators Video Subscribe © 2012, World Politics Review LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Policy About World Politics Review This entry passed through the

Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Firms 'less prepared' for lowcarbon world Ninemsn Just days before Labor's pollution price takes effect, a new survey suggests Australian firms are feeling less prepared now for a low-carbon future than they were 12 months ago. The Economist

Intelligence Unit (EIU) report, released on Tuesday,... On all three of her own major tests, Julia Gillard has failed The International News Magazine Push to free up greenfields work deals WA Business News All the news that's fit to ignore Business Spectator all 11 news articles »

Built-In Hardware Shelves - The Smart Bookcase Allows You to Reach Your Books with Ease (TrendHunter.com) (TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends) Submitted at 6/25/2012 11:03:03 AM

( TrendHunter.com) With the Smart Bookcase, your books will be within you reach and your limbs won't have to stretch and strain to reach them—they will thank you later. This bookcase eliminates the...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me store my photos Erica Sadun (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog) Submitted at 6/25/2012 4:00:00 PM

Dear Aunt TUAW, I have a MacBook Air with only 120 GB of storage. My iPhoto Library is over 40 GB. I don't need all the the photos on my Mac but don't want to lose them or the events that they have been sorted into. Is there a way to keep my iPhoto library stored on iCloud and only download the albums that I need? Your loving nephew, Matt

Dear Matt, After doing a little looking around and consulting with Uncle TJ, Auntie has decided to recommend Flickr Pro, perhaps with a second service that backs up your Flickr account. Flickr Pro costs about $2/month and gives you unlimited uploads and storage, ad-free sharing, and a few other nice benefits. Uncle TJ points out, "As much as I don't have confidence in Yahoo's management of Flickr long-term, there are enough people who have party support systems." pictures there that the ecosystem Although you could probably use is rich enough for a lot of 3rd another service like Dropbox or

Google Drive, Flickr offers specific photo management tools and doesn't cache your data locally the way Dropbox does. Auntie acknowledges this isn't exactly the answer you were asking for. Of course, with Auntie, when it is ever? She answers the questions readers should have asked, not the ones they actually do. With that in mind, she and Uncle TJ recommend Flickr Export for iPhoto, which does a whole lot more of managing how iPhoto syncs to Flickr, than iPhoto might do with its built-in functionality.

Basically, this is the solution that Auntie would use if she had to manage pictures on an MBA without a secondary computer. Hugs, Auntie T. Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me store my photos originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Kinect in the car? It's coming Liane Yvkoff (CNET News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:39:55 PM

Microsoft embedded Kinect Cameras in the front and rear of its Project Detroit prototype connected car. Microsoft placed a want ad for a software engineer with its Connected Car QA team to aid in the development and testing of the next generation connected car platform. Based on the job description on Microsoft's Web site, it looks like the technology giant has embedded every product it offers in the dash: For the next generation of the Connected Car Platform, we plan to leverage the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem including Kinect, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Live, Bing, Azure, and Tellme. The combination of rich local sensing, user identification, cloud access, and data mining will transform tomorrow's cars from passive objects into intelligent assistants for both the driver and their passengers. Microsoft has already demonstrated Kinect in the car with its "Project Detroit" Ford Mustang concept. While you shouldn't expect this prototype in dealerships any time soon, it looks

like components of this connected car are going to be more than just a publicity stunt. Behold: The Microsoft Mustang! (photos) 1-2 of 7 Scroll Left Scroll Right • • • • • • Kinect cameras were installed in the front and rear of the Project

Detroit Mustang, and used more or less as a glorified back-up camera. In a production vehicle the motion-activated technology could be better used in the dash to keep an eye on the driver and passenger. Hand motions could be used to change information displays and control entertainment systems, and by eliminating buttons on the center stack and streamlining screen displays, Kinect would be the glue that ties all of Microsoft's technologies

together. Theoretically, it could even make in-vehicle communications easier to use and cut down on distracted driving. But the next generation car won't stop there. The job description also explains that Microsoft is working on in-vehicle natural language communication to rival Apple and Nuance, and its upcoming platform will be able to recognize and interact with drivers and passengers: The new Connected Car will know its

Saudis to permit women to compete in Olympics (Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:42:53 PM

A month before the London Games, Saudi Arabia appears to be moving closer to sending female athletes to the Olympics

for the first time amid mounting pressure on the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom to grant women more rights.

riders, and will interact with them naturally via speech, gestures, and face tracking. It will learn their habits, and offer personalized contextual information and driving assists to get them to their destination as quickly and safely as possible. Microsoft's Windows Embedded Automotive platform already powers Ford's Sync, and can be found in vehicles from Honda, Nissan, BMW, and MercedesBenz. Other automotive manufacturers and suppliers are also working to bring gesture controls to cars. Electronics manufacturer JVC already produces a gesture-controlled aftermarket audio head unit, and Audi demonstrated its heads-up display controlled by hand motions at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. (Via: Slashgear) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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T-Mobile customers consider Galaxy S III vs Galaxy Note Chris Burns (SlashGear) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:55:27 PM

With the Samsung Galaxy Note coming up relatively quickly for T -Mobile and the Samsung Galaxy S III already in stores across the nation, it should be clear that any Samsung fan has a choice to make between the two. Which one will bring you greater fortune, and which will be the ideal Samsung device for you? This journey begins with a simple question of screen size, of course. The Samsung Galaxy Note has a massive 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display while the Galaxy S III has a lovely 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display. The Galaxy Note has a pixel density of 285ppi while the Galaxy S III has 306ppi, this meaning that they’re pretty darn close when it comes to

sharpness. The big difference between the two, then, is just that .5-inch difference diagonally. Consider your pocket size and your need for massiveness. The Galaxy Note is made specifically to work with its buildin S-Pen while the Galaxy S III is more focused on being a device for everyone in the smartphone market. Both devices are made of premium quality materials that are, in the end, hard and powerful plastics with metal insides. The Galaxy S III works with its AllShare sharing abilities just as well as the Galaxy Note does, as both are working with Qualcomm processors, but the Note has an Snapdragon S3 chip while the Galaxy S III has the S4. Expect the latter to go faster and work harder for you in the end – not in any giant way since they’ve

company. The Galaxy S III is clearly the hero of the day, but the Galaxy Note remains a relatively unique device, so you can count of Samsung to keep pushing it for the future. Have a peek at our reviews of the versions of these devices that are on the market now for more comparisons: Story Timeline • Samsung Galaxy Note Review • Galaxy Note for AT&T Review • Samsung Galaxy S III Review • Samsung Galaxy S III Review [AT&T & T-Mobile] both got next-level power throughout their builds in many ways, but the S4 will bring on a new level of excellence when you get nit-picky. Have a peek at the hands-on comparison we’ve got from this year’s CTIA from

before the release of the USA versions of the GSIII: Both of these devices are going to bring you a full high-level smart device experience, and Samsung is wholly dedicated to both devices for the future of their

T-Mobile’s Galaxy Note Press Shots Leak Out, Expected On July 11 Jordan Crook (TechCrunch)

today we’ve spotted some interesting new press shots of what appears to be T-Mobile’s It’s all but confirmed. Samsung Galaxy Note (blue). If We’ve seen plenty of evidence the phablet isn’t coming to To v e r t h e p a s t f e w m o n t h s , Mobile, we should all consider including an image of one, but ourselves Punk’d. Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:57:27 PM

The latest come by way of Cell Phone Signal, which claims that the T-Mobile Galaxy Note will be available July 11. The phone will reportedly come with HSPA+ on T-Mobile’s 850/1900 bands. Samsung’s mobile head JK Shin

today predicted that Samsung would hit a cumulative 10 million Galaxy Note sales by July. That would be on par with the 5 million units sold in five months on the market. In any case, hopping on to a new

carrier can’t do anything to hurt sales, even though the Galaxy S III — which will be riding in on many a carrier— is sure to start chomping into the Galaxy Note’s numbers. Click to view slideshow.

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Infoaxe’s Flipora Passes 8M Registered Users, Adds Discovery Engine

Microsoft: Bing Maps’ High-Res Imagery Will Cover All The U.S. And Europe By The End Of The Year Frederic Lardinois (TechCrunch)

Ortho” program, which Microsoft launched in 2010, the company aims to provide 30cm aerial Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:42:20 PM blanket coverage of the U.S. and Kim-Mai Cutler (TechCrunch) to visit. You can also explicitly They may have very different With Google and Apple making Europe to provide users with a list interests like ‘Music,’ ‘Health’ tastes in media and music content, back-to-back announcements consistent mapping experience. In Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:50:18 PM or ‘Food.’ Then it will also for example. Twitter is slightly about their new mapping efforts today’s announcement, Microsoft A couple years ago, a few analyze what other people with better but it’s still less accessible in the last few weeks, Microsoft also noted that it takes about Stanford grad students and former similar browsing habits tend to to a mainstream consumer base obviously felt a bit left out. 16,500 compute cores and about Y a h o o a n d P o w e r s e t d a t a look at through the 20 million than Facebook is. Today, however, the company is 55 petabytes of storage to run scientists got together and created websites it indexes daily. The data He adds that most of Flipora’s launching its largest imagery Bing Imagery Technologies’ a personal search history plug-in is anonymized and aggregated, of growth is coming organically, release in its history: Bing Maps software that stitches all of these and engine called Infoaxe that course. meaning people have come today features a full 165 terabytes photos together and prepares them would surface better results based When you browse the web, there directly to the site to either get the worth of new data that spans for publishing. on your personal browsing is a left-hand sidebar that suggests plug-in or log into the product. about 1 million square miles. 3D maps, the one area Google history. other eventual destinations. It They didn’t disclose how many W h a t ’ s m a y b e e v e n m o r e and Apple have been focusing on, Since then, they’ve rebranded as shows how many people have daily active users they have. interesting, though, is that the is something Bing offered a long F l i p o r a , p a s s e d 8 m i l l i o n either liked or viewed the page The company raised $3 million Bing Imagery Technologies group time ago through its Virtual Earth registered users and they’re now inside Flipora. Because I already two years ago from Stephen completed its mission to cover 3 D p r o g r a m . T h e s e d a y s , adding another key piece to their waste too much time on the Oskoui, the CEO of online 100% of the U.S. with aerial however, Microsoft doesn’t seem product — a discovery engine that Internet anyway, I’m not sure I advertising company Smiley photography in June and that the to be putting too much emphasis helps users figure out what to visit need yet another discovery M e d i a . T h e c o m p a n y h a d company expects to hit the same on 3D and has been focusing next on the web. They’re calling it channel. However, there are other previously raised $900,000 in 100% milestone for Europe this more on its bird’s-eye and aerial a “Pandora for websites”. demographics out there that seed funding from Draper Fisher fall. All of this imagery will be imagery instead. It’s worth noting, “There is so much great stuff on probably want a better way to find Jurvetson, Labrador Ventures, published by the end of 2012. though, that it’s that kind of t h e w e b , ” s a i d c o - f o u n d e r content beyond Google and Band of Angels and Amidzad As Microsoft notes, “a challenge detailed aerial imagery that Jonathan Siddharth. “This should Facebook. Partners. Gokul Rajaram, the for consumers and enterprise Microsoft is currently collecting be like an intelligent cab driver Siddharth says that social “godfather of Google AdSense, organizations using web mapping that makes these new 3D maps who truly knows you and directs networks like Facebook can fall sits on the company’s board. services has been that much of the possible, so it wouldn’t come as a you to the right places.” short because you’re not imagery featured there has surprise if Microsoft also got back Flipora will look at your personal necessarily interested in what historically been a patchwork of into this game sooner rather than search history and places you like your friends are interested in. satellite and aerial imagery of later. different vintage, quality, clarity and detail.” With the “Global

NHL labor negotiations about to begin (Sports News Headlines Yahoo! News)

The head of the NHL players' bargaining agreement will begin u n i o n s a i d M o n d a y t h a t "very quickly" — perhaps as early negotiations on a new collective as this week.

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Immersion circulator bubbles sous vide forward Brian Krepshaw (CNET News)

results. Unfortunately, the cost of integrating an immersion Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:33:20 PM circulator into these devices Sous-vide cooking has been increases the price until it is getting a lot of attention recently prohibitively high. Nomiku solves and for good reason: cooking food this problem by eliminating the in a water bath at an exact and need for a proprietary cooking consistent temperature provides vessel; most any pot or pan you unique results. As the method already have will do. k e e p s g a i n i n g p o p u l a r i t y , The Nomiku clips on to the side appliances and gadgets are of a pot or pan and is controlled cropping up designed to make the by the simple-to-use knob at the process accessible and affordable. top. The business end of the The Nomiku combines a heat device stays submerged in the s o u r c e w i t h a n i m m e r s i o n water and delivers 750 watts of circulator. Many other consumer heat output. According to the appliances do not integrate an creators, the temperature is immersion circulator into their accurate to within 0.2 degree d e s i g n s . T h e c a p a b i l i t y t o Celsius and maintains a stable circulate water (in this case at 10 temperature to 0.1 degree Celsius. L/min) allows for more consistent The sous-vide technique has been

around for a while, but refinements keep pushing it forward. Certainly in the case of the Nomiku, the capability to use it with existing kitchen accessories is a positive, not only because it is a space-saver, but it makes it affordable too. Be sure to check out our additional coverage of the Nomiku at the recent HAXLR8R event. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

App Developer Says Facebook Stole Idea for "Find Friends Nearby" [UPDATED] Dave Copeland (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:00:00 PM

The CEO of Friendthem.com has threatened to sue Facebook less than 24 hours after the first reports surfaced that the social network was testing an app that allowed people to connect with users who were physically near them. Charles Sankowich claimed in an email sent to media outlets that he first approached Facebook with the idea in February, only to learn on Sunday that the company had quietly launched and was testing an app called Find Friends Nearby that allowed people to locate other users and connect with them using a smartphone’s GPS signal. Facebook engineer Ryan Patterson maintains that he developed the app during a hackathon. Update:“We are constantly

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testing new features but have nothing more to share at this time," a Facebook spokesperson said in an email. “Even their language is similar to what has been on our website for years now,” said Sankowich, who claimed to have pioneered his app two years ago. He is consulting with attorneys about possible legal action. “One would think Facebook would have learned to play fair after being through the mud previously with legal difficulties, but now they are doing it again.” The introduction of Friendshake was hailed in reports on Sunday as a step forward in the company’s efforts to improve its mobile offerings. The company also appeared to make a preemptive move against privacy complaints by making the feature an opt-in service.

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Chinese astronauts achieve milestone after milestone Chris Burns (SlashGear)

This mission was launched in order to test the viability of the craft the Chinese already had in This Sunday was the first time a space and will be part of the m a n n e d C h i n e s e s p a c e c r a f t decision on how China chooses to successfully docked with another proceed with their space program spacecraft, this being just one of from here on out. several brand new achievements Chinese astronauts Liu Wang, of the crew that blasted off last Jing Haipeng and Liu Yang were week. This crew aboard the launched into orbit on June 16th Shenzhou 9 spacecraft also and had a mission to connect with included the first female astronaut the unmanned Tiangong 1 module in the history of China, and makes in orbit late in the week. This up only the four crew of humans mission is now officially a sent from China to explore space. success, and all docking has been Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:31:13 PM

successful. The module was (and is) roughly the size of a city bus and will pave the way for future much larger space stations for the

craft being the Shenzhou 8 capsule in November. This capsule was a robotic docking mission and was also a grand success. Have a peek at a celebration the Chinese had upon reaching this, their most recent space-based achievement. [ via CSM] Chinese astronauts achieve milestone after milestone is Chinese in the future. written by Chris Burns& Tiangong 1 has been in space and originally posted on SlashGear. in orbit since September of 2011, ÂŠ 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All with the last mission to reach the right reserved.

Improve your Safari YouTube watching experience Erica Sadun (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

I've been ticked off at YouTube because it seems like every video I tried to play would keep Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:30:00 PM reloading over and over and the In recent months, have you page wouldn't load. I tried n o t i c e d y o u r S a f a r i - b a s e d resetting Safari, reloading Flash, ( YouTube watching experience ugh), etc, etc, etc. Things would degrade further and further? Are work fine on other browsers, but you hopping into Chrome or not Safari." FireFox just so you can see After doing some legwork, he NyanCats fly? TUAW reader Tim discovered that Google has has uncovered a reason this might deployed a HTML5 video test be happening. into its user base. That this option He writes, "The last few months, is automatically enabled for many

users. To check whether you've been included, visit this Youtube page and scroll down towards the bottom. If you see the evil green checkmark, click the blue "Leave the HTML5 trial." Instantly, you gain 50 karma points and often your video just starts working properly. Tim adds, "Just thought you guys

might want to reshare this one. I'm doing my good deed for the day." We agree. Thanks, Tim! Improve your Safari YouTube watching experience originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Receiver-Friendly Packing Tape The Quirky Rip Cord Makes Shipping That Much Easier (TrendHunter.com) (TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends) Submitted at 6/25/2012 10:58:02 AM

( TrendHunter.com) Avoid broken nails and struggling to open boxes with the Quirky Rip Cord packing tape. This seemingly ordinary adhesive comes with a hidden secret that makes sending and receiving goods that much...

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Flipboard enters (Number) 9 Things content deal with the the Yoko Ono App New York TImes SHOULD Do Kelly Hodgkins (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:15:00 PM

The New York Times announced today that it is bringing its subscription content to the popular social reader app Flipboard. Starting Thursday, June 28, subscribers to The New York Times will be able to read full articles, browse image galleries and watch videos using the Flipboard app. This is the first time all the NYT's content is available through a third-party service. Previously, the publication only made a part of its content available outside its own digital subscriptions. Denise F. Warren, general manager of The New York Times's Web site, told Brian X. Chen of NYT's Bits blog that "We realized that we have an opportunity to enable this kind of access for paying subscribers, and we thought it was something we ought to try and see how users react to it." This is a worthy addition to Flipboard, which already pulls down content from Twitter,

Fredric Paul (ReadWriteWeb)

ever recorded. 5. Automatically send emails Yoko Ono, widow of The with virtual flowers to 100 top B e a t l e s ' J o h n L e n n o n , h a s world leaders, complete with released an iPhone app. The app, nagging messages about what called #smilesfilm, allows users to they're not doing to save the share snapshots of smiling faces. world. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great and all, but we came 6. Turn off all the alarms on your up with nine things that a Yoko iPhone. After all, you belong in Ono app really should do. bed. 1. Break up your band. Whatever 7. Send an animated fly crawling band you happen to be in. over your home screen. 2. Erase all Paul McCartney 8. Put huge sunglasses on the songs on your iTunes account. faces of the pictures you take with 3. Turn all your album cover art your iPhone - including those to plain white. taken in #smilesfilm. 4. Change your ring tone to 15 9. Give Peace a Chance. minutes of tuneless screeching, Lead photo courtesy of direct from the second side of S h u t t e r s t o c k . Live Peace in Toronto, still the most unlistenable bit of "music" Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:00:00 PM

Facebook, Instagram, Google Reader and other social news sources. This also is the second big news story for Flipboard in the recent weeks. After a two-year exclusive stint on iOS, the app debuted on Android last week. Flipboard enters content deal with the New York TImes originally appeared on TUAW The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| (TREND HUNTER - The Latest Comments Trends)

( TrendHunter.com) This body art by Chooo-San looks so real that it

'Turkey tail' tree fungus could filter oestrogen from water Liat Clark Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:00:00 PM

A tree fungus filter that removes oestrogen present in water is one of the proposals in an annual international synthetic biology competition. The entry, submitted by 15 students at Germany's Bielefeld University, explains how the oxidase enzyme laccases -present in the Trametes versicolor fungus (also known as turkey tail, because of its appearance) -- breaks down enzymes present in synthetic oestrogens such as the oral contraceptive pill. These synthetic oestrogens end up in the water supply when women who are taking the pill or hormone replacement therapy go to the toilet. appears to be Photoshopped or By: Liat Clark, Edited by: Olivia digitally edited into the picture. Solon Continue reading... Chooo-San uses acrylic paints to carefully create realistic doodles of body...

Skin-Embedded Optical Illusions This Body Art by Chooo-San Appears to be Photoshopped (TrendHunter.com) Submitted at 6/25/2012 11:08:02 AM

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5 Incredible Things You'll Learn in First Grade Julia Layton (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:56 PM

Xbox Kinect $99 deal starts today Chris Burns (SlashGear) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:51:09 PM

This week you’ll be able to head down to your favorite GameStop or Best Buy location and pick yourself up an Xbox with a Kinect for just $99 USD. THere’s a catch, of course, in that you’ve got to sign up for two years of Xbox LIVE Gold, that costing you an additional $14.99 USD a month. THe cost of the beast

you’re buying from one of the two stores listed this week will over the course of the contract end up costing you $99 + $360, a price that’s quite a bit more than your everyday average $299 for the package with no contract. This deal is for those of you wishing to spread out your costs over a longer period and for those of you that planned on grabbing a membership anyway. For those of you looking to spend the least

amount of cash in the end, the device package you want is everywhere you look. This $99 deal is up at Best Buy and GameStop starting this week. If you’re dissatisfied by what you’ve purchased, you do have a 30 day return period in which you’ll only end up losing your first month’s subscription, which is non-refundable. Those people waiting more than 30 days before ending a subscription will be

subject to a $250 early termination fee. Sound like an awesome deal to you? Xbox Kinect $99 deal starts today is written by Chris Burns& originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Welcome to official schooling! Sure, kindergarten was a big deal, but that's really just an introduction -- one that's still pretty relaxed and play-based. This year, your child is going to get down to work. A bunch of U.S. states don't actually require school attendance before first grade, so this really is the start of your child's formal education; you're in for some exciting stuff. If you thought your child grew up last year, just wait. Most first graders are 6 or 7 years old when this school year begins, and they're capable of a lot more than they were at 5 or 6. By the end of first grade, you'll have a full-on "big kid" on your hands. Here, five of the coolest discoveries your child will make this year. The first one probably seems completely intuitive to you, but to your little one it can be a revelation ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono Smile Film Resurrected as iPhone App Fruzsina Eordogh (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:12:00 PM

Yoko Ono wants to document all the smiling faces in the world, and earlier this month she released an iPhone app to do just that. So far she's collected 2,700 jovial expressions, but it's unclear how the app is different from all the smiling pictures which currently exist on Facebook and Twitter, except that Miss Ono is now indirectly involved. Originally based off a 1967 film project idea, the app #smilesfilm is simply that: of smiling faces. “My ultimate goal in film-making

is to make a film which includes a smiling face snap of every single human being in the world,” Ono said on Twitter. #smilesfilm users upload photos of themselves through Twitter or

Instagram, and can interact with other geotagged app users by checking out other smiling faces in the “dream” section. According to the description, the app also comes with inspirational quotes

and sounds from Ono herself: Our smiles change moods and opinions as they radiate positive energy out into the world, creating joy, healing and peace, changing the Universe for the better. In an interview with Reuters, Ono admitted it’s not always easy to smile, but she did it for her “health” after John Lennon’s death. #smilesfilm follows decades of similar projects encouraging smiling by Ono: In 2009, smiling faces from photo booths at art exhibits in Tokyo, Berlin and New Delhi were collected on Flickr.

