Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314518400?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
British intelligence taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's ...
The Guardian reports: Britain?s spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world?s phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).
The sheer scale of the agency?s ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.
One key innovation has been GCHQ?s ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user?s access to websites ? all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his attempt to expose what he has called ?the largest programme of suspicionless surveillance in human history?.
?It?s not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight,? Snowden told the Guardian. ?They [GCHQ] are worse than the US.? [Continue reading...]
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10 States That are Maxxed Out on Credit Cards - Mint
Even if you make your payments on time every month, you can still damage your credit score in a major way by using too much of the credit available to you.
The credit utilization ratio, a measure of your total revolving credit balance divided by your total revolving credit limits, makes up roughly 30% of your credit score, which means it?s no small part of what lenders look at when considering what interest rate and terms to give you on your mortgage, car loan or other credit cards.
If you want to see where your utilization stands in comparison to the national averages, you can use the free Credit Report Card.
We decided to use data from the Experian-Oliver Wyman Market Intelligence Reports and Experian?s IntelliView tool to examine which parts of the U.S. are closest to their credit limits.
[Related Article: Can you Really Get Your Credit Score for Free?]
We took the average bankcard balance per consumer in each state and divided it by the average bankcard limit in each state for the first quarter of 2013, the most recent data available.
To be fair, these states aren?t maxxed out on their credit cards, but they may be doing damage to their scores nevertheless.
?In most scoring models, the credit utilization ratio represents approximately 30% of your credit score. That makes it a critical issue, but most people aren?t exactly clear as to what it is,? says Credit.com Co-Founder and Chairman Adam Levin.
He adds, ?Though there isn?t an exact code, the rule of thumb is that consumers who use less than 10% of their available credit tend to be those with the highest credit scores.?
All 50 states had a credit utilization ratio that was above the recommended 10% or less, and the states with the highest ratios all fell between the 20% and 30% range, meaning many residents may be damaging their credit by putting too much on their plastic.
[Related Article: 7 Money Habits That Can Make or Break You]
Alan Ikemura, Senior Product Manager of Experian Decision Sciences, says the good news is that bankcard utilization ratios are generally on the decline.
?We?re actually seeing the utilization ratio going down overall,? he says. ?Except for the deep subprime groups, which had an average utilization ratio of 80.9% in 2012 and 81.7% in 2013.?
It?s not uncommon for subprime groups to have high utilization ratios, Ikemura says.
Many of these groups are close to being tapped out on their credit lines, which is a signal to lenders that they are a riskier borrower than those with lower utilization ratios.
[Related Article: How to Pay Off a Mountain of Credit Card Debt]
Here are the top 10 states with the highest bankcard utilization ratios.
10. Louisiana
Average Balance: $3,503
Average Limit: $16,257
Average Utilization: 21.55%
Louisiana comes in last on our list, with a decently low average balance per consumer. The Bayou state could benefit from asking their credit card issuers to up their limits though ? a tactic that can lower your utilization without forcing you to cut spending.
9. Texas
Average Balance: $4,072
Average Limit: $18,857
Average Utilization: 21.59%
The saying goes that ?everything?s bigger in Texas? and that must be true of the state?s credit cards too, as the Lone Star state has the highest average limit of all of the states on our list. The high credit limit doesn?t mean that Texans aren?t spending though, as they also have the third highest balance.
8. South Carolina
Average Balance: $3,786
Average Limit: $17,351
Average Utilization: 21.82%
7. Oklahoma
Average Balance: $3,579
Average Limit: $16,396
Average Utilization: 21.83%
6. Arkansas
Average Balance: $3,469
Average Limit: $15,751
Average Utilization: 22.02%
Arkansas takes the prize for lowest average balance of any state that made our list. Perhaps residents of the Natural state could use a new credit card, which can add to their overall limit and decrease their utilization ratio.
