TECNOLOGY NEWS

Without Reviews, Inmates Can Get Lost In U.S

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:10:00 +0000

Annually 10 mil individuals funnel with and also beyond your place's jails and also prisons. Along with on a yearly basis many of them obtain misplaced. Not long ago we have seen a couple high-profile conditions of this kind of inmates — person who received away several years too soon, then one exactly who stayed at several years to help very long. The two had unfortunate effects.

Inside Present cards, Evan Ebel wandered beyond any Colorado jail some several years too soon. 8 weeks later on he / she purportedly phoned the doorbell of He Clements, the top on the Colorado Team of Modifications, he / she picture your ex within the chest muscles and also mortally wounded your ex. Ebel had been picture and also wipe out through police a couple days and nights later on.

Colorado officials declare Ebel's early launch had been any paperwork mistake.

Then there exists the case of Stephen Slevin, a person who had previously been stopped for driving under the influence with Brand-new South america. Imprisonment directors left your ex with one confinement for nearly two years and also seem to have got overlooked in relation to your ex. They had been certainly not introduced before any judge and never found a legal professional. On 1 position he / she taken away her own tooth. The particular nation presently there just decided to pay out your ex $15 mil.

"I'd always be extremely shocked if you have any nation prison any place in The us which hasn't already unveiled any pre-trial prisoner early or even placed 1 lengthier, " affirms Art Wallenstein, exactly who mind the Montgomery State Team of Static correction and also Treatment with Maryland. He is been running jails for a lot more than 40 several years.

Wallenstein affirms it appears as though an easy undertaking. Launch inmates on the launch dates. But take into account just his or her figures. He is received only two, 000 inmates during a period, and also 10, 000 inmates usually are being released in and also beyond his or her process on a yearly basis. Obtaining the dates suitable might be complicated.

"You may have simply a inappropriate range placed on any launch report, " Wallenstein affirms. "You may have a Times utilized via a circumstance by mistake. You might have any detainer which just got with since a person was being unveiled. I have been previously repeating this to get a awfully number of years and yes it hasn't already received just about any less difficult. "

Wallenstein's received any crew of circumstance supervisors to examine the rank of each individual with his or her prison. And not many establishments are able which.

You will discover few country wide data about how exactly numerous inmates be a long time or even emerge early. Several would possibly not recognize whenever they're likely to emerge, and also few exactly who emerge early may likely talk upwards.

But advocates declare the thing is as common with prisons mainly because it is at jails.

"For essentially the most aspect, phrase calculations are increasingly being done by hand, " affirms Michela Bowman, senior citizen system associate in the National Council with Criminal offenses and also Delinquency.

Bowman affirms the criminal rights process depends on the courtroom sales person to help history family court judges instructions effectively, jail and also prison directors to help adequately understand people guidance, center staff to help accurately add and also subtract beneficial time period 'tokens'.

Put with complex sentencing rules and also Bowman affirms it's easy for problems to slide through, specifically together with inmates exactly who might not be promoting for themselves.

"Without question, there're folks who will not be showed by way of non-public attorney, these are the indegent usually and they are people that never specifically have got someone on the lateral side who's promoting for them, " the lady affirms.

Bowman and also other experts declare the inmates the majority of vulnerable to over-stays are the emotionally i'll. A authorities review found that is most of the inmates presently incarcerated.

"They don't get the system, they do not know very well what to help request, their loved ones don't know exactly who to help phone, " affirms Melissa Neal, any senior citizen exploration associate in the Rights Plan Start.

"We have got circumstance staff, psychological health authorities exactly who will not have the perfect time to do these evaluations, " the lady contributes.

Neal affirms the emotionally i'll usually expend extended periods with prison without having costs due to the fact express hostipal wards will often be entire.

"There had been a person, after i labored with Tennessee, who was simply with prison for 2 several years and also hadn't had any the courtroom hearing but, because that they had not really had bedroom in the express hospital to treat the face, " Neal affirms.

"Is which lawful, " I ask.

"Technically not any, but the judge had been making which obtain, " Neal replies.

Neal and also other experts declare in the event a person will be secured upwards a long time, the price exists through taxpayers. When a person will be secured upwards too little, since when it comes to corrections key He Clements, the general public is left collecting the items.

Wikipedia Editor Threatened With Lawsuit For Participating In Discussion Leading To Deletion Of Entry

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:52:00 +0000

After weathering earlier attacks on its reliability, Wikipedia is now an essential feature of our online and cultural landscapes. Indeed, it's hard now to imagine a world where you can't quickly check up some fact or other by going online to Wikipedia and typing in a few keywords. But that centrality brings with it its own problems, as a post from Benjamin Mako Hill about legal threats he received thanks to his work as a Wikipedia editor makes clear.

You can read the long and involved tale on his site, but the facts are basically these. A Berlin-based organization called the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) is unhappy because an entry about it had been deleted from Wikipedia. Hill explains why that happened:

Although the Wikipedia article was long and detailed, it sent off some internal Wikipedian-alarm-bells for me. The page read, to me, like an advertisement or something written by the organization being described; it simply did not read -- to me -- like an encyclopedia article written by a neutral third-party.
I looked through the history of the article and found that the article had been created by a user called Icd_berlin who had made no other substantive edits to the encyclopedia. Upon further examination, I found that almost all other significant content contributions were from a series of anonymous editors with IP addresses associated with Berlin. I also found that a couple edits had removed criticism when it had been added to the article. The criticism was removed by an anonymous editor from Berlin.

After discussions among some of Wikipedia's editors, the article was first proposed for deletion, and then duly deleted -- but not before Hill's own Wikipedia page had been edited to accuse him of slander and defamation. Things went quiet for a while, and then another Wikipedia page about ICD appeared:

Several months later a new article was created -- again, by an anonymous user with no other edit history. Although people tend to look closely at previously deleted new pages, this page was created under a different name: "The Institute of Cultural Diplomacy" and was not noticed.

That was problematic, for the following reason:

Deleted Wikipedia articles are only supposed to be recreated after they go through a process called deletion review. Because the article was recreated out of this process, I nominated it for what is called speedy deletion under a policy specifically dealing with recreated articles. It was deleted again. Once again, things were quiet.

But not for long. On 25 February of this year, yet another article about ICD appeared on Wikipedia, once more "out of process", and by a user with almost no previous edit history. The next day, Hill received the following email from Mark Donfried, who is described on ICD's Web site as "Executive Director and Founder of the institute for Cultural Diplomacy":

Please note that the ICD is completely in favor of fostering open dialogue and discussions, even critical ones, however some of your activities are raising serious questions about the motives behind your actions and some even seem to be motives of sabotage, since they resulted in ICD not having any Wikipedia page at all.
We are deeply concerned regarding these actions of yours, which are causing us considerable damages. As the person who initiated these actions with Wikipedia and member of the board of Wikipedia, we would therefore request your answer regarding our questions below within the next 10 days (by March 6th). If we do not receive your response we will unfortunately have to consider taking further legal actions with these regards against you and other anonymous editors.

These events indicate how important it is becoming to have a Wikipedia entry -- preferably a favorable one. Indeed, it's getting to the point where some people think that they actually have a right to one. Although that's a wonderful sign of Wikipedia's power and importance, it also means that it will find itself increasingly under pressure from those who are unhappy at not having an entry, or because of the things the entry says. Maintaining objectivity and a neutral point of view was always hard, but is bound to get harder in the future.

Moreover, it seems likely that Hill finds himself on the receiving end of legal threats because he uses his own name on Wikipedia, rather than operating anonymously as many others do. ICD's current actions almost certainly mean that fewer people will be willing to take that risk, and will instead opt to carry out their work under the cloak of anonymity, or may not want to get involved at all. That last point -- the potential chilling effect -- is the most worrying, as Hill explains:

If I can be scared off by threats like these, anybody can. After all, I have friends at the Wikimedia Foundation, a position at Harvard Law School, and am close friends with many of the world's greatest lawyer-experts on both wikis and cyberlaw. And even I am intimidated into not improving the encyclopedia.
I am concerned by what I believe is the more common case -- where those with skin in the game will fight harder and longer than a random Wikipedian. The fact that it's usually not me on the end of the threat gives me lots of reasons to worry about Wikipedia at a time when its importance and readership continues to grow as its editor-base remains stagnant.

We may come to look back on today's Wikipedia as the project's golden age, before those "with skin in the game" started their assault in earnest, and before Wikipedia editors increasingly gave up trying to ward them off for fear of legal reprisals.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Damaging The Internet Is Not Acceptable Collateral Damage In The Copyright Wars

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:48:00 +0000

Cory Doctorow has a fantastic opinion piece over in the Guardian in which he talks about how unfortunate it is that people seem to think that it's okay to damage the internet in any and all attempts to stop copyright infringement. The whole thing is absolutely worth reading, so here are a few snippets should whet your appetite.

The internet is important, but the copyright wars treat it as a triviality: like cable TV 2.0; like the second coming of the telephone; like the world's greatest pornography distribution system. Laws such as the Digital Economy Act provide for disconnecting whole families from the internet without due process because someone in the vicinity is accused of watching TV the wrong way. That would be bad enough, if the internet were merely a conduit for delivering entertainment products. But the internet is a lifeline for families, and giving some offshore entertainment companies the right to take it away because they suspect you of doing them wrong is like giving Brita the power to turn off your family's water if they think you've been abusing your filter; like giving KitchenAid the power to take away your home's mains power if they think you've been using your mixer in an unapproved way.

And, of course, like me, Cory makes his money by producing content. But we realize that the internet is much more important to us than stopping any kind of infringement of our content.

Look, I'm in the industry. It's my bread and butter. If you buy my lovely, CC-licensed books, I make money, and that will make me happy. As a matter of fact, my latest UK edition is Pirate Cinema, a young adult science fiction novel about this very subject that won high accolades when it came out in the US last autumn. But I'm not just a writer: I'm also a citizen, and a father and a son. I want to live in a free society more than I want to go on earning my improbable living in the arts. And if the cost of "saving" my industry is the freedom and openness of the internet, then hell, I guess I'll have to resign from the 0.0000000000000000001 percent club.
Thankfully, I don't think it has to be. The point is that when we allow the problem to be framed as "How to we get artists paid?" we end up with solutions to my problems, the problems of the 0.0000000000000000001 percent, and we leave behind the problems of the whole wide world.