Why can't the Bank of England be honest about use of the printing press? Jeremy Warner (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:28:00 PM

Members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee should take heed of the warnings being sounded in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) latest annual report before launching another bout of quantitative easing, as they are widely expected to do next week.

The 404 1,081: Where nobody's perfect (podcast) Justin Yu (CNET News)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:26:15 PM

Leaked from today's 404 episode: - Facebook quietly adds creepy "Find Friends Nearby" feature. - Apple no longer claims immunity from viruses on its Web store. N e w site"weknowhatyouredoing.com"

tracks Twitter and posts incriminating patterns. - Hot Toys' Joker action figure is serious...ly amazing. - No one watches TV, Nielsen, and you know it. Episode 1,081 Listen Now: Download Today's Podcast Subscribe in iTunes (audio)| Subscribe in RSS Video Subscribe in iTunes (video)| Follow us on Twitter! Subscribe in RSS Audio|

• The 404 • Jeff Bakalar • Justin Yu Add us on Facebook! • The 404 Fan Page • The 404 Group • Justin Yu • Jeff Bakalar This entry passed through the

Technology/ Culture/

Curated News Edition

Kate Hudson Has Bikini Time With Baby Bingham!

Soho Stories app tells Unusual material can the seedy history of be magnetically and central London electrically polarised Ian Steadman

of Soho. Once the app knows where you are -- and after a Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:00:00 PM genial greeting from Barry Cryer, What do you think of when you who explains the app's mecahnics think of the National Trust? Men -- it plays audio related to your in waistcoats, or ivy-covered immediate surroundings. As you listed buildings, or wet weekends walk through the historic, and in the country with your parents. often sticky, streets of Soho, Crumpets, perhaps. However, it's y o u ' l l b e r e g a l e d w i t h t h e likely not strippers and drugs and wonderful tales of who used to sex shops and all the other neon work at which shop, or which joys of Soho, London's seediest phone box used to be particularly area. popular with heroin addicts. A new app, Soho Stories, sees the By: Ian Steadman, Edited by: National Trust celebrating the Duncan Geere Continue reading... personal and the cultural aspects

Liat Clark Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:22:00 PM

A team of physicists has published a paper detailing how an iron compound can be both magnetically and electrically polarised -- an extremely rare property that material scientists are only just starting to understand. The TbFeO3 compound, which is multiferroic (a material that presents more than one ferroic parameter -- in this case magnetic and electric polorisation),

presented with very unusual magnetic domains. Usually a material's magnetised atoms point in the same direction until they are significantly cooled. At this point the magnetic area is divided into sub-sections called magnetic domains -- the atoms within each domain then point in the same direction, however different domains have atoms pointing in different directions. By: Liat Clark, Edited by: Olivia Solon Continue reading...

Allie Merriam (PopSugar) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:05:19 PM

Kate Hudson is off on vacation with her family in the South of France. They had a busy one today so far. Kate, her baby son Bingham, her oldest son Ryder, and fiancĂŠ Matt Bellamy left a yacht in St. Tropez via helicopter to shop in Monaco with their pals Philip Green and his wife Tina. Kate kept her almost 1-year-old son, Bingham, strapped to her chest for the outing. After getting bags full of goodies, the gang returned to the vessel for some fun in the sun. It was the latest chance for Kate Hudson to wear her bikini. She was just in Greece with Matt and her parents, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, for another getaway. It's shaping up to be a fun Summer for Kate, who's due to get back before the cameras soon to shoot her action picture Everly. View Slideshow â&#x20AC;ş

Policy/

Curated News Edition

5 Other People Ruining Zimbabwe - By Erin Conway-Smith ERIN CONWAY-SMITH (Foreign Policy)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 11:26:31 AM

It's not just Robert Mugabe's fault the country is such a mess. (Just mostly.) BY ERIN CONWAYSMITH| JUNE 25, 2012 When Robert Mugabe turned 88 in February, he celebrated with five massive cakes, a soccer tournament dubbed the "Bob 88 Super Cup," and a beauty pageant. "The day will come when I will become sick," Mugabe told Radio Zimbabwe, according to AFP. "As of now I am fit as a fiddle." Fortified with Botox, vitamin shots and black hair dye, Mugabe still seems pretty feisty, last week running down civilians with his motorcade and taking a bloated entourage to the United Nations sustainable development conference in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is limping along, its economy broken and its government barely functioning. But while Mugabe continues to get all the international attention, he can't be held solely responsible for Zimbabwe's ongoing turmoil. Here's a list of five people who also deserve a bit of the blame. 1) Emmerson Mnangagwa Known as "Ngwena," or "The Crocodile," for his reputed brutality, Mnangagwa is

Zimbabwe's defense minister and the current favorite to succeed Mugabe. A veteran of the guerrilla war against the British, Mnangagwa went on to head the

secret police in the 1980s, and he is thought to have orchestrated the slaughter of about 20,000 ethnically Ndebele civilians by a North Korean-trained army unit in

the 1980s. Sokwanele, an activist group, called him "perhaps the one figure in Zimbabwe to inspire greater terror than President Mugabe."

More recently, Mnangagwa was Mugabe's chief election officer during the violent 2008 runoff OTHER page 34

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OTHER continued from page 33

vote, when thugs from the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front ( Zanu-PF), waged a bloody intimidation campaign against opposition supporters. The Sunday Telegraph reported in April on a secret pact: Mugabe allegedly told Mnangagwa he would anoint him his successor -- as long as he ensured Mugabe's victory in the second round of voting. Mnangagwa dismissed this as mere noise intended to stir up interparty conflict. But according to Zimbabwe political analysts, "The Crocodile" is fighting hard in Zanu-PF's continuing power struggles. Mnangagwa is also heavily involved in the construction of a military college near the capital, Harare, dubbed the Robert Mugabe National School of Intelligence, the Zimbabwean newspaper reported last year. Built by a Chinese construction company, the college has been financed with a $98 million Chinese loan, funded by a diamond deal with Chinese firm Anjin Investments. Mnangagwa recently admitted to Zimbabwean military involvement in the diamond trade, telling a university audience in Gweru that the Army struck deals with Chinese and Russian diamond firms to counter Western sanctions. Joseph Mwenda/AFP/ GettyImages 2. Saviour Kasukuwere

As indigenization and empowerment minister, Kasukuwere presides over the notorious 2010 law that forces foreign-owned companies to cede 51 percent of their shares to black Zimbabweans. This indigenization program has made Kasukuwere, 41, the youngest Zanu-PF minister,"a rising political star," according to South Africa's Times newspaper. He has vowed to intensify the program, claiming it will give Mugabe a boost in the upcoming election. Kasukuwere, who in April confusingly claimed to Zimbabwe's Newsday that he is the "Hitler of our time," has been doing his best to terrify already nervous foreign investors. He announced that the government had unilaterally seized a controlling stake in an unspecified number of mines and threatened to take over another, owned by South Africa's Impala Platinum, without offering any compensation. Kasukuwere said he is seeking justice for his people and a restoration of rights to national resources. "If that is Hitler, let me be a Hitler tenfold," he told Newsday. JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/ Getty Images 3. Morgan Tsvangirai Many Zimbabweans credit Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader turned coalition partner to Mugabe, for helping bring relative peace and

stability to the country. But his critics say the country's stability has nothing to do with Tsvangirai, pointing instead to Zimbabwe's adoption of the American dollar and an increase in foreign aid. Ministries in their joint government barely function, and few of the reforms agreed to under the power-sharing deal have been implemented. In a leaked diplomatic cable, U.S. Amb. Charles Ray said in late 2009 that the party Tsvangirai leads, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), lacked strategic vision. Tsvangirai recently got engaged to the daughter of a high-ranking Zanu-PF official, and while there's no accounting for love, it is an odd choice given the continuing turmoil between Mugabe's party and Tsvangirai's MDC. His late wife, Susan, who died in a car crash less than a month after Tsvangirai became prime minister, in 2009, was hailed as"a mother of the nation." Zimbabweans are left wondering why Tsvangirai is marrying into the Zanu-PF, the party that has brutalized thousands of MDC supporters. JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/ Getty Images 4. Obert Mpofu The mining minister Mpofu has a tight grip on the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), the company that controls the

Marange fields in eastern Zimbabwe -- home to an estimated 25 percent of the world's diamonds. But little of the country's diamond revenue has found its way into state coffers, amid allegations of widespread smuggling and plunder of Marange's riches. Finance Minister Tendai Biti said he only received $122 million in diamond revenues last year, money desperately needed to fund government projects, despite the country producing $334 million worth of gems. Mpofu, who calls himself Mugabe's "ever obedient son" and also has close ties to Beijing, has been struggling to explain why he is suddenly a very wealthy man. ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images 5. Jacob Zuma South African President Zuma is supposed to be facilitating talks on Zimbabwe's political crisis. After the disastrous 2008 elections, regional bloc known as the Southern African Development Community appointed Zuma as facilitator of dialogue between Zanu-PF and the MDC. Zimbabweans hoped Zuma would succeed in pushing for Mugabe to be held accountable. But Zuma has been widely criticized for his utter lack of progress. "Revolutions have been conceived and executed and elections held, or due to be held in

Tunisia and Egypt while Mr. Zuma is still trying to organize one election," the Zimbabwean said in April. "Mr. Zuma should also understand that there is a cost in human lives being lost in Zimbabwe while this procrastination over agreed reforms is going on." Zuma, overdue to return to Harare to meet with leaders in the unity government, seems preoccupied with political maneuvering at home ahead of a crucial African National Congress conference later this year. A spokeswoman for the South African mediation team said Zuma isn't there to "babysit" the process. Zuma has called for patience, but with elections nearing, political violence mounting, and the country going broke, time is running out. Robert Mugabe, however, seems to be going strong. RODGER BOSCH/AFP/ GettyImages This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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No Special Sauce on This Currywurst - By Daniel Altman DANIEL ALTMAN (Foreign Policy) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:03:24 PM

The end of the German "miracle" is coming. BY DANIEL ALTMAN| JUNE 25, 2012 Imagine, for a moment, what might have happened if the North American Free Trade Agreement had been something a little different, something a little more ... intense. Imagine that Mexico had not just opened its borders to American goods and services but had actually become the 51st state. Furthermore, imagine that all Mexicans had learned to speak English overnight. Extreme poverty in Mexico had disappeared, and much of its workforce had instantly acquired manufacturing skills. Finally, imagine that Mexico had, for the previous several decades, assiduously cultivated trading relationships with the rest of Latin America. And now, imagine that some years after this miraculous unification of Mexico and the United States, the U.S. dollar had become the common currency of much of the hemisphere. Can you see where I'm going with this? When East and West Germany reunified in 1990, the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. The East got the West's airtight economic institutions, its c u l t u r e o f p r e c i s i o n i n manufacturing, and its central

position in the global economy. new workers -- the equivalent of The West got a huge inflow of about a quarter of its existing

SPECIAL page 37

Policy/

Curated News Edition

Fish Story - By Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt STEPHANIE KLEINEAHLBRANDT (Foreign Policy) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:25:58 PM

The risk of conflict in the South China Sea is real. But not for the reasons you might think. BY STEPHANIE KLEINEAHLBRANDT| JUNE 25, 2012 BEIJING â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Bad weather was good news in Scarborough Shoal, a contested chain of rocks and reefs in the South China Sea. Earlier this month, Typhoon Butchoy forced a break in the two -month standoff between Philippine and Chinese vessels as diplomatic efforts faltered. For all it seemed the showdown was about naval power, oil resources, and China's inexorable rise, the Scarborough incident was really about one thing: the fish. Consider it a lesson in how a common fishing run-in can turn into a crisis that can bring an entire region to its knees. Despite the overwhelming preoccupation with the potentially abundant energy reserves in the South China Sea, fishing has emerged as a larger potential driver of conflict. Countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam rely on the sea as an economic lifeline. And China is the largest consumer and exporter of fish in the world. And as overfishing continues to deplete coastal stocks through Southeast Asia, fishermen are venturing out further into disputed waters. All this is worsening a trend of

harassment, confiscation of catch and equipment, detention, and mistreatment of fishermen. Further fueling tensions is the way countries in the region are wielding unilateral fishing bans to assert jurisdiction over disputed waters under the pretext of environmental protection. Worryingly, the claims of sovereignty also serve to justify

greater civilian patrols in the sea - opening up still more possibilities of run-ins with fishing vessels. And when ships go bump in the night, growing nationalist sentiment limits governments' ability to resolve the disputes and sows the seeds for future problems. China's uncoordinated approach significantly raises the risk of

conflict in the region. Chinese coastal local governments actively encourage their fishermen to go further into disputed waters to enhance revenue and thereby government legitimacy. For example, by reducing licenses for smaller vessels, local governments force fishermen to upgrade and equip their boats with satellite navigations systems,

allowing them to range everfurther from home -- and immediately inform Chinese law enforcement forces in the event of confrontation. Meanwhile, several different Chinese civilian maritime law enforcement agencies directly compete with each other for FISH page 38

Culture/ Featured/

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SPECIAL continued from page 35

labor force -- and access to an enormous market that had been shut off since World War II. This market wasn't the wealthiest, but it had plenty of room to grow. And though these new workers weren't quite as productive as their counterparts in the West, on average they were more than 50 percent cheaper. The sudden addition of millions of lower-wage, lower-productivity workers to the German labor force dramatically raised the return to capital. Once the initial growing pains of reunification subsided, investment started flowing in. Giving the new workers better equipment and installing them in refitted factories immediately made them more productive. At the same time, their lower wages made German exports much more competitive. Then came the euro. Germany's exports to the eurozone became easier and more transparent, and buyers outside of the monetary union could pay for German goods and services with a versatile new currency instead of the trusty but limited deutschmark. So, was it any wonder that Germany became a world-beating exporter? The first couple of years after reunification were rocky, and exports actually dropped.

Then came the miracle: Germany's exports grew faster than its gross domestic product in every year from 1994 to 2008, when the global financial crisis started. In those 15 years, exports tripled while GDP (adjusted for changes in prices) expanded by just 27 percent. Until the onset of the euro crisis, these stunning results had plenty of people saying that Germany had discovered some magic formula for export-led growth in an advanced economy. In The American Prospect, Eamonn Fingleton wrote, "It is high time the German economy got some respect" and called the German model "an extraordinary engine of economic success." It's true that Germany made some slight changes in economic policy during those boom years, including reforms in the labor market and the pension system. But pointing to those changes as the source of its growth was to ignore the elephant in the room -the elephant with the word "reunification" painted on its side. Just as there was no secret to Germany's economic triumph, there will be no secret to its decline. Wages in the East have almost caught up to those in the West, and eventually the advantage in exports will

disappear. The trading relationships in Central and Eastern Europe have been almost entirely exploited, and Vladimir Putin's Russia is trying hard to pull those regions back into its economic thrall. The deutschmark is now an object of fond nostalgia. Two decades on, the boost from reunification is finally petering out. This is natural. The size of every country's economy depends on just two things: the size of its workforce and the productivity of its workers. Productivity, in turn, rests on the amount of capital available to each worker and how exactly he or she uses it. As a country settles into a path of steady growth, the "how" is what matters most. You can add and subtract capital and workers with all sorts of idiosyncratic events -reunification, war, natural disasters -- but the long-term trend in living standards will always depend on the "how." For Germany, the "how" has returned to center stage. Its every move in the current crisis will have tremendous implications not just for the euro area but for Germany's future as well. It is on the cusp of changing its own economic institutions as well as those of the region. This is how you "improve competitiveness"

for the decades to come -- by shifting the deep legal, cultural, and even physical foundations of the economy, not just by tweaking a few regulations in the labor market. If Germany seizes the opportunity to reconsider these deep economic factors, it will be able to alter permanently the trend -- not just the level -- of its people's long-term living standards. This chance only comes along once in a very long while. For the East, it was reunification. For Germany as a whole, it is the euro crisis. With a little luck, Germany could finally throw some special sauce on that currywurst, rather than just dumping a quarter more hot dog onto the ketchup. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Utah Senate Primary: Hatch 60, Liljenquist 32 Michael Warren (The Weekly Standard) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:47:00 PM

Senator Orrin Hatch. A new poll from Deseret News and KSL-TV shows Republican senator Orrin Hatch of Utah

Dan Liljenquist, by nearly 30 points. The Utah primary is tomorrow, June 26. The News leading his primary challenger, reports:

Belief in hell keeps crime in check (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:22:00 PM

Criminal activity is lower in societies where peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s religious beliefs contain a strong punitive component than in places where religious beliefs are more benevolent, say researchers at University of Oregon. "It's possible that people who don't believe in the possibility of punishment in the afterlife feel like they can get away with unethical behavior. There is less of a divine deterrent," says psychologist Azim Shariff. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski /Flickr Permalink| Leave a comment Âť

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FISH continued from page 36

budget and prominence by increasing the quality and quantity of their own vessels. Though less armed and less threatening than navy ships, civilian law enforcement ships are easier to deploy and engage more easily in skirmishes. This is why it is China's law enforcement vessels that have taken center stage in recent incidents, not the navy. Of course, Beijing has other motives. Fishing incidents like Scarborough allow China to assert its sovereignty claims by deploying civilian law enforcement vessels to defend its territorial claims in what is now being referred to in some Chinese policy circles as the "Scarborough Shoal model." And more are likely on the way: There is talk now in China of how to ensure more regular presence of law enforcement vessels in other disputed areas. As fishing grounds become the

front lines for the underlying sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, one challenge for claimant states will be to separate out resource competition from assertions of territorial claims. So why not start with the fish? Agreements between claimant countries on protecting fish stocks could help ensure there's fish enough for everyone and reduce the risk of future conflicts. But there is no getting around the fact that ASEAN, the only regional organization capable of playing a role, has been asleep at the helm. As Chinese and Philippine vessels stared each other down for more than two months, ASEAN remained divided. The current chair, Cambodia, keen to try to avoid upsetting China, blocked a statement that would have asked all parties to exercise restraint. The former chair, Indonesia, had to engage in behind-the-scenes

mediation between China and the Philippines to try to dissolve the tension. Under Indonesia's chairmanship in 2011, ASEAN was finally able to agree to guidelines on a code of conduct for the South China Sea that had been under discussion for 10 years. Now, a binding code of conduct is under discussion that could go a long way toward avoiding future Scarboroughs. And that's no fish story. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:13:00 PM

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet

Napolitano celebrated the Supreme Court's Arizona decision

(Christianpost.com &gt; Most Popular)

June 25, 2012| 9:16 am Tillman enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks the year before. The football player left his wife a letter to open in the event of his death, which was left unopened after two deployments. Then, during Tillman's tour in Afghanistan, he was killed at age 27 by friendly fire in 2004. It was then that she opened the final letter. Together since high school, Marie Tillman penned a book about her 11-year relationship with the football star and war hero, titled "The Letter: My Journey Through Love, Loss, & Life," in stores Tuesday. It is in the book that Tillman's last letter is highlighted. "It's difficult to summarize 10 years together, my love for you, my hopes for your future, and in a statement. But Napolitano pretend to be dead all at the same expressed concern in a statement time," Tillman's words read, as that a key component of the law, written in the new book "The which allows law enforcement Letter." officials to check the immigration Follow us status of folks who are stopped, "I simply cannot put all this into saying that it "will make DHS' work more challenging."

