Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/334722887?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, October 19, 2013
Katy Perry And The New Rules Of Pop
"Walking On Air":
Stagecraft does not come naturally to Katy Perry. She does very well by candy-colored fever-dream videos; shooting whipped cream from her cupcake boobs, throwing cartoonishly out-of-control neon-'80s ragers and becoming a B-movie jungle queen all fall quite comfortably within her skill set.
Live performance, though, is a different matter. As the musical guest this past weekend on Saturday Night Live, Perry previewed her upcoming album, and "Walking On Air" put her limitations as a performer (rather than as a singer) on full display. Her dancing seemed both rudimentary and tentative, and the most dramatic bit of stage business — involving a flowing bolt of gossamer wrapping the singer —was largely something that was happening to her, not something that she herself was driving.
Much like Perry's performance of "Roar," where her band wore animal costumes as she bopped along in skimpy (though not quite immodest) leopard print, it was designed for maximum spectacle, all the better to be seen from the cheap seats of the arenas she performs in.
This is the name of the game now, even with pop stars who aren't very good at it. You might be tempted to wonder why she even bothers with dancing and costumes if they don't particularly flatter her. But whether on-stage flash reflects well on her or not, Perry has to do it anyway, because much as elaborate music videos were once all but required in order to survive in the pop marketplace of the MTV era, it's just how it's done.
It's no longer enough for pop singers to simply stand and sing. Lady Gaga has her Gagaisms. Pink does literal acrobatics. One Direction's choreography is sort of there to prove that One Direction shouldn't really bother with choreography, but they still do it. Just about everybody brings dancers on tour and television with them.
Even pop stars whose images are built around being down-to-earth musicians aren't immune. Taylor Swift has elaborately choreographed set pieces in her shows. Alicia Keys, who more than anyone should be able to get away with just sitting at a piano and singing the songs she's written, featured dancers on her recent tour. For "Unthinkable (I'm Ready)," she joined one of them for an überdramatic sequence playing out a tempestuous relationship.
"Unthinkable (I'm Ready)":
That didn't used to be a problem for pop stars; unless you were on Motown, delivering a choreographed, production-designed stage show wasn't a requirement of the job. Back in 1983, at the height of her popularity, MTV broadcast a 40-minute concert by Cyndi Lauper, who is in many ways Perry's exact 30-years-ago equivalent. The show was essentially bookended by a winking song about masturbation and a girl-power anthem, while a goofily-dressed Lauper bounced hyperactively around and in front of the stage.
Yet her show had practically zero production value and didn't suffer for it. There was room in the pop landscape for both a straightforwardly-delivered performance like Lauper's and something more elaborate like Madonna's 1984 VMAs performance of "Like A Virgin," with a costume, a stage set and, if not full choreography, then a clearly plotted-out idea of what she'd be doing with her body and when.
But the days of that being an option, rather than an obligation, are gone. As a performer, Perry doesn't lack for energy or engagement, except when she's doing one of the things that she's most expected to do.
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Now Available: Kindle Fire HDX, Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, Sony Xperia Z1, More
Like some kind of six-months-delayed springtime thaw, or an ominous but perplexing metaphor for global warming, summer's trickle of new gadgets has turned into a gushing waterfall. But don't tread those swift waters alone. Let us be your earthy, outdoorsy guide.
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Friday, October 18, 2013
Betty Buckley On Piano Jazz
Courtesy of the artist
Betty Buckley.
Courtesy of the artist
- "Stardust" (Carmichael, Parish)
- "Blame It On My Youth" (Heyman, Levant)
- "My Funny Valentine" (Hart, Rodgers)
- "Twilight World" (McPartland)
- "Fire and Rain" (James Taylor)
- "So Many Stars" (Bergman, Berman, Mendes)
- "Angel Eyes" (Matt Dennis)
- "What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life" (Bergman, Bergman, LeGrand)
- "It Might As Well Be Spring" (Hammerstein, Rodgers)
On this episode of Piano Jazz, vocalist Betty Buckley and her musical director, Kenny Werner, join Marian McPartland in a session recorded in 2007.
Betty Lynn Buckley was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1947. Her singing career began at age 2 in church and dance lessons soon followed. She was raised on the music of Judy Garland and Della Reese, and became a musical theater devotee after seeing The Pajama Game. As a teenager, Buckley performed regularly — her first professional gig was a local production of Gypsy when she was 15. She continued to cut her musical teeth in summer theater groups and musical revues at the Six Flags Over Texas theme park.
In college, Buckley was runner-up in the Miss Texas competition, where she was spotted by a talent agent who convinced the 22-year-old to come to New York. Buckley landed her first gig almost immediately upon arriving. She played the role of Martha Jefferson in the musical 1776, which led her to other productions on and off Broadway.