The key point he's making there: the vast, vast, vast majority of folks who try to make a living making content will fail. The problem, today, is that many are blaming those failures -- which would have happened in almost any other era as well -- as if it's a problem from the internet. We have this blind spot for all of those failures. When people talk about how much musicians make or how many musicians are employed today, they leave out the parts about all the people who tried under the old system and were unable to make it. When you add those back in, the picture looks very, very different. And all of the amazing things that the internet is enabling is actually making it easier for many to create, to promote, to distribute and to monetize their content than ever before. By a long shot. But much of the "copyright wars" are not really about all that. It's about protecting the old gatekeepers who kept most comers out of the system altogether.

And, for various reasons, politicians often fall for their story.

Anti-piracy campaigns emphasise the risk to society if people get the idea that it's OK to take without asking ("You wouldn't steal a car...") but the risk I worry about is that governments will get the idea that regulatory collateral damage to the internet is an acceptable price for achieving "important" policy goals. How else to explain the government's careless inclusion of small-scale bloggers and friends with their own Facebook groups in the scope of the Leveson press regulation? How else to explain Teresa May's determination, in the draft communications bill, to spy on everything we do on the internet?
These policy disasters spring from a common error: the assumption that incidental damage to the internet is an acceptable price in the service of your own goals. The only way that makes sense is if you radically discount the value of the internet – hence all the establishment sympathy for contrarian writers who want to tell us all that the internet makes us stupid, or played no role in the Arab spring, or cheapens discourse. Any time you hear someone rubbishing the internet, have a good look around for the some way that person would benefit if the internet was selectively broken in their favour.

There's much, more where that came from. Highly recommended.

Belgium: We Want To Be The Champagne Of Chocolate

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:47:00 +0000

There have been attempts in the past to apply intellectual property protection to specific foods and drinks. Champagne sparkling wine is one of the more well-known examples of this and its application has resulted in problems in the past. Not terribly long ago, Lebanon took permission culture to the extreme and claimed they owned food copyrights (which don't exist) on ethnic foods like falafel and hummus, going so far as to plan to sue Israel for selling those same kinds of foods. This seeking to lock up widely known terms is quite depressing, since it's so often only about profiting by way of removing competitors. So depressing, in fact, that it makes me want to have a piece of chocolate to help me feel better.

But if it's Belgian style chocolate I'm looking for, my options may become limited if Belgian chocolate makers get their way. Their industry federation is seeking to have the EU protect the word Belgian, their flag, and their packaging from horrible, awful, foreign competitors, using a lesser-known form of IP, geographical indication.

They want the term "Belgian chocolate" to be their exclusive preserve and also want to crack down on foreign rivals dressing up their products as "Belgian style" or of a "Belgian recipe".

Geographical indication is something of a European thing, mostly, and one which the United States has actually pushed back on. One of the conditions a term must meet in order to be granted a GI is that it cannot be in common use already. Given that this entire story is all coming about as a result of foreign companies producing Belgian chocolate to meet high demand throughout the world seems to negate the entire endeavor on its face. Even more hilarious are the comments coming from these Belgian chocolate producers, who claim this is some matter of principal rather than profit.

"What makes us sad is that very often the copies are not up to the standard of the originals," Jos Linkens, chief executive of Neuhaus, told Reuters in an interview. "If top chocolatiers around the world copied us, perhaps we would be happy. We don't want the image of quality to suffer."

Uh huh. First off, that simply isn't a believable statement, given how much of the Belgian chocolate business growth has occurred in markets like Asia, where suddenly there are more competitors popping up to meet rising demand. This seems like a clear attempt to limit that competition. Secondly, if the quality of the so-called imposters aren't up to snuff, then your chocolate should win out anyway. Thirdly, if this idea that one had to protect certain styles or kinds of food on the basis of their reputation, the entire nation of Italy should have fire-bombed every Pizza Hut in existence long ago. They haven't, because the truth is that if you want good pizza, you go to the people who know what they're doing.

And if you want Belgian chocolate, you go to whoever makes it the best.

Aereo Wins Again: Appeals Court Says Its System Is Not Infringing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:43:00 +0000

As you may recall, Aereo has been in an ongoing legal dispute with the TV networks, who seem to be arguing that anything that disrupts their coveted business model simply must be illegal. While they've won against others, Aereo actually won the first round at the district court level, blocking an attempted injunction. The networks quickly appealed. On appeal, it seemed clear that the judges realized just how insane the situation is. If you don't recall, Aereo sets up a separate individual antenna for each customer, and then streams TV broadcasts to that customer over the internet. This setup makes no technological sense whatsoever. It's inefficient and stupid. But because of the wacky way copyright is interpreted, it's believed to be necessary to avoid being guilty of infringement for doing the same damn thing much more efficiently.

Today, on appeal, the appeals court affirmed the district court ruling, once again blowing a big hole in the networks' arguments. The full ruling (linked above and embedded below) is well worth a read, as it's nice to see the court really try to do its best to truly understand the technology at play, rather than resorting to simplistic and inaccurate analogies, as copyright maximalists often desire. The key to the networks' argument here is that those individual antennas that Aereo sets up are a myth. They claim that it's really one giant antenna. The court disagrees. This issue plays into the big question of whether or not Aereo's service is functionally the same as the (legal) Cablevision remote DVR system, or if it goes too far and is a tool for infringement. The distinguishing factor in that Cablevision case was that Cablevision made a unique copy for every user who requested it (again, stupid and inefficient from a technological standpoint, but this is the life we lead under bad copyright laws). Bizarrely, even Cablevision argued against Aereo here, trying to distinguish its own case (perhaps to handicap a potential competitor).

The court, thankfully, doesn't buy Cablevision's own wacky interpretation, but rather relies on what the court in is case actually said, mainly, that having a unique copy means that it's not doing a "public performance" of the work.

As discussed above, Cablevision’s holding that Cablevision’s transmissions of programs recorded with its RS-DVR system were not public performances rested on two essential facts. First, the RS-DVR system created unique copies of every program a Cablevision customer wished to record. Second, the RS-DVR’s transmission of the recorded program to a particular customer was generated from that unique copy; no other customer could view a transmission created by that copy. Given these two features, the potential audience of every RS-DVR transmission was only a single Cablevision subscriber, namely the subscriber who created the copy. And because the potential audience of the transmission was only one Cablevision subscriber, the transmission was not made “to the public.”
The same two features are present in Aereo’s system. When an Aereo customer elects to watch or record a program using either the “Watch” or “Record” features, Aereo’s system creates a unique copy of that program on a portion of a hard drive assigned only to that Aereo user. And when an Aereo user chooses to watch the recorded program, whether (nearly) live or days after the program has aired, the transmission sent by Aereo and received by that user is generated from that unique copy. No other Aereo user can ever receive a transmission from that copy. Thus, just as in Cablevision, the potential audience of each Aereo transmission is the single user who requested that a program be recorded.

The court rejects the networks' argument that Cablevision was different because Cablevision had a license for its initial transmission, noting that the case has nothing to do with transmission, but is solely based on the question of whether or not this is a public performance under the Copyright Act. As it notes, if there is no public performance, the license question is moot, as Aereo only needs such a license for the public performance.

The court also responds nicely to the bizarre argument of the networks that because Aereo specifically designed its system to be legal within the confines of the Cablevision ruling, that proves it's infringing. As we noted at the time, this argument doesn't help the networks at all. After all, the courts found Cablevision legal, so it makes sense that Aereo would design with that in mind for the purpose of staying on the right side of the law. The networks' basic argument is, directly, that if you try hard to stay within the law, you must be breaking the law. That's crazy, and the court, rightly, rejects it:

Plaintiffs also make much of the undisputed fact that Aereo’s system was designed around the Cablevision holding, because it creates essentially identical copies of the same program for every user who wishes to watch it in order to avoid copyright liability, instead of using a perhaps more efficient design employing shared copies. However, that Aereo was able to design a system based on Cablevision’s holding to provide its users with nearly live television over the internet is an argument that Cablevision was wrongly decided; it does not provide a basis for distinguishing Cablevision. Moreover, Aereo is not the first to design systems to avoid copyright liability. The same is likely true of Cablevision, which created separate user associated copies of each recorded program for its RS-DVR system instead of using more efficient shared copies because transmissions generated from the latter would likely be found to infringe copyright holders’ public performance right under the rationale of Redd Horne.... Nor is Aereo alone in designing its system around Cablevision, as many cloud computing services, such as internet music lockers, discussed further below, appear to have done the same...

In other words, no, designing your system in accordance with the law doesn't mean you're trying to violate the law. As the court later notes, it appears that the networks really want to overrule Cablevision, which is made clear by their claims that Aereo designing within the confines of Cablevision must be infringing. The court notes that even if that's what the networks want, barring a Supreme Court decision in the alternative, they can't change their earlier ruling.

Though presented as efforts to distinguish Cablevision, many of Plaintiffs’ arguments really urge us to overrule Cablevision. One panel of this Court, however, “cannot overrule a prior decision of another panel.” ... We are “bound by the decisions of prior panels until such time as they are overruled either by an en banc panel of our Court or by the Supreme Court.” ... There is an exception when an intervening Supreme Court decision “casts doubt on our controlling precedent,” ... but we are unaware of any such decisions that implicate Cablevision.

There is a dissent from Judge Denny Chin, who argues that because Aereo had to go through the technologically inefficient process it does, that shows why it's infringing.

Aereo's "technology platform" is, however, a sham. The system employs thousands of individual dime-sized antennas, but there is no technologically sound reason to use a multitude of tiny individual antennas rather than one central antenna; indeed, the system is a Rube Goldberg-like contrivance, over-engineered in an attempt to avoid the reach of the Copyright Act and to take advantage of a perceived loophole in the law.

That argument is really troubling, and it's good that the majority overruled it. If that were true, any inefficient or convoluted process required by the law to remain consistent with copyright law would be seen as evidence of infringement. And that's just wacky. You'd effectively create veto power for any new innovation that way.

Anyway, the case is far from over, but so far Aereo is 2 for 2 and the networks have come up empty. Let's hope that trend continues.