Napolitano Expresses Concern About Key Part of Ariz. Immigration Law: 'Will Make DHS’ Work More Challenging' Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)

Pat Tillman's Final Love Letter: NFL Star's Wife Shares Message words," Tillman wrote. "I'm not ready, willing or able." Tillman was inspired to write the book by the hundreds of letters she and her husband exchanged over the course of their relationship, and especially the last note. Although she keeps most of her late husband's final letter private, she does reveal a paragraph where he urged his wife to move on with her life in the event of his death. "Through the years I have asked a great deal of you," wrote Tillman. "Therefore it should surprise you little that I have another favor to ask. I ask that you live." Now 35 years old, Marie has since remarried and shares one son with Joe Shenton, a divorced father of three. She lives in Chicago and continues to work for veterans through the Pat Tillman Foundation. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Economy/

Curated News Edition

The Spanish Bailout And The Myth Of Seniority Sony Kapoor (Money Game)

the secondary market for restructuring. Below, we expose the flaws in There is a raging debate over this thinking and suggest that who should lend money to Spain, while seniority may be important t h e E u r o p e a n S t a b i l i t y as a concept, the importance being M e c h a n i s m ( E S M ) o r t h e attributed to it at the present stage European Financial Stability Fund missed the point altogether. (EFSF). At the heart of the matter First, the bilateral loans given by is clause 13 in the preamble of the other member states to Greece did treaty setting up the ESM: “the not specify seniority in their ESM loans will enjoy preferred clauses. Nor is there anything in creditor status in similar fashion the ECB’s statues or any of its to those of the IMF, while statements that led investors to accepting preferred creditor status believe that its claims would be of the IMF over the ESM.” treated differently to those of A number of commentators and private bondholders. And yet, market actors say that this when push came to shove and seniority is one of the main Greek debt was restructured, both reasons why markets have reacted of these sets of claims were negatively to the announcement of treated as senior. Hence, it is a nearly €100 billion loan package impossible to know in advance, for Spanish banks. They say that particularly if public opinion seniority means that once the strongly favours public loan ESM comes in, it reduces the s e n i o r i t y o v e r p r i v a t e effective claims of the private bondholders, that the EFSF would bondholders in the event of a not be treated as senior in the restructuring. Hence they would event of a restructuring. prefer the EFSF, which does not Second, Greece was a special have the seniority claim, to do the case. As we had written at the lending instead. time, the likelihood that Greece They also use the example of needed a debt restructuring was Greece, where public lenders did 100% both before and after the not take outright haircuts which first bailout package, so deep fell only on private sector were its problems. The public bondholders. They also refer to sector intervention in the form of the fact the European Central the first bailout merely delayed Bank(ECB) did not tender the the outcome and it’s far from Greek bonds it had purchased in clear whether the total losses Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:52:25 PM

inflicted on the private sector would have been lower under a scenario where no bailout money would have been available and Greece would needed to have gone in for a deep restructuring immediately after the scale of its problems first became known. So it’s very hard to say whether defacto seniority left Greek private investors in a worse shape that they would have been in a complete absence of public support. Third, the relevant question is not whether pari-passu public bailouts for a country is better for private bondholders than interventions with embedded seniority, of course they are. In fact, for private

would have been if the country had not received a bailout at all. This is logical if you consider crises of the kind where a country is facing temporary problems that can be tackled. The most obvious example of these is liquidity shortages where, for whatever reason, a country loses access to financing at reasonable costs. If external help were not provided, the existing private creditors would need to be bailed-in immediately. Spain, which has seen its borrowing costs rise steadily to near-unsustainable levels, would need to go for this option if help in the form of cheaper funds from the public bondholders the best option would sector were not available. be if the public sector provided Under most such liquidity crises, bailouts to countries in trouble external public help, whether with under subordinated terms, but that seniority or not, improves the is simply not politically feasible; eventual returns for private neither internationally nor in bondholders. To the extent that liquidity support helps reduce the Europe. The real question is what is a likelihood of debt restructuring better situation for private and the losses in the form of bondholders; that a troubled liquidation penalties associated economy gets no assistance or with it, such support should be that it gets assistance from the welcomed by private creditors, IMF or the ESM or another public whether senior or not. The entity but with an embedded problem in the case of Greece was seniority of claims? The historical that such support could not really evidence on this is clear. In a change the inevitable outcome majority of IMF bailouts over the b e c a u s e G r e e c e f a c e d a past several decades, private fundamental solvency problem, bondholders and creditors ended SPANISH page 42 up being better off than they

Economy/

Curated News Edition

On The Verge Of A Historic Inversion In Shadow Banking Tyler Durden

Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:56:37 PM

While everyone's attention was focused on details surrounding the household sector in the recently released Q1 Flow of Funds report ( ours included), something much more important happened in the US economy from a flow perspective, something which, in fact, has not happened since December of 1995, when liabilities in the deposit-free US Shadow Banking system for the first time ever became larger than liabilities held by traditional financial institutions, or those whose funding comes primarily from deposits. As a reminder, Zero Hedge has been covering the topic of Shadow Banking for over two years, as it is our contention that this massive, and virtually undiscussed component of the US real economy (that which is never covered by hobby economists' three letter economic theories used to validate socialism, or even any version of (neo)Keynesianism as shadow banking in its proper, virulent form did not exist until the late 1990s and yet is the same size as total US GDP!), is, on the margin, the most important one: in fact one that defines, or at least should, monetary policy more than most imagine, and also

explains why despite trillions in new money having been created out of thin air, the flow through into the general economy has been negligible. As a reminder, US Shadow Banking liabilities - a combination of Money Market funds, GSE and Agency paper, Asset-Backed paper, Funding Corporations, Open market paper

and of course, Repos - hit a gargantuan $21 trillion in March 2008. They have tumbled ever since, printing at just under $15 trillion at the end of March 2012, the lowest number since March 2005 when shadow banking liabilities were soaring. This is an epic $6 trillion in flow being taken out of credit-money circulation, with a $143 billion

drop in Q1 alone!(blue line on the chart below). In fact over the past 16 quarters there has not been a single increase in the total notional contained within shadow liabilities. The chart below shows perfectly just where the credit bubble popped: a bubble which has affected shadow banking far more than normal credit

transformational conduits. It is precisely this ongoing contraction that the Fed does all it can, via traditional financial means, to plug as continued declines in Shadow Banking notionals lead to precisely where we are now - a sideways "Austrian" market, in which no VERGE page 41

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VERGE continued from page 40

new credit-money money comes in or leaves. In fact, as the chart below shows, while the collapse in shadow banking has been somewhat offset by increasing liabilities at traditional banks solely courtesy of the Fed, the reality is that for two years in a row, consolidated US financial liabilities amount to just shy of $30 trillion and have barely budged. As long as this number is not increasing (or decreasing) substantially, the US stock market has virtually no chance of moving higher (or lower) materially. What is worse is that even when accounting for offsetting traditional bank liabilities, on a consolidated basis, the US total financial sector is still an epic $3.8 trillion below its all time highs, just above $33 trillion. Unless and until this $3.8 trillion hole is plugged, one thing is certain: risk is not going anywhere ( also notable is that consolidated liabilities in Q1 declined by $86.2 billion at a time when the Fed was engaged in Twist but that is for Ben Bernanke to worry about, not us). So what is this "historic inversion" referenced in the title? As some may have noticed looking at Chart 1, as shadow banking continues to collapse, it has to be offset by increasing conventional bank liabilities: for the most part real cash (technically electronic) deposits. And as of March 31, the spread between Shadow Banking and traditional financial liabilities has

collapsed to just $206 billion, after hitting a record $8.7 trillion in March 2008. It is also important because the last time shadow banking as notional overtook the conventional banking system was back in December of 1995. Next time we update this chart, the blue line will be below the red one for the first time in 17 years. Here it is again in chart format: (At this point it may be worth noting that the only reason why we are so close to this critical inflection point is because this past quarter the Fed shifted $2 trillion in liabilities away from the household sector and dumped them in the US depository sector; for the time being this reclassification is not relevant but may require some clarification down the line). Why is any of this relevant? Simple. What shadow banking has been for America is nothing short of an inflation buffer. Recall what the primary characteristic of shadow banking is: it performs all the traditional credit intermediation transformations that conventional banking entities do: Maturity, Credit and Liquidity. However, unlike traditional banks, shadow banking has one huge deficiency: it has no deposits! In other words, the entire rickety shadow banking system is based simply on the good faith and credit that rehypothecated assets, converted into liabilities, and so on (think repos and reverse repos) courtesy

of fractional reserve credit formation (recall rehypothecation), are valid and credible sources of liquidity. While that may be the case in a leveraging environment, i.e., in the expansionary phase of the ponzi, it no longer works when systematically deleveraging, i.e., where we are now. It also explains why with collapsing shadow banking system it is purely up to traditional banks to grow if not to create additional credit-money instruments, then simply to plug the hole that is created every quarter with the expiration of more shadow liabilities. Because, once again, these are not of the Federal Reserve note variety, but credit instruments themselves, which in time maturity, and effectively take money out of the system all else equal. Most importantly, it also explains why Goldman IS right, and the Fed has no choice but to shift to a "flow" reserve creation format, at least until such time as the balance of shadow liabilities is offset by generic liabilities: i.e., deposits. However, there is a rub. As we noted previously, shadow banking is simply an inflation buffer: since there are no deposits, there is little risk of the "money" contained in the banking system from furiously vacating and be used to spur purchases of everything from 1,000x P/E/ stocks, to overvalued housing, to just being packed away safely in a mattress. In other words, the Shadow Banking

system is circular as the money contained therein is selfcontained. Not so for deposits. Just ask any banker, central or otherwise, especially in Europe, who has had to deal with the threat of bank runs. The biggest paradox is that as the US financial system takes more and more steps back, and reverts to a more conventional system (look at Europe as a paradigm of what is coming), the risk that incremental money creation by the Fed will eventually spur inflation rises exponentially, as more and more "money" ends up residing within conventional bank deposit accounts. That currently there are just shy of$10 trillion give or take in consolidated deposits across the US financial system, on total liabilities of $30 trillion, is the only reason why the Fed has still be unable to spawn the kind of "virtuous" inflation that Bernanke dreams about every night but is unable to create. Said inflation buffer, however, is getting smaller and smaller every quarter, and at this rate, shadow banking as a transformational conduit will completely disappear in a few short years, at which point everything will be in the hands of fickle depositors. It is then, that America will finally figure out why Germany and the Bundesbank, are so leery of runaway printing. Because while the US still has the benefit of shadow liabilities, Europe does not. And Schauble, Merkel, and

Weidmann, not to mention the German population (at least subconsciously) all know this. In a few years, when traditional bank liabilities have soared by another $10 trillion (think doubling of the current depositor base), and when shadow banking is essentially non-existent, and when the stock market is still where it is, then, and only then, will all those three-letter economic theories, which on purpose ignore the impact of shadow banking, be finally put to the test. We can only hope that by then the market still has some discounting capacity left in it, and can prevent the kind of final outcome that tens of trillions in deposits shifting from Point A to Point B on a whim will certainly create. Alas, with encroaching central planning having made discounting virtually meaningless and impossible, we wouldn't be surprised if once again the "capital markets" don't understand what has just happened before it is too late. Appendix A: Historical components of shadow liabilities. Sequential change in the historical components of shadow liabilities. Source of all the data used in this article: Fed's Flow of Funds, which for some reason no other financial analyst, let alone journalist, wants to touch with a ten foot pole. Finally, anyone who wishes to VERGE page 45

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SPANISH continued from page 39

not a temporary liquidity shortage. Spain is clearly different and faces, what looks more like a liquidity crisis for now. It is, of course, very hard to tell the difference between insolvency or mere illiquidity ex-ante, but what is very clear is that illiquidity unless mitigated, can lead to insolvency. Provision of liquidity alone may not be enough to prevent insolvency if the economic environment is very bad. Fourth, public bailouts with embedded seniority for countries facing insolvency may still be better than no bailouts from the perspective of private bondholders. This is because insolvency is not a certain outcome and is very sensitive to borrowing costs and assumptions about long term growth. If a public intervention at a concessional rate of finance helps bring the borrowing costs down, it reduces the likelihood of insolvency. Similarly, if public funds can be used to make positive Net Present Value investments, this also reduces the likelihood of insolvency and eventual restructuring. In both cases, private bondholders will be better off. Imagine a country has an NPV of expected future primary surpluses

equal to x euros, which defines its sustainable debt carrying capacity and that its debt stock is y euros; we don’t need to say whether x is bigger than y or not. Now on a date say the 1st of Jan 2013, it gets a public bailout equal to z euros. Its debt repayment capacity is x+z euros as it now has the equivalent of z euros in a bank and its total debt is now y+z euros. If y>x then y+z>x+z and nothing changes. Assume x = 0.8 y, then bondholders would face a 20% haircut, whether before or immediately after the public injection of z euros. Now imagine that the z euros bailout is at a concessional rate of interest. Then it will improve the sustainability of debt, all else remaining the same and increase the potential pay-out to private bondholders. Equivalently, if the country invests the z euros it obtains in NPV positive projects, the sustainability of its debt improves, making the outcomes for private bondholders more positive. The only circumstances under which a public bailout will make private investors worse off is if the public bailout money is ‘wasted’ or spent on items that are NPV negative. There is one exception to this rule, which is when the conditionality accompanying a

public bailout is so flawed that it makes the recipient country adopt policies that actually hurt growth prospects and reduce its debt carrying capacity thus increasing the likelihood of insolvency and the size of private sector losses. This is a big and legitimate fear given the current excessive focus on austerity in the Eurozone and may play some part in the panic around Spain and in what happened in Greece. Fifth, even under a scenario where a public intervention leaves the eventual haircuts that private bondholders may face unchanged, by delaying the date of such a restructuring, public credit with embedded seniority may help the private bondholders make preparations for the eventual day of reckoning, by increasing their capital buffers, for example. This did happen in the case of the Greek restructuring wherein bondholders had more time to ‘prepare’ for the event. Sixth, the reason that Spanish spreads have spiked in the aftermath of the announcement of the bailout package has little to do with seniority. I can wager that it will matter little what the source of funds is. The problem is with the prevailing environment in the Eurozone, with the way the bailout is structured and with the conditionality that may be

applied. Let me explain. First, the problems with the Spanish banks existed before the bailout was announced but the magnitude was unclear and there was no consensus on how serious the problem was. The sudden announcement of the 100 billion euro bailout gave everyone a benchmark to focus on, which highlighted the seriousness of the problem and naturally eroded confidence in Spain contributing to rising spreads. The second factor was the announcement that the bailout would be channeled through the Spanish sovereign, something we at Re-Define have long opposed since it intensifies the sovereignbank dance of death that is currently the biggest threat to the Eurozone. Already, the Spanish state is far too exposed to its fragile banks through previous equity injections and the much larger direct and indirect funding guarantees provided. This would mean that the state would be making yet another risky €60bn – €100bn investment. In the terminology used earlier in this note, this has the hallmark of a NPV negative investment. The third factor here is that the conditionality, whether implicit or explicit, that is likely to accompany this bailout will be

RIM battles to ward off BlackBerry crumble Katherine Rushton (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)

BlackBerry was one of the more surprising symbols of the riots that blighted London last summer.

bad for growth and looks bad for the sustainability of Spanish debt and asset prices from where we stand now; another logical reason for the negative market reaction. Last but not the least, the uncertainty overhang given the Euro crisis is so large that this bailout makes little difference to the outcome as much bigger, mostly political, factors are at play. Again, in terms used earlier in this piece, given the large uncertainty overhang, this bailout is not able to demonstrably reduce the eventual likelihood that Spanish debt may need to be restructured. If the EU wants to rescue Spain, the trick is not to remove seniority from the ESM but 1) to remove all uncertainties around the future of the Eurozone 2) make conditionality more growth friendly 3) channel the bailout directly to needy banks without going through the sovereign. Any further discussion of seniority, particularly in the case of Spain, misses the point. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story »

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EU Takes Great Britain to Court over Garlic; Nannyzone Nonsense; Time for UK to Kiss EU Goodbye noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mish Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis) Submitted at 6/25/2012 10:19:00 AM

If you are looking for solid reasons why the UK should kiss the EU goodbye, then I can provide one: Brussels acts over garlic tax. The European Commission is taking Britain to court in a battle over an unpaid bill of millions of pounds in duty on imports of garlic. The European Commission announced legal action after an ultimatum to pay £15m to Brussels or face action in the European Court of Justice expired. The wrangle is over the fact that import tariffs on frozen garlic from outside the EU are lower than the rates for fresh garlic. And, according to the Commission, UK authorities carelessly levied the lower rate applicable to frozen garlic on imports of the fresh product from China, in breach of EU customs rules. All customs duties charged on imports of goods coming from a non-EU country are collected by member states on behalf of the EU and paid to the common EU

budget as part of each member state's annual contributions. One quarter of the total raised from such duties is held back by the national authority to cover collection costs. A Commission statement explained: “Between 2005 and 2006, the UK customs authorities allowed imports of fresh garlic from the People's Republic of China, erroneously stating that it was frozen garlic, subject to significantly lower import duties than fresh garlic. Nannyzone Nonsense For starters, there should be no tariffs on garlic at all, fresh, frozen, freeze dried, or otherwise. This is not just about garlic. This is about agricultural tariffs in general. Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man Blog discusses free trade including the following absurdity regarding sale of cabbage. Mind, we do believe that free trade, free movement of capital and open borders are essential and important achievements. But here is a little comparison that shows you quickly and easily what isn't (hat tip to one of our readers at Seeking Alpha): •

Pythagoras' theorem – 24

words. • Lord's Prayer – 66 words. • Archimedes' Principle – 67 words. • 10 Commandments – 179 words. • Gettysburg address – 286 words. • US Declaration of Independence – 1,300 words. • US Constitution with all 27 Amendments – 7,818 words. • EU regulations on the sale of cabbage – 26,911 words. Tenebrarum sarcastically asks " How on earth did we ever buy and sell cabbage before there were such edicts from the bureaucracy in Brussels?" Who Benefits From This Nonsense? Such tariffs are primarily for the benefit of French farmers who could not otherwise compete in the global marketplace. Not only do consumers have to pay higher prices for no reason, but 25% of such taxes go straight to the nannycrats' pockets, disguised as "collection costs". The nannycrats wanted prime minister David Cameron to sign a nanny-agreement last December, but the only reason he didn't was the possibility the EU would

implement a financial transaction tax. For details, please see my December 10, 2011 post Britain Seethes, Germany Sulks, France Gloats; UK "Big Loser" Falls into "French Trap"?; Who is the "Real Loser"? Bazooka Math The idea that the UK fell into a French trap is totally absurd. Cameron would have been willing to sign that fool agreement had not France insisted on a financial transaction tax. Then had he signed, the UK would have been subject to the tax by popular vote later. Thus it was France who made the foolish move if they wanted Cameron to sign. Nonetheless, Cameron did make a huge mistake and he also painted himself into a corner by stating it would be "disastrous" for the UK to leave the EU. Why? Disastrous for who? The UK would get to shed arcane EU regulations on damn near everything, but especially agricultural tariffs that cost UK citizens plenty. The UK can stop sending money to the EU that goes into creating policies that further cost UK citizens money. Whatever downside there is to leaving the EU, would be more than made up for by shedding

EU bureaucracy and idiotic rules entirely. Time for UK to Kiss EU Goodbye There is no reason for the UK to be in the EU. Agricultural tariffs including garlic taxes are proof enough. Financial transaction taxes, supported by France and Germany, are icing on the cake. The UK wisely avoided a eurozone entry. It would benefit from telling the EU to go to hell over agricultural tariffs and financial transaction taxes as well. If the EU is stupid enough to sponsor agricultural tariffs for the primary benefit of French farmers at the expense of everyone else, then let them. There is no reason UK citizens should have to suffer as well. Put it to a vote David Cameron. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose TAKES page 46

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Guest Post: The Absurdity Of NATO Tyler Durden

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:42:48 PM

Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics The Absurdity Of NATO The whole world knows the name Gavrilo Princip, and that of he man he assassinated, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Princip’s shot triggered the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia that set in motion the chain of events leading to the Great War of 1914. After Serbia appealed to Russia for help, Russia began moving towards mobilization of its army, believing that Germany was using the crisis as an excuse to launch war in the Balkans. Upon hearing news of Russia’s general mobilization, Germany declared war on Russia. The German army then launched its attack on Russia’s ally, France, through Belgium, violating Belgian neutrality and bringing Great Britain into the war as well. Is it possible that a similar chain of events may have already begun unfurling with the Syrian downing of a Turkish F-4 fighter jet? Turkey have already invoked a full meeting of NATO, claimed that Syria have fired on a second Turkish plane, and vowed that Syria’s actions “won’t go unpunished”. The vast and sprawling system of national alliances that existed prior to the events 1914 were considered by policy makers of t h e t i m e t o b e

a counterbalance against excessive tension and the threat of war. The great powers created alliances ostensibly for the purpose of deterring war. The dominant view was that the potential for dragging in allies reduced the chances of an attack. In reality, it just meant that one spark could set the entire world aflame. This is functionally the same as the interconnecting mesh of derivatives and shadow intermediation that foreshadowed the crash of 2008. As financial parties sold each other more and

more “ hedges“, the consensus of the time was that this made the system safer, as it allowed risk to be dissipated around the system. The theory was — and there were plenty of inaccurate mathematical models to back this up — that spreading risk around the system made the financial system safer. As it turned out, it didn’t. In the wake of MF Global and the London Whale, we know that the financial system has not learned the lessons of 2008. But it seems even more absurd that the diplomatic system has not really learned the lessons of 1914.

The NATO system — set up to oppose the Warsaw Pact system, which no longer exists — functions the same way — rather than dissipating risk, it allows for the magnification of international tensions into full-on regional and global wars. In the late 20th century the threat of nuclear war proved a highly-effective deterrent which limited the potential for all-out-war between the great powers, offsetting much of the risk of the hyper-fragile treaty system. Yet the potential for magnifying small regional problems into bigger wars will

continue to exist for as long as NATO and similar organisations prevail. We do not know exactly what arrangements Syria has with Russia and China — there is no formal defensive pact in place (although there is one between Syria and Iran) though it is fair to assume that Russia will be keen to maintain its Syrian naval assets, a view which is supported by the fact Russia heavily subsidises the Syrian military, and has blocked all the UN-led efforts toward GUEST page 45

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STOCKS TANK, EUROPE CRUMBLES: Here's What You Need To Know (DIA, SPY, QQQ, USO, GLD) Sam Ro (Money Game) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:00:00 PM

Markets took a beating today. First the scoreboard: Dow: 12,503, -137.3, -1.0% S&P 500: 1,313, -21.9,-1.6% NASDAQ: 2,836, -52.5, -1.8% And now the top stories: • Negative headlines flew out of Europe, sending stock markets down around the world. Reports suggested that this week's EU leaders' summit would be a big disappointment as German chancellor Angela Merkel remains inflexible to the requests of its EU neighbors. Adding to all of the uncertainty was the unexpected resignation of Greek Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos. SEE ALSO: The 15 Maps That Explain The Entire World > • Billionaire investor George Soros has lately been the most vocal critic of Merkel and her handling of the euro crisis. Tragically, Soros thinks she has been " acting in good faith." • Regarding Soros' plan to save Europe, BI's Joe Weisenthal sums it up nicely: " Soros wants Europe(using the ECB and

Germany as a backstop) to take the risk of a sovereign blowup completely off the table. Investors should not have to worry about Spain or Italy going belly up. In exchange for governments getting this guarantee, a scheme would be put in place to financially penalize governments that do not adequately reform." Unfortunately, Soros believes that Europe has just three days before it crosses the point of no return. • New home sales jumped 7.6

GUEST continued from page 44

intervention in Syria. After the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact was allowed to disintegrate. Until NATO is similarly allowed to disintegrate, the threat of magnification will remain large. Could a border skirmish between Syria and Turkey trigger a rallied today, which got the gold regional or even global war? bulls arguing that the yellow Under the status quo, anything is metal was indeed a safe-haven possible. Average: asset. Ben Davies of Hinde Your rating: None Average: 5( 2 Capital thinks that the yellow votes) metal can eventually hit $6,000. This entry passed through the Don't Miss Richard Russell's Ode Full-Text RSS service — if this is To Gold > your content and you're reading it • The southeastern U.S. is on someone else's site, please read prepping for Tropical Storm the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentDebby. And when storm season only/faq.php#publishers. Five comes around people expect Filters recommends: Donate to energy prices to rise given the Wikileaks. refining industry's presence in the region. However, an energy analyst told us that the storm was just week enough to not disrupt output, while being disruptive VERGE continued from page 41 enough to keep some drivers on the road. In other words, supply learn some more, here is some percent to 369k in May. This is expected to remain steady while a d d i t i o n a l i n f o f r o m annualized rate was much higher demand falls. This of course Deloitte(generically correct than the 347k that economists would be unfavorable for prices. perspective, but incomplete). were looking for. This represents Average: But, good for consumers. a two-year high. • DON'T MISS: We Had Drinks Your rating: None Average: 5( 15 • The June Dallas Fed survey also With The Biggest Players In The votes) pleasantly surprised everyone. Shipping World, And This Is This entry passed through the The index came in at 5.8, well Full-Text RSS service — if this is What They Told Us > above the -2.0 reading that your content and you're reading it economists were looking for. Please follow Money Game on on someone else's site, please read This was a marked improvement the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentTwitter and Facebook. from last month's reading of -5.1. Join the conversation about this only/faq.php#publishers. Five • The major commodities moved Filters recommends: Donate to story » in opposite directions today. Gold Wikileaks.