Her most popular role came as Grizabella in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, in which she sang the enduring number "Memory." The performance earned her a Tony in 1982. Buckley went on to perform in Sunset Boulevard, Carrie: The Musical, and Triumph of Love to name a few.
Her success on the stage has led to appearances in several films, including Woody Allen's Another Woman, Roman Polanski's Frantic and Brian De Palma's 1976 Carrie.
Buckley has also starred on the small screen as Abby in the television series Eight Is Enough. Buckley had a recurring role on HBO's gritty prison drama Oz and guest starred in episodes of Monk, Law & Order: SVU, Melrose Place and Pretty Little Liars.
She has recorded 15 solo albums and appears on several original cast recordings. Her forthcoming album Ghostlight, produced by T-Bone Burnett, will be released in 2014.
Originally recorded April 10, 2007.
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Google Shopping results now larger, scrollable on mobile
Changes to drive even more traffic to retailers before the holiday shopping season
Google is working to improve the shopping experience from search results on mobile, and the most recent improvements are coming to the set of top links after making a search. The group of pictures and associated links under "Shop with Google" are known as Google Shopping results, and they're getting a little more real estate in the search results page now.
Now when you search for products that Google Shopping has results for, instead of just two or three images at the top, you'll get a side-scrolling list of several results that match your request. In addition, the images and titles will now be larger, making it easier to see at a glance.
Google claims that the new format will drive more traffic to the participating retailers, and it's pretty simple math to see why that would be the case. These are big changes to drive even more traffic to retailers before the critical holiday shopping season.
Source: Google Commerce Blog
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Afternoon delight: McCartney surprises London fans
LONDON (AP) — People who lunch at Covent Garden are used to jugglers, mimes and street musicians vying for their attention — and a spare coin or two — but Friday's performer didn't bother to pass the hat.
Paul McCartney doesn't need the money. But he apparently still needs the thrill of a live performance and the applause of adoring fans. The ubiquitous former Beatle gave a surprise free performance from the back of a truck, livening up the lunch hour for workers and tourists alike.
McCartney performed tracks from his latest album "New" before thousands who gathered in the famous market square in central London. Word about the show had spread throughout the British capital since the singer's crew started setting up speakers early Friday.
McCartney has been promoting his latest album with television appearances and interviews this week.
He and pop princess Katy Perry traded songwriting tips at a taping of "The Graham Norton Show" in London on Thursday night.
McCartney said he and late writing partner John Lennon expected to come away with a song every time they brainstormed. Perry, who says she's "an observer of life," carries around a recorder while she's on tour to stash away phrases that strike her fancy.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afternoon-delight-mccartney-surprises-london-fans-143329204.html
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How The GOP's Shutdown Over Obamacare Fell Short
Susan Cooper (left), of Richardson, Texas, sits with her husband, Jack, 93, as they demonstrate against the government shutdown in Dallas in early October.
Tony Gutierrez/AP
Susan Cooper (left), of Richardson, Texas, sits with her husband, Jack, 93, as they demonstrate against the government shutdown in Dallas in early October.
Tony Gutierrez/AP
Remember how that fight over the budget was all about Obamacare?
Seems like ancient history now, but House Republicans ostensibly shut down the government 17 days ago, demanding first a defunding, and, when that failed, a year's delay in the health law.
When it became clear that President Obama and Senate Democrats weren't going to yield to demands to stop or slow implementation of the administration's signature legislative achievement, Republicans looked for smaller changes.
They floated the idea of killing or delaying an unpopular tax on medical devices. Many Senate Democrats joined Republicans in a nonbinding vote of displeasure on the tax earlier this year.
The Republicans also looked to take away health insurance contributions for congressional and executive branch staffers. And they proposed to delay a temporary $63 annual per-person health insurance tax intended to build a fund to help pay for high-cost cases.
None of those things ended up in the final bill that reopened the federal government and raised the debt ceiling Wednesday night.
So what did?
Well, there was a little language related to the health law. It requires that the Secretary of Health and Human Services "certify to the Congress that the Exchanges verify" that individuals who get subsidies for premiums and cost-sharing are, in fact, eligible. And that the secretary "shall submit a report to the Congress that details the procedures employed by the American Health Benefit Exchanges to verify eligibility for credit and cost-sharing."
Sounds like a big deal? Not really. It so happens that the much-maligned "data hub" that's part of the health exchange already links to the IRS to verify income eligibility. So, basically, the law requires HHS Secretary Sebelius to write a letter explaining what the department is already doing.
But it's not just that the Republicans failed to make any changes to the health law in their 16-day tirade against the government. News coverage of the shutdown and potential default crowded out stories about the very rocky rollout of the health exchanges themselves.