Boston Police Are Catfishing Locals To Bust Punk Rock Shows

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:39:00 +0000

The last time I bothered to read about anything involving the internet term "catfishing", it was to discuss how Deadspin broke the story of Manti T'eo and his fake, but still quite beloved, dead... Filed Under:
boston, boston police, catfish, fake profiles, home concerts, police, social media

Permalink.
The last time I bothered to read about anything involving the internet term "catfishing", it was to discuss how Deadspin broke the story of Manti T'eo and his fake, but still quite beloved, dead girlfriend. I'll admit I was unfamiliar with the term before that, but I have since discovered that catfishing, the process by which you fool someone online into thinking you are a persona you've concocted, is more common than I had thought. It has even warranted an entire show on MTV, because that network apparently forgot what the M in their name stands for. And, though I am aware that law enforcement officers will occasionally go undercover to infiltrate criminal networks, I hadn't really ever considered that there might indeed be catfishing police out there in the world.
Further on that point, if I had managed to consider that possibility, I wouldn't have imagined the police would catfish to bust up punk rock shows at the residences of citizens. Yet this is exactly what the police in Boston are attempting. Though they're not doing a very good job of it.

A recently passed nuisance control ordinance has spurred a citywide crackdown on house shows—concerts played in private homes, rather than in clubs. The police, it appears, are taking a particularly modern approach to address the issue: They're posing as music fans online to ferret out intel on where these DIY shows are going to take place. While police departments have been using social media to investigate for years, its use in such seemingly trivial crimes would be rather chilling, if these efforts didn't seem so laughably inept. It's a law enforcement technique seemingly cribbed from MTV's Catfish—but instead of creating a fake persona to ensnare the marks in a romantic internet scam, it's music fandom that's being feigned.

It truly is a brave new world, friends, when adult police can ape young punk rockers online. Or it would be, rather, if the police were generally any good at it. Sadly, or perhaps hilariously, those doing the catfishing appear to think the punk rock scene represents little beyond well-traveled young people stereotypes and lingo from the late-nineties.

"Boston Punk Zombie," reads the crudely-scrawled avatar of a green-mohawked punk with the address bostonbeatgang@gmail.com. That name is apparently a generic-brand knockoff of an infamous Boston hardcore gang. Cred achieved. "What's the point" reads the tagline under the profile pic. "Too bad you were not here this weekend," "Joe Sly" wrote. "Patty's day is a mad house I am still pissing green beer. The cops do break balls something wicked here. What's the address for Saturday Night, love DIY concerts."

One's mind revolts at the idea of hardcore, mohawked young man in skinny black jeans and leather, his piercings widening his lobes, drinking green St. Patrick's Day beer. And that isn't even the worst of the bunch.

"Hey there, local P native here," wrote one probable imposter to a local band, (who probably meant to type JP, slang for Jamaica Plain). "What is the Address for the local music show tonight?"

As Slate notes: music show!?! But even beyond the tortured word-choice, you can just tell it's wrong reading it, can't you? As with any carpet-bombing/trolling approach, the police have busted up some shows, and none of this is to say that these do-it-yourself concerts aren't an irritating form of noise-pollution for the local neighbors, but is this really where police should be spending their time and resources? Creating fraudulent social media accounts (don't us regular folk get in trouble for such skilled h4x0r-ing?), filling up the pictures with a couple of stock images of Slayer, and then doing their best cool, young kid impression? I haven't yet been able to visit Boston, but I would hope that a city that size would at least have enough pride in itself to warrant a more substantial level of crime than some kids listening to music.

Congress Planning To Debate CISPA Behind Closed Doors; No Public Scrutiny Allowed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:39:00 +0000

We've been hearing for a while that when the planned markup occurs next week for CISPA, that the House Intelligence Committee is intending to hold a closed markup, basically hiding the discussion and the possible amendments from the public. There is no good reason for this. The Intelligence Committee will claim, of course, that it needs to do this so that confidential information can be discussed in debating the markup, but that's hogwash. There are numerous concerns with the bill that can and should be addressed publicly. If there are key concerns about classified info getting out, that's easy enough to avoid, since so much that CISPA touches on has nothing to do with classified info -- and whatever comes up can be dealt with appropriately.

The truth is that this is yet another way to try to hide from the public on this issue. Congress doesn't want an open discussion on the many problems with CISPA, so it does what it does best: try to hide things away and rush them through when (hopefully) not enough people are looking. It makes you wonder just what CISPA's supporters are so worried about. Congress is supposed to work for the public, not hide things away from the public. This isn't a situation where they're discussing classified info or plans -- but merely a bill focused on information sharing between the government and private companies. Any markup on CISPA needs to be public.

HOW TO FIND THE BEST DIGITAL CAMERA

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:37:00 +0000

It seems that every month, if not every week, different manufacturers are coming up with the latest digital cameras to entice potential clients. And it's just not working for us!

After spending sizeable amount of time at the mall figuring out which is the best digital camera for us, we finally have enough money to buy for that eye-popping, 7 mega pixel, 10x digital zoom, potable, candy colored, up to 512MB expandable memory of super hi-speed SD memory card and not to mention very portable, (that will be the envy of almost everyone we know). We march to the mall armed with our life savings and lotsa pride in ourselves, when we pass by a new display - an eight mega pixel, up to 1G expandable memory, with built it mic and stereo surround, video playback capable, with 22 scenic modes kind-of-camera. And we sigh because the producer of this amazing gadget claims that this is the best digital camera yet out in the market. And so as we always want to have the best, armed with our life savings and a few credit cards, we buy the "best digital camera." But then again, that doesn't last too long, after two months or so, there's another "best digital camera."

And so it confuses us. What makes a digital camera, the best digital camera?

Well, there are certain factors to consider when looking for the "best digital camera" for us.

MEGAPIXELS. One of the most important features of digital camera to make it into the best digital camera category is its mega pixel property. The higher the mega pixels the better the actual photograph will come out. A mega pixel is equivalent to one million pixels. The resolution of your image is based upon the mega pixel property of your camera. This means that as you enlarge the picture, you would get more detail and less blurry colors.

LCD SIZE. The best digital camera will always have a large LCD to help you frame your subject without having to squint to the viewfinder. This is also helpful when reviewing your images, some cameras enable touch up and editing features with its LCD. A 1.5-inch display is average, a 2-inch LCD display is good, but the best LCD size would be 2.5 inches or higher.

ZOOM. Most digital cameras have both digital and optical zoom. A higher optical zoom is always better than a higher digital zoom. Digital cameras are usually furnished with optical of between 3x to 10x. The better the optical zoom, the higher it climbs up to the best digital camera category.

MEMORY CARD. Always make sure that your memory card is the right one for your digital camera. There are different types of memory card like the xD, SD, Flash card and the likes. And these types of memory cards go with certain types of digital cameras. of course memory storage is also up there in choosing the best digital cameras. Choose the size of memory that you need, if you're a photo junkie, you might need more than 32MB. Memory cards can go up to 1G.

The key point to find the best digital camera is to find one that will best fit you and your lifestyle. Don't just buy the latest or the one that claims they are the best digital cameras out in the market. You wouldn't want to buy a DSLR and use it with your home activities or family outing and have to lug it around?! Or you don't want to buy the latest point and shoot camera when you're serious about being a professional photographer. (Of course, you can use this for starters, but if you're not a novice photographer anymore, you wouldn't want to get this kind of camera.)

Actually, the best digital camera is the one that you will enjoy and use. Not the type that you'll just leave rotting in its box or after a few weeks of usage or so, up there in the attic.

Deep Dive: Prenda Law Is Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:36:00 +0000

Ken White blogs at Popehat. He's a litigator and criminal defense attorney at Brown White & Newhouse LLP in Los Angeles. His views are his alone, not those of his firm.
All of my coverage of Prenda Law is collected here.
Today the Prenda Law enterprise encountered an extinction-level event. Faced with a federal judge's demand that they explain their litigation conduct, Prenda Law's attorney principals -- and one paralegal -- invoked their right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As a matter of individual prudence, that may have been the right decision. But for the nationwide Prenda Law enterprise, under whatever name or guise or glamour, it spelled doom.
Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here
The crowd gathered early outside of the courtroom of United States District Judge Otis D. Wright II. As before, the spectators included journalists, former Prenda defendants and their lawyers, law clerks and externs, interested citizens, and Electronic Frontier Foundation activists. The little crowd went awkward-party-foul silent when a team of lawyers and nervous- looking men in suits filed into the courtroom. Some of us glanced at the chart that attorney Morgan Pietz created to see if we could match faces. We soon saw that we could. Bets regarding who would show up in response to Judge Wright's Order to Show Cause were won and lost with some good-natured cursing.
A swarm of attorneys quickly checked in with the court clerk and took their places. On one side, attorneys Morgan Pietz and Nicholas Renallo looked calm. They had boxes of materials they wouldn't need, and notes they wouldn't have to consult. On the other side of the room, eight attorneys prepared to answer Judge Wright's questions, mostly for naught. In the gallery, Brett Gibbs -- unhappy witness at the last hearing before Judge Wright -- sat looking sallow and grim. Paul and Peter, the Hansmeier brothers, sat together, looking ridiculously young and out-of-place. Paul Hansmeier's face was beefy-red. John Steele looked conspicuously slick and immaculate in an impeccable suit, like a corporate executive in a bad Robocop sequel. Paul Duffy, Mark Lutz, and Angela Van Den Hemel stared straight ahead.
Not With A Whimper, But A Bang