5. Nevada
Average Balance: $3,999
Average Limit: $18,047
Average Utilization: 22.16%
4. Alabama
Average Balance: $3,618
Average Limit: $16,085
Average Utilization: 22.49%
3. Georgia
Average Balance: $4,246
Average Limit: $18,520
Average Utilization: 22.93%
Though Texas took the highest average limit of all the states on our list, Georgia wasn?t far behind. The state could try to skim more money off their monthly expenses to cut their utilization ratio.
2. Mississippi
Average Balance: $3,384
Average Limit: $14,644
Average Utilization: 23.11%
Though this state comes in second in our rankings, its residents aren?t charging more dollars, on average, than any other state on our list. The high utilization ratio in Mississippi is due primarily to the fact that its average limit per consumer is very low.
1. Alaska
Average Balance: $4,563
Average Limit: $16,453
Average Utilization: 27.73%
While all of the other states in our rankings stayed below a 25% utilization ratio, Alaska broke that barrier.
This should come as no surprise to those who pay attention to Alaskans? personal finances. The 49th state has recently topped lists of the highest credit card balances and highest revolving account debt.
Note: The U.S. territories were excluded from this ranking.
Source: http://www.mint.com/blog/credit/10-states-that-are-maxxed-out-on-credit-cards-0613/
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Fund manager gets 11 years for Facebook, Groupon shares scam
By Bernard Vaughan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former fund manager John Mattera was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty of defrauding investors of $13 million with a story that he put their money in Facebook Inc and Groupon Inc shares before the companies went public.
U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said the sentence, at the high end of what prosecutors requested, was warranted because Mattera devastated his clients' savings, and also because of four prior convictions related to fraud and theft. Mattera had requested a sentence of less than four years.
"You hurt a lot of people in a very serious way," Sullivan said, after delivering the sentence. "You've left a lot of wreckage in your path."
Mattera, 51, former chairman of the advisory board for mutual fund Praetorian Global Fund Ltd, pleaded guilty in October to charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud in connection with the scheme.
He admitted transferring $11 million from investors into an escrow account instead of safeguarding it ahead of the highly anticipated initial public offerings.
He also admitted taking $2 million more from investors who thought he was investing in Facebook and Groupon while they were still private. Instead, prosecutors said Mattera spent nearly $4 million of it on luxury cars, jewelry, personal taxes and a lawsuit settlement.
Mattera had two Rolls Royces and a Ferrari when he was arrested, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Ingoglia said.
"It's just blatant fraud," Ingoglia said.
As part of his plea, Mattera agreed to pay restitution to the defrauded investors and forfeit $11.8 million.
One investor, Marisa Light Cain, 51, lashed out at Mattera in court on Friday. She said she lost $100,000 in the scheme after going through a difficult divorce, and Mattera's sophisticated deception included a fake audit letter from KPMG and a full prospectus.
"I want to let Mr. Mattera know that I lost my life savings," Cain said. "I want you to know that I have a son out there who will not be educated in college as he should be" because of the fraud.
Cain said Mattera's 11-year sentence was of little solace. "I don't think it's long enough, personally," she said after the hearing.
"I'm very sorry to all the victims," Mattera told Sullivan before the judge sentenced him. "I'm very sorry to my family."
The sentence was substantially larger than several insider trading-related sentencings Sullivan has handed down in recent months. He sentenced two former hedge fund managers, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, for example, to 4-1/2 and 6-1/2 years in prison, respectively.
Sullivan said Mattera got the longer sentence because of his lengthy criminal background. Mattera failed to seize multiple opportunities to turn his life around, Sullivan said.
"These crimes are just so selfish," Sullivan said. "This is money that people took years and years to save, and it was squandered."
The case is USA v John Mattera, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-00127.