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Greek Finance Minister Resigns Before Being Sworn In; Cyprus Seeks Bailout From Euro Zone Partners noreply@blogger.com (Mike Mish Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:01:00 PM

One might think the the newly elected Prime Minister of Greece would have enough common sense to not appoint a finance minister with a history of medical problems. One might also think a person with known medical problems would turn down the position if offered because of the obvious stress. However, one would be wrong on bout counts. Reuters reports Greek finance minister resigns, crisis deepens Greece's new finance minister resigned because of ill health on Monday, throwing the government's drive to soften the terms of an international bailout into confusion days before a European summit. Vassilis Rapanos, 64, chairman of the National Bank of Greece, was rushed to hospital on Friday, before he could be sworn in, complaining of abdominal pain, nausea and dizziness. Greek media said he had a history of ill-

health. The office of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who himself only took office last Wednesday following a June 17 election, said Rapanos had sent a letter of resignation because of his health problems and it had been accepted. Samaras himself has only just emerged from hospital after undergoing eye surgery to repair a damaged retina. Both he and Rapanos had already said they would not be able to attend the June 28-29 European summit. Cyprus Seeks Bailout In other news, the New York Times reports Cyprus Seeks Bailout From Euro Zone Partners The euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis took a turn for the worse Monday as Cyprus said it would seek aid from the euro zone’s bailout funds. “The purpose of the required assistance is to contain the risks to the Cypriot economy, notably those arising from the negative spill over effects through its financial sector, due to its large exposure in the Greek economy,”

the government said in a statement. Earlier in the day, the ratings agency Fitch downgraded the island nation’s government debt to junk status. Cyprus last year received a three-year, €2.5 billion loan from Russia. Greece, Portugal and Ireland have already received bailouts. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http:// www.sitkapacific.com/ account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

TAKES continued from page 43

goal is strong performance and Pacific. low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http:// www.sitkapacific.com/ account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka

Find Out Who Kate Middleton Now Has to Curtsey To Lauren Turner (PopSugar) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:45:01 PM

• How new curtseying protocol will affect Kate MiddletonPeople • Michelle Williams is seriously glowing with love- Lainey Gossip • Listen to Lady Gaga's latest unreleased song- HuffPost Entertainment • You won't believe what Willow Smith had pierced- D-Listed • Ashton Kutcher hits the hiking trails with friends- JustJared • So many attractive celebrity kids including Allison WilliamsBuzzFeed • Whitney Port is back in a bikini - Hollywood Tuna • Paris Hilton thinks she's a DJ now- Pink Is the New Blog • Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian are friends now- The Superficial • Details on the Magic Mike

wardrobe malfunction- ET Online • Hollywood's hottest stars who have played big-screen strippersThe Daily Beast • Check out Jenny McCarthy's new Playboy cover- Zap2it • Teri Hatcher debuts supershort new haircut- TooFab • What was Miley Cyrus doing visiting a medical marijuana shop?- cityrag

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Richard Russell's Ode To Gold Sam Ro (Money Game)

Pregnant Megan Fox Poses in a Bikini and Shows PDA With BAG Lauren Turner (PopSugar)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:12:36 PM

Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:05:25 PM

Richard Russell, author of the Dow Theory Letters, is sticking to his bearish call on stocks while reiterating his anti-Bernanke stance and his bullish view of gold. However, what's striking about this particular post is his latest post in King World News is his defense of gold that almost reads like apocalpytic poetry. He writes in King World News: The result is that the sinking economy is actually producing signals ahead of the Fed, and Bernanke knows it, but cannot talk about it - it's too frightening. Now Bernanke is playing for time. He's hoping that somehow, some way, the US economy will not get worse and that it might even improve slightly. Bernanke is worrying about the Fed's bulging balance sheet. ...But gold represents indestructible wealth. Gold rises in terms of fiat money, and gold declines in terms of fiat money. Gold possesses some properties that are beyond the scope of other investments. Gold can't go broke, because gold does not derive its purchasing power from the edict or control of any sovereign power or central bank. Gold has no

counter-parties. Gold is tangible and is accepted everywhere -- in good times or bad. Gold exists outside the world's banking system. Unlike fiat money, gold is wealth on its own. It's tangible and not the fantasycreation of central bankers. Gold does not need a sponsor or the acceptance of an expert (such as pricing a Picasso painting), because all gold is intrinsically the same. Gold does not tarnish nor does it degenerate -- the gold in your watch may be the same gold that Cleopatra wore around her neck. The supply of gold, unlike paper

money, is limited. Alchemists have tried for centuries to turn other metals into gold -- but have never succeeded. Gold is a beautiful metal on its own and the lust for gold seems to be built into the DNA of mankind. If you own ten thousand ounces of gold, you can say that you will ALWAYS be wealthy. He says "gold" 18 times in those four paragraphs. R e a d m o r e a t KingWorldNews.com. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story Âť

Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green escaped to Hawaii for an extra-special trip over the weekend. The couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary yesterday at the same spot in Kona where they got married on the beach in 2010. They were also celebrating the exciting news that they are expecting their first child together. Pregnant Megan posed in a bikini while showing PDA with Brian, who showered her bump in kisses. Megan's been keeping her growing belly under wraps for the last few weeks while sticking close to home in LA with her husband. Megan and Brian have yet to comment on

their upcoming addition, though the photo shoot clearly confirms the rumors that they're adding to their family. Brian already has 10year-old son Kassius from his relationship with Vanessa Marcil. View Slideshow â&#x20AC;ş

S&P warns OBR's UK growth forecasts are too optimistic Angela Monaghan (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:35:13 PM

Official forecasts for growth in Britain are based on unrealistic expectations that the private

sector, consumer demand and foreign trade will drive a recovery, according to leading ratings agency Standard & Poor's.

Economy/ Culture/ Talk/

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Here's Why High Yield Credit Is Not Selling Off Like Stocks (Yet) Tyler Durden

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:31:40 PM

The last few days have seen highyield credit markets remain remarkably resilient in the face of an equity downdraft. Both HYG (the high-yield bond ETF) and HY18 (the credit derivative spread index) have remained notably stable even as stocks have lost over 3% - and in fact intrinsics and the underlying bonds have improved in value modestly. HY bonds are much less sensitive to interest rate movements (especially at these spread levels) and so, in general, this divergence in performance is aberrant (especially with equity volatility also pushing higher in sync with stocks and not with credit). So why is high-yield credit not so weak? The answer is surprisingly simple. As we argue for weeks from the end of LTRO2, credit markets were far less sanguine than stocks and have leaked lower ever since. This 'relative' outperformance of highyield credit over stocks appears to

For super fast data, give light a twist (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:26:00 PM

be nothing less than the last of the hope-premium bleeding out of stocks and re-aligning with credit's more sombre 'reality' view of the world. Given the sensitivity of HYG (and HY) to flows, and the weakness in risk assets, we would suspect that outflows will now dag both lower as they resync at these higher aggregate risk premium levels. Comparing SPY (the S&P 500 ETF) with HYG and JNK (the

high yield bond ETFs) provides an optical indication of this divergence in risk appetite (or hope)... and more clearly here - with SPY modeled off HYG's behavior - it is clear that the start of the year saw stocks become ebullient as the short-squeeze and USD nominal value excitement impacted stocks while credit (numeraire-less) remained far less sanguine at the long-term impact

of LTRO and Twist... Charts: Bloomberg Average: Your rating: None Average: 4.7( 3 votes) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Twisted beams of light are able to transmit more than 85,000 times more data per second than broadband cable, a new study shows. “You’re able to do things with light that you can’t do with electricity,” says Alan Willner, electrical engineering professor at the University of Southern California. “That’s the beauty of light; it’s a bunch of photons that can be manipulated in many different ways at very high speed.” Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

TED: E.O. Wilson: Advice to young scientists - E.O. Wilson (2012) TEDTalks (TEDTalks (video)) Submitted at 6/25/2012 10:00:23 AM

“The world needs you, badly,” s c i e n t i s t . P r e v i e w i n g h i s begins celebrated biologist E.O. upcoming book, he gives advice Wilson in his letter to a young collected from a lifetime of

experience -- reminding us that (Filmed at TEDMED.) wonder and creativity are the center of the scientific life.

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Theologian D.A. Carson: Hell Is Not Filled With People Who Repent of Sins (Christianpost.com &gt; Most Popular)

hell he looks up and sees Lazarus and Abraham. But instead of admitting that he was wrong to treat Lazarus poorly while they â&#x20AC;˘ (Photo: The Gospel Coalition were alive, the rich man continues via The Christian Post) Don to boss him around. Arthur Carson, research professor "Wouldn't you expect him (rich of New Testament at Trinity man) to say, 'Oh Lazarus, did I get Evangelical Divinity School in that one wrong. I am so sorry. Deerfield, Ill., delivers the final Would you please forgive me?'" message at The Gospel Coalition Carson posed. "But he doesn't National Women's Conference in even address him. He was a Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June nobody in the days of his flesh. 24, 2012. The rich man doesn't deal with nobodies, he goes straight to the June 24, 2012| 3:20 pm top." Carson, who is co-founder of The Paraphrasing verse 24, the Gospel Coalition along with theologian recalls the rich man Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer saying, "'Father Abraham, tell P r e s b y t e r i a n C h u r c h i n Lazarus to go dip his finger into Manhattan, said that as far as he water and bring something to cool can see in the Bible, "there is no my tongue. It's pretty hot here.' hint anywhere that people in hell "Where is the repentance in that? genuinely repent." He still thinks he is the center of Pointing to the well-known the universe! He is still going to parable of the rich man and order Lazarus around! There is no L a z a r u s i n L u k e 1 6 : 1 9 - 3 1 , brokenness, there is no contrition, Carson, who is research professor there is no shame!" of New Testament at Trinity Follow us Evangelical Divinity School in Moreover, the rich man argues Deerfield, Ill., noted that in the theologically with Abraham, "'No story the rich man dies and from Father Abraham you got that one

wrong. If someone rose from the dead that would really make a difference, don't you see?' "Hell is not filled with people who are deeply sorry for their sins," Carson stated. "It is filled with people who for all eternity still shake their puny fist in the face of God almighty in an endless existence of evil, and corruption, and shame, and the wrath of God." The Reformed Evangelical theologian's explanation of hell was part of a wider message based on Revelation 21-22, titled "Home at Last: The Spectacular God at the Center." In that message, the final one of the three-day Gospel Coalition women's conference, Carson spoke at length about the symbolism behind the descriptive vision of the new heaven and new earth, noting that there are not sufficient categories and understanding for the writer and people presently to grasp what kind of world will come about. He compared our inability to understand the new heaven and new earth to a people group living in a pre-Stone Age culture trying

to understand how electricity works. Nonetheless, Carson explained some of the symbolisms in Revelation 21-22, including Revelation 21:1 where it says "there was no longer any sea." He said that the Bible doesn't mean there will literally be no more sea as in a body of water, but sea in the Old Testament is connected to the wicked. Isaiah 57: 20 reads, "But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud." Therefore, the verse in Revelation saying there will be no more sea means that there will be no more chaos and evil in the new heaven and earth, said Carson. He also explained Revelation 21:22, which says there will be no temple in New Jerusalem. There is no temple in the city because no mediating structure is needed because the entire city is the most holy place and God dwells in the whole city. Carson was not the only male speaker at The Gospel Coalition National Women's Conference. Notably, while the conference is

for women, it did not only focus on women. Instead, organizers stated that the conference's purpose was to help women dive deeper into the Gospel and understand more clearly God's character and purpose for His people. Other people who spoke during the conference included Lauren Chandler, wife of Pastor Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Dallas; Carolyn Mahaney, wife of Pastor C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries, John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, and Tim Keller. READ: IS THERE GRACE BEYOND THE GRAVE? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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How NFC Could Pair with iOS 6 Passbook For E-Wallet Matrimony Christina Bonnington (Wired Top Stories)

your iTunes account through iOS. In November, Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told Wired that Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:34:00 PM Apple could also pair NFC with iOS 6's Passbook feature could iAd for richer marketing and benefit from NFC in the next advertising scenarios. iPhone. Photo: Jon Phillips/Wired NFC could also let iPhone It looks like NFC technology owners share files, apps and could finally find itself a home, photos with one another. Another and a wider user base, in the announced iOS 6 feature, Shared iPhone. Photo Streams, enables easy Prototype iPhone models that group photo sharing, but NFC appear to support NFC suggest could add another layer of utility Apple’s next iPhone will be NFCto that feature. enabled, according to a code Until now, NFC has seen limited dump explored by 9to5Mac. adoption in the U.S., primarily in These devices, referred to as just a handful of Android devices iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2, would that use Google Wallet. But soon, seem to have NFC controllers handsets could be using AT&T, T directly connected to their power -Mobile and Verizon’s Wallet management units, the website competitor, Isis, too. reports. Other than NFC, the next iPhone NFC, which stands for near-field is reported to sport a larger 4-inch communications, lets smartphones Apple’s next handset would in iOS 6 that would benefit from with the addition of NFC. display, possibly with a resolution In its announced iteration, of 1136×640 pixels, and will wirelessly interact with other embrace NFC. A report from NFC compatibility. o b j e c t s ( i n c l u d i n g o t h e r Digitimes in November indicated Passbook will collect tickets, Passbook would let you load up likely be unveiled in September or smartphones) when they’re close both Apple and Microsoft would cards, boarding passes, and your Starbucks card with money, October. to one another. It works using adopt NFC in 2012, and half of coupon apps all in one place. It for example, and then let you pay This entry passed through the embedded wireless chips in both that has already proven true: Last will integrate with the iPhone’s for items with barcodes displayed Full-Text RSS service — if this is devices. With NFC, smartphone week, Microsoft announced its location services to give you on the iPhone’s screen. But NFC your content and you're reading it owners could, for example, tap upcoming Windows Phone 8 OS alerts when you’re near an could let you pay for that grande on someone else's site, please read establishment that you have a card macchiato even more easily with the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentt h e i r p h o n e s o n a p u b l i c would include NFC support. a d v e r t i s e m e n t t o g e t m o r e Apple has also been granted NFC or coupon for, among other just a tap of your iPhone. With only/faq.php#publishers. Five information about a product. They -related patents and revealed an e- things. As described during its Passbook, that tap could also Filters recommends: Donate to could even tap their phones to wallet icon in patent illustrations, WWDC unveiling, Passbook account for any coupons or Wikileaks. too. This icon could be directly won’t directly process actual discounts you’ve collected. purchase an item. Many experts have expected that related to Passbook, a new feature payments, but that could change Payments could also be tied with

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Marco Rubio Says He Felt 'Called' to Leave Mormon Church for Catholic Church (Christianpost.com &gt; Most Popular)

to leave the LDS Church and join the Catholic Church four years later. It was one of two occasions in his life when he had been • (Photo: Reuters/Eric Thayer) "called back" to the Catholic Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is Church. seen leaving after speaking at the "For spiritual reasons, when I was Council on Foreign Relations in about 12 years old, I started New York May 31, 2012. feeling called back to the Catholic Church and it was nothing against June 24, 2012| 4:59 pm the Mormon Church, it was just a Rubio – who is currently being calling, that's happened twice in considered as a vice presidential my life," Rubio said. n o m i n e e b y R e p u b l i c a n Rubio, whose parents immigrated p r e s i d e n t i a l c a n d i d a t e M i t t to the United States from Cuba, Romney, who is a Mormon – wrote a book about his life, explained that his mother decided published last week, called An to join the LDS Church after the A m e r i c a n S o n : A M e m o i r . family moved to Las Vegas when Rubio's religious faith is one of Rubio was eight years old. Some the book's topics, he mentioned. of Rubio's relatives were, and still Follow us are, members of the LDS Church, "I hope people will enjoy reading so the family had some familiarity about [my faith journey] as well," with the church through them. Rubio said. His mother wanted a "wholesome Last week, an ABC journalist environment to raise" her family, reported that sources familiar with Rubio said, and she was "a big the Romney campaign believed admirer" of the "family-friendly that Rubio was not being vetted as environment" within the LDS a potential vice presidential pick. Church. Romney made a speech before Rubio explained that he decided reporters the same day to say that

Rubio was being considered as a possible running mate. When asked if he has any ambitions to run for president someday, Rubio said he deliberately avoids viewing any current position as a "springboard" for some other position. "I think it's a recipe for selfdestruction," Rubio said. But, Rubio added, if he does a good job as senator, then "six years from now I'll have a lot of opportunities to do different things." READ: GRACE UNDER MORMONISM Contact: napp.nazworth@christianpost.co m,@NappNazworth(Twitter) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Two new planets stuck in superclose orbits (Holy Kaw!)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:28:00 PM

Astronomers have discovered a bigger version of Earth locked in an orbital tug-of-war with a much larger, Neptune-sized planet. This is the view you might have of a rising Kepler-36c (represented by a NASA image of Neptune) if Seattle (shown in a skyline photograph by Frank

Melchior) were placed on the surface of Kepler-36b, says University of Washington astronomer Eric Agol, who created the image. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: Eric Agol, U. Washington Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Microsoft Pays $1.2B for Corporate Facebook Mimic Caleb Garling (Wired Top Stories)

Yammer has gotten right.” Founded in 2008, Yammer now claims more than 5 million Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:46:00 PM corporate users, and its customers Yammer CEO David Sacks. include such names as Deloitte, Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Ford, and 7-11. Like many newMicrosoft has agreed to purchase age business apps, it began as a Yammer, a San Francisco startup free web service, and as people that offers a Facebook-like social started using to service to set up network designed specifically for ad hoc social networks inside businesses. their companies, Yammer The acquisition had long been introduced a for-pay service that r u m o r e d , b u t o n M o n d a y , beefed things up for corporate IT Microsoft confirmed that it had departments. agreed to purchase the San Microsoft already offers various Francisco startup for $1.2 billion social networking tools intended in cash. for businesses, and others are “Yammer was built on a notion under development in The Garage that things can grow virally,” — its internal software incubator. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer The company’s collaboration tool, said during a conference call with Microsoft SharePoint, has evolved reporters. “The consumerization into a kind of social networking of IT is a trend that perhaps more tool used by such companies as than any other company out there, Electronic Arts, for instance, and

the company has demoed a Twitter-esque “microblogging tool” called OfficeTalk. The company says Yammer will continue to run uninterrupted as a standalone service, but will eventually be wrapped into

SharePoint as well as other Microsoft tools, including its Office 365 online business applications, its Dynamics customer relationship management tool, and its Skype voice-over-IP service. A beta of

Office 2013 is expected in July, but it’s unlikely Yammer will be integrated in time. Yammer will join Microsoft’s Office Division, led by division president Kurt DelBene, and its existing team will continue to report to current Yammer CEO David Sacks. “We couldn’t be more pleased to become part of the Microsoft Office division,” Sacks said. “There’s no better way to scale [our] ambition than to join the Microsoft team.” This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Judging a Library by its Covers Joseph Flaherty (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:08:00 PM

| Next >> • • • • • •

• •

started as a hunt for special volumes at thrift stores and estate sales to resell on Ebay. But his What happens when product efforts soon expanded into an designer Philippe Starck needs entire outfit. Wine's Boulder1,500 books—all with white based company, Juniper Books, spines—to fill out the shelves in a cleverly fills out shelves using posh new Miami hotel? He calls both custom covers created for on Thatcher Wine (that's a name, classic works as well as a curated not a varietal) to curate the Now Wine isn't a book designer, selection of existing editions. The but he does design with books. It result brings fresh design thinking collection.

to a centuries-old industry. | Next >> View all This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Want to sell your Instagram photos? Now there's a site for that - Los Angeles Times

Where the Sidewalk Ends: Take Our Concrete Innovation Quiz! (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:56 PM

What, concrete and mortar don't jump to mind when you think of innovation? But don't be fooled by concrete's stodgy reputation. Take our quiz to test your knowledge of everything new and exciting about concrete. Earn a point for every right answer! Save your score at the end of the quiz. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it

(news photos - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:40:11 PM

on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Stuff You Don't Have to Buy Because You Can Print It Yourself for Free [DIY] Adam Dachis (Lifehacker) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:30:00 PM

I have two printers that rarely see any use. While printing isn't obsolete by any stretch of the imagination, paper is slowly losing its usefulness to computers,

smartphones, and other electronics. If you have a printer at home that's mostly collecting dust, brush it off and start using it to print out a few free products you'd otherwise have to pay for. More »

Want to sell your Instagram photos? Now there's a site for that Los Angeles Times New Los Angeles startup Instaprints lets Instagram users sell their stuff as canvas-andacrylic prints, greetings cards and posters. Instaprints Launches Online Marketplace for Instagram Photos MarketWatch (press release) all 5 news articles »

It Can Be Better to Say Something Stupid Than Nothing At All [Ideas] Adam Dachis (Lifehacker) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:00:00 PM

You don't get very far with

silence. You won't always know the right thing to say, and if you say what you think or feel you might get it wrong. That doesn't

mean the conversation that

follows won't be for the best. it's better to say something stupid Saying the wrong thing can often than nothing at all. More » be the impetus for the right discussion. It's then that you find

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Reverse mortgage reforms needed to protect seniors Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 11:29:59 AM

Microsoft Surface, Getting Started with Web Design, and Forcing Your Older TV into the Future [Video] Adam Dachis (Lifehacker) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:00 PM

This week on the podcast we're taking a look at Microsoft Surface and the new features in Windows Phone 8, plus an surprising

technology from Ford. We're also answering questions about getting started with web design and making your older television set work with devices it doesn't support. More Âť

Obama: 'Concerned About the Practical Impact of the Remaining Provision of the Arizona Law' Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:37:00 PM

President Obama praised the Supreme Court decision that struck down part of the Arizona illegal-immigration law, but expressed "concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement

officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally."