At a few minutes past the hour the door to chambers slammed open and Judge Wright marched out and took the bench. Before he sat he strode back and forth once behind his chair, surveying the gallery and running his tongue over his teeth. Then he sat, and called the case. Attorneys announced their appearances -- Brett Gibbs, Paul Hansmeier, John Steele, Paul Duffy, Angela Van Den Hemel, and Prenda Law all had counsel, but Peter Hansmeier and Mark Lutz did not. When Paul Hansmeier's attorney announced Mr. Hansmeier was present, Judge Wright asked where he was. Paul Hansmeier stood. "Front row
," ordered Judge Wright, stabbing a finger at the first row of benches behind Hansmeier's attorney. John Steele received the same treatment, and sat next to Hansmeier. One of the attorneys pointed out that Peter Hansmeier and Mark Lutz were present but not represented. "Welcome, sir," Judge Wright said to Peter Hansmeier, not entirely convincingly. "Is there an Alan Cooper -- any Alan Cooper present?" asked Judge Wright, referring to allegations that Prenda Law had stolen the identity of a Minnesota caretaker to serve as an officer of dummy clients. No such person was present.
Judge Wright wasted no time. He announced that he was "pleasantly surprised" that the people he had summoned had arrived. "It should be clear this court's focus has shifted dramatically from litigation of intellectual property rights to attorney misconduct -- such misconduct as brings discredit to the profession," he began sternly. "I have questions for those present -- including Mr. Steele. Mr. Steele can choose to answer those questions, or not."
Steele's attorney rose and said, in light of the "concerns" that Judge Wright had raised at the March 11 hearing, and "serious allegations" made by Judge Wright, Mr. Steele would be invoking his Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer questions. I expected a murmur in the courtroom, but there was a silence like after a thunderclap. "The word fraud was used," said Steele's lawyer. "It should have been
," shot back Judge Wright. Steele's lawyer gamely continued, saying that Steele was also precluded from answering by the attorney-client privilege. "You think there is a difference between these clients and Mr. Steele?" demanded Judge Wright, referring to allegations that the Prenda Law plaintiffs were mere dummy entities concealing attorney interests in the cases. Steele's lawyer said there was a real difference, but Judge Wright was clearly unconvinced. He made it clear, though, that Steele didn't have to answer questions. "He doesn't have to answer if he thinks it may incriminate him," said Judge Wright. "I'm not saying that the answers would incriminate him," protested Steele's lawyer, thus muddying the question of whether his client was entitled to take the Fifth, "but you leave my client with no choice."
Judge Wright grew steadily and visibly more outraged. "I want to know if some of my conjecture is accurate -- and the only way to know is to have the principals here and ask them questions. This is an opportunity for them to protect themselves," he said. But Steele's lawyer confirmed his client would exercise his right to remain silent. Attorneys for Paul Hansmeier, Paul Duffy, and Angela Van Den Hemel confirmed their clients, too, would invoke their rights to remain silent. Judge Wright did not -- unless I missed it -- confirm whether Peter Hansmeier or Mark Lutz would answer questions.
An Opportunity To Be Heard
Heather Rosing, appearing for Paul Duffy, Angela Van Den Hemel, and Prenda Law, rose and asked Judge Wright for an opportunity to present "about a half hour" of argument on the points in his Order to Show Cause. Look: when you are a lawyer, representing a client, you have to stand up.
You have to hold your ground even in the face of a furious federal judge. When a judge is yelling at you, however unsettling it is, you have to hold fast and remember you are there to represent the interests of your client against the terrible power of the court. Heather Rosing stood up, and has my admiration, whatever I think of her clients.
Judge Wright was uninterested in hearing legal argument,
as opposed to testimony or evidence. "My clients have a right to a reasonable opportunity to be heard," Ms. Rosing protested. "Excuse me?" thundered Judge Wright, probably thinking -- not unreasonably -- that Ms. Rosing's clients could have filed briefs in advance to address any legal arguments they had, and that Ms. Rosing's clients have been evading questions for months. Judge Wright began to count off the questions he wanted answered. "I'm looking for facts," he said. He wanted to know who directs Prenda Law's litigation efforts, who makes its decisions, whether there is another Alan Cooper, and what happens with the money Prenda Law makes from settlements. Ms. Rosing answered (wisely, and properly) that she could not personally testify to those things. Why, Judge Wright demanded, did Prenda Law conceal its attorneys' financial interest in the cases? "There's no evidence that they have an interest," Ms. Rosing protested. "Excuse me?" Judge Wright boomed even louder. Were there windows, they would have rattled. "Have you read Paul Hansmeier's deposition?" he demanded, referring to the bizarre deposition in which Paul Hansmeier failed to explain Prenda Law's shadowy owners or flow of funds. "I have," Ms. Rosing said, but stood her ground.
Ms. Rosing suggested that she might file a brief addressing her arguments. "Do so," said Judge Wright acidly. "We're done," he said abruptly, and stormed off the bench. The whole hearing took about fifteen minutes.
Death Comes For Prenda Law
The significance of today's hearing cannot be overstated.
Yesterday I wrote about the tools Judge Wright had at his disposal to sanction or otherwise punish Prenda Law's principals. It appears to me he likely won't invoke his contempt power, but the other remedies -- his inherent sanctions power, and referrals to state bars and to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal investigation -- remain available. I expect a detailed written order.
By invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, Prenda Law principals John Steele, Paul Hansmeier, Paul Duffy, and paralegal Angela Van Den Hemel have avoided incriminating themselves. In light of the evidence adduced -- evidence that Prenda Law may have created sham entities to conceal its lawyers' interest in litigation, and may have misled courts across the country -- that was very likely the smart thing to do. I might have advised it myself if I were representing them. With respect to their individual exposure to potential criminal consequences, it stops things from getting worse, which is often an attorney's first task.
I'm a criminal defense attorney. I cherish and support the Fifth Amendment. Its invocation here was completely lawful. But its invocation will have catastrophic consequences for the Prenda Law enterprise, which cannot possibly continue. When they appeared today, John Steele, Paul Hansmeier, and Paul Duffy were not merely individuals facing the overwhelming power of the state. They were also officers of the court and, according to the testimony of Brett Gibbs, the very attorneys who directed nationwide litigation for the Prenda Law enterprise. Judge Wright ordered them to answer for the conduct of that enterprise in his court, as he had the right and power to do. Their invocation of their Fifth Amendment rights in the face of that order is utterly unprecedented in my experience as a lawyer. In effect, the responsible lawyers for a law firm conducting litigation before a court have refused to explain that litigation to the court on the grounds that doing so could expose them to criminal prosecution.
However well grounded in the individual rights of Steele, Hansmeier, and Duffy, the invocation eviscerates their credibility as lawyers and the credibility of Prenda Law as an enterprise in every court across the country. I expect that defense attorneys will file notice of if in every state and federal case Prenda Law has brought, through whatever guise or cutout. The message will be stark: the attorneys directing this litigation just took the Fifth rather than answer another judge's questions about their conduct in this litigation campaign.
I expect federal and state judges across the country will take notice and begin their own inquiries. Moreover, Prenda's lawyers may face adverse consequences from the invocation in Alan Cooper's counterclaim against them. A defendant's exercise of the right to remain silent can't be used against him or her in a criminal case, but it often can in a civil case.
Some inquiries will come quite quickly. In the Northern District of California, where Prenda Law's Paul Duffy is fighting Morgan Pietz's demand for attorney fees in a case Prenda Law tried to dismiss, Paul Duffy has asked to appear by telephone, but Judge Edward Chen has rejected the request and ordered Duffy to appear in person on April 18, 2013. Duffy will once again have to decide whether to assert his Fifth Amendment rights. Moreover, he likely now has an irreconcilable conflict with his putative client. He may seek to withdraw before April 18.
The consequences for the individuals behind Prenda Law may arrive slowly -- particularly by the standards of Twitter and anxious blogs. But they will come -- and they may come from many directions at once.
Prenda Law may still be standing. But it's dead.

2k Sports Fixes The MLB2K Baseball Contest It Previously Said Wasn't Broke

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:33:00 +0000

If you're a fan of playing baseball the way its inventor intended, meaning on your couch in front of the television with a controller in your hand, you may recall our discussion last year around 2K Sports' famous Perfect Game Challenge. Should you not be familiar with it, that contest revolves around a competition between anyone who was able to pitch a perfect game in the MLB2K series (no hits, no walks, no errors in a complete game shutout by one pitcher) for various large cash prizes. Deadspin's Owen Good discovered an exploit in the system that allowed players to manually replace the starting lineups of the teams they were opposing, essentially rigging it to face the worst possible lineup for their pitching performance, and still have it be counted as a valid perfecto. He also outted at least one specific entrant into the subsequent playoff contest for the challenge that used that system. 2K Sports declined to do anything about it, saying instead:

"The contest was run properly," 2K Sports said. "We look forward to awarding someone a million dollars on May 10 in New York."

Utilizing the black magic called "reductive reasoning", I can only assume that that the company is deciding this year to actively make their annual contest improper. What else would one conclude, given that they have fixed the exploit? As Owen Good once more notes:

Today, I started a game under the Million Dollar Challenge menu option and as soon as I pressed start to go the substitution menu in the loading screen, I lost the official logo. According to the contest's official rules, you may not pause the game, substitute any player on either team, make a mound visit, or delay the game longer than 10 seconds between pitches.

I learned long ago that the greatest power you have when you make a mistake is to own it, fix it, and move on. 2K Sports appears to have skipped a step, which just makes them look proud and petty. Unfortunately for them, both the internet and baseball keep long memories.

UK Music Licensing Agency Says You Can't Use Its Music In Your Podcast Without First Purchasing A License It Doesn't Even Offer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:29:00 +0000

The nightmarishly intertwining world of music licensing is a popular topic here, especially considering the past outlandish actions of various performance rights agencies. On top of this, there's the multitude of different licenses, each one applying specifically to certain formats or outlets. If it's streaming on Youtube, it needs x license and y license. If it's streaming at Spotify, it needs x license and z license. If it's a radio station simulcast at the station's website, license x, y and z are needed, along with license aa. And so on.
Podcasters in the UK are running into licensing problems when attempting to clear music for their broadcasts, as PPL (who covers performance rights for recorded music, like SoundExchange in the US) is causing problems. PPL has a history of questionable over enforcement, and they just can't let up, apparently. Phil Satterly sends in this rather sad story of a long-running Progressive Rock podcast (DRRP Radio) that is going "off the air" thanks to PPL's thoroughly impossible demands.

Launched 18 months ago, we've produced 83 shows that have been downloaded over 30,000 times. We've covered bands from every type of prog. We've done special features on independent labels and festivals plus interviews with the likes of Clive Nolan, Steven Wilson, Gazpacho, Steve Hogarth, Riverside, Sean Filkins, Mystery and Godsticks. We have regular listeners from as far away as New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Cuba and The Shetland Isles!
Unfortunately three weeks ago our service provider stopped enabling downloads of the shows. The move followed pressure from the PPL – the organisation in the UK which provides broadcast licences for the recording copyright holder (i.e. record companies).