As The Washington Post's Ezra Klein tweeted Wednesday:
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Review: Salt keeps server automation simple
October 17, 2013
Like Puppet, Chef, and Ansible, Salt is an open source server management and automation solution with commercial, officially supported options. Based on command-line-driven server and client services and utilities, Salt is primarily focused on Linux and Unix server management, though it offers significant Windows management capabilities as well. While Salt may look simple on its face, it's surprisingly powerful and extensible, and it has been designed to handle extremely large numbers of clients.
Salt uses a push method of communication with clients by default, though there's also a means to use SSH rather than locally installed clients. Using the default push method, the clients don't actively check in with a master server; rather, the master server reaches out to control or modify each client based on commands issued manually or through scheduling. But again, Salt can also operate in the other direction, with clients querying the master for updates. Salt functions asynchronously, and as such, it's very fast. It also incorporates an asynchronous file server for file deployments.
[ Review: Ansible orchestration is a veteran Unix admin's dream | Review: Chef cooks up configuration management | Review: Puppet Enterprise 3.0 pulls more strings | Puppet or Chef: The configuration management dilemma | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Data Center newsletter to stay on top of the latest developments. ]
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Sorry, Kim Kardashian -- No Walk of Fame Star For You!
Well this is a definite letdown for the Kardashian clan: The Hollywood Walk of Fame will not be giving Kim Kardashian a star on the landmark strip any time soon, no matter how much beau Kanye West voices his opinion on the matter.
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/kim-kardashian-denied-star-hollywood-walk-fame/1-a-549971?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Akim-kardashian-denied-star-hollywood-walk-fame-549971Tags: American Horror Story hayden panettiere yosemite national park Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball jadeveon clowney
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Fed needs 'couple of meetings' before cutting QE3: Evans
By Ann Saphir and Jonathan Spicer
MADISON, Wis./NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will likely defer any decision to trim its massive bond buys until at least December, two top Fed officials suggested on Thursday, although a third Fed policymaker made no bones about her view that she opposes any such delay.
A budget battle in Washington that shut government offices for 16 days and brought the United States to the brink of default has injected uncertainty into the economy's growth trajectory.
"We need more information about how the economy is proceeding, how we are going to weather the most recent government shutdown," Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said in Madison, Wisconsin. "I think the most likely outcome is one where we continue to go for a couple of meetings to assess this."
The Fed meets every six weeks to discuss policy, and next meets October 29-30 and December 17-18.
A growing number of economists say the Fed may have to wait until early next year before it sees sufficient strength in the U.S. economy to begin scaling back its bond-buying stimulus.
"It would be not worth your while for me to speculate about whether it's going to be in December, January, March... we are going to have to see how things are going," Evans said. "I believe this program should continue until we are confident that there has been a sustainable improvement in the labor market...It is not yet time to remove accommodation."
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, whose views usually are the diametric opposite of the dovish Evans, said he will wait until the Fed's December meeting before lobbying for a reduction to the Fed's $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program.
"Given all this uncertainty it would be hard for me even to argue a change in course of monetary policy," Fisher said in New York. "I don't like the course we're on... but my view will be to stay the course at the next meeting."
Fisher made it clear however that he had not swapped his hawkish feathers for more dovish ones, warning that the Fed's ongoing bond buying could be fueling a "housing bubble."
"I'm beginning to see signs not just in my district but across the country that we are entering, once again, a housing bubble," Fisher told reporters. "So that leads me ... to be very cautious about our mortgage-backed securities purchase program."
A mortgage-market bubble in part caused the 2007-2009 financial crisis and Great Recession from which the world's largest economy is still recovering. In response, the Fed has held interest rates near zero and is buying $85 billion in assets each month, including $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
Home resales rose in August and median prices were up 14.7 percent over the previous 12 months, according to the National Association of Realtors, although other data have suggested a sharp rise in mortgage rates has dented the housing recovery.
"We have to be watchful and realize there has historically been an era of the Fed over-stimulating" since the Great Depression, Fisher said.
"I worry we are following that tradition now," he added on the sidelines of a meeting of the New York Economic Club.
"No one knows when the bubble pops. But I would argue that ... with each dollar we buy in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, we're getting closer to the tipping point."
Meanwhile Esther George, the hawkish chief of the Kansas City Fed who has dissented at every Fed meeting this year against the central bank's ultra-easy monetary policy, reiterated on Thursday her view on that the Fed should being to pare back in October.
"I think to start that now would give us time to see how the economy reacts to that and not get behind in meeting our responsibilities," she told an event in Oklahoma City.
She also sounded sanguine about the lack of government data, including the latest official unemployment data, since the shutdown began on October 1.
"We are missing a few pieces of data that we would normally have as a result of the government shutdown," she said. "But let me assure you, we are still quite able to monitor and judge the economy's progress from other sources of information."