(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by David Gregorio)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fund-manager-gets-11-years-facebook-groupon-shares-174631964.html
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Samsung Galaxy NX mirrorless camera official: Interchangeable lenses, Android Jelly Bean and 4G LTE
True to JK Shin's promise, Samsung is indeed introducing a new Android-powered mirrorless camera: the Galaxy NX. Although it runs Google's mobile OS (version 4.2.2 Jelly Bean) and bears LTE radios, the NX is not quite a direct sequel to the Galaxy Camera, the company's glorified point-and-shoot for all comers. Rather, the Galaxy NX is what Samsung calls an interchangeable-lens CSC (or Compact System Camera), featuring a 20.3-megapixel APS-C sensor, as well as 3G / 4G LTE connectivity -- making it worthy of that Galaxy moniker.
As you can tell from the above image, the Galaxy NX also packs a large 4.8-inch HD LCD display on its rear and is powered by an unspecified 1.6GHz quad-core setup and separate processor for imaging. The UI should look pretty familiar to anyone who's used an Android device before, with the common apps and widgets submenus, as well as the device wheel for its 30 Smart Modes -- employed when selecting imaging settings. And if you happen to own any of the company's other NX cameras, you'll be able to swap out lenses (13 in all) as the Galaxy NX is fully compatible with that range. It also incorporates a hybrid AF, culled from the best of DSLRs and compacts, with a shutter speed of 1/6,000th of a second and 8.6fps shooting.
Developing...
Filed under: Cameras, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung, Google
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Video: Bernanke Taper Comments Too Soon?
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52279828/
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What You Need to Know About Hybrid Cloud Security and Other Risks
What You Need to Know About Hybrid Cloud Security and Other Risks
According to a report published by Gartner, the cloud is about to transition into a prolonged phase towards mainstream adoption. Its ?hype? bubble, which affects all burgeoning technologies before they are fully embraced, burst somewhere in the midpoint of 2012. 2013 is considered a critical year for hybrid clouds and they are are an important consideration for businesses because they are still parsing out which functions can be exposed to the risks of public cloud and which are best left private. In the general case this will mean gradual cloud network migration as the risks are vetted by one by one. Some of the challenges hybrid cloud introduces are in compliance, security management, and meeting service-level agreements (SLA).
Compliance
High-stakes enterprises benefit from implementing hybrid cloud solutions, but they must also remain compliant with regulations such as PCI and HIPAA. Maintaining compliance with such standards using cloud systems is not as inherently onerous as some would think ? in fact they were designed to be platform-agnostic. For example, if requirements such as a firewalls or encryption of personal data are in place, it does not matter what technology or architecture is used to implement them. However, with a hybrid cloud data moves with relative ease between public and private, meaning that there are additional points of scrutiny adding to the challenge of compliance. Not only must the public and private components of the solution be up to standard, the coordination between the two must be compliant as well.
Security Management
In order to manage the security of a network, multiple controls must be in place such as authentication and credentials. Hybrid cloud introduces the complication that these security items may need to be replicated on both the public and private side, meaning potential skew and additional points by which access may be compromised.
SLA Issues
Public cloud providers go out of their way to make good on SLA promises of uptime that exceeds 99% and approaches perfect availability. However, when an organization mixes public cloud with private cloud, it must account for the fact that it may not be able to meet such an SLA from the private side and should craft its agreements realistically.
For more on the risks and challenges of cloud network migration, contact a trusted cloud solution provider.
Source: http://www.aetechgroup.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-hybrid-cloud-security-and-other-risks/
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Goodell watching developments with Hernandez case
FILE - In this Dec. 10, 2012 file photo, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez reacts during the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Foxborough, Mass. State and local police spent hours at the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Tuesday June 18, 2013 as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 10, 2012 file photo, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez reacts during the second quarter of an NFL football game against the Houston Texans in Foxborough, Mass. State and local police spent hours at the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Tuesday June 18, 2013 as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 10, 2012 file photo, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez (81) holds his helmet as he steps onto the field before an NFL football game between the New England Patriots and the Houston Texans in Foxborough, Mass. State and local police spent hours at the home of Hernandez on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
In this Tuesday, June 18, 2013 photo, state and local police gather outside the home of New England Patriot's NFL football player Aaron Hernandez in North Attleborough, Mass. Police spent hours at the home Tuesday as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Martin Gavin)
Massachusetts State Police dig for evidence Thursday, June 20, 2013, at the sight in an industrial park in North Attleborough, Mass., where the body of Odin Lloyd, of Boston, was found earlier this week. New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez had a connection Lloyd, but family and officials were mum on the nature of their relationship Thursday, two days after police visited Hernandez' home. (AP Photo/The Sun Chronicle, Mark Stockwell) MANDATORY CREDIT. MAGAZINES OUT.