PPL is doing what collective rights organizations do best: shut down as many artistic outlets as possible. The organization is looking for a payout, but can't even be bothered to let people pay them, as Andy Read (one of the podcast hosts) points out.

Music licensing is a complex issue and it took quite some find to find a way to legally do DPRP Radio in the first place. We have a broadcast licence, we have a streaming licence and we have a podcast licence for the PRS – the body representing the songwriters. We do not have a podcast licence for the PPL who are now threatening legal action against podcast providers. We would happily buy a podcast licence from them… but they do not offer one!

DRRP isn't the only podcast being asked to do the impossible by PPL. The UK Folk Music podcast host quotes the PPL website's wording on the broadcast licensing it does offer.

As a broadcaster you would have to obtain permission from potentially thousands of record companies before being able to play the recorded music – a PPL licence gives you this permission and allows you to play virtually all recorded music readily available in the UK simply, quickly and legally. PPL then passes these licence fees, less our running costs, onto the performers and rights holders, similar to royalties.

Handy, I guess, except that PPL does not offer a license specifically for podcasting. Podcasters need a very limited license if using PPL's music because the podcasts are able to be downloaded and stored. This distinguishes them (and moves them into another area of copyright protection) from radio broadcasts or other streaming services whose offerings are transient. (Not that these can't be "trapped/downloaded." Anyone remember cassette tapes? Yeah, same thing. Only with software.) PPL's lack of a podcasting license punts the ball back to podcasters and other music bloggers. If they can't get a blanket license, they'll have to do it the hard way: "obtain permission from potentially thousands of record companies before being able to play the recorded music."
Obviously, this is an impossibility. And for those of you saying clever stuff like "just use original music by artists not represented by this agency?" Well, you obviously haven't been paying attention. Rights groups like PPL and PRS will still try to collect from you. In their minds, no one plays music anywhere (not even in their hardware store/ hotel room) without playing a bunch of their stuff. It's a self-serving distortion of reality.
And for those hoping the artists that split from PPL to form their own rights group (EOS) will result in a brighter, smoother future for all concerned? You can pretty much kiss that rosy picture goodbye. EOS has already attempted to shutter a few radio stations. The end result is another venue for artist exposure being shut down by the "white knights" of the artistic community. These agencies don't really care about the artists on their roster. They just want to find a way to insert themselves, hands out, between the artists and their supporters.

Common Supplies Found at the Medical Store

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:39:00 +0000

The medical store is not always an establishment that everyone in a town visits on a regular basis. It is really great that they are there when you need them though. They sell a large amount of equipment, testing supplies, and other medically related items to help people with chronic illnesses live a more comfortable life at home.

The medical store will carry devices like crutches for people who have injured their knees, or ankles. Some of these items will be for sale and some of the merchants will rent them to you for the length of time you need them. You can also buy or rent wheel chairs at these establishments.

The medical store will have blood pressure monitors; they will likely have extra cuffs for blood pressure monitors so the larger person or pediatric patient can have a proper fitting cuff. They should also have diabetic supplies like blood glucose machines, lancets, testing strips, AC1 tests, ketone tests, and other diabetic supplies. Often they will carry the diabetic shoe line and the diabetic socks. The shoes are special ordered after they have been fit to the person's foot exactly to make them more comfortable.

A medical store that has a pharmacist in it will likely be able to make compound medications. The compounding of medications is no longer done at every pharmacy, but the ones in these types of establishments generally do the compounding because more of their customers need this service.

You will be able to get oxygen and breathing supplies at one of these establishments. The portable oxygen suppliers that work off of batteries are more popular than the older style suppliers that were hooked to a large tank. Some insurance programs do not cover the portable oxygen supply machines though. You will likely be able to get nebulizers, air purifiers, vaporizers, and all other machines and devices that help people to breathe easier.

Many of these establishments carry the nursing uniforms that the home health professionals wear. They may also have stethoscopes and other tools that the home health nurses need to have in their bags. A thermometer is generally required and protective gloves along with hand sanitizers.

Most patients that are bed ridden will need a bedside potty chair that can be gotten from these establishments. There are also shower chairs to keep the patient from falling in the shower or tub, and there are special pads made to place in the beds or wheelchairs of this patience so that any accident they may have can easily be cleaned up. Adult sized diapers will be available to patients through these suppliers as well.

These suppliers are more than just a drug store. They are the place to get everything that you might need if you have a catheter in place or if you have a colostomy and need supplies. The staff is friendly and they are well trained in all of the supplies so they can help you find what you need with no trouble.

A medical store is not just a pharmacy although some of them have pharmacists that compound medicines on the premises. The medical store is where you can get all of the health related supplies you need to care for a bedridden patient. You can get more information at medical equipment.

Possible Threats to the Internal Security of India

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:01:00 +0000

It is a known fact that a country does not always have to combat enemies from the other side of the border. There are several malevolent groups that operate within the country and these are the elements that pose maximum threat to the country. India is no different and has realized that without a proper internal security measure, the safety of its citizens would be compromised.
The current situation in India is quite fragile. If people were alarmed about the rising rebel groups a decade ago, today's situation is like a ball of gunpowder waiting to explode.
Needless to say, terrorism has emerged as the main challenge for India. Terrorists do not have a definite face. They possess advanced technology and high-end arms and are capable of carrying out cyber crimes as well. Owing to the rising threat level, the Indian home ministry has banned 35 organizations in various Indian states. However, it has not stopped these people from making a move whenever they can despite the ban. They are extremely active and are being joined by other similar groups every day.

These groups work on special agendas and claim to be fighting for their rights. They try to set up liberated zones or free space that they wish to operate themselves without having any supreme power over them. They want to defy the rules of the existing society and to make their voice heard. They have continuously launched attacks within the country, killing, looting, kidnapping and torturing people. Such groups continuously create new ways of attack and educate themselves on the newest technologies that they can use for their exploits. They operate like organizations where they have small groups and each group is adept in handling various tasks. If one batch is proficient in cyber crimes, the other is expert in handling arms and ammunition. With such groups on the rise, the Indian government has beefed up security against militancy and insurgency.
The Indian government is keeping a track of the influx and the exodus of people from the country. With measures like fingerprint analysis, denture analysis and tracking of phone conversations, homeland security apparatus is doing everything to make. However, India really needs to work on being preventive rather than being reactive. The security measures need to be devised in a way so that the government can identify the threats and eradicate them before the common people are struck. Internal security measures need to be more hands-on and the common people need to be made aware of the impending threats. If the need be they should be trained to handle such situations themselves.
India is a vast country and its security measures need to be in tandem with its vastness.
India has a very fragile internal security system.

Can the Police Respond Instantly to Every Emergency? Part 7 in The Right Response?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

The only thing that stops a spree shooter is a bullet. The sooner he gets that bullet, the less innocents and vulnerable children he gets to slaughter.

How long does Emergency Response Take?

The police do a difficult job, often in very difficult circumstances. David Thweatt, Superintendent of the Harrold school district in Texas where teachers are armed, says that a police officer once told him something startling. "Ninety-five percent of the time, we get to the scene late."

Some years ago, police found a methamphetamine lab in a house close to the Harrold school. A deputy had looked inside, seen something and called for backup. Thweatt reports that they made it to the house in 15 minutes, while they had figured it would take 18 to 20 minutes in a typical situation.

The Harrold school is in the middle of a prairie, miles from the nearest police station. If that had been an armed intruder at his school, the response time would have been too slow. So the staff at the school have to be the first responders. "We don't have 5 minutes. We don't have 10 minutes. We would have had 20 minutes of hell"
if attackers had targeted the school.
Instant Response is Impossible

The police recognize reality. Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke observes that while everybody wishes the police could be teleported to your home it's not going to happen. "It will take minutes to get to your home and an attack will be over within seconds."*

Any response takes time, whether armed or not. It is literally impossible for any organization to respond instantaneously to any problem.

Don't Ignore Reality

Those who ignore the facts underlying response by armed police, as do many gun control fanatics, simply ignore reality whenever it conflicts with their opinions. How long does response actually take?
It takes time to get access to a phone. This is only possible if one of the potential victims in a shooting spree is not stopped from getting and using a phone by the murderer. In practice, finding a phone can cause a substantial delay.It takes time to make an emergency call.
it takes time for the emergency call to be answered and for the emergency service operator to find out exactly what's happening.
it takes time for the emergency service to initiate the actual response. Police may be busy with other crimes, so are not necessarily instantly available.
it takes time for responders to travel to the shooter's location - police stations are not usually located right next to the scene of the crime.
With the best will in the world, this all means that if police are there within a handful of minutes, they've done a truly outstanding job. Yet as emergency services all recognize: When seconds count - we're just minutes away.

Give the Police Less Responsibilities

Sometimes less is more. What would happen if politicians stopped overloading the police with yet more and more laws, and ceased trying to micro-manage people's lives. If there were no laws against victimless crime, for example, then the police would have more manpower to respond faster to such emergencies.

Contrary to general belief, the police have absolutely no duty to respond to an emergency call and cannot be sued if they do not. D.C.'s highest court found it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." (Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981).

No matter how much gun-control zealots wish otherwise, you have a duty to protect yourself and your family. Any gun-control legislation that seeks to restrict the rights of responsible citizens to own a gun restricts your ability to defend yourself and your loved ones.

Larry Correia, Elite Firearms Expert State Witness

Many advocates for stringent gun bans like to think they are experts. But since to become an expert you need extensive hands-on experience, such pretensions are pure arrogance.

What do real experts say? Larry Correia**, Utah Concealed Weapons instructor, military and law enforcement master trainer, competition shooter, expert witness for the Utah State Legislature, Title 7 SOT gun store owner, elite firearms expert:

"Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away
... cops can't be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range.
"The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started."

Yet politicians still pretend their desire to disarm responsible citizens is for their own protection! Maybe it is - to protect the politicians themselves!

Food for Thought

"The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth."

- Anthony Kennedy, United States Supreme Court Justice

© Copyright worldwide Cris Baker, LifeStrategies.net. Republishing welcomed under Creative Commons noncommercial no derivatives license preserving all links intact. All rights reserved.