Unemployment stood at 7.3 percent in August, the most recent reading, down from 8.1 percent when the Fed began its current and third round of so-called quantitative easing,known as QE3, last September.
Speaking in Butte, Montana, Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota on Thursday repeated his call for the U.S. central bank to do "whatever it takes" to bring unemployment down faster.
Before the shutdown, Kocherlakota said that he does not support reducing bond-buying before the economy gains more traction.
The deal approved in Washington late Wednesday reopens the government, but the measure resolves no fundamental differences on spending and taxes that divide Democrats and Republicans.
It also leaves open the possibility of another government shutdown - and potentially another debt crisis - early next year.
Evans called the episode "embarrassing" and said he hopes the crisis does not repeat itself next year.
(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-needs-couple-meetings-cutting-qe3-evans-200414589--business.html
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APNewsBreak: New Charges In Blackwater Shootings
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday brought fresh charges against four former Blackwater Worldwide security contractors, resurrecting an internationally charged case over a deadly 2007 shooting on the streets of Baghdad.
A new grand jury indictment charges the men in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq and heightened diplomatic sensitivities amid an ongoing war. The men were hired to guard U.S. diplomats.
The guards are accused of opening fire in busy Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen Iraqi civilians died, including women and children. Prosecutors say the heavily armed Blackwater convoy used machine guns and grenades in an unprovoked attack. Defense lawyers argue their clients are innocent men who were ambushed by Iraqi insurgents.
The guards were charged with manslaughter and weapons violations in 2008, but a federal judge the following year dismissed the case, ruling the Justice Department withheld evidence from a grand jury and violated the guards' constitutional rights. The dismissal outraged many Iraqis, who said it showed Americans consider themselves above the law. Vice President Joe Biden, speaking in Baghdad in 2010, expressed his "personal regret" for the shootings.
A federal appeals court reinstated the case in 2011, saying now-retired Judge Ricardo Urbina had wrongly interpreted the law.
Prosecutors again presented evidence before a grand jury, and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth gave the Justice Department until Monday to decide what to do with the case.
The defendants include Dustin Heard, a retired U.S. Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a retired U.S. Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former U.S. Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, a U.S. Army veteran from Keller, Texas.
Slatten is charged with 14 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 16 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter; Liberty and Heard are charged with 13 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 16 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter; and Slough is charged with 13 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 18 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter. All four were also charged with one count of using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
They were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a statute that allows the government to prosecute certain government employees and contractors for crimes committed overseas. Defense lawyers have argued that statute does not apply in this case since the guards were working as State Department contractors, not for the military.
Heard's lawyer, David Schertler, said in an email he was disappointed with the prosecution, which he believes has no merit.
"We will continue to fight and defend Dustin Heard's innocence and honor until he is fully exonerated," he said.
Lawyers for Slough and Slatten declined to comment. Liberty's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. said the prosecution "demonstrates our commitment to upholding the rule of law even in times of war and to bringing justice to the memories of those innocent men, women and children who were gunned down in Baghdad more than six years ago."
Prosecutors last month agreed to dismiss their case against a fifth guard, Donald Ball, a retired Marine from West Valley City, Utah. A sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway of California, pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
The Justice Department had earlier dropped Slatten from the case, but after the appeals court decision reinstated the prosecution, the government said he remained a defendant.
The company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide is under new ownership and is now headquartered in Virginia. It had changed its name to Xe Services, but the company was sold to a group of investors who then changed the name to Academi.
Blackwater founder Erik Prince is no longer affiliated with the company.
In moving forward with the case, the government will seek to overcome some of the legal problems that have dogged the prosecution. The case ran into trouble because the State Department promised the guards that their statements explaining what happened would not be used for criminal prosecution. The guards told investigators that they fired their weapons, a crucial admission. Because of a limited immunity deal, prosecutors had to build their case without those statements, a high legal hurdle. In dismissing the case, Urbina said prosecutors had read the statements, reviewed them in the investigation and used them to question witnesses and get search warrants.
Court documents also reveal conflicting evidence, with some witnesses saying the Blackwater convoy was under fire and others saying it was not.
___
Follow Fred Frommer on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ffrommer and Eric Tucker at https://twitter.com/etuckerAP
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US unemployment aid applications drop to 358,000
WASHINGTON (AP) — Applications for US unemployment benefits dropped 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 358,000 last week, though the figure was distorted for the second straight week by California's efforts to clear backlogged claims.
The partial government shutdown also likely boosted the total, as government contractors and other businesses furloughed employees. The Labor Department says the less volatile four-week average rose 11,750 to 336,500.
Applications have jumped in the past two weeks, distorted by computer upgrades in two states and the 16-day shutdown. Prior to those unusual factors, claims had reached pre-recession levels, a sign that companies are cutting very few workers.
"Once the special factors are weeded out, and businesses carry on as best they can, we should continue to see moderate job growth," said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.