Two members of the Massachusetts State Police walk toward the front door of the home of New England Patriot's NFL football player Aaron Hernandez in North Attleborough, Mass., Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Their knock on the door went unanswered. State and local police spent hours at the home Tuesday as another group of officers searched an industrial park about a mile away where a body was discovered the day before. (AP Photo/Erika Niedowski)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Roger Goodell is doing what any commissioner or president of a sports league would when one of his players is being investigated in a criminal case.
He's waiting for the legal process to take its course.
No charges have been filed in what has been termed by Massachusetts authorities as a homicide in the death of a man connected to New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.
Police have searched Hernandez's house and the area around it after 27-year-old semi-pro player Odin Lloyd was found dead in an industrial park near the Patriot's North Attleborough home.
Hernandez also was sued Wednesday in Florida by a man claiming Hernandez shot him in the face after they argued at a strip club in February.
As he has done in recent cases, be they high profile ? Michael Vick and his dogfighting, for example ? or less publicized, Goodell is sitting tight. Innocent before proven guilty.
Should Hernandez be arrested ? no charges have been brought in either case ? Goodell could punish him under the NFL's personal conduct policy. But he generally prefers to await the outcome of all legal proceedings.
When Vick admitted to financing a dogfighting operation, Goodell suspended him indefinitely in August 2007. Vick served 18 months in a federal penitentiary, and was reinstated in 2009 when Goodell said the quarterback had shown remorse for his actions.
Vick has stayed out of trouble since and has played for the Philadelphia Eagles the last four years.
Goodell suspended cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season under the personal conduct policy after Jones was arrested multiple times. A 2005 first-round draft pick by the Titans who now is with Cincinnati, Jones has been in and out of legal trouble, with at least seven arrests over the years and involvement in about a dozen incidents that included police intervention.
He recently pleaded not guilty to an assault charge after police say he hit a woman at a nightclub. If he is found guilty or accepts a plea bargain, he would be subject to another NFL suspension, perhaps an indefinite one.
"We must protect the integrity of the NFL," Goodell has said. "The highest standards of conduct must be met by everyone in the NFL because it is a privilege to represent the NFL, not a right. These players, and all members of our league, have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis."
Packers defensive lineman Johnny Jolly was suspended indefinitely by the NFL before the 2010 season for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Two years earlier, in April 2008, he'd been arrested outside a club in his hometown of Houston for possession of codeine, a controlled substance. He pleaded guilty and was given probation, with the understanding that another misstep would mean significant jail time.
He was arrested again in October 2010, and went to jail for violating probation. Goodell suspended him indefinitely and he has missed the last three NFL seasons, but attended Green Bay's minicamp earlier this month after being reinstated in March.
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Friday, June 21, 2013
Robert Duvall spectator at Bulger trial in Boston
BOSTON (AP) ? Academy Award winner Robert Duvall is one of the spectators at the racketeering trial of reputed gangster James "Whitey" Bulger.
Duvall sat in the back of the courtroom Friday at Bulger's trial in Boston.
The 82-year-old Duvall has had a long television and film career, including starring roles in "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II." In those mob epics, he played Tom Hagen, a lawyer and adviser to the Corleone family.
He won a best actor Oscar in 1984 for his role in "Tender Mercies."