Reverse mortgage reforms needed to protect seniors Seniors should be better protected against reverse mortgage abuses, says Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. The organization has called for stricter oversight of the industry as lenders launch a public relations campaign to repair their image. Home equity represents about 70 percent of the total assets of middle-income retirees, not counting Social Security and pension benefits. Reverse mortgages enable borrowers 62 or older to obtain income through cash payment or lines of credit via their home equity. The reverse mortgage loan is due when the borrower either dies, leaves the home for 12 consecutive months or more, or fails to maintain the property or pay homeowners insurance or property taxes. Borrowers must pay a loan origination fee, closing costs, and compounding interests on the loan principal, which can

need common sense oversight by the CFPB to protect seniors." Many people, even those who hope to leave their house to their children, often have no choice but to tap their home equity when facing financial or health crises. For more about living off your home equity see our report on Reverse mortgages and their be significant. Consumers Union called on the alternatives. Consumer Financial Protection A 2010 report by Consumers Bureau to ensure loans are Union(pdf) documents concerns suitable for borrowers, outlaw that underscore the need for deceptive marketing, adopt stronger oversight by the CFPB. stronger prohibitions on cross The report was co-authored by promotions, strengthen the quality California Advocates for Nursing and content of counseling, and Home reform and the Council On protect non-borrowing spouses Aging Silicon Valley. Source: and tenants. The CFPB is scheduled to hold a Consumers Union Renews Call hearing on the topic Wednesday, for Stricter Oversight of Reverse Mortgages[Consumers Union] June 27. Save the date, Tampa, "Reverse mortgages should only be used as a last resort because FL![CFPB] Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o they can carry huge costs that can quickly drain a homeowners ConsumerReports.org for expert equity," said Norma Garcia, Ratings, buying advice and senior attorney and manager of r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f Consumers Union's financial products. Update your feed services program. "The reverse preferences mortgage industry insists that it can police itself but it's clear we

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Mixed ruling on Arizona immigration law (AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))

the heart of a fierce national debate between Democrats and Republicans over what to do with The US Supreme Court has the roughly 11 million illegal s t r u c k d o w n p a r t s o f a immigrants in the country. controversial immigration law in Critics have said the Arizona law the state of Arizona, but upheld could lead to ethnic and racial one key provision allowing police profiling of the fast-growing officers to check the immigration Hispanic population in the United status of anyone they stop. States. Hispanics are the largest In a split decision, the justices US minority group. ruled that three provisions of the President Barack Obama said he law went too far, including one was pleased that the court struck that makes it a crime for illegal down most of the law, but immigrants to work and another "remained concerned" about the that requires them to carry their provision upheld by the court. documents. "No American should ever live The decision did uphold the under a cloud of suspicion just "show me your papers" clause by because of what they look like," a unanimous decision, but took he said. "Going forward, we must the teeth out of it by preventing e n s u r e t h a t A r i z o n a l a w police officers from arresting enforcement officials do not people on minor immigration enforce this law in a manner that charges. undermines the civil rights of Arizona, on the southwest border Americans." with Mexico, two years ago Jan Brewer, the governor of became the first of a handful of Arizona, put her own positive spin US states to pass laws aimed at on the ruling, calling it a "victory driving illegal immigrants out, for the rule of law" in a statement including requiring police to on Monday. check the immigration status of "It is also a victory for the 10th anyone detained and suspected of Amendment, and all Americans being in the country illegally. Al who believe in the inherent right Jazeera's Patty Culhane reports on and responsibility of states to the decision from Washington defend their citizens," she said, The battle over the law goes to referring to the provision in the Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:50:24 PM

racial profiling. "Ultimately, responsibility to fix the nation's broken immigration system lies with Congress," he said. "Republicans must join Democrats to forge fair, tough, practical solutions." Separately, the court was widely expected to rule on Obama's landmark health care legislation, passed in 2010, but said that ruling would not be issued until Thursday. The court also reaffirmed a twoyear-old decision which guaranteed corporations and labour unions the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on US Constitution which delegates Obama's immigration policy. p o w e r s f r o m t h e f e d e r a l "Today's decision underscores the presidential and congressional g o v e r n m e n t t o t h e s t a t e s . need for a president who will lead elections. The justices struck An election-year issue on this critical issue and work in a down a law passed in the state of The ruling weakens a drive by bipartisan fashion to pursue a Montana which limited corporate Republicans, especially the most national immigration strategy," he spending. conservative in the party, who said in a statement. "President 715 want to make it more difficult for Obama has failed to provide any This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is immigrants who are in the country leadership on immigration." illegally. Democratic lawmakers were your content and you're reading it Mitt Romney, the Republican quick to praise the court's ruling. on someone else's site, please read presidential candidate, took a Chuck Schumer, the senior the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contenttough stand on immigration in the senator from New York, called it only/faq.php#publishers. Five early days of his campaign for the "as strong a repudiation of the Filters recommends: Donate to nomination, but has recently Arizona law" as possible. Harry Wikileaks. sought a more moderate position. Reid, the Senate majority leader, Romney used the ruling to said he worried that the one c r i t i c i s e P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k remaining provision would lead to

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Syria officers and troops defect to Turkey (AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:55:15 PM

Turkey's state-run news agency says 33 more members of the Syrian military have defected to Turkey with their families at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over Syria's downing of a Turkish plane. The Anadolu agency said on Monday that the group, which includes a general and two colonels, crossed into Turkey overnight and that they were being hosted at a refugee camp near the border. The defection brought to 13 the number of generals seeking refuge in Turkey since the revolt against Syrian President Bashar alAssad's regime erupted 16 months ago. Thousands of soldiers have abandoned the army, but most are low-level conscripts. The Free Syrian Army, the loosely-linked group of rebel forces, is made up largely of defectors. Turkey, once a close ally of Syria, called an extraordinary NATO meeting for Tuesday after accusing Damascus of shooting down one of its military planes in international airspace. The Turkish cabinet met for seven hours on Monday to discuss

from the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) of an impending "massacre" there. The Syrian National Council (SNC), the main political opposition bloc, issued a distress plea from residents, urging international help "before it is too late." Activists reported shelling of the the incident. At a press conference Uri Rosenthal, the Dutch foreign neighbourhoods of Jouret alafterwards, Bulent Arinc, the minister, on Monday said that the Shayyah and al-Hamidiyeh using deputy prime minister, told European Union will condemn rockets and artillery. reporters that a second Turkish Syria's downing of a Turkish jet, The FSA said "Arab and Islamic plane came under fire while but will not support military countries, friendly nations and searching for the jet that was shot intervention in Syria. "What c o n c e r n e d i n t e r n a t i o n a l down. happened is to be considered very organisations" bore responsibility The Syrian government has seriously [but] we do not go for for what happens. d i s p u t e d t h a t c l a i m ; J i h a d any interventions," he said. "The brave city of Homs faces the Makdissi, a spokesman for the The EU is planning to add s t r o n g e s t a n d m o s t v i o l e n t foreign ministry, said at a press another Syrian official and six bombardment of rockets, artillery conference that "the Turkish firms and government institutions and tanks," its Supreme Military warplane violated Syrian airspace, to a sanctions list which already Council said in a statement. "The and in turn Syrian air defences i n c l u d e s m o r e t h a n 1 2 0 regime is sending reinforcements fired back and the plane crashed individuals and nearly 50 entities, estimated at 100 tanks in the inside Syrian territorial waters." a spokesman said. The asset direction of Homs... which clearly "What happened is a gross freeze and travel ban will be the demonstrates its intention to violation of Syrian sovereignty," 16th round of restrictive EU commit the greatest massacre in he said. "If the goal of the measures imposed on Assad's history." [NATO] meeting is to calm the government. No details were 590 situation and promote stability, immediately available on the This entry passed through the we wish it success... but if the identities of those targeted. Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is goal of the meeting is aggression, The sanctions also include a your content and you're reading it we say that Syrian airspace, specific ban on insuring items on someone else's site, please read territory and waters are sacred for embargoed for delivery to Syria, the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentthe Syrian army, just as Turkish including arms shipments. only/faq.php#publishers. Five airspace, territory and waters are In a seperate development, Syrian Filters recommends: Donate to sacred for the Turkish army." troops pounded the central city of Wikileaks. Fresh sanctions Homs on Monday amid warnings

SimCity Social, a Facebook game you may actually care about, launches today Ben Gilbert (Joystiq) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:00:00 PM

In writing this post informing you that SimCity Social is now live (in "open beta") on Facebook, I may or may not have played SimCity Social for 25 minutes without realizing it. And then I discovered full screen mode, which makes it look even more like SimCity. What I'm trying to tell you is that the game is live. And that I want to go play more of it. Because it's SimCity. You should probably check it out too, right here. Perhaps you'd like to know more before proceeding? We've got that covered too! SimCity Social, a Facebook game you may actually care about, launches today originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Cyprus asks EU for financial bailout (AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))

"One doesn't preclude the other," Stefanou told the Associated Press news agency. "Our efforts to Cyprus has become the fifth secure a bilateral loan will eurozone country to request continue." financial aid from its partners in Recapitalisation challenge the European currency union as it Cyprus is struggling to find about struggles to shore up its banks, €1.8bn ($2.26bn) - or about 10 per which took heavy losses on Greek cent of its gross domestic product debt. - by a June 30 deadline to The island nation's government recapitalise its second largest said in a terse statement on lender, Cyprus Popular Bank. Monday that it required assistance The lender is the most heavily following "negative spillover exposed of the country's banks to effects through its financial Greek government debt, which sector, due to its large exposure in lost most of its value this year in a the Greek economy". writedown. Follow our Stefanos Stefanou, government c o m p r e h e n s i v e E u r o C r i s i s spokesman, would not say how s p o t l i g h t c o v e r a g e much Cyprus would ask from the Over the past weeks it became European bailout fund, saying that clear that the bank would not find the amount would be subject to the money from the private sector negotiations in the coming days. and would need to get it from the The 27 leaders of the European government, itself strapped for Union will meet in Brussels on cash and unable to raise money in Thursday. bond markets, where its Stefanou said that despite its borrowing rates are too high. demand for European aid, the Cyprus, which has been surviving C y p r i o t g o v e r n m e n t w o u l d off a Russian loan so far this year, continue negotiations for a has been debating whether to ask possible loan from a country for European aid or another loand outside the EU, such as Russia or from Russia or China - or a China. combination of both. Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:39:43 PM

Earlier on Monday, ratings agency Fitch became the third agency to downgrade Cyprus' credit rating to junk status, estimating that the island will need another €4 billion ($5bn) to recapitalise its banking sector. It cited the banks' exposure to Greek debt as well as a rise in bad loans over the last year as the Cypriot economy has shrunk and unemployment has risen to record levels. Spain's aid request In another development on

Monday, Spain formally requested a banking rescue of up to 100bn euros ($125bn). Spain's move provided no exact figure for the aid to be delivered to its banks, which are struggling with huge, reckless loans that turned sour after a property bubble imploded in 2008. Though a formality, the request came at a key moment in the eurozone crisis after debt markets sent Spanish and Italian borrowing rates rising and raised concerns for the future of the

currency union itself. A full-blown bailout for Spain, the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone, would dwarf the rescues of Ireland, Greece and Portugal and strain the resources of the bloc to the limit. There was also increasing uncertainty about the new Greek government, with the incoming finance minister resigning over health reasons and Antonis Samaras, the prime minister, recovering from eye surgery, with a review of its bailout programme delayed. Samaras accepted the resignation of Vassilis Rapanos only hours after being discharged from another hospital himself following treatment to repair a detached retina over the weekend. 559 This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Famous Handshakes That Brought A Message Of Peace (PHOTOS) - Huffington Post (news photos - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:48:34 PM

F a m o u s H a n d s h a k e s T h a t Huffington Post Brought A Message Of Peace ( LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II PHOTOS) and former Provisional Irish

Republican Army leader Martin McGuinness are expected to shake hands in a delicately...

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Music Monday: Summertime Hits (Woot)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 9:00:00 AM

Pretty sweet new banner, right? Hey, happy Music Monday! Today we're gonna be exploring summer, perhaps the strangest and most magical strangest season of all. Maybe that's because we spend almost two decades depending on it and then our very first real job it all gets taken away. Who among us WOULDN'T go back to childish summer days? Maybe that's why musicians seem to enjoy exploring what summer meansâ&#x20AC;Ś or maybe it's because a good summer anthem can sell for three months straight. Scott's gonna be naming five of his favorite summertime songs below, and then it'll be your turn right after! Here's a little tasteâ&#x20AC;Ś The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City Can anyone imagine a world where this song was new? Even if you were alive before it appeared, tell the truth: that mix of organ and whip-snapping vocals just fit, didn't it? Like the world was

always waiting for it to appear? If you've ever walked anywhere on a hot day, or stayed out late on a hot night, you'll understand the way this song feels. When music sweats, this is what it sounds like. After the jump you'll find the rest of the songs, last week's Spotify play list, and a chance to leave your own summertime hits in the comments. See you there? As always, before we cannonball into the deep end, remember our weekly Spotify playlist will be featuring a great selection from last week's Music Monday comments. The theme of the mix this time is Decent Anti-Drug Songs and it's great way to test out those cool new Spotify mobile apps! But before you enjoy the flashbacks, let's check out this week's Music Monday below. The Drifters - Under The Boardwalk Nothing to do, no responsibilities, nowhere to be until late, it's a perfect time to sneak off together. The Drifters' ode to summer romance captures the joy of summer love so very

well. Warm, happy vocals make this classic a rarity: a summer song that can't really be overplayed. Grease Soundtrack - Summer Nights Suck it up, Glee. Everything you are, you owe to a movie so cool it changed Olivia Newton-John from this to this. This classic ode to the glory of high school summers has stayed popular over the years and even today remains still fresh enough to be enjoyed by a a new generation of high schoolers. What other musical can say THAT? DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - Summertime I'm pretty sure this song could qualify as a list if it really wanted to, but it's likely too busy cruisin' down those summer streets. One of the first real grown-up hits from the Philadelphia duo, this song is less zany and more smooth, and pretty much moved them from their old '80s persona to the new '90s style. And it's still radio-friendly enough to get your head bobbing on that road trip to

the beach. Don Henley - Boys of Summer Much like Frank Sinatra's Summer Wind, this is a song about the end of summer, when all those feelings of regret begin to appear. You could have done this, you could have done that, if only there had been more time, if only fall was further away. We include it as the closer not to make you feel bad but rather to remind you that summer, like life, is fleeting. And you should make the most of the next nine or so weeks, because you'll miss them when they're gone. Now it's your turn. Help us talk about summer by adding your favorite summer hit to the comments below. Then, after you're all warmed up, hit the Turntable.fm room for our regular Music Monday experience. As always, images come from the corresponding Wikipedia page and are here under fair use.

Video: HumanPowered Gamera II Helicopter Hovers for a World-Record 50 Seconds Dan Nosowitz (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:23:33 PM

Gamera II The fully assembled aiframe is shown without the rotors. University of Maryland It hasn't nabbed the Sikorsky Prize yet, but it looks like a new world record: the Gamera II team at the University of Maryland flew, with power provided only by the arms and legs of Ph.D. candidate Kyle Gluesenkamp, for 50 seconds. The team is mostly just breaking its own records at this point, having lasted 35 seconds last week. The Sikorsky Prize, more than 30 years old and yet un-awarded, requires that a human-powered helicopter reach a height of three meters while hovering for a full minute--neither requirement met here. Still, they're getting closer! Video after the jump. [via SlashDot]

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Curated News Edition

Dole recalls Kroger Fresh and Marketside bagged salads due to Listeria Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)

in this recall all have use-by-date of June 19:

Submitted at 6/25/2012 9:29:59 AM

Dole recalls Kroger Fresh and Marketside bagged salads due to Listeria Dole Fresh Vegetables has recalled 1,077 cases of bagged salads because of a possible possible Listeria risk, including Kroger Fresh Selection bagged lettuce products and Walmart's Marketside bagged lettuce products. According to Dole, the recall was issued after a sample of Marketside Leafy Romaine salad yielded a positive result for Listeria monocytogenes in a random sample test conducted by the State of North Carolina. The salads were distributed in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. To date, no illnesses have been reported in association with the recall, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bagged lettuce products included

• Kroger Fresh Selections Greener Supreme coded N158 211B 1613 KR04, UPC 11110 91039.• Kroger Fresh Selections Leafy Romaine coded N158 111B KR11, UPC 11110 91046.• Walmart Marketside Leafy Romaine coded N158111B, UPC code 81131 02781.

The Product Code and use-by date are in the upper right-hand corner of the package and the UPC code is on the back of the package, below the barcode. The recalled bagged lettuce is past its use-by date and therefore it's highly unlikely that the products are still available at retail, but Dole is still asking retailers to check their inventories and store shelves to confirm that none are mistakenly present or available for purchase or in warehouse inventories. In healthy people, Listeria can

For more read our report Bagged salad: How clean? and for additional photos of the other recalled bagged lettuce products click here. If you have any bagged lettuce cause high fever, nausea, and with the product codes listed diarrhea, but a Listeria infection above, discard it. For more can also cause miscarriages and information call the Dole Food s t i l l b i r t h s a m o n g p r e g n a n t Company Consumer Response women. In young children, the Center at 800-356-3111, Monday e l d e r l y a n d t h o s e w i t h through Friday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. compromised immune systems, (PDT). Listeria infections can be fatal. Source: Dole Fresh Vegetables Consumer Reports food safety experts offer these bagged salad Announces Precautionary Recall of Limited Number of tips: Salads[FDA] Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o • Buy packages as far from their use-by date as you can find.• ConsumerReports.org for expert Even if the bag says "prewashed" Ratings, buying advice and or "triple-washed," wash the r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f greens yourself. Rinsing won't products. Update your feed remove all bacteria but may preferences remove residual soil.• Prevent cross contamination by keeping greens away from raw meat.

Amazing Video: Curiosity Rover's Mars Landing Will Be "Seven Minutes of Terror" Colin Lecher (Popular Science New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:43:41 PM

Curiosity Landing NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory When NASA's Curiosity Rover reaches Mars this August, it'll takes seven minutes to get from the tip of the atmosphere to the surface of the planet. Those seven minutes are a little scary for engineers who've sunk a lot of time into this project, so the descent is called the "seven minutes of terror." Here it gets highlighted by an awesome, super -dramatic video. Curiosity will go from 13,000 mph to zero in those seven minutes, and even worse, scientists have to sit at home base and wait it out; it takes 14 minutes to receive a signal, so if Curiosity is totaled, they won't know about it until seven minutes later.

Products/ Sports/ News Photos

Driving the eye-catching 2013 Hyundai Elantra GT on our track Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 6/25/2012 9:59:59 AM

Driving the eye-catching 2013 Hyundai Elantra GT on our track It's been interesting to watch the evolution of Hyundai as it increases its market share. Most previous-generation Hyundais were nice cars with somewhat unimaginative styling. But the current crop of redesigns, starting with the Elantra and Sonata, bring much more dynamic and eyecatching styling. Same goes for the Elantra GT. The Elantra GT hatchback replaces one of the frumpiest designs in the Hyundai lineup, the Elantra Touring wagon. That's not to say that the Touring wasn't a very practical design; its squaredoff rear window helped maximize

Curated News Edition

Miami Heat players, coaches, fans celebrate championship during parade - msnbc.com WPBF-TV (- Bing News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:43:15 PM

Players, coaches and fans of the Miami Heat celebrated the seats, a panoramic sunroof, and f r a n c h i s e ' s s e c o n d N B A n a v i g a t i o n , a r e n ' t e x a c t l y championship during a victory commonplace in this hatchback parade Monday morning. class. Thousands of fans lined the First impressions are that the streets of downtown Miami to Elantra GT offers a lot of features take part in the celebrations. in an easy-to-live-with package. Players, coaches and team While the Elantra GT deigns to be officials loaded onto flatbed sporty to drive, it falls short of the trucks and double-decker buses cargo volume. The Elantra GT sophisticated ride and handling for the celebration. Some fans may be more stylish, but it has balance of class-leaders like the began lining up late Sunday to get less space inside than the car it Volkswagen Golf, Mazda3, or s p o t s t o w a t c h t h e n e w Ford Focus. replaces. champions. Despite the name, the Elantra GT Learn more in our video below. The parade route led to the isn't just a hatchback version of Subscribe now! AmericanAirlines Arena. S u b s c r i b e t o the high-scoring Elantra sedan. Heat guard Dwyane Wade Instead, it's essentially the same ConsumerReports.org for expert car sold in Europe and other Ratings, buying advice and markets as the well-regarded r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f Hyundai i30. It does share its 1.8- products. Update your feed liter four-cylinder engine with the preferences Elantra sedan, though. High-level options, such as power leather

addressed some of the fans from his bus: "I appreciate all our fans for sticking with us. ... Best fans in the world." Miami won the title by defeating Oklahoma City in five games. It was the second title for the Heat and the first for Finals MVP LeBron James. More From WPBF: Email alerts| Mobile| Social This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Photos: How major news outlets first reported the Supreme Court ... - Pasadena Star-News (news photos - Google News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:24:31 PM

Photos: How major news outlets The Supreme Court of the United first reported the Supreme Court... States issued a ruling Monday Pasadena Star-News morning regarding Arizona's

controversial immigration law. The Arizona v. United States... and more Âť

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Supreme Court Allows Immigration Checks - Wall Street Journal JESS BRAVIN (- Bing News)

and advocates scrambled for answers from legal analysts and law enforcement. Most opponents B y J E S S B R A V I N A n d of the law reacted with relief at TAMARA AUDI the ruling, but some immigrant WASHINGTONâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The Supreme advocates said implementation of Court struck down much of the law could still pose problems Arizona's effort to crack down on for immigrants. illegal immigrants but left one key "There's still going to be a lot of part intact in a ruling that gave uncertainty until it's clear how b o t h s i d e s o f t h e d e b a t e police will approach this," said something to cheer. Joe Rubio, lead organizer for In a 5-3 ruling, the court said Arizona Interfaith NetworkArizona in effect had tried to set Industrial Areas Foundation, a up a parallel enforcement system network of community organizing that punished illegal immigrants groups. "The state is going to more harshly and interfered with h a v e t o m o n i t o r t h i s v e r y congressional authority over the c a r e f u l l y " t o a v o i d r a c i a l nation's borders. The court p r o f i l i n g , h e s a i d . rejected parts of the state law The court left open the possibility known as SB1070 that made it a that the surviving provision could crime for illegal immigrants to be challenged depending on how seek work and that authorized it is applied. It acknowledged warrantless arrests of people concerns that the provision could suspected by state and local police lead to abuses, such as prolonged o f c o m m i t t i n g d e p o r t a b l e detention of arrestees while their offenses. status was being checked. But the court upheld for now the Under the law, immigrants can be law's directive that state and local questioned about their status when police check the immigration they are stopped for other reasons. status of people they stop when S i n c e m u c h i s l e f t t o they suspect them of lacking interpretation by local officers, authorization to be in the U.S. The t h e a p p r o a c h b y p o l i c e justices observed that federal law departments to enforcement of the already requires immigration law may vary widely, immigrant officials to respond to status advocates said. checks from local authorities. "The government of the United The impact of the ruling was States has broad, undoubted unclear Monday, as immigrants p o w e r o v e r t h e s u b j e c t o f Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:44:57 PM

immigration and the status of aliens," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a majority including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. "Immigration policy can affect trade, investment, tourism and diplomatic relations for the entire nation, as well as the perceptions and expectations of aliens in this country who seek the full protection of the laws," the court said. While "the problems posed to the State by illegal immigration must not be underestimated," Justice Kennedy wrote that Congress had established a "careful framework" for immigration intended to balance interests involving employers, families and diplomatic relations as well as law enforcement. The court's three most conservative members, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, each filed separate dissents saying they would have upheld the entire Arizona lawâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or, in Justice Alito's case, all but one provision. None joined the dissent of the other, suggesting disagreement over the basis for upholding the state law. The majority "deprives States of what most would consider the defining characteristic of

sovereignty: the power to exclude from the sovereign's territory people who have no right to be there," Justice Scalia wrote. Justice Elena Kagan, who served as solicitor general during earlier stages of the litigation, was recused from the case. With immigration likely to be a major issue in the November election, the survival of the statuscheck provision was a consolation prize for backers of the Arizona crackdown, giving them as well as the Obama administration a way to claim victory. President Barack Obama said he was pleased that the court struck down the three provisions and said the decision "makes unmistakably clearâ&#x20AC;Śthat Congress must act on comprehensive immigration reform." He called on Arizona not to enforce the surviving provision "in a manner that undermines the civil rights of Americans." Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed the measure in 2010, called the ruling a "legal victory." Ms. Brewer said she recently issued a new order to train officers to enforce the law without racial profiling. "I am confident our officers are prepared to carry out this law responsibly and lawfully," she said in a statement. Joe Arpaio, the controversial

sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, said Monday that the most important part of the state's immigration law had been upheld. "It shows cops can ask someone if they're here illegally when you stop them for another crime," Mr. Arpaio said. He added, however, that "you like to get everything." The law's opponents also said they were pleased with the ruling. "God answered our prayers. This is a big victory," said Magdalena Schwartz, the pastor of a Hispanic evangelical church in Mesa who opposed the law. Many families in her church are in the U.S. illegally. "My families are so happy, so relieved. They have peace. They can live their lives. They can stay in Arizona." For undocumented immigrants, the high court's ruling could make it easier to look for a job in Arizona and reduce the risk they could be arrested by local police simply for lacking papers. However, if they were stopped for another reason, police in Arizona would be more likely to check their immigration status in cases where police in other states might not bother. "This was a good decision on the part of the court and really helps the country dodge a pretty significant bullet,'' said Todd SUPREME page 63