California and Michigan continued to sift through backlogged claims held up by computer changes. Furloughed private-sector workers drove up applications by 15,000 two weeks ago. About 70,000 furloughed federal employees also sought benefits in the week ending Oct. 5, although those workers aren't included in the overall totals.
About 3.9 million Americans received benefits in the week ended Sept. 28, the latest data available. That's about 83,000 fewer than the previous week. A year ago, 5 million people were receiving aid.
The government opened for business on Thursday. Federal employees who receive back pay will likely have to reimburse the government if they claimed unemployment benefits during the two-week shutdown, although the law varies by state.
Before the government shutdown and California's backlog, applications fell to a six-year low three weeks ago, thought that figure was pushed lower by California's delays.
Falling applications for unemployment benefits are typically followed by more hiring. But so far, there haven't been many signs of that happening.
The shutdown has delayed a raft of government data, including September's employment report. And it will likely affect hiring and weigh on the economic growth in the October-December quarter.
Several economists have cut their forecasts for fourth-quarter growth by half a percentage point to about 2 percent or lower.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-unemployment-aid-applications-drop-358-000-123734337--finance.html
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Boston Police Officer Adds His Name To American Lexicon
Maybe you've seen Steve Horgan, the cop on duty as the Red Sox played the Tigers in the league championship series. Boston's David Ortiz hit a home run. Video caught Officer Horgan, arms in the air, celebrating even as Detroit's Torii Hunter flipped over the wall in a vain effort to catch the ball and tumbled near the officer's feet. In Boston, that triumphant pose is now called Horganing.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
A Boston police officer added his name to the language. Maybe you've seen Steve Horgan, the cop on duty as the Red Sox played the Tigers in the league championship series. Boston's David Ortiz hit a home run. Video caught Officer Horgan, arms in the air, celebrating, even as Detroit's Torii Hunter flipped over the wall in a vain effort to catch the ball and tumbled near the officer's feet. In Boston, that triumphant pose is now called Horganing.
It's MORNING EDITION.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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Cerberus explores acquiring BlackBerry
October 16, 2013
Private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management is reportedly considering a bid to acquire all of ailing BlackBerry.
The Bloomberg news service, citing a person close to the situation, reported Wednesday that Cerberus is in the early stages of weighing an offer and has signed an agreement with BlackBerry to gain access to its financial information for more insights.
[ Get expert advice regarding your BYOD strategy with InfoWorld's 29-page "Mobile and BYOD Deep Dive" PDF special report. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]
BlackBerry and Cerberus did not comment on the report.
Cerberus sees BlackBerry as a viable business that can be turned around, even as BlackBerry reported a third-quarter loss of nearly $1 billion due to slack smartphone sales. The phone maker plans to lay off 4,500 of its 12,500 workers. Cerberus specializes in investments in distressed companies.
Last week, BlackBerry co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to take over all or part of BlackBerry, while Fairfax Financial Holdings made a preliminary offer in September to buy BlackBerry for $4.7 billion. Fairfax owns 10 percent of BlackBerry, while the founders own 8 percent.
This article, Cerberus explores acquiring BlackBerry, was originally published at Computerworld.com.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.
See more by Matt Hamblen on Computerworld.com.
Read more about smartphones in Computerworld's Smartphones Topic Center.
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Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Syria rebel video claims new split in opposition
BEIRUT (AP) — Several dozen rebel groups in southern Syria have broken with the main political opposition group in exile, a local commander said in a video posted Wednesday, dealing a potential new setback to Western efforts to unify moderates battling President Bashar Assad's regime.
The Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition, the political arm of the Free Syrian Army rebel group, has long struggled to win respect and recognition from the fighters. It is widely seen as cut off from events on the ground and ineffective in funneling aid and weapons to the rebels.
In the video, a rebel in military fatigues read a statement with about two dozen fighters standing behind him, some holding a banner with FSA emblems.
FSA spokesman Louay Mikdad told The Associated Press that the video is authentic and identified the man speaking as a captain in one of the rebel groups, Anwar al-Sunna, which posted the video.
The rebel in the video said political opposition leaders have failed to represent those trying to bring down Assad.
"We announce that we withdraw our recognition from any political group that claims to represents us, first among them the Coalition and its leadership which have relinquished the principles of the homeland and the revolution," he said.
He named 66 groups that he said support his statement. The man suggested rebel groups would reorganize, saying that "we are unifying the forces of the revolution militarily and politically," but did not explain further.
It could not be confirmed independently if all the groups named in the video support the statement. Noah Bonsey, an expert on Syrian rebels at the International Crisis Group think tank, said one of the larger groups named in the video did not post the statement on its Facebook page.
Nevertheless, Louay Mikdad, an FSA spokesman, said the video should serve as a wakeup call to the Coalition.