Self Interest and Vote Bank Politics In International Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 06:57:00 +0000

Pakistan & USA (Osama Bin Laden)
Pakistan was not aware that Osama Bin-Laden was in their cantonment.
We had to believe that, with a pinch of salt.
US did not trust fully its ally, in war against terrorism,
But it tolerated, its nuisance.
It conducted a secret raid, in Pakistan,
Killed Osama Bin-Laden and dumped his body in sea,
Pakistan kept its eyes and ears closed,
But protested against US for its local public's consumption,
For violation of its sovereignty.
Pakistan & USA (Hafiz Saeed)

USA announced 5 million US$ reward for Hafiz Saeed, brain behind 26/11,
Then kept quiet, knowing fully well, he is in Pakistan,
Because Pakistan needs him for militancy in India.
US needs Pakistan in its short-term goal,
To fight Talibans in Afghanistan.
Will US marines ever raid Pakistan for Hafiz Saeed?
Not likely,
It does not serve self-interests,
26/11 is not as important to US as 9/11.
There are no absolute principles; yes there are absolute self-interests.
Principles are flexible, to suit self-interest.
US vote bank policy favoured elimination of Osama Bin Laden;
Hafiz Saeed survives, to keep Pakistan happy.
Italy, Diplomatic Immunity and Morality
An ideal utopian approach:
A civilised nation,
Must uphold morality,
and not take shelter behind man-made,
Diplomatic immunity and Geneva Conventions,
For,
Morality is God ordained,
Diplomatic Immunity is man-made.
A practical, pragmatic approach:
A smart move by a developed nation, in a developing country,
Its diplomat, swore in the local court, and assured,
" Please allow the accused to go back to native land for a month,
They will comeback."
When permitted,
The developed nation smartly refused to send them back,
quoting International Laws.
It suited their vote bank politics,
As election were round the corner.
When court restrained the diplomat, from leaving the country,
It cries foul,
Claims diplomatic immunity for the diplomat's false assurances.
After, the elections, it sends back the accused,
As vote bank politics was irrelevant now.
Our civilised society is still imperfect,
'It has miles to go' still.
Diplomat lacked morality, the foreign nation lacked morality,
Its supporters, too lacked morality.
When integrity of diplomats is doubtful,
When we can not trust diplomats' at their word,
Degeneration of Ambassadors as a separate class in society, is complete.
Reputation of morality in developed nations is at stake.
A cunning move and morality will always stay miles apart.
Do We Belong to Humanity?
No,
We belong to our own specific sub-group only.
Will the new world, belong to humanity,
or it will belong to Christians or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus;
or to China, US, India, Brazil or Germany,
or to Whites, Yellow or Coloured.
The only welcome change is:
gender equality in society,
is progressing all over the world,
Will be a reality soon,
in underdeveloped countries too.
God created Humanity,
We partitioned it into subgroups,
Let us learn to undo our past mistakes.

South Korea Says Cyberattack That Paralyzed Computers Was Traced To Chinese IP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:11:00 +0000

A man walks past the Cyber Terror Response Center at National Police Agency in Seoul, South Korea.

South Korea has traced a cyberattack that paralyzed more than 30,000 computers on Wednesday to a Chinese Internet protocol address, the Korean Communications Commission said Thursday.

Of course, as soon as the attacks happened, suspicion centered on Pyongyang. North Korea, of late, has been increasingly belligerent, threatening a nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea.

This Chinese IP is a curveball, but The New York Times
reports it's still not clear where the attack came from. It explains:

"Many analysts in Seoul suspect that North Korean hackers honed their skills in China and were operating there. At a hacking conference here last year, Michael Sutton, the head of threat research at Zscaler, a security company, said a handful of hackers from China 'were clearly very skilled, knowledgeable and were in touch with their counterparts and familiar with the scene in North Korea.'

"But there has never been any evidence to back up some analysts' speculation that they were collaborating with their Chinese counterparts. 'I've never seen any real evidence that points to any exchanges between China and North Korea,' said Adam Segal, a senior fellow who specializes in China and cyberconflict at the Council on Foreign Relations."

As Scott reported, yesterday, the attack crashed the computer networks of South Korea's three main broadcasters and major banks.

The AP reports that this kind of attack does not look like any of the previous attacks launched by China. Chinese hackers are interested in collecting intelligence and intellectual property, the AP reports. They're not usually interested in causing disruptions to commerce.

The Los Angeles Times
reports that Pyongyang did not comment on the cyberattack, but issued a fresh set of warnings.
"The U.S. should not forget that the Andersen base on Guam where B-52s take off and naval bases on the Japan mainland and Okinawa where nuclear-powered submarines are launched, are all within the range of our precision target assets," the Times
quotes a "North Korean army spokesman" as saying.

Spring May Have Sprung, But Most Gardens Are Still Slumbering

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:10:00 +0000

Want it? You can't have it. At least not yet.

For vegetable lovers, the start of spring can be a cruel tease, hinting of a feast of just-picked peas and spinach and beets, but delivering instead tired iceberg and romaine shipped from distant climes.

"It's zero here right now," Terry Nennich reported Wednesday morning, the first official day of spring, from Grand Rapids, Minn. So much for spring. Not only was it well below freezing, but the ground remained blanketed by 2 feet of snow.

Nennich is a veggie guy, a horticulture research director at the North Central Research and Outreach Center of the University of Minnesota, which stands about 120 miles from the Canadian border. Undaunted by the fact that spring still looks a lot like winter, Nennich takes the bringing of vegetable bounty to the northland as a personal and professional challenge.

"We have plants ready to grow in the ground," Nennich says. "Those beet and onion seedlings were started in heated greenhouses and are just waiting for enough warmth to transplant."

Across the country, commercial vegetable growers and home gardeners are trying to gauge the impact of a cold, wet spring, balancing the itch to plant with the knowledge that flirting with spring's whims can bring heartache.

Sun isn't the problem. By March, even northern Minnesota has enough daylight for plants to grow. The problem is cold.

Hardy spring crops like spinach and kale can freeze solid in a late cold snap, thaw out and keep right on growing. But to start out, even the tough ones need earth that's warmed up to 45 or 50 degrees for seeds to sprout. Plant too soon, and seeds rot. The few plants that do grow remain puny and vulnerable to disease.

So impatient growers hustle the warming process along with blanketlike polyester row covers and plastic-covered high tunnels, which are like unheated Quonset huts. (We've chronicled how growers Zach Lester and Georgia O'Neal use these techniques to keep greens growing all winter long through snow and frost in Unionville, Va.)

Growers in Minnesota have embraced these techniques over the past decade, extending the growing seasons by 30 percent. They can start selling locally grown spring vegetables to farmers' markets and restaurants two months earlier, Nennich says. "There's a big market in the restaurants for local greens."

But high tunnels don't warm the soil enough to accelerate less hardy crops like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Their seeds won't sprout unless the earth is 60 or 70 degrees, and they shrivel at a hint of frost.

So Nennich and his colleagues are attacking the problem at its roots, with solar-heated soil.

They run corrugated plastic drainage tubes through the soil under hoop houses, and connect the tubes to solar panels. Warm air is pulled by a fan all winter long, countering the region's bitter cold; it can thaw icy soil by March 1 and banish frost by mid-March.

Nennich and his colleagues are working on perfecting the solar soil heater design so it's cost-effective. He envisions a future when fruit trees grow in solar-heated tunnels, bringing a touch of Georgia to the far north.

But for now, he'd be happy to see spring.

United Nations Will Investigate Possible Use Of Chemical Weapons In Syria

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:06:00 +0000

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The United Nations is launching an investigation into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made the announcement during a media briefing on Thursday.

"I have decided to conduct a United Nations investigation into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria," Ban said according to Reuters. He said the investigation will focus on "the specific incident brought to my attention by the Syrian government."

The use of chemical weapons is a big deal because the United States has declared that its "red line" in the conflict.

"I have made clear the use of chemical weapons is a game changer," President Obama said during a press conference in Israel yesterday.

Obama also expressed doubt about claims made by the government of Bashar Assad. On Tuesday, Syria said rebels may have launched a chemical attack on the city of Aleppo. The rebels said the opposition was "not behind this attack."

Obama said intelligence tells him it is the Syrian government that has the capability of launching such an attack.

Ban said the use of chemical weapons by any side would be "an outrageous crime."

"There is much work to do and this will not happen overnight," Ban said. "It is obviously a difficult mission. I intend for this investigation to start as soon as practically possible. Again my announcement should serve as an unequivocal reminder that the use of chemical weapons is a crime against humanity."

Ban said the "overall mandate, mission composition, and operational conditions" of the investigation are still being worked out.

With Obama In Ramallah, Palestinians Take To The Streets

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:03:00 +0000

Palestinians protest as U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinians Authority President Mahmud Abbas meet in Ramallah on Thursday.
Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images Palestinians protest as U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinians Authority President Mahmud Abbas meet in Ramallah on Thursday.

NPR's Larry Abramson is covering President Obama's visit to the Middle East. He sends this dispatch from the West Bank.

There were a lot of irritated Palestinians in the streets of Ramallah today. But it's hard to pinpoint the cause. Were they mad at President Obama, at Israel? Or were they angry at themselves?

All week long, different groups staged demonstrations against the Obama visit, here in Palestine's defacto capital city, and elsewhere, including Gaza. Mothers of those in Israeli jails demanded the release of their children. Many shouted that all Palestinians should have the "right of return" to land inside Israel. And all shouted at the Palestinian Authority security forces, accusing them of collaborating with Israel. They marched through the streets of Ramallah toward the center of government, challenged the police phalanx verbally and then ran out of gas and went home. Many with long experience in such things groaned that the turnout was just pathetic.

Today was no exception. Despite the fact that much of Ramallah was shut down because of Obama's visit today, the crowd of demonstrators again never exceeded 200.

Many blamed the heavy showing by Palestinan Authority security forces for the discouraging those who feared arrest. Others admitted that a a big demo would accomplish little, as the President was unlikely to see them as he helicoptered in and out. But most seemed simply frustrated that it is so hard to garner public attention without a turn to violence.