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Venus loses in Wimbledon 1st round, 1st since '97 - msnbc.com WBOY-TV (- Bing News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:16:19 PM

By STEPHEN WILSON AP Sports Writer WIMBLEDON, England (AP) For the first time since her debut appearance at the All England Club 15 years ago, five-time Venus Williams failed to get past the first round of Wimbledon. The seven-time Grand Slam champion was eliminated 6-1, 6-3 by Elena Vesnina of Russia at Wimbledon on Monday, the latest setback in her return to tennis after being diagnosed with an energy-sapping autoimmune disease. Williams, who has fallen to 58th in the rankings, lost the first five games on Court 2 to the 79thranked Russian and, although she picked up her game and fought hard, was never able to turn the match around. It was the first time Williams lost in the opening round of a Grand Slam since the 2006 Australian Open- the first at Wimbledon since her debut appearance in 1997. "I feel like I'm a great player," Williams said. "I am a great player. Unfortunately I have to deal with circumstances that people don't have to deal with normally in a sport, but I can't be discouraged by that. I'm up for

challenges. I have great tennis in me. I just need the opportunity." There were no opening day troubles for top-ranked Novak Djokovic, six-time champion Roger Federer and No. 1 Maria Sharapova, who all enjoyed easy straight-set wins on a cloudy but dry start to the two-week grass court championships. Defending champion Djokovic beat Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 in the day's first match on Centre Court, while Sharapova came on next and overpowered Anastasia Rodionova 6-2, 6-3. Federer, seeking his record-tying seventh Wimbledon crown, dropped only three games in trouncing Spain's Albert Ramos 61, 6-1, 6-1 on Court 1 - the first time since 2003 that he wasn't assigned to Centre Court for the opening round. The highest seeded player to fall on Day 1 was No. 6 Tomas Berdych, the 2010 runner-up from the Czech Republic who lost in three straight tiebreakers to 87thranked Ernests Gulbis of Latvia. Gulbis, considered a potential top10 player who never lived up to his potential, had 30 aces to win 7 -6 (5) 7-6 (4) 7-6 (4). John Isner, the 11th-seded American, was upset in five sets by Alejandro Falla of Colombia, 6 -4, 6-7 (7), 3-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5. Isner served 31 aces but was broken to

end the match, a result that ruled out a second-round meeting between the American and Nicolas Mahut. Isner beat the Frenchman in the longest match in tennis history here two years ago, an 11-hour, 5minute marathon that ended 70-68 in the fifth set. Isner defeated Mahut again last year in the first round. Kim Clijsters, a four-time Grand Slam winner playing in her final Wimbledon, beat former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia 6-2, 64. The Belgian, who withdrew from the semifinals of a grasscourt tournament in the Netherlands last week with a stomach muscle strain, showed no signs of injury as she extended her career record over Jankovic to 81. Playing in her 16th straight Wimbledon, the 32-year-old Williams was unseeded for the first time since 1997. She was coming off a second-round loss at the French Open to Agnieszka Radwanska. Williams revealed in late August at the U.S. Open that she had been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune condition that can cause fatigue and joint pain. She skipped the Australian Open in January, before returning to the tour in March in a bid to earn a berth on

the U.S Olympic team for the London Games. "I've been through a lot for years without knowing what I was going through," she said. "It's all a culmination at the end of the day. I just try to stay positive and focus on the tennis. I'm tough, let me tell you - tough as nails." Williams has been champion or runner-up at the All England Club eight of the past 12 years, with her last title coming in 2008. The three losses in finals all came against younger sister Serena. "I don't have time to feel sorry for myself," she said. "I'm not going to give up on it. ... There's no way I'm going to just sit down and give up just because I have a hard time the first five or six tournaments back. That's just not me." The Olympic tournament will be played at Wimbledon three weeks after the end of the championships. "At the Olympics, you'll see me here," she said. "I'm planning on it." The 25-year-old Vesnina, who reached the fourth round here in 2009, played smart and steady baseline tennis to keep Williams at bay. It took 30 minutes before Williams won a game. But Vesnina broke right back to close out the set with a forehand winner.

The second set was much more contested, but once the Russian broke again for a 4-2 lead, she was in full control. Three games later, Vesnina cracked a big first serve on match point and Williams slapped a forehand return into the net. Eighth-seeded Janko Tipsarevic beat 2002 runner-up David Nalbandian 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-2. It was Nalbandian's first match since he was disqualified in the final at Queen's Club for kicking an advertising board and injuring a line judge. "I think everybody understood (it) wasn't a good thing that I did, but (I) was very unlucky, as well," he said. In early matches, the third-seeded Radwanska and Grand Slam champions Sam Stosur and Li Na won in straights sets to move into the second round. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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SUPREME continued from page 61

Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, which opposed the law. The law is part of the broader national debate over immigration, which heated up last week when Mr. Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney spoke before a group of Hispanic officials. Mr. Obama touted his announcement the previous week that his administration will stop deporting many young illegal immigrants, while Mr. Romney used his speech to soften his tone on immigration and call for a long -term overhaul that would allow more newcomers to receive green cards. The candidates are both stepping up their appeals to the fast-growing bloc of Hispanic voters. Mr. Romney in a statement Monday said the Supreme Court ruling "represents yet another broken promise by this president. I believe that each state has the duty—and the right—to secure our borders and preserve the rule of law, particularly when the

with a similar lead, but Mr. Romney is making a strong effort to close the gap. • Both Parties Claim ArizonaRuling Win • Court Rejects Corporate Campaign Spending Limits • Supreme Court Rules Against Life Sentences for Juveniles • Health-Law Decision to Come Thursday • Supreme Court Saves Best for Last • How High Court Could Rule on Health Law Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com and Tamara Audi at tammy.audi@wsj.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Wreck-It Ralph game about the movie about games coming only to Nintendo systems Jessica Conditt (Joystiq)

Executive Vice President David Oxford says. "With the fantastic Submitted at 6/25/2012 4:00:00 PM characters and creative Wreck-It Ralph, an animated film atmosphere envisioned by Walt coming November 2 from Disney, Disney Animation Studios, we features classic characters sure to know fans are going to love induce nostalgia in bomb-like seeing their newfound favorite p r o p o r t i o n s f o r i t s 2 0 - 5 5 characters embark on an all-new demographic -- which is why it's side-scrolling adventure." strange that the game based on the The game will have players movie based on video games will switch between Ralph and Fix-It come only to Nintendo's Wii, 3DS Felix to defeat the Cy-Bugs, with and DS. a story campaign and two-player With the film, Disney is focused co-op for the Wii. o n i n t r o d u c i n g a y o u n g e r Wreck-It Ralph game about the audience to arcade-style side- movie about games coming only scrollers, and it seems Activision to Nintendo systems originally is keeping that trend with a launch appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 25 on the market's most "family- Jun 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please friendly" set of platforms. see our terms for use of feeds. " Wreck-It Ralph, as a brand Permalink| Email this| Comments entity, is perfectly suited for video game stardom," Activision

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Two case studies in feeds (Dave Winer)

a very important product, but only if they allow their output to hook up to anyone's aggregator, and so Clay Johnson asks for a "way to far, they have not been willing to allow people I specify to add do that. articles to my Readability list." My river works, btw, because Excellent. That's a linkblog in there's a standard way to surface a Readability, something I've been series of links over time. It's asking for myself, but I haven't called RSS. This is a bus every gotten it yet. developer whose products creates And there's a bigger disconnect in a flow of links should hook onto. t h e d e v e l o p e r w o r l d a b o u t 2. Over the weekend I came allowing your data flows to across a site called Fuego at connect with other people's Nieman Lab. It's an aggregation software. Too many developers of links to stories about the future are trying to recreate the RSS-o- of journalism. How they create Sphere inside little bottles, and the site I don't know (but I'd like miss that the value comes from to). It has a very distinctive being able to connect anything up layout, something I imagine they're quite proud of. Usually Xav de Matos (Joystiq) DLC for those who don't put their to anything. A couple of case studies. sites like this make you come money down. Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:30:00 PM 1 . I ' v e b e e n a s k i n g t h e there to get the benefit of their Tarsier Studios community New pre-order incentives for coordinator Simon Rosenkotter Readability guys to allow me to linkflow, but I was pleasantly LittleBigPlanet's crafty Vita debut also notes that details on pre- shoot a link to a readable page to surprised to see that they also have been announced, and they orders will vary by country. At a feed, that I can then subscribe to provide an RSS 2.0 feed. Now are expectedly adorable. Two the time of publishing, Amazon in in my river. This is the way I like that's the right way to go. It DLC packages are up for grabs the U.S. appears to be the only to read. I don't need a Read-it- involves some amount of egowith pre-orders: the BioShock retailer offering the bonuses. Later app. I already have that suppression. They have a very pack adds Big Daddy and Little LittleBigPlanet Vita is scheduled problem solved. In fact a special b e a u t i f u l p r e s e n t a t i o n . B u t app is no solution for me, because realisitcally, it's just one flow Sister-inspired costumes to the to launch later this year. level-crafting world of LBP; Gallery: LittleBigPlanet Vita it's another place I have to among many, and the kind of remember to go to, and I won't, people who need what they're while the Knights of the Old pack (TGS 2011) adds two knights, a damsel in LittleBigPlanet Vita pre-orders and I know that, so I'll never use doing already have places to get dresses outfit, and a "fearsome" get Knights, BioShock-inspired it. But a command that says all their news. So they allowed me dragon costume. costumes originally appeared on "Shoot this to my feed" -- that I to hook it up to my river, and that The color of the Knights of the Joystiq on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 would use because it plugs into I did. They made the right choice, Old pack will remain exclusive to 15:30:00 EST. Please see our my flow, my world. Where I an adult choice. They could have subscribe to all my other feeds. stood their ground, and their pre-order customers, according to terms for use of feeds. the PlayStation Blog, pointing to Permalink| Email this| Comments I think Readability is potentially interface would have stayed there, these costumes being offered as Submitted at 6/25/2012 9:52:28 AM

LittleBigPlanet Vita preorders get Knights, BioShock-inspired costumes

beautiful -- and unused. Or their linkflow could be useful and their beautiful display routed-around, for some, maybe most. The choice is to be influential, or not relevant. To Readability I say this. Go ahead and build all your own structures and UIs for flows, but also provide the "Shoot this to my feed" functionality. That way if you can't roll over a decade or more of investment in aggregation tools by others, at least you can benefit from them. Your strength is making sense of crazy cluttered web pages. I want that in my world. I need it. But I can't wait a decade for you to catch up with the work we've done in rivers, why should I. I can muddle through with the ugly web pages, but I need all the other sources of news that come to me through my river. We all have to recognize that we don't do everything. Even the huge companies, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook eventually learn to specialize. But the individual developers, have no choice but to work with each other. It also means you have to work with chaos -- throw your feeds out there not knowing who will pick them up. That's the magic of the web. Trust it, and it'll work for you.

Featured/ Politics-Right/ Science/

Curated News Edition

ICANN and the Supreme Court (Dave Winer)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:09:30 PM

A quick note. This morning at 10AM we all stood by waiting for the Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare, which didn't come. Other rulings were announced, and the non-tech press is doing their jobs, reading every word in every opinion, trying to figure out what it means. On the other hand, a huge amount of information, containing whoknows-what was released on the 13th by ICANN, about Google, Amazon, Apple and a bunch of other companies, some known

and some unknown, that directly impacts the future of the Internet. Also execs are leaving ICANN, including the CEO. Where are they going? Are they going to profit from the mess they're leaving behind? ICANN is supposed to protect the integrity of the Internet, instead it looks like they may be selling it out, and there's at least a possibility that employees of ICANN are profiting from it. You can't really say that this is tech and therefore someone else's responsibility, because the structure of the Internet is relevant to everything.

Thomas O'Toole, a trademark lawyer, wrote that getting a gTLD is the closest thing to getting a global trademark. And they are sold without anyone really watching. The tragedy is that you don't have to wait for a leak to get the info, it's all public, available to anyone. Wouldn't it be great if there were a public effort to read every word in every application and share what's learned, much as every word in the Supreme Court rulings are being analyzed and studied by people who understand what's at stake?

A Fingerprint Scanner That Can Capture Prints From 20 Feet Away Clay Dillow (Popular Science New Technology, Science

FINGERPRINT page 66

Inspector General to Investigate EPA Enforcement Lachlan Markay (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)

The IG will focus on EPA Region 7, which includes Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. The investigation will Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:03:17 PM The Inspector General for the address three questions, according Environmental Protection Agency to the letter: will begin an investigation into What are the trends in the consistency and fairness of the enforcement results stemming agency’s enforcement actions, from EPA enforcement actions, according to a letter drafted on (injunctive relief, supplementary Friday. environmental projects and

penalties) over time (2006-2011) and across regions? How do enforcement results stemming from EPA enforcement actions in Region 7 compare to those in the rest of the EPA regions? What are the key factors explaining differences in enforcement results stemming from EPA enforcement actions

among EPA regions? A staffer for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Scribe that he requested the investigation in response to a constituent’s concerns. He hopes to ascertain whether enforcement actions in Region 7 have been more aggressive than in other regions. Here is the full letter from EPA’s inspector general announcing the

investigation: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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FINGERPRINT continued from page 65

Scanning Fingerprints at a Distance University of Kentucky Opening doors with the wave of a hand Gaining access to your gym or office building could soon be as simple as waving a hand at the front door. A Hunsville, Ala.based company called IDair is developing a system that can scan and identify a fingerprint from nearly 20 feet away. Coupled with other biometrics, it could soon allow security systems to grant or deny access from a distance, without requiring users to stop and scan a fingerprint, swipe an ID card, or otherwise lose a moment dealing with technology. Currently IDair's primary customer is the military, but the startup wants to open up commercially to any business or enterprise that wants to put a layer of security between its facilities and the larger world. A gym chain is already beta testing the system (no more using your roommate's

gym ID to get in a free workout), and IDair's founder says that at some point his technology could enable purchases to be made biometrically, using fingerprints and irises as unique identifiers rather than credit card numbers and data embedded in magnetic strips or RFID chips. The technology works much in the same way satellites process terrain imagery, using a lot of edge detection and image sharpening to turn a fingerprint captured at a distance into a usable and identifiable image. Since users don't have to touch a fingerprint scanner, there's no problem with the imaging surface becoming fouled. And of course, additional layers of security like facial recognition can be piled on to make up a more robust, complete biometric profile of a person that provides that individual with access without the need for a key or passcode, either of which can be lost, stolen, or

shared without authorization. Naturally, all this recording of biometric data raises privacy concerns (our shared, technologyheavy, data-centric future seems to be riddled with those). But it also raises the prospect of better, more robust security systems as well as a certain ease of use that is appealing. As long as we're going to have billboards that tailor ads to you by mining your biometric profile (or your wallet) for clues about your demographic profile, we might as well get some extra security out of the deal. And IDair's system is fairly affordable: a basic one-fingerprint scanner starts at less than $2,000. [ AL.com]

Biden vs. Obama on Afghanistan (The Feed)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 5:41:17 AM

Via Associated Press: As President Barack Obama considered adding as many as 40,000 U.S. forces to a backsliding war in Afghanistan in 2009, Vice President Joe Biden warned him that the military rationale for doing so was flawed, a new book about Obama’s expansion of the conflict says. The book, “Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan,” also says that in planning the drawdown of troops two years later, the White House intentionally sidelined the CIA. Obama purposely did not read a grim CIA assessment of Afghanistan that found little measurable benefit from the 30,000 “surge” forces Obama eventually approved, the book quotes a U.S. official as saying. A copy of the book by Washington Post correspondent Rajiv

Chandrasekaran was obtained by The Associated Press. It will be released Tuesday. . . Why do we have to wait for the book to find out things reporters should be reporting in realtime?— Greg Pollowitz This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Dropping Legal Barriers Doesn't Guarantee Interstate Insurance Sales Jim Burress (Shots - Health Blog) Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:15:00 PM

Jim Burress/ Georgia Public Broadcasting Small business owner Brian Mayfield has been eager for less expensive health insurance options. It looks like he'll have to wait a little longer.

Starting next week, any health insurer licensed in Georgia can sell policies it offers in other states to Georgians. That includes policies that don't meet minimum standards for coverage in Georgia. They'll be OK for sale under a new state law that aims to increase competition and lower prices for health insurance in the state.

The idea appeals to Brian Mayfield who runs a small company in the Atlanta suburb of Woodstock that repairs and refurbishes cash registers and related equipment. Business at his firm is good, but not good enough for Mayfield to offer employees health insurance. But it doesn't look like Mayfield, or any other Georgian, will be

able to take advantage of the new law. While its cross-state insurance provision is scheduled to go into effect next week, not one insurance company has taken the state up on its offer to sell here. Some have national ambitions for the idea behind the Georgia experiment. Interstate sales of insurance is a key part of the

Republican effort to "repeal and replace" the 2010 health care overhaul. Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Joe Barton from Texas, Phil Gingrey from Georgia, and even presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have touted it as a way to reduce consumer costs for DROPPING page 68

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DROPPING continued from page 67

health insurance. heard on Morning Edition June 25, 2012 Georgia To Allow Cross-State Health Insurance Sales[5 min 7 sec] • Add to Playlist • Download

biggest health insurers: Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, United Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente. All declined to comment. Georgetown University professor Mila Kofman says insurers' lack of action is a good thing for In Georgia, state representative consumers. She says cheap plans Matt Ramsey sponsored the are cheap for a reason — they legislation, bringing this national d o n ' t o f f e r g o o d s e r v i c e s . Republican concept to Georgia. I n s u r a n c e p r e m i u m s a r e Ramsey speculates that no insurer expensive because health care is has signed up because they are expensive. paralyzed by the Supreme Court's "I'm a little surprised, but frankly, pending ruling on the Affordable it's a big relief," she says, "When Care Act. you think about health insurance "Rightfully, everyone's kind of premiums, really the only way preserving the status quo until that out-of-state companies could they see what direction our sell products that are cheap is if n a t i o n ' s h e a l t h i n s u r a n c e they cut corners — if the product marketplace is going to go." doesn't cover what the Georgia It's not like insurers don't want regulated products cover." the business, he says. That doesn't bother Ramsey, who To find out why no company has says, "If an individual wants to signed on, NPR asked Georgia's buy a more bare-bones policy

because that's all they can afford [or] that's all they need, that's a heck of a lot better than not buying insurance." Ramsey predicts that if the Supreme Court throws out the Affordable Care Act, insurers will jump at the chance to sell more policies here. In the meantime, the only thing Georgia has to offer is a new law — and no takers. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

4 Billing Systems Entrepreneurs Need to Know About Scott Gerber (Mashable!)

when they're on the road. Here’s what they shared. 1. Square For web startups, with a product The Square app is excellent at to sell, having a virtual cash helping you to get paid, and get register that's always available is paid on time. It has paved the way key. Thanks to a host of new web f o r s i m p l e o n l i n e c r e d i t apps and smartphone additions, processing and offers a sleek UI. that virtual cash register can now Plus, it helps that it’s easy to use fit into the palm of a person's on a mobile device and offers hand. featur… I asked four successful young Continue reading... entrepreneurs to suggest the More About: contributor, online payment services that are entrepreneurs, features, mobile changing the way they conduct apps, Square sales and business, especially Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:17:12 PM

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Supreme Court Backs Arizona’s Right to Enforce Immigration Laws John G. Malcolm (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)

preempted by federal law. In this case, the Court recognized that the core of S.B. 1070, which requires officers to work Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:32:05 PM Today’s Supreme Court decision collaboratively with the federal upholding the major provision of government to determine the Arizona’s S.B. 1070 immigration immigration status of those who law is a strong rebuke of the have been stopped or detained for Obama Administration. a lawful purpose, need not be The Administration had argued interpreted to conflict with federal t h a t i t s o w n i m m i g r a t i o n law. With this decision, the Court enforcement priorities should be has reaffirmed the important treated as controlling law—that is, principle that, much as he might above the determinations of both want to, President Obama cannot Congress and Arizona. But the prevent the states from taking Court’s decision means that the a c t i o n t o e n f o r c e f e d e r a l P r e s i d e n t m u s t g o t h r o u g h immigration laws just by saying Congress if he wishes to impede that he doesn’t want them to do the states’ ability to enforce so. immigration laws within their In 1996, as part of the Illegal borders. Immigration Reform and In a judgment joined by all eight Immigrant Responsibility Act, justices who participated (Justice Congress made it clear that states Elena Kagan was recused), the retain inherent authority to Court found that Arizona may c o o p e r a t e i n i m m i g r a t i o n implement its requirement that enforcement and to supplement law enforcement officers make a federal resources with their own. “ r e a s o n a b l e a t t e m p t … t o Federal officials are required by determine the immigration status” law to respond whenever state or of any person they stop, detain, or local officers request verification arrest, if “reasonable suspicion of an alien’s immigration status exists that the person is an alien (Homeland Security operates a 24 unlawfully present in the United / 7 h o t l i n e f o r e x a c t l y t h a t States.” The Court found that purpose). As Justice Anthony three other provisions, which Kennedy said for the majority, regulated alien registration, illegal “Federalism, central to the aliens seeking employment, and constitutional design, adopts the arrest of individuals based upon principle that both the National possible removability, were and State Governments have

elements of sovereignty the other is bound to respect.” The federal government has the exclusive authority to determine who should be admitted into the country and who should be deported from the country—a principle that the Court emphasized in preempting certain aspects of S.B. 1070. However, nothing in Arizona’s immigration check provisions modifies the conditions under which somebody can legally enter or stay in the country. Some have argued that Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070, which the Court held was not preempted, will result in racial profiling. However, as U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli conceded during oral argument, this case

so, develops a reasonable suspicion (which must be based on articulable, objective facts, not a mere hunch) that the subject is an illegal alien, then the officer must make “a reasonable attempt” to verify or dispel that suspicion—specifically, by checking with the federal government. In short, all Arizona’s law requires is that law enforcement officers not turn a blind eye to possible violations of federal immigration laws while investigating other offenses during the course of their duties. Arizona and other border states did not involve any allegation of bear the largest burden when immigration laws are not enforced racial profiling. In fact, S.B. 1070 explicitly federally or when rules are p r o h i b i t s r a c i a l p r o f i l i n g . overlooked. And the burden is S p e c i f i c a l l y , S e c t i o n 2 ( B ) significant. There are 2,000 miles prohibits random stops to question along the southwest border, 370 someone about their immigration of which adjoin Arizona. Illegal s t a t u s b u t p e r m i t s l a w entries and border smuggling by enforcement officers to make such “coyotes” are rampant, with an an inquiry when he or she makes accompanying influx of drugs, a “lawful stop, detention, or d a n g e r o u s c r i m i n a l s , a n d arrest…in the enforcement of any vulnerable people (who often end other law or ordinance of a u p a s v i c t i m s o f h u m a n county, city or town of this state.” trafficking). Between 2006 and In other words, the stop must be 2010, in the border town of lawful and predicated on a Nogales alone, 51 drug smuggling suspected violation of some non- tunnels were discovered. Home invasions and kidnappings are immigration law. If an officer legitimately stops, common in Arizona. detains, or arrests somebody who Illegal aliens take jobs from is suspected of committing SUPREME page 71 another offense and, while doing