"We respect what they (the rebels) are saying," he said. "We think our brothers in the Coalition ... should listen to the people inside and they should open a direct dialogue with them."
He said the FSA commander, Gen. Salim Idris, would try to speak to some of the groups named in the video.
Coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Hundreds of groups of fighters operate in Syria, often with considerable local autonomy, and shifting alliances are common in a chaotic battlefield. Last month, nearly a dozen of Syria's more powerful rebel factions broke with the Coalition and called for Islamic law in the country, cementing the rift between rival camps.
Rebel groups with a strong Islamic orientation, from moderates to hardliners, "appear to be aligning themselves politically, much more closely than they have previously," said Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center.
The groups named Wednesday appear largely local and less influential than those which broke away from the Coalition in September, Lister said.
Mikdad said they include rebel groups from the southern Daraa provinces and the rural areas around the capital, Damascus.
Southern Syria has been considered a stronghold of the moderate opposition, while Islamic extremists, including those linked to al-Qaida, seem to be spreading their influence in the north and east.
The latest apparent setback for the Coalition comes at a time when it's trying to decide whether to attend negotiations with the regime on a political transition.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that the U.N., the U.S. and Russia are "intensifying efforts" to start such talks in Geneva in mid-November.
The main faction in the Coalition has said it has no faith in such talks and won't attend, though a final decision isn't expected until next week.
Syrian opposition leaders are particularly upset about the international community's decision to treat the Assad regime as a partner in dismantling Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.
The disarmament mission grew out of deadly Aug. 21 attacks with chemical weapons on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. The West holds the regime responsible, while the Assad regime blames the rebels.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Wednesday that its inspectors have so far visited 11 of more than 20 sites linked to the chemical weapons program.
The team destroyed "critical equipment" at six sites as well as unloaded chemical weapons munitions, said the OPCW.
A joint OPCW-U.N. mission is to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, precursor chemicals and production facilities by mid-2014.
Ban on Wednesday named a chief for the mission, appointing Sigrid Kaag, a Mideast expert and Arabic speaker from the Netherlands.
The team began operating in Syria at the beginning of October, and by last week, had visited two sites. Wednesday's update signaled significant progress in the team's work.
The inspectors are being asked to complete a first round of site visits by the end of October, including verifying inventory and rendering production, mixing and filling facilities unusable. The next phase, eliminating chemical agents, would begin after Nov. 1.
Experts say it's a tight timetable, particularly with inspectors operating in the midst of a civil war. The head of the OPCW has said one site is in rebel-held territory and that routes to others run near areas of fighting.
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad that escalated into a civil war. The fighting has claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced some 7 million people.
___
Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-rebel-video-claims-split-opposition-183807558.html
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The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: The Old Rules No Longer Apply
On Dec. 23, 1973, cars formed a double line at a gas station in New York City. The Arab oil embargo caused gas shortages nationwide and shaped U.S. foreign policy to this day.
Marty Lederhandler/AP
On Dec. 23, 1973, cars formed a double line at a gas station in New York City. The Arab oil embargo caused gas shortages nationwide and shaped U.S. foreign policy to this day.
Marty Lederhandler/AP
Forty years ago this week, the U.S. was hit by an oil shock that reverberates until this day.
Arab oil producers cut off exports to the U.S. to protest American military support for Israel in its 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. This brought soaring gas prices and long lines at filling stations, and it contributed to a major economic downturn in the U.S.
The embargo made the U.S. feel heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil, which in turn led the U.S. to focus on instability in that region, which has since included multiple wars and other U.S. military interventions.
"The oil crisis set off an upheaval in global politics and the world economy. It also challenged America's position in the world, polarized its politics at home and shook the country's confidence," author and oil analyst Daniel Yergin wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
While these concerns linger, the world energy market has changed dramatically over the past four decades. U.S. energy production is rising. Less than 10 percent of U.S. oil comes from the Middle East. Global prices are relatively stable.
All this has spurred debate about whether the U.S. is too focused on the Middle East and its oil when it does not appear to pose much of an economic threat to America. We won't try to answer that question today, but we did want to point out things that were very different back in the fall of 1973:
Leon Mill spray-paints a sign outside his Phillips 66 station in Perkasie, Pa., in 1973 to let his customers know he's out of gas. An oil crisis was the culprit, squeezing U.S. businesses and consumers who were forced to line up for hours at gas stations.
AP
Leon Mill spray-paints a sign outside his Phillips 66 station in Perkasie, Pa., in 1973 to let his customers know he's out of gas. An oil crisis was the culprit, squeezing U.S. businesses and consumers who were forced to line up for hours at gas stations.