He has been shooting a movie, "The Judge," in Shelburne, Mass., this month. Duvall plays the title character in the film, which also stars Robert Downey Jr., Billy Bob Thornton and Vincent D'Onofrio.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/robert-duvall-spectator-bulger-trial-boston-132814587.html
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Exclusive: NSA contractor hired Snowden despite concerns about resume discrepancies
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hiring screeners at Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor for the National Security Agency, found possible discrepancies in a resume submitted by Edward Snowden, but the company still employed him, a source with detailed knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
Snowden, who disclosed top secret documents about U.S. surveillance of telephone and Internet data after leaving his job as a systems administrator at an NSA facility in Hawaii, was hired this spring after he convinced his screeners that his description of his education was truthful, said the source, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
It is unclear precisely which element of Snowden's resume caused personnel officials at Booz Allen Hamilton to raise questions about his background. Also unclear is how he satisfied their concerns.
Snowden's disclosures, which U.S. intelligence officials have called harmful to national security, have raised questions about the U.S. government's use of more than 480,000 contract workers who have top-secret security clearances. They also have increased concerns about how rigorously the government and its contractors are screening such workers.
Those concerns were the focus of a Senate subcommittee hearing on Thursday, as senators grilled representatives of the U.S. government's personnel office over how closely contractors scrutinize prospective workers for high-security jobs.
Testimony at the hearing suggested that Booz Allen Hamilton might not have been the only one to have missed warning signals about Snowden's background.
Before he was hired by Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden also was screened by USIS, a Virginia-based investigations firm hired separately by the U.S. government to conduct background checks on prospective employees and contractors. Based on reports from firms such as USIS, the NSA decides whether a potential contract worker gets a security clearance.
During the hearing, Senator John Tester of Montana asked U.S. government personnel officials whether they had "any concerns that Mr. Snowden's background investigation by USIS ... may not have been carried out in an appropriate or thorough manner."
"Yes, we do believe that there - there may be some problems," said Patrick McFarland, inspector general of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. McFarland did not elaborate.
USIS, which is under investigation by McFarland's office, said in a statement on Thursday that it "has cooperated fully with the government's civil investigative efforts" and that it would not comment on the Snowden case specifically because it was a confidential matter under investigation.
Booz Allen Hamilton has said in a statement that "we will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter."
QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS BACKGROUND
According to sources familiar with the matter, Snowden, a high school dropout who later passed the high school equivalency test known as the GED, stated on his resume earlier this year he attended computer-related classes at Johns Hopkins University, a Tokyo campus of the University of Maryland and the University of Liverpool in Britain.
According to the sources, the resume stated that Snowden "estimated" he would receive a master's degree in computer security from Liverpool sometime this year.
Some of the educational information listed on the resume did not check out precisely, said the sources, who are not authorized to comment publicly.
Despite that, Booz Allen Hamilton hired him at an annual salary of $122,000 to work as a contractor for the NSA in Hawaii. Snowden had been on the job there for about four weeks when he traveled to Hong Kong last month and leaked the U.S. government secrets that made him known around the world.
Tracey Reeves, a spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins, said that the university could find no record that Snowden had taken classes there.
She added that Snowden might have taken vocational training courses from a private, for-profit entity called Advanced Career Technologies, which operated under the name Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins. Reeves said Johns Hopkins ended its relationship with the company in 2009, and that the company appears to have shut down in 2012.
A spokesman for University of Maryland's University College division said that records showed that Snowden did attend, in person, a summer session at a campus that the college operates in Asia. He declined to specify the location or provide any information about Snowden's course work.
A spokeswoman for the University of Liverpool said in an email that Snowden had registered for an online master's program in computer security in 2011. But she added that "he is not active in his studies and has not completed the program."
(Editing by David Lindsey and Stacey Joyce)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-nsa-contractor-hired-snowden-despite-concerns-resume-005200158.html
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Mud-slinging Behind The Scenes As