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David Frum (David Frum)

Andrew Sullivan complained yesterday that I had engaged in a “McCarthyite” attack on Ron Paul by writing the following: A politician isn’t answerable for the antics of every one of his supporters. But there’s surely a reason, isn’t there, that racists, anti-Semites, 9/11 Truthers, and Holocaust deniers are so strongly attracted to the Paul campaign. They hear something. They continue to hear it too, no matter how firmly Ron Paul’s more mainstream supporters clamp their hands over their own ears. Andrew’s riposte: Notice how pure the smear is, enabled and not diminished by the first sentence. Notice the key concept of Beltway ideological policemen: there is a mainstream and a non-mainstream. Dabble with the latter at your peril. Since David has perished by the cult of the “mainstream”, it’s odd he should deploy it against others. But to throw in “Holocaust denial” and 9/11 Truthers for good measure! Really. And notice how particularly cheap and easy it is to use such tactics against a libertarian. The traditional left is often based on collective associations, building a movement out of oppressed groups and their grievances, whether it be class or race or even

sexual orientation. Libertarianism is the opposite. It’s about dis associating. When you listen to Paul saying he will not turn anyone away from supporting his platform regardless of their motives or beliefs, you are hearing a reflection of his libertarianism, not his bigotry. He will accept support from any quarter and compared with the corporate money flowing into the other candidates’ coffers, he is about as independent as a presidential candidate can be. Because he is a radical individualist, he doesn’t even understand why he should somehow explain the belief of others, or justify their support. You should ask them, not him. This kind of gotcha-association game is particularly easy because libertarians favor liberty above all, and that will necessarily mean liberty for bigots as well as others. A principled belief in states’ rights will doubtless lead to more racist and homophobic policies in many states – but also, of course, more enlightened and successful inclusive states like Oregon or New York or Massachusetts or California. A rejection of statism might lead to more discrimination in the private sector. But it doesn’t mandate it. And it need not encourage it. A noninterventionist foreign policy will allow evil to triumph elsewhere in

the world, because it believes it’s none of our business or too riddled with unintended consequences to try extirpating. That may be right or wrong, but it is not an approval of the evil of Assad or Ahmedinejad or the North Korean junta. And again, it is actually much deeper an American tradition than permanent warfare. But if you can trot out David Duke or Ayatollah Khamenei as potential Paul supporters, you have a very easy, cheap and essentially McCarthyite target. It saddens me that this kind of tactic works. I still believe that the newsletters, because they were in Paul’s name, require a clearer explanation from Paul than the muddled ones he has given. He should not be left off the hook. And his proposals deserve a thorough vetting and discussion. But there is something awry when a candidate is assessed not on his arguments and proposals but on the shadiness and ugliness of some of his fringe supporters. Ron Paul’s supporters ask that their candidate not be judged by his associates. Or by the people he chose to employ. Or by the newsletters he published. Or by the book he wrote. Or by the way he earned the largest part of his living when out of office in the 1990s. Or by his purchase of the mailing list of the Holocaust-

denying Liberty Lobby. Or by the radio shows he chooses to appear on. Or by his strategic decision to reach out to racist voters. Or by the conspiracy theories to which he lends credence, from government creation of AIDS to Israeli culpability for the 1993 bombing to a putative 9/11 “coverup.” And here I thought that libertarianism was a doctrine of personal responsibility? May Ron Paul at least be judged by the words he has spoken with his own mouth within the current campaign? The supporters say “no” again. When Ron Paul tells an interviewer that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made race relations “worse,” we’re not supposed to consider what he might mean by “better.” When Ron Paul warns that a border fence would be used to prevent fleeing American citizens from exiting the country, we’re not supposed to conclude that he’s a paranoid crank. Andrew deploys what might be called the ontological defense of Ron Paul, as follows: 1) Ron Paul is a libertarian. 2) Libertarians espouse individualism. 3) Racism is a form of antiindividualism. 4) Therefore Ron Paul cannot be a racist. That is a demonstration of what

might be called the deductive method of reasoning. But there’s another way to study reality: induction. Like this: 1) Ron Paul has again and again exploited bigotry, paranoia, and hate as fundraising devices. 2) Ron Paul is a libertarian. 3) So yes, I guess it is possible for a libertarian to do that. Here’s my question for Ron Paul supporters: why the denial of the undeniable? Perhaps you like Paul’s message of legalized marijuana? Why not just say so? You don’t think it’s important to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? Argue it forthrightly. If you regard Social Security and Medicare as literally the moral equivalents of slavery, go ahead, make your case. But all this excuse-making, special pleading and jiggering of the rules of evidence so as to exculpate Ron Paul from the record of his whole political life? For what? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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What Facebook and Five Guys Have in Common

SUPREME continued from page 69

Americans and drive down wages. It is estimated that illegal aliens constitute 7.4 percent of the state’s workforce. To address these problems, Arizona passed S.B. 1070, the Support Our Law Lara Barger (The Foundry: grow up and attempt to achieve the free market capitalist system Conservative Policy News Blog their dreams, they get tangled in in the United States presents E n f o r c e m e n t a n d S a f e Neighborhoods Act. Today’s from The Heritage Foundation) the red tape of big government? opportunities for every individual decision reaffirmed that the states “The entrepreneurial spirit is what to improve his or her life.” We are Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:18 PM Whether it’s the founders of Five b u i l d s A m e r i c a , b e c a u s e a successful nation because of the are not without recourse to address such a systemic problem. G u y s B u r g e r s & F r i e s o r entrepreneurs… are the A m e r i c a n p e o p l e a n d t h e i r Facebook, entrepreneurs are at the ones who create the real dynamo infectious spirit. The American States should not have to beg the heart of our capitalist system. of the economy and provide the Spirit reminds us during these f e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t f o r Such leaders see the future and real opportunities for individuals tough economic times that we live permission to enforce laws within their borders. take real steps to create it with the to get employment.” – Ed Feulner in an exceptional nation. tools at hand. By doing so, they The perseverance and diligence Published in hardcover and for Today’s decision means that the create more jobs and opportunities that Americans display are what Kindle e-readers, The American Obama Administration may not, than any other group in our make our country exceptional. Spirit(256 pages, Thomas Nelson, by executive order, prevent states society. The American Spirit, a The American dream of owning a 2 0 1 2 ) i s a v a i l a b l e a t like Arizona from participating in new book coauthored by Dr. Ed business (according to Gallup, the AmericanSpiritBook.com and at an immigration verification process set up by Congress. The Feulner, president of The Heritage stated desire of 45% of American bookstores everywhere. Foundation, and Brian Tracy, students) is a big part of what this This entry passed through the President may disagree, but for encourages that entrepreneurial country is built on. There is Full-Text RSS service — if this is his disagreement to actually have the force of law, he will have to spirit. always room for growth and your content and you're reading it It begins with a child and a success. Capitalism is, in fact, on someone else's site, please read p e r s u a d e m e m b e r s o f simple lemonade stand, and good for our economy. the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentcontinues as a generational In their chapter on capitalism the only/faq.php#publishers. Five operation. According to a recent authors write, “Where some Filters recommends: Donate to Gallup study, 77% of elementary n a t i o n s h a v e a g e - o l d c a s t e Wikileaks. and high school students say they systems or entrenched class want to be their own boss. Yet systems from which escape to a why is it that when these children better life is next to impossible,

Congress—a refreshing change for a President who has seen fit to go it alone far too frequently. While some people in other countries will be unhappy with today’s decision, as Judge Carlos Bea stated in his dissent from the Ninth Circuit’s opinion (which has now been overturned), “We do not grant other nations’ foreign ministries a heckler’s veto.” This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Music Monday: Songs for Your Commute Katrina Ball (Mashable!)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:17:15 PM

What you listen to on your way to work can set the tone of your entire day. Whether you need to pump up for a packed schedule or decompress

before taking on the day, music can help you mentally prepare during your morning commute. So, this week we crafted a playlist around the idea of commuting. Here are our favorite songs to listen to while we we make the These songs were handpicked by the Mashable staff. Although trek into work.

collectively we have a diverse taste in music, this week's playlist contains plenty of songs to help coax you out of the house and cheer you on as you start your day. Music Monday is a new weekly post that allows us to share our

love of music… Continue reading... More About: Music, spotify

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Fun Fact: President Morsi Used to Work at NASA (The Feed)

Submitted at 6/25/2012 12:42:44 PM

Via The National: Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s new president, spent his election campaign being derided as “the spare tyre” – a reference to his being the backup choice to the Muslim Brotherhood strongman Khairat Al Shater. As he trailed in the polls until a week before elections began, many said he had no charisma and would have a hard time making it to the second round of elections. But Mr Morsi had the last laugh. As it turns out, charisma was not what was needed for the race. The Brotherhood’s get-out-the-vote ability – their presence on the street and core of committed

campaigners – was enough, and if anything Mr Morsi is the quintessential organisational man. .. Well, at least we know he’ll be good at using U.S. taxpayer finances for dubious purposes.— Greg Pollowitz This entry passed through the

HBO Puts ‘The Newsroom’ Pilot Online for Free Christina Warren (Mashable!)

free podcast on iTunes. HBO will make the pilot available until July 23, 2012. HBO is making the pilot episode Starring Jeff Daniels, Emily of Aaron Sorkin's new television Mortimer and Sam Waterston, the show The Newsroom available to show is about the making of a non-subscribers for free on nightly cable news program in the multiple platforms. modern -- and changing -- news The drama, which debuted last climate. night, is available online via to While critical reception of the give non-subscribers a taste of the show has be… program. Users can watch the Continue reading... pilot on YouTube, DailyMotion. More About: hbo, HBO GO, the TV.com and on many cable n e w s r o o m , t r e n d i n g , t v operator's On Demand platforms. e v e r y w h e r e The program is also available as a Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:03:03 PM

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Vow to improve care home standards (Evening Standard - News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:40:07 PM

The Government has pledged to drive up standards in care homes for people with learning disabilities after a watchdog's report claimed nearly half were substandard. Forty-eight per cent of the 145 hospitals and care homes inspected nationwide failed to meet required standards in terms of care and welfare, a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report showed. Patients were being locked in their rooms, bullied by other patients without action and were spending unacceptably long periods of time in care. One person has spent 17 years in a rehabilitation centre, according to the CQC report. People were "bored and distressed" and not treated like individuals, according to one former learning disability services patient who helped produce the review. There were also "lessons to be learned" by care providers about

the use of restraint and an "urgent need" to reduce the use of restraint. Staff should be trained to use more appropriate ways of restraining patients, the report said. The inspections focused on examining the general care and welfare of people who used the services as well as whether people were safe from abuse. Independent services were twice as likely (33% compliant) to fail to meet these standards as NHS providers (68% compliant). The unannounced inspections were carried out in the wake of abuse uncovered by the BBC's Panorama programme at Winterbourne View hospital near Bristol. But there was no evidence in this report that pointed to abuse on the scale uncovered at Winterbourne View hospital, said CQC chairwoman Dame Jo Williams. Dame Jo said: "All providers need to look at what we found, question themselves day in, day out about whether or not they are meeting the standards and really keeping people safe."

The Winterbourne View scandal also prompted a Government review into how the health and care system supports people with learning disabilities. The Department of Health announced a series of proposals aimed at tackling the worst aspects of the care of people with learning disabilities or autism and challenging behaviour, which it said could lead to "inexcusable abuse". Care Services Minister Paul Burstow said: "Our national actions will mean that people have access to good care, closer to home. They will make sure those who provide care, commission care and care staff know exactly what part they must play and what standards are expected of them." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Boingo, Google Offers bring free WiFi to select Manhattan subway stations, let you tweet the heat Brian Heater (Engadget) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:43:00 PM

Boingo has surely overestimated New York City's desire to "soa[k] up the warm weather" this summer, but when it comes to complaining about the heat, no one does it like the Big Apple. And now, thanks to the hotspot provider(with some promotional help from the folks at Google Offers), Manhattanites will be able to do just that all over Twitter from the convenience of a handful of subway stations on 14th and 23rd street. The promotion begins today and runs through September 7th. Including the hashtag #FreeNYCWiFi puts you in the running for Boingo rewards. We also recommend #wheresthatdamnEtrain, which will surely be trending for the next few months. For a full list of

stations, check out the source link below. Boingo, Google Offers bring free WiFi to select Manhattan subway stations, let you tweet the heat originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Phys Org| Boingo| Email this| Comments

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Regional benefit levels considered (Evening Standard - News) Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:40:09 PM

Proposals under consideration within Government could change the welfare system so claimants receive different levels of benefits depending on where they live. Downing Street revealed that regional benefits were one of the options for shaking up the welfare system which Prime Minister David Cameron has been looking at. But the idea was dropped from a speech in which the PM floated cash-saving measures for the welfare state. The Welsh Government said it would resist any move to regional benefits, which it said would disproportionately hit families in Wales. Shortly before Mr Cameron spoke in Kent, his official spokesman told reporters that the PM would say: "We are looking at whether public sector pay

should be more responsive to local pay rates and that is something we should look at for benefits too." The spokesman explained: "Clearly, wage rates vary around the country and what someone receives in benefits compared to what they could potentially get by going into a job has an impact on the incentives they face. That is the logic for looking at this question." Aides confirmed that the question had been discussed within Government and featured in early drafts of the PM's speech, but stressed that it was not included in the final text. And the spokesman later said: "Speeches go through a number of drafts. The point is that he set out the questions that he thinks should be addressed in the speech that he gave." For Labour, shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne said: "The Government's welfare plans are so shambolic that some

policies didn't even survive the morning. This is real back-of-afag-packet stuff." Shadow Wales secretary Owen Smith said: "I've no doubt why David Cameron chose to drop the idea of regional benefits from his speech at the last minute. For someone who's spent his political career trying to hide the true nature of his party, he may have thought this would be one toxic policy too many. "The Prime Minister's priority when it comes to welfare spending should be addressing the extra £5 billion his Government has added to the unemployment benefit bill as a result of tipping our economy back into recession." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

Leveson dismisses press freedom row (Evening Standard - News)

He said such a development "would clearly have raised Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:40:08 PM questions about the value of the Lord Justice Leveson has vowed w o r k t h a t t h e i n q u i r y w a s not to be pushed off course by undertaking at substantial cost. attempts to portray questions "Put shortly, I was concerned about the conduct of the press as about the perception that the an attack on free speech. inquiry was being undermined The judge, who is leading the while it was taking place." inquiry into media standards, The inquiry chair, who said he insisted he had no "hidden a c c e p t e d S i r J e r e m y ' s agenda" to stifle reporting as he reassurances that that was not the explained why he raised concerns case, added that he had no with Downing Street that his argument with the Mail on i n v e s t i g a t i o n c o u l d b e Sunday's right to publish its undermined. original story - or with other He spoke out in response to a newspapers printing versions of it. n e w s p a p e r r e p o r t t h a t h e He said: "It is absolutely correct threatened to quit over remarks by that the press should be able to cabinet minister Michael Gove hold this inquiry in general and that the probe was having a me in particular to account." "chilling effect" on journalism. But, he added: "It is at least In a 20-minute statement at the arguable that what has happened opening of proceedings, he did is an example of an approach not address directly whether or which seeks to convert any not he had put his position on the attempt to question the conduct of line over the issue or sought to the press as an attack on free "gag" the Education Secretary. speech. For my part, I will not be B u t h e c o n f i r m e d t h a t h e deterred from seeking to fulfil the contacted Cabinet Secretary Sir terms of reference that have been Jeremy Heywood to discuss set for me." whether the remark - and its This entry passed through the apparent backing by David Full-Text RSS service — if this is Cameron - represented a "settled your content and you're reading it view" within the Government LEVESON page 75 against regulation.

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Rep. Charlie Rangel’s last hurrah?

Axelrod: An Obama win would “liberate” Republicans to work with Obama Erika Johnsen (Hot Air » Top Picks) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:41:17 PM

posted at 2:41 pm on June 25, 2012 by Erika Johnsen This kind of reminds me of that terrifyingly honest “ I will Dustin Siggins (Hot Air » Top Picks) transmit this information to Vladimir” hot-mic scene with Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:01:00 PM President Obama and Russian posted at 4:01 pm on June 25, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev a while back, except that in 2012 by Dustin Siggins This morning, Politico took a Axelrod’s case, I think he is look at the race of longtime grossly misjudging the situation. Representative Charlie Rangel (D President Obama may indeed be -NY). Rangel, who has suffered planning on unleashing his true from poor health and according to policy desires (such as being more the article spent three months “flexible” with Russia, oh goody) away from the House at one point if/when his reelection concerns this year, is running against three are assuaged; but if Axelrod opponents whose combined thinks Republicans are going to efforts could very well prevent be more flexible after Obama is him from having a final term in reelected because some of their policies are actually secretly the House at the age of 82. The article itself isn’t bad, and a l i g n e d w i t h O b a m a ’ s , o r draws attention to a symbolically something… I think he’s got important primary that comes to a another thing coming. head tomorrow. However, in In an interview with C-SPAN, largely highlighting the race from Axelrod said there are plenty of Rangel’s perspective and thus Republicans who would like to mostly from a position favorable to Rangel, it partially REP. page 76

work with Obama but have been unable to because of a “kind of reign of terror” in which any act of cooperation with the president was seen as a betrayal. Yet Axelrod insisted there are Republicans “of good will” would would like to work with Obama. “My belief is that when the president wins in November, we’re going to liberate these Republicans of good will,” Axelrod said. He added that those Republicans will “blink into the light of a new day and they’re going to turn to the Grover Norquists of the world, frankly as Jeb Bush has recently, and say, ‘You know we did it your way, and frankly that was a failure for the country, and also for the Republican Party, and now we’re going to work together.’” What is it going to take for President Obama and his minions to understand that all of these “donothing Congress” and “partisan gridlock” shenanigans have nothing to do with “good will” in and of itself? It has to do with the fact that Republicans

fundamentally disagree with President Obama’s policies, and this is the way our system of governance was specifically designed to work. The American people swept the Democrats through the 2008 elections, decided they didn’t like the result, and reversed course by electing a Republican House in the 2010 elections. We have two very different parties in power, and our Founders didn’t want either party to be able to trump the other. If President Obama does get reelected but we maintain the Congressional status quo, are things going to drastically change and President Obama suddenly find himself able to magically push through a bunch more liberal legislation? I wouldn’t bet on it. Axelrod and his ilk are constantly suggesting that Republicans are just cutting their nose off to spite their collective face, but conservatives aren’t being extremists: They’re just blocking a bunch of Keynesian, biggovernment, big-spending

policies from making it through. Which, by the way, is exactly what they were elected to do. By the way: Thanks a bajillion, Jeb Bush, for painting the GOP as extreme in your haste to look moderate. I have to agree with Charles Krauthammer on that one: A quite dispiriting spectacle. And more than a bit confusing. Why, just this week the estimable Jeb Bush averred that the Republican Party had become so rigidly rightwing that today it couldn’t even nominate Ronald Reagan. Huh? It’s about to nominate Mitt Romney, who lives a good 14 nautical miles to the left of Ronald Reagan. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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whitewashes several strong reasons why Rangel should not be voted back into the House. First, according to the article: Hitting the trail last week, Rangel — who survived a tough reelection fight in 2010 despite the ethics case and a suggestion from President Barack Obama at the time to “end his career with dignity” — displayed an almost missionary zeal to prove his detractors wrong. Betrayal and disrespect — Rangel believes he deserves better after such a long record of service — appear to be fueling his bid at least as much as securing another two years in the House. This is a recurring problem with Members of Congress; they believe they deserve to be reelected and deserve respect from the people who have voted into office. While it is not my place to say whether or not Rangel has represented the wishes of his constituents in office (thought 40plus years in the House indicates he has done so, or at least has hidden when he has not represented those wishes), serving in the House is a privilege created to better the nation. It is not a retirement community in which voters owe Members their support, especially given the sad state of affairs facing the nation. This attitude on the part of Rangel was highlighted by Jason Mattera several years ago, when during an ambush interview of Rangel over the ethics investigation Materra was asked “why don’t you mind your