AP
Saudi Arabia was a leading proponent of the 1973 embargo. For many Americans, Saudi Arabia was the symbol of the wealthy Arab monarchies that were inflicting so much pain on the U.S. Yet today, Saudi Arabia is one of the closest U.S. allies in the region and is currently pumping oil at high levels to keep world markets stable and offset lower production in places like Iraq, Iran and Nigeria.
Iran and the U.S. were allies. Under the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran kept on producing and exporting throughout the six-month embargo that lasted until March 1974. After the shah was overthrown in 1979, the U.S. and Iran became sworn rivals, a confrontation that has lasted more than three decades. Iran is now the target of Western sanctions that took effect last year and have cut the Islamic Republic's oil exports by half, from 2.5 million barrels a day to around 1.2 million.
In response to the oil shock, Congress passed fuel economy standards. That 1975 measure required automakers to raise mileage from 13.5 miles per gallon to 27 mpg. Last year, the standards were again doubled, and vehicles must average 54 mpg by 2025. As a result, Americans are driving more without increasing the amount of gas they are using.
Soaring oil prices remade the global energy industry. As oil prices skyrocketed in the 1970s, producers were willing to travel to more remote and difficult places to drill, including Alaska, the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Canadian oil sands. World oil production today is 50 percent higher than it was in 1973. Also, the crisis prompted efforts to find and develop other power sources, from natural gas to wind to solar.
The U.S. is less dependent on the Middle East today. In the years that followed the 1973 embargo, a cutoff of Middle Eastern oil was regarded as a grave national threat.
Here's President Jimmy Carter in his 1980 State of the Union address:
"An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. Such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
In reality, Middle Eastern oil has never been a huge part of the overall U.S. supply. Imports from the Middle East never accounted for more than 15 percent of the U.S. oil supply and now they account for only about 9 percent.
The U.S. now imports more oil from Canada than anywhere else. Saudi Arabia is the only Middle Eastern nation among the top five nations sending oil to America.
By limiting supply, OPEC was able to cause oil price spikes in the 1970s and '80s. But it has much less power today, and a number of top producers, such as Saudi Arabia, work to stabilize prices rather than disrupt the market.
"For the last four decades, Washington's energy policy has been based on the faulty conclusion that the country could solve all its energy woes by reducing its reliance on Middle Eastern oil," Gal Luft and Anne Korin write in Foreign Affairs.
"The crux of the United States' energy vulnerability was its inability to keep the price of oil under control, given the Arab oil kingdoms' stranglehold on the global petroleum supply," the authors write.
So the oil industry is a very different place. But not everything has changed:
The Israelis and the Arabs are still feuding. The 1973 Middle East war was essentially a draw, and Israel and Egypt then made peace before the decade was over. Israel also has a peace treaty with Jordan, but it is still at odds with its other immediate neighbors, the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria. And Israel considers its biggest threat to be Iran, arguing that Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran denies.
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Boston Police Officer Adds His Name To American Lexicon
Maybe you've seen Steve Horgan, the cop on duty as the Red Sox played the Tigers in the league championship series. Boston's David Ortiz hit a home run. Video caught Officer Horgan, arms in the air, celebrating even as Detroit's Torii Hunter flipped over the wall in a vain effort to catch the ball and tumbled near the officer's feet. In Boston, that triumphant pose is now called Horganing.
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We Take You Inside the World of Comic-Con! The Must-See Costumes, Celebs and More
New York Comic-Con just rolled through NYC, bringing all the superheroes and super fans with it. If you were at the pop culture celebration, you’re probably still recovering from the madness of panels and toys and costumes and celebs and games and people everywhere, as you’ll see in the video above. I boldly went where hundreds of thousands of fans go each and every year and took on the Con head on.
OK! News: See what color Ke$ha’s hair is today!
If you’ve never been to a Comic-Con or want to see what all the fuss is about or are just plain ready to go on a journey, check out the video above where we take you through the exhibition floor to see just a fraction of all there is to see. Plus, we check in with celebs to see what their favorite elements of Comic-Con.
Photos: 10 things that need to happen this season on The Walking Dead
Find out how Greg Grunberg keeps himself germ-free, Yvette Nicole Brown discusses the costumes that make it a true Con and the Mythbusters geek out about the fellow geeks they’ve run into at the event.
OK! News: 6 things you’ll learn in the PBS documentary about superheroes
For more information on the Nerd Machine click here and for Operation Smile click here.
Have you been to a Comic-Con? What were some of the best things you saw? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter @OKMagazine.
MORE VIDEOS YOU HAVE TO SEE:
* ARE TIA AND TAMERA PLANNING THEIR SECOND BABIES AT THE SAME TIME?