You Be The Judge: Is The Housing Market Really Improving?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:01:00 +0000

A home for sale in Glenview, Ill. Existing-home sales hit the highest level in more than 3 years in February. But not everyone is convinced that the housing sector's momentum has staying power.
Nam Y. Huh/AP A home for sale in Glenview, Ill. Existing-home sales hit the highest level in more than 3 years in February. But not everyone is convinced that the housing sector's momentum has staying power.Nam Y. Huh/AP
This week, optimists had no trouble finding fresh evidence to suggest that the housing market is recovering.
On Thursday, they learned from a Realtors' report that existing home sales hit the highest level in more than 3 years. And earlier this week, a Commerce Department report showed homebuilding permits have been rising at the quickest pace since June 2008.
But not everyone is convinced that the sector's momentum has staying power. Skeptics point to reasons why the housing sector might falter, just as it has several times over the past six years.
If the optimists and pessimists had to face off in front of a judge, these are the exhibits they might enter as evidence:
The Optimists' Case

Your honor, don't be blinded by years of bad news. Look at these recent statistics:
— Home prices rose by more than 7 percent last year, according to the widely respected S&P/Case-Shiller Index.
— Builders have been hiring again, adding workers at a pace of 30,000 a month over the past five months.
— The Federal Reserve plans to hold interest rates at historically low levels for a long time, making homes more affordable.
— The number of underwater borrowers, i.e., those whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes, fell by almost 4 million last year to 7 million, according to JPMorgan Securities.
— Sales of existing homes and building permits are both rising. Realtors in a number of cities report bidding wars breaking out because too few homes are on the market. This latest Realtors' report showed sales were 10.2 percent above the same month last year, marking 20 straight months of gains.
— The Realtors' report showed the inventory of homes for sale in February increased 9.6 percent to 1.94 million. That represented a 4.7-month supply of houses on the market, up from 4.3 months in January. Six months of inventory makes for a healthy market, so Realtors like the direction of that data.
— Homes are getting bigger again. The median new single-family home shrank about 6 percent during the housing bust. But now, Commerce Department data show the median size of a new home started in 2012 hit a record 2,309 square feet, exceeding the previous high of 2,259 in 2006.
Testifying for the optimists are Federal Reserve policymakers, who on Wednesday released an economic assessment confirming that "the housing sector has strengthened further."
And IHS Global Insight forecasters say they expect 2013 to be the best year for housing since 2007.
The Pessimists' Case
Your honor, we'd like to call your attention to these disturbing facts:
— The number of "underwater" homeowners may be down, but it's still extremely high, with an estimated one in five owing more than the home's worth. When people can't get out of their old mortgages, they can't move up to a nicer home.
— Home prices, on average, are still at very depressed levels — still roughly 30 percent below their peak in many markets. That means millions of houses will remain underwater for a very long time, making it harder for people to trade up.
— Loans may be cheap, but only for people with sterling credit scores. With unemployment still so high at 7.7 percent and wages scarcely growing, millions of Americans can't qualify for home loans.
— Congress has just imposed sharp federal spending cuts, which could depress economic growth and drive unemployment back up, reducing the number of people who could buy homes.
— The increased number of homes for sale in February may suggest that there really is a "shadow inventory," a huge number of foreclosed houses that lenders are going to begin dumping onto the market now, driving prices back down.
Testifying for the pessimists is Sheila Bair, former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. At a recent economic conference, she warned that with job and wage growth still so slow, the housing market could soon stumble. "We need more experience and data to know if it's really turned around," she said.
The jury will remain out — at least until the crucial spring season moves into high gear. Late March through Memorial Day is the peak time for home shopping.
For now, even many industry insiders don't seem to know exactly what to think about this housing market. On Monday, the National Association of Home Builders released its latest market index report, and it showed another drop in sentiment.
More builders described industry conditions as bad than good, with the index falling to 44, down from December's post-recession peak of 47. The builders said they were being frustrated by their inability to get credit from their lenders and by rising costs.

Europe's Central Bank Issues Cyprus Ultimatum

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:59:00 +0000

People line up at an ATM in Nicosia to withdraw cash on Thursday.

The clock is ticking on Cyprus' fiscal cliff.

The European Central Bank has given the Mediterranean country just four days to come up with its own bailout plan, or a eurozone lifeline to its struggling banks will be severed.

The ultimatum comes after Cypriot lawmakers on Tuesday rejected a highly unpopular proposal put forward by the European Central bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund to give the country's banks half of a $13 billion bailout package if they can raise the other half from a steep levy on the country's personal savings accounts.

Since then, the Cyprus government has been struggling to come up with a "Plan B" that will satisfy international lenders. If Cyprus can't do it by Monday, the ECB will pull the plug on Cypriot banks, which would likely precipitate a collapse of the island's financial institutions and send shock waves through European and world markets.

NPR's Joanna Kakissis, reporting from the Cypriot capital Nicosia, says the country's banks were drained by exposure to the Greek debt crisis. But EU and IMF leaders see the island as a haven for offshore investment, especially by wealthy Russians, and want depositors to pay for part of a bailout.

Banks have been closed until Tuesday to prevent a bank run, but ATMs have been restocked so people can withdraw money, Kakissis says.

The Parliament in Cyprus could vote on a plan to raise the $7.5 billion as early as Thursday.

Averof Neophytou, the deputy leader of Cyprus' ruling Democratic Rally party, tells NPR that there is a plan being considered that would create an "Investment Solidarity Fund" to issue emergency bonds. The measure would appeal for donations from ordinary Cypriots, businessmen and foreign investors, The Associated Press reports.

The government would issue bonds on the solidarity fund, "but some sort of levy on deposits may still be necessary," says John Psaropoulos, reporting for NPR from Nicosia.

The Cypriot Orthodox Church has already offered to mortgage its own assets and buy government bonds.

Meanwhile, talks on a bailout from Russia are ongoing, with Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris meeting in Moscow since Tuesday in hopes of forging a deal.

According to the AP:

"Russia is likely to pitch in, though its contribution will be smaller than originally hoped for, Cypriot officials have said. Nearly a third of the 68 billion euros ($88 billion) in deposits in Cyprus' oversized banking sector are held by Russians."

Here We Go Again: Leno, Fallon, And Why The Late-Night Wars Are So Boring

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:56:00 +0000

Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon pose in the press room during the Golden Globe Awards in January.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon pose in the press room during the Golden Globe Awards in January.Kevin Winter/Getty Images
When rumblings began in early March that NBC might be preparing in earnest to replace Jay Leno with Jimmy Fallon, I felt more like Bill Murray than I ever have.
Not the Bill Murray in Ghostbusters
or the Bill Murray in Meatballs or even the Bill Murray in Stripes. No, this was the Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, who wakes up every morning to "I Got You Babe," over and over. And over.
A couple of disclosures seem appropriate.
As an audience member and a critic, my tastes are strongly pro-Fallon, even substantially more than they were pro-Conan O'Brien when we went through this entire hootenanny three years ago. And they are anti-Leno, and especially anti-"Jaywalking." "Jaywalking" is Leno's man-on-the-street segment that's nothing more or less than a zillionaire entertainer dripping contempt on people who do not own a car collection while his studio audience agreeably hoots at how stupid they are. He does not, of course, quiz his audience to see if they would do any better.

And as a writer, it is my dearest wish that the late-night wars would be packed into a box, the box would be put inside a barrel, the barrel would be doused in honey and covered with ants, the ants would carry it to a launch pad, the best available aeronautics engineers would set it on fire and strap it to a rocket, the rocket would be fired into the sun, and the sun would be snuffed out by the galactic calamity that we all know is coming someday.
Nevertheless, here we are. First The Hollywood Reporter
and now The New York Times report that NBC is moving in earnest toward making the switch sometime in 2014, along with a move for Tonight from L.A. to New York (where Fallon's Late Night is now).
For those of us asked to muster opinions about this kind of thing, déjà vu
doesn't begin to describe it. Conan O'Brien wrote his "People Of Earth" memo — funny, sad, stubborn — in January 2010. That was only a little more than three years ago. You know what that means? If you were impregnated the day we last saw a story almost exactly like this come to an ugly, unhappy end, your child is just reaching the point where the American Academy of Pediatrics says she should be able to "carr[y] large toy or several toys while walking."
The fascination with late-night scuffles goes back at least as far as Bill Carter's book The Late Shift
, which is where those stories about Jay Leno hiding to eavesdrop on conversations about successors for Johnny Carson came from. The Leno-Letterman standoff had everything: Betrayal! Intrigue! Eavesdropping! A weird HBO TV movie!
To quickly recap the more recent drama: In 2004, NBC secured the then-hot O'Brien by promising him The Tonight Show
in 2009 — in other words, "Stick around for five years and we'll promote you." Leno promised he'd step aside gracefully. But since Leno was still popular in 2009 when their promise to O'Brien came due, they put Leno in a prime-time hour that flopped so grandly that they were forced to cancel it after only a few months. That left Leno free to go somewhere else to compete with the Conan Tonight, which was on iffy ground (though, as noted yesterday by Vulture's crackerjack analyst Joe Adalian, Conan was getting better ratings three years ago than Leno is getting now).
So NBC bit the bullet and gave Leno back the 11:35 slot, pushing O'Brien to a midnight slot he declined. O'Brien was bought out of his contract and left; Leno resumed Tonight
just like it never happened.
And now we have to do the whole thing again, apparently, because Leno is still popular with the people who actually sit down and turn to broadcast television to hear monologues at 11:35 p.m., but NBC reportedly feels the hot breath of Jimmy Kimmel on its back and wants to get on with a transition before Kimmel — currently watched by about 3 million people out of a country of more than 300 million — becomes a force too strong to fight.
The quandary NBC faces appears to be roughly this: Jay Leno is one of its few network properties people still watch. Jimmy Fallon, on the other hand, is one of its few network properties that generate any enthusiasm or would ever be called cool or current in any way by anyone.
Look around at the rest of the NBC schedule: prime time, after showing a few signs of life in the fall, is in miserable shape. Morning is dealing with the fallout from the Ann Curry departure and the apparent en masse
scowl of the public toward Matt Lauer, as described recently by Brian Stelter of The New York Times (who is becoming to morning television what Carter, who's written two books on the late-night wars and now will obviously have to write another one, is to late night).
And then look at the two NBC late-night hosts, both of whom are, in their own ways, very successful. Leno plugs along, getting solid ratings in spite of whatever reservations about creativity anyone may have. Fallon looks like a whole different kind of television, based around looseness, turning The Roots into something more like co-hosts than a house band, generating viral online clips with startling regularity. (Jay Leno would never, ever have done "The Evolution Of Mom Dancing" in drag with Michelle Obama.)
The advantage of Fallon's approach is that this is where entertainment is probably going — he's clippable, fun, fresh, and always good for a mood-lifter. His close collaboration with The Roots also makes it the least unrelentingly white of the broadcast late-night shows (although Arsenio Hall will have a new syndicated show this fall).
The advantage of Leno's approach, on the other hand, is that at the moment, substantially more people ... you know, sit down and watch his television show. Fallon's cultural penetration far exceeds the two million or so people who watch him every night, but monetizing cultural penetration continues to be a tricky thing to do.
What makes all this so wearying — the return to the think pieces about whether it's fair to hate Jay Leno and how Conan was treated — is that none of this changes the fact that the boring, pedestrian truths overpower the more nuanced and interesting conversations that all this raises.
Ultimately, Leno gets good ratings at a time when almost nothing on NBC gets good ratings. The fact that a younger audience, which NBC will certainly want eventually, might well prefer Fallon in closed-room laboratory testing doesn't at all mean they will turn on his show at 11:35 instead of doing what many of them do now, which is watch it online the next day, either in whole or in clips. (You meet people all the time who were this way about Conan. They still feel guilty.) Moreover, trying to fit Fallon's loose-limbed weirdness into the 11:35 slot might do his show harm. Between Fallon and CBS's Craig Ferguson, the 12:35 a.m. hour has become the basement experimental studio to 11:35's staid science library, and if 11:35 would mean Jimmy Fallon wouldn't want to blow stuff up anymore, they can leave him where he is.
Thinking Jay Leno is boring and a bad comedian — or a jerk, for people who believe that, based on all that intrigue and eavesdropping — could not be less relevant. Thinking Jimmy Fallon is a goodwill ambassador for goodwill itself who's doing enormously valuable work? Also could not be less relevant.
These are cold, somewhat desperate business decisions for a network that's struggling in a content model that's struggling, and all the personalities and generational conflicts and intrigue these stories involve will ultimately mean nothing next to what NBC — the company, not the Artists' Collective — thinks will be profitable, as between the Jay-o-matic 3000 and the Fallonbot Turbo. And it's no more inherently fascinating than any other argument about which product a company will keep on the market and which one it will consign to the dustbin of history.
It would be great if it were a story about fresh versus stale, about who will control vast swaths of the landscape, about who's better
. But it's not.