[expletive] business?” Yup – the then-Chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee thought his illegal navigation of the tax code was not the taxpayers’ business. In recognition that I may be misunderstanding Rangel regarding what he believes he “deserves,” I contacted his campaign communications director by twice by phone, and on her request e-mailed the following question to her: Specifically, I’d like to get a response as to why the Congressman “believes he deserves better after such a long record of service.” Many Members believe they should get re-elected simply because of length of service, while others believe the quality of that service is what the voters should re-elect. Can you elaborate on the Congressman’s position on reelection related to his tenure for me, please? Unfortunately, I received no response to this question by the time this post was published, two hours after my original deadline and 30 minutes after a secondary deadline. She explained to me that with the primary tomorrow, she was extraordinarily busy and would try to get me a response. I will update this post if she does respond. Second, the article highlights a senior citizen who is supporting Rangel: Evelyn Jenkins, a Harlem retiree who attended a forum on health care Rangel held Friday, said she

will vote for the congressman out of respect for his long tenure. With respect to Ms. Jenkins, I believe a long tenure should generally be considered a negative when running for office (I support term limits), unless the Member is extraordinary compared to his or her opponents. Given how Washington is run, I don’t think Rangel (an influential Member for decades) and his tenure have done much good, though Ms. Jenkins may disagree. Third, Rangel’s ethics censure in 2010 is mentioned only in the political sense, insofar as it gives his opponents ammunition with which to run against him. I wrote about the lengthy list of charges, and the timeline under which the investigation took place, for this site in February 2010 (all citations are listed at the link): • 1990: Rangel “didn’t know” that the developer of his villa had converted his $52,000 mortgage to an interest-free loan. • 1971-2000: The National Legal and Policy Center has confirmed Rangel owned a home in Washington and claimed a “homestead” exemption that allowed him to save on his District of Columbia property taxes. • 2001: Rangel has failed to report assets totaling more than $1 million on legally required financial disclosure forms going back to at least 2001. • 2004-2005: Income from rental was suspiciously low- Rangel did not pay rental income taxes on a beach-front property. The untaxed

income was 75K. • He promised to amend his tax returns, but that did not happen • 2004-2006: Rent-controlled apartment owned by donor to Rangel campaign and PAC, and sent lobbyist to Rangel. • 2007: Rangel had a credit union account worth at least $250,000 and maybe as much as $500,000 — and didn’t report it. • 2007: He had investment accounts worth about $250K, which he also didn’t report. • Same for three pieces of property in New Jersey. • 2004-2006: He used one of his apartments as an office in violation of rent-control rules. • 2004-2006: Rent-controlled apartment owned by donor to Rangel campaign and PAC, and sent lobbyist to Rangel. • 2008: Investigation of Rangel’s fund raising for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York. Rangel gave a donor to the center a tax loophole. • Improper vehicle storageRangel parked a car for several years that did not have a parking permit and was unlicensed. Rangel, who was found guilty of 11 of 13 counts leveled against him and also settled with the Federal Elections Commission related to campaign violations, received a formal censure on the House floor from then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). While

many would have preferred the House Ethics Committee recommend expulsion, if not the sort of criminal charges the average person would have faced in the same situation, a December 2010 National Journal article shows censure is a relatively severe punishment in the House, and not one that had been implemented in nearly 30 years. Fourth, regardless of political or ethical disagreements with the Congressman, the fact is that he has poor health and missed three months of votes in the House this year. While I hope his health is better today, the article said he has “…pain that I cannot describe.” If he cannot conduct his duties as a voting Member of the House, it is not fair to his constituents for him to continue holding a seat and to run for reelection. While the voters can certainly choose to care about this tomorrow and in November, I think it would show a great deal of class and humility for Rangel to resign for health reasons. In 2010 the son of the man Rangel beat in 1970 received a great deal of media attention in his race against Rangel, but to no avail as the incumbent’s supporters dominated the voting booth. This year Rangel is in perhaps a tougher race, with the redistricting that took place after the 2010 Census. While the race truly is more symbolic than substantive when it comes to the major issues facing the country REP. page 81

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Memo to Congress: You're in the Hot Seat If Obamacare Is Overturned Margot Sanger-Katz and Meghan McCarthy (Politics : The Atlantic) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:22:51 PM

If the law is struck, lawmakers will have to grapple with Medicare, Medicaid, and billions of dollars of spending -- and do it fast. Reuters In oral arguments before the Supreme Court in March, lawyer Paul Clement made the case that the simplest way to dispense with the 2010 health-care-reform law would be to overturn it entirely: If the Court finds that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, it should strike down the whole thing. "The better answer might be to say, 'We've struck the heart of this act; let's just give Congress a clean slate,'" said Clement, representing the National Federation of Independent Business and the 26 states that oppose the law. On its face, Clement's logic seems simple: If you're going to monkey with a giant piece of legislation that restructures nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy, it's best not to get into the weeds. Just let Congress start from scratch. But this argument misunderstands what would happen if the sprawling law is suddenly moot. Unlike partial revocations, which would give Congress time to fix potential glitches, a complete

invalidation would start several policy fires that would require immediate congressional action. And members of Congress have not spent much time planning for this scenario. First up: Medicare. The Affordable Care Act changed the formulas that Medicare uses to pay providers from top to bottom. It shifted growth rates, boosted some providers' pay, and baked in financial incentives for doctors and hospitals that achieve quality

benchmarks. It also codified many of the Medicare payment adjustments that it passes every year. (After all, when you have one big health bill moving, why not throw in everything?) Since 2010, regulators have acted on those changes, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pays out 100 million medical bills each month according to the new pay scale. If the law is overturned, no one is sure what figures the system

would use. Should CMS continue to pay providers at the rates set by the law? Or should it go back to 2009 levels? Both Donald Berwick, who ran CMS under President Obama before he joined the Center for American Progress last year, and Gail Wilensky, who held a similar post during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and is now at Project HOPE, said they don't know the answer. The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees would

need to move fast to establish a clear legal authority for CMS to pay providers. MORE FROM NATIONAL JOURNAL • High Court Hands Obama a Win in Arizona Immigration Law • Ohio's Mandel Compared to LeBron, And Not In the Good Way • George Allen's Rebuilding Project MEMO page 81

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Some Thoughts on Democratic Norms Ta-Nehisi Coates (Politics : The Atlantic)

term coup," in undemocratic (if constitutional) means are pedantically employed (the grand Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:00:00 PM uptick in filibuster, for instance) UPDATE: Comments back open. to radical ends. And yet this sent My label-mate Jim Fallows, on me back to thinking on the only the dangers of the Roberts court: coup d'etat in American history. It Liberal democracies like ours was barely 100 years ago. depend on rules but also on norms Or consider the following -- on the assumption that you'll go specimen: We did not disfranchise so far, but no further, to advance the negroes until 1895. Then we your political ends. The norms had a constitutional convention imply some loyalty to the system convened which took the matter as a whole that outweighs your up calmly, deliberately, and immediate partisan interest. Not avowedly with the purpose of red states, nor blue states, but the disfranchising as many of them as United States of America. It was we could under the fourteenth and out of loyalty to the system that f i f t e e n t h a m e n d m e n t s . W e Al Gore stepped aside after Bush a d o p t e d t h e e d u c a t i o n a l v. Gore. Norms have given the qualification as the only means Supreme Court its unquestioned left to us, and the negro is as legitimacy. The Roberts majority contented and as prosperous and is barreling ahead without regard as well protected in South for the norms, and it is taking the Carolina to-day as in any State of court's legitimacy with it. I agree the Union south of the Potomac. with a lot of this -- and yet I He is not meddling with politics, wonder how it squares with for he found that the more he history. I feel like a broken meddled with them the worse off record, but on the front of anti- he got. As to his "rights" -- I will black prejudice, for roughly 100 not discuss them now. We of the y e a r s t h e s e n o r m s w e r e South have never recognized the effectively abandoned. More to right of the negro to govern white the point, that 100 years begins men, and we never will. We have with an apocalyptic war which never believed him to be equal to began because as an outright the white man, and we will not rejection of those norms. The submit to his gratifying his lust on epoch following is basically our wives and daughters without instance after instance of the lynching him. I would to God the country violating its democratic last one of them was in Africa and norms. that none of them had ever been Jim characterizes the current state brought to our shores. But I will of our politics as "a kind of long- not pursue the subject further.

That is South Carolina Senator "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman. His address was not delivered in the backwoods of his home state, before a rally of Klansmen, but on the floor of the United States Senate (!) in 1900. The Tillman tradition of openly attacking democracy, and flouting the Constitution continued right up into the 1960s. And some would argue, that around the country, it continues to this very day. All of this is to say, I wonder at the strength and nature of our democratic norms. Was there ever a t i m e w h e r e our representatives seriously placed loyalty to democracy over partisan interests? And granting that there was, what was that compromise, that sacrifice, premised on? What undergirded our democratic virtue? Was it the promise that, in a country explicitly understood as constructed for the white man, the majority could never sink as low as the cursed minority? If we grant that the past few decades have been a particularly trying time for our democracy, is it mere coincidence that this happens just as African-American power begins to morph into reality? We know that Morgan effectively argued that American slavery was the midwife of American freedom? We know that our great senators John C. Calhoun... With us the two great divisions of

society are not rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals. And Robert Byrd... I am a typical American, a southerner and 27 years of age.... I am loyal to my country and know but reverence to her flag, BUT I shall never submit to fight beneath that banner with a negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory tramped in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throw back to the blackest specimen from the wilds. Both found, at varying points in their lives, white supremacy to be central to the idea of America. And we know that Florida 200, has special meaning for AfricanAmericans. And we know that the present issue can not be disentangled from race: The findings presented show that racial attitudes were both an important determinant of white Americans' health care opinions in the fall of 2009 and that their influence increased significantly after President Obama became the face of the policy. Moreover, results from a nationally representative survey experiment show that racial attitudes had a significantly greater impact on health care opinions when framed as part President Obama's plan

than they had when the exact same policies were attributed to President Clinton's 1993 health care initiative. Obama also appears to be driving the policy preferences of blacks and whites farther apart. With over 80 percent of African-Americans consistently supporting Obama's health care reform plan, the 20092010 racial divide in health care opinions was roughly 20 percentage points larger than it was for President Clinton's health care plan back in 1993-1994. I don't know how it all connects. Maybe it doesn't. But I keep seeing this recurrence--most spectacularly in the Civil War-wherein great fights over our democracy, are so often close to fights over whiteness and blackness. Hopefully Jim will forgive my digression. Just thinking out loud, here. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/06/somethoughts-on-democratic-norms/ 258911/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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Scalia blasts Obama in Arizona dissent statement Ed Morrissey (Hot Air » Top Picks)

more than a few figurative raised eyebrows on Twitter. The deportation policy change has Submitted at 6/25/2012 2:21:07 PM nothing to do directly with the posted at 3:21 pm on June 25, issue in Arizona, although one 2012 by Ed Morrissey could argue that there is an Can you say future recusal, boys i n d i r e c t r e l a t i o n . The and girls? I knew you could: administration argued that federal Supreme Court Justice Antonin resources are finite, and that the S c a l i a o n M o n d a y r i p p e d federal government has the P r e s i d e n t O b a m a ’ s n e w authority to dictate how they get deportation directive when he used and not the states. That’s at offered his minority opinion on least consistent with the argument the Arizona immigration ruling. Obama used ten days ago in the The court tossed out most of i m m i g r a t i o n p o l i c y c h a n g e A r i z o n a ’ s c o n t r o v e r s i a l statement, saying that the White immigration law, but in his House would prefer to use scarce dissent Scalia raised eyebrows by p r o s e c u t o r i a l r e s o u r c e s o n b l a s t i n g t h e O b a m a deporting people engaging in administration’s directive to stop significant criminal activity. deporting some young illegal More to the point, though, is the immigrants though that policy danger of having a Supreme Court was not a matter before the court justice take a public stance on a in the Arizona case. public-policy issue that has at The conservative justice accused least a decent chance of becoming Obama of selectively enforcing part of a court fight. Rep. Steve only those immigration laws that King (R-IA) and others have he deems appropriate and said already threatened to take Obama states would never have joined the to court over the imposition of the union if the framers of the DREAM act by executive fiat. Constitution had intended for the Thanks to this public outburst, executive branch to wield power Scalia has put himself in position in such a way. for a recusal, since it’s pretty clear “The delegates to the Grand that he has a built-in bias on the Convention would have rushed to specific issue. It may have felt the exits,” Scalia wrote. satisfying, but in the end the blast SCOTUSBlog mentioned this at will do more damage than good. the time Scalia read his dissent The same might be true of the from Arizona, and it produced Arizona result for the Obama

White House. As I argue in a piece written for CNN, the ruling was a victory for Obama and the Department of Justice, but the narrow reversal on section 2B gave Jan Brewer and other SB1070 advocates just enough room to claim victory for themselves. The win won’t do Obama much good anyway, even if he can convince people that he actually did win: Unfortunately for the administration, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court on the most controversial part of the law, the “show me your papers” provision that requires law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of people while enforcing other laws. … But that narrow win is tenuous. The court pointedly did not rule that the provision was constitutional, which means that further court cases may well strike it down at a later date. Arizona can put it into effect, but it probably won’t take too much time before a case comes up that will put the provision back under scrutiny. … First, the coming Obamacare ruling will vastly overshadow this nuanced win by Thursday morning. Second, this win serves as a reminder that the Obama administration has done a poor job of enforcing immigration law

— and along with Obama’s recent decision to stop deporting some young illegal immigrants– border states have no reason to expect a second term that will improve on the first. The ruling itself only reversed the 9th Circuit on 2B for applying pre -emption. It made no ruling on whether the clause was constitutional on its own merits: It was improper to enjoin 2(B) before the state courts had an opportunity to construe it and without some showing that 2(B)’s enforcement in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives. That basically says that the federal government doesn’t preempt state and local officials from checking immigration status — which we already know, as the federal government trains state and local law enforcement how to do just that. Once Arizona starts to put this into effect, though, the provision can still be challenged on other issues, such as due process, reasonable cause, discriminatory enforcement, and so on. The Supreme Court hardly endorsed 2B in this decision, and they certainly left the door wide open to any other challenges. Update: Let’s clear up a couple of things from the comments. No, no one can make Scalia recuse himself and I’m not calling on

him to do so, but appellate jurists are supposed to refrain from making specific public comments on matters that may come before the court. It’s inappropriate, and that’s exactly what Scalia did in this case. If Ruth Bader Ginsburg inserted support for Obama’s immigration policy change into an opinion, you can bet that conservatives would be screaming for a recusal if/when a challenge to it came before the Supreme Court, and we’d be right to do so. Second, Kagan didn’t recuse herself on ObamaCare, but she wasn’t being pressured to do so because of public statements of support; she hadn’t made any public statements of support. The assumption was that she helped the Obama administration strategize on the legal defense of ObamaCare, but no one has shown any proof that Kagan did so. E-mails surfaced that showed she was copied on those efforts occasionally while serving as Solicitor General, but nothing showed she took part. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, especially since more than one issue can arise which necessitates recusal. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it SCALIA page 81

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SCOTUS Follow-Up: The Perils of Too Many 5-4 Rulings James Fallows (Politics : The Atlantic) Submitted at 6/25/2012 1:06:36 PM

Background: First, a long post on the dangers of a federal judiciary whose rulings (and expressed rationales) are harder and harder to distinguish from simple Republican/Democratic party positions. Then, a distilled version in a shorter post. Now some updates: 1) I don't have any disagreement with Ta-Nehisi Coates's examination of whether the "norms" of political life have done as much to buffer extremism as I suggested in the original post. I was talking about right/left interaction among the parties, and I do make the case that in this arena previous norms were different, and that the difference mattered. Main example: the filibuster. Either party could have decided at any point over the years to filibuster just about every appointment and piece of legislation. That didn't actually begin to happen until five years ago. Ta-Nehisi is talking mainly about rights, power, and relations among the races. Of course he is right that "norms" did very little to promote justice there. 2) In light of the current controversy, it's worth reading

Jeffrey Rosen's interview with Chief Justice John Roberts, which the Atlantic ran five and a half years ago. The subhead gives the idea: And as Rosen put it: In Roberts's view, the most successful chief justices help their colleagues speak with one voice. Unanimous, or nearly unanimous, decisions are hard to overturn and contribute to the stability of the law and the continuity of the Court; by contrast, closely divided, 5-4 decisions make it harder for the public to respect the Court as an impartial institution that transcends partisan politics. Good point. 3) To the same effect, it is worth recalling former Justice John Paul Stevens's dissent from the infamous 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be

inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. 4) From a reader just now, on the implications of today's Arizona immigration decision for the health-care ruling later this week: Roberts joined the AZ majority today to give a 5-3 ruling (Kagan recused). Only a 4-4 ruling was needed to uphold an earlier decision to overturn the law. He joined a politically polarized decision, possibly extracting a compromise to save debate on stop-and-check for another day in return. Perhaps this was the price for being picked to write a 6-3 majority opinion on Obamacare with a similar compromise to make the bill more conservative (e.g. the Roberts Obamacare opinion might establish a

commerce-clause limit that stops somewhere between healthinsurance and broccoli mandates). That would be two consecutive decisions on politically polarized issues in which Roberts crosses sides to (1) provide a larger than needed majority and (2) moderate the result to be more conservative. I imagine that this would instantly reverse a lot of negative opinion about the Roberts court in the legal community, which would give him much more room to make really sweeping, conservative change in other areas that'll be up for debate soon -ending voting rights enforcement, requiring all union members to opt in on dues, eliminating personal campaign contribution limits, ending affirmative action, upholding the latest abortion restrictions, a broader ruling against firearms restrictions, etc. If you take the view that nationalized healthcare is inevitable and will probably go into effect while Roberts is still Chief Justice, it makes more sense

to build up support for other priorities. Or maybe I'm way too optimistic and these two rulings have nothing to do with each other or Roberts joining the AZ ruling was Kennedy's price for helping to overturn Obamacare. I recognize that all this hypothesizing is, yes, hypothetical as we wait to see what the Court does, and what reasoning it offers. Will weigh in again on this topic after that. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/06/scotusfollow-up-the-perils-of-too-many5-4-rulings/258940/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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continued from page 77

Furthermore, CMS operates using an antique IT system that makes it difficult to enact quick changes. Last year, when Congress looked like it might not pass routine legislation to forestall a big cut to physician pay rates, CMS Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum told reporters that the system could hold claims for only 10 days before the computers crashed. Congressional staffers say they would probably need to freeze the current rates for weeks or months to give CMS time to switch back to the old pay scale. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a physician and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicare, opposes the law. But, he says, "there's going to be a lot of chaos." Although "there are discussions going on all the time," Coburn says, few decisions have been made. On the House side, a Republican aide says that staffers are making preparations, but members are not concerned about a real emergency if the law is

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struck down. "I don't think, overnight, there's going to be this immediate panic," the aide said. The health-care law also reauthorized several long-standing federal programs, including the Indian Health Service, the principal care provider for nearly 2 million American Indians and Alaska natives. And it dedicates billions of dollars to expand community health centers and the health care workforce. If it disappears, the legal authority for those programs or their funding would disappear with it. If Congress doesn't want these programs to shut their doors and shed workers, it will need to reauthorize them quickly. Many of these programs have enjoyed broad bipartisan support for decades, and it's unlikely that even Republicans clamoring for repeal of the health care law would want to see them eradicated. A complete erasure of the health care law could also spell trouble for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The law's

Public Health and Prevention Fund, despite recent reductions, is set to dole out about $10 billion for community health ventures over 10 years. But because of recent appropriations cuts, the agency is using $825 million of that sum to pay for bioterrorism response-planning, lead-poisoning prevention, immunization programs, and many other core functions this year. Without new appropriations, these publichealth programs will face instant, dramatic cuts. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, says he has not talked to his Democratic colleagues about contingency plans, and he is not optimistic that much would pass in this Congress. "The last time we did this, it took 30 years," he says. Since the Court is not especially likely to overturn the entire law, few lawmakers -- including party leaders -- have planned for it. "You asked whether there have been discussions," said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.,

who is a member of the Finance Committee. "The answer is yes. But there have been no conclusions reached yet." In this Congress, though, even if both chambers ready blueprints in time, it's hardly clear that anything could become law. This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2012/06/memo-to -congress-youre-in-the-hot-seat-if -obamacare-is-overturned/258944 / This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

REP.

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(there are, after all, 435 House races this year, as well 33 Senate races and a Presidential election), I hope the voters in his district go for younger, less problematic and, yes, more conservative blood for 2013. [ Originally posted at Race42012.com.]

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com. To see the comments on the original post, look here. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-

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sounds at E3 and heading over to the gadget tables to show off the Samsung Galaxy S III on AT&T, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display and the taking the new Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 for a spin around the studio. Next up, Tim heads to Alaska to work with a team of researchers ENGADGET page 82

on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

The Engadget Show 34: LeVar Burton, weather balloons over Alaska, Northeastern University and ITP Brian Heater (Engadget) Submitted at 6/25/2012 4:00:00 PM

This month's show is all about learning -- but don't worry, it's a lot more fun than it sounds. We'll be putting the "tainment" back in edutainment. But first, we're kicking things off with a quick detour to Los Angeles to check out all of the explosive sights and ENGADGET page 81

Technology/

Curated News Edition

ENGADGET

TOSHIBA

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studying the northern lights with high-tech balloons and helmet cameras. We've also got class visits to Northeastern University, where students are creating technology for the betterment of mankind and NYU's ITP school, where art and technology meet. ITP's Danne Woo and Matt Richardson will be showing of some of the school's projects, including the kinetically-powered Circuit Board, the Descriptive Camera and the condimentextruding Burritob0t. Then we'll close things out with an interview from none other than LeVar Burton, who tells us about the rebirth of Reading Rainbow and how Project Glass and the iPad are making the real world a little bit more like Star Trek. Check out the full episode after the break! Gallery: The Engadget Show 34:

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LeVar Burton, weather balloons over Alaska, Northeastern University and ITP Gallery: LeVar Burton Hosts: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater Guests: LeVar Burton, Matt Richardson, Danne Woo Producer: Rob Samala Director: Michelle Stahl Executive Producers: Brian Heater, Joshua Fruhlinger and Michael Rubens Download the Show: The Engadget Show - 034(HD) / The Engadget Show - 034(iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted) / The Engadget Show - 034(Small) Subscribe to the Show: [ iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (MP4). [ Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (MP4). [ RSS MP4] Add the Engadget Show feed (MP4) to your RSS

aggregator and have it delivered automatically. [ HD RSS] Get the Engadget Show delivered automatically in HD. [ iPad RSS] Get the Engadget Show in iPad-friendly adaptive format. Continue reading The Engadget Show 34: LeVar Burton, weather balloons over Alaska, Northeastern University and ITP The Engadget Show 34: LeVar Burton, weather balloons over Alaska, Northeastern University and ITP originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

compelling tablets. But how does a 13-inch tablet that starts at $650 round out that trio? Read on for our full impressions. Gallery: Toshiba Excite 13 review photos Continue reading Toshiba Excite 13 review: a big-screened tablet with a price to match Toshiba Excite 13 review: a big-

screened tablet with a price to match originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Toshiba Excite 13 review: a big-screened tablet with a price to match Sarah Silbert (Engadget) Submitted at 6/25/2012 3:00:00 PM

Well, this lede pretty much wrote itself. A 13-inch tablet, seriously? Toshiba is pushing the form factor limits with the Excite 13, and while its dimensions make it stand out in a sea of 7- and 10-inch devices, that isn't necessarily what tablet buyers are looking for. More Info

• Toshiba announces Excite 10, 7.7 and 13 tablets, Thrive slates on their way out • Toshiba Excite 7.7 review • Toshiba Excite 10 review There's no shortage of skepticism about such a large slate -- "slab" seems appropriate here -- so the Toshiba Excite 13 needs to provide an exceptional experience, with a brilliant

display and smooth graphics, to

make 2.2 pounds seem more

palatable. On paper, its specs are promising: there's a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU under the hood, a 1600 x 900 display at 138 ppi and a clean build of Android 4.0. The company already has the Excite 7.7 and Excite 10 in its arsenal, and their good performance and bright displays make for compelling tablets. But how does TOSHIBA page 82