* ELIZABETH BERKLEY IS SAVED BY THE BELL ON DANCING WITH THE STARS LAST NIGHT
* SEE THE TRAILER FOR WILL FERRELL’S NEW MINISERIES WITH KRISTEN WIIG AND JESSICA ALBA
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Italian rabbi lauds protests against Nazi war criminal burial
By Naomi O'Leary
ROME (Reuters) - A leading rabbi praised Italian protesters who blocked the funeral of a convicted Nazi war criminal as Italy marked on Wednesday the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Rome ghetto.
Erich Priebke's final resting place is now unclear after the protesters forced a suspension of his funeral on Tuesday in the Italian town of Albano Laziale. His body is lying at a military airport near Rome pending a decision from the authorities.
The former German SS officer died aged 100 last week in Rome, where he had been serving a life sentence under house arrest for his role in the killing of 335 civilians in 1944 in caves near the capital, one of Italy's worst wartime massacres.
At a ceremony in Rome's main synagogue, the head of Rome's Jewish community drew loud applause as he lauded the citizens and mayor of Albano Laziale for resisting Priebke's funeral.
"For this we feel proud to be Romans," Rabbi Riccardo Pacifici said at the event to mark the anniversary of the Nazis' rounding up of 1,000 Jews from Rome's centuries-old ghetto and their deportation to Auschwitz. Only 16 of them survived.
"I do not even want to say his (Priebke's) name, not to profane this sacred place," said the head of Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Renzo Gattegna.
"He never repented of his crimes and repeated the most incredible arguments denying the Holocaust."
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who attended the ceremony wearing the traditional Jewish cap, the kippah, said the event showed "great solidarity... between Catholics, Muslims, Jews, believers and non-believers".
Priebke's body was moved to the military airport after anti-fascist protesters clashed with neo-Nazis on Tuesday in Albano Laziale outside the Italian headquarters of the Catholic Society of St Pius (SSPX), which had organized the funeral.
CHRISTIAN BURIAL
On Wednesday the SSPX, a fringe right-wing group which has strained ties with the Vatican, defended its decision to agree to hold the funeral for Priebke, saying a baptized Christian has the right to a proper burial "no matter what his sins".
"We hereby reiterate our rejection of all forms of anti-Semitism and racial hatred," the Italian branch of SSPX said.
The arch-traditionalist SSPX has been criticized for the extreme views of some of its members, including its former Bishop Richard Williamson, who embarrassed the Vatican by publicly denying the Holocaust.
Argentina, where Priebke lived after the war, has refused to accept the return of his body to be buried beside his wife.
Rome's mayor Ignazio Marino said his burial in the capital would be an "insult" and said he may seek help from the German government to find a solution.
Priebke's hometown in Germany has resisted a grave there, fearing it could become a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site.
A German foreign ministry spokesman told a regular news briefing on Wednesday he knew of no laws preventing a German citizen who had died abroad being buried in Germany, adding such matters were usually for the family of the deceased to sort out.
"It is in our interests to make sure this case does not lead to an argument about the life of Mr Priebke," he added.
Priebke was in charge of SS troops in March 1944 who executed civilians in the Ardeatine Caves in retaliation for the killings of 33 German soldiers by a partisan group.
Priebke was deported from Argentina to Italy after he was interviewed on U.S. television and admitted his role in the massacre, which he said had been conducted against "terrorists".
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy in 1998.
(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Rome and Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Editing by Gareth Jones)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-rabbi-lauds-protests-against-nazi-war-criminal-122730227.html
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Report: NSA Harvests Contact Lists From Email, Facebook
The Washington Post has published new revelations about the National Security Agency's electronic snooping, indicating that the intelligence branch gathers millions of contact lists from personal email accounts and instant messaging around the world.
The new information is attributed by the Post to "senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden."
"The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and 'buddy lists' from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.
Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world's e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets."
According to the newspaper, in a single day last year the NSA harvested 444,743 email address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers.
The Post story quotes Yahoo as saying in response to NSA effort, it would begin encrypting user connections using SLL technology in January.
However, last month, The Two-Way's Eyder Peralta wrote that The New York Times and The Guardian, relying on documents from Snowden, revealed that the NSA has the keys to crack most Internet encryption methods.
"In plain English, this means that many of the tools — like , used by many banks and email providers — that people worldwide have come to believe protect them from snooping by criminals and governments are essentially worthless when it comes to the NSA."
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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
A Mosquito Fossil With 46-Million-Year-Old Blood Inside
Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2013/10/blood_found_in_mosquito_fossil_but_jurassic_park_scenario_is_impossible.html
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Youtube update adds video quality selector on WiFi
After pushing out an update to Maps, Google has also updated the YouTube app for for iOS today with a much requested new feature. When connected to WiFi, you're now able to select the quality of the video you're watching manually as well as setting auto-select.
Aside from this, there's also additional improvements to iOS 7 compatibility, and accessibility improvements as well. Grab it for yourselves from the App Store now.
- Free - Download Now
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