Obama's Speech In Israel: 5 Excerpts You Should Read

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:53:00 +0000

President Barack Obama waves after speaking on at the Convention Center in Jerusalem, on Thursday.

Speaking to Israeli students at the Jerusalem Convention Center on Thursday, President Obama delivered a rousing speech of inspiration, one brimming with talk of hope and change that echoed the Obama of 2008. While there were touches of specifics on where the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians should head, for the most part Obama stuck with highlighting fundamental similarities between peoples.

At one point, Obama was heckled by a protester. ("We actually arranged for that because it made me feel at home," Obama joked.) But aside from that, Obama was received by enthusiastic applause, even as he delivered a strong critique of Israel's settlement expansion and its failure to prosecute settlers who attack Palestinians.

We listened to the nearly one-hour speech and pulled out five excerpts worth reading. We've already posted on the news of the day.

On Peace Negotiations:

"Negotiations will be necessary, but there is little secret about where they must lead – two states for two peoples. There will be differences about how to get there; there are going to be hard choices along the way. Arab States must adapt to a world that has changed. The days when they could condemn Israel to distract their people from a lack of opportunity ... are over. Now is the time for the Arab World to take steps towards normalizing relations with Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state, and that Israelis have the right to insist upon their security. Israelis must recognize that continued settlement activity is counterproductive to the cause of peace, and that an independent Palestine must be viable– with real borders will have to be drawn. I've suggested principles on territory and security that I believe can be the basis for talks. But for the moment, put aside the plans and process. I ask you, instead, to think about what can be done to build trust between people.

"Four years ago, I stood in Cairo in front of an audience of young people. Politically, religiously, they must seem a world away. But the things they want – they're not so different from what the young people here want. The ability to make their own decisions; to get an education and a good job; to worship God in their own way; to get married, to raise a family. The same is true of the young people in Gaza. ...

"That is where peace begins — not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people; not just in a carefully designed process, but in the daily connections that take place among those who live together in this land, and in this sacred city of Jerusalem. Speaking as a politician, I can promise you this: political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.

Israel Is Inspiration:

"Your hopes must light the way forward. Look to a future in which Jews, Muslims and Christians can all live in peace and greater prosperity in this Holy Land. Believe in that. Most of all look to the future that you want for your own children – a future in which a Jewish, democratic state is protected and accepted, for this time and for all time.

"There will be many voices that say this is not possible. But remember this: Israel is the most powerful country in this region. Israel has the unshakeable support of the most powerful country in the world. Israel is not going anywhere. Israel has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be. Ben Gurion once said, 'In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.' Sometimes, the greatest miracle is recognizing that the world can change. That is a lesson that the world learned from the Jewish people."

A Sovereign Palestinian State Is Just:

"The Palestinian people's right to self-determination and justice must also be recognized. Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own, living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student's ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their home. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.

Obama then ventured off script, saying he met a group of Palestinians earlier in the day. "Talking to them, they weren't that different from my daughter; they weren't that different form your daughters or sons. I honestly believe that if any Israeli parents sat down with them, they'd say, 'I want these kids to succeed. I want them to prosper.' I believe that," Obama said. He continued:

"Only you can determine what kind of democracy you will have. But remember that as you make these decisions, you will define not simply the future of your relationship with the Palestinians – you will define the future of Israel as well. As Ariel Sharon said, 'It is impossible to have a Jewish, democratic state and at the same time to control all of Eretz Israel. If we insist on fulfilling the dream in its entirety, we are liable to lose it all.' Or, from a different perspective, think of what David Grossman said shortly after losing his son, as he described the necessity of peace – 'a peace of no choice' he said, 'must be approached with the same determination and creativity as one approaches a war of no choice.'"

The United States Has Israel's Back:

"For young Israelis, I know that these issues of security are rooted in an experience that is even more fundamental than the pressing threat of the day. You live in a neighborhood where many of your neighbors have rejected your right to exist. Your grandparents had to risk their lives and all they had to make a place for themselves in this world. Your parents lived through war after war to ensure the survival of the Jewish state. Your children grow up knowing that people they have never met hate them because of who they are, in a region that is changing underneath your feet.

"So that is what I think about when Israel is faced with these challenges – that sense of an Israel that is surrounded by many in this region who reject it, and many in the world who refuse to accept it. That is why the security of the Jewish people in Israel is so important – because it can never be taken for granted. But make no mistake: those who adhere to the ideology of rejecting Israel's right to exist might as well reject the earth beneath them and the sky above, because Israel is not going anywhere. Today, I want to tell you – particularly the young people – that so long as there is a United States of America, Ah-tem lo lah-vahd.

You are not alone."
On Iran, All Options Are On The Table, But Diplomacy Is Still Possible:

"When I consider Israel's security, I also think about a people who have a living memory of the Holocaust, faced with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian government that has called for Israel's destruction. It's no wonder Israelis view this as an existential threat. But this is not simply a challenge for Israel – it is a danger for the entire world, including the United States. It would raise the risk of nuclear terrorism, undermine the non-proliferation regime, spark an arms race in a volatile region, and embolden a government that has shown no respect for the rights of its own people or the responsibilities of nations.

"That is why America has built a coalition to increase the cost to Iran of failing to meet their obligations. The Iranian government is now under more pressure than ever before, and that pressure is increasing. It is isolated. Its economy is in a dire condition. Its leadership is divided. And its position – in the region, and the world – has only grown weaker.

"All of us have an interest in resolving this issue peacefully. Strong and principled diplomacy is the best way to ensure that the Iranian government forsakes nuclear weapons. Moreover, peace is far more preferable to war, and the inevitable costs – and unintended consequences – that would come with it. Because of the cooperation between our governments, we know that there remains time to pursue a diplomatic resolution. That is what America will do – with clear eyes – working with a world that is united, and with the sense of urgency that is required.

"But Iran must know this time is not unlimited. And I have made the position of the United States of America clear: Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. This is not a danger that can be contained. As President, I have said to the world that all options are on the table for achieving our objectives. America will do what we must to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran."

House OKs Bill To Keep Government Funded Through September

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:50:00 +0000

Alex Wong/Getty Images
The House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that avoids a federal shutdown and keeps the government open through the end of the 2013 fiscal year, which winds up Sept. 30. The Senate approved the same measure Wednesday, so the bill now goes to the president for his signature.
The New York Times
characterizes the measure, which passed the House on a 318-109 vote, this way:

The funding plan for the rest of the year ... locks in across-the-board spending cuts that will usher in the most austere government outlook in decades.

But that doesn't mean an end to the partisan battles. The Washington Post
reports that Republicans and Democrats are still at odds over the budget, just not the 2013 budget:

Lawmakers are still debating how much to tax and spend for the years to come, and Thursday, the House also approved a budget blueprint by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in a mostly partisan 221 to 207 vote. Ten Republicans joined House Democrats in opposing the Ryan budget measure.

The Associated Press frames the Ryan budget this way:

The long-term GOP budget plan authored by Ryan, the party's failed vice presidential nominee, offers slashing cuts to domestic agencies, the Medicaid health care plan for the poor and "Obamacare" subsidies while exempting the Pentagon and Social Security beneficiaries. The measure proposes shifting programs like Medicaid to the states but is sometimes scant on details about the very cuts it promises.

NRA Represents Only A Fraction Of Gun Owners

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:46:00 +0000

Kentucky farmer James Gash is one of millions of American gun owners who don't belong to the National Rifle Association - the powerful lobbying group. Gash talks with host Michel Martin about why the NRA doesn't speak for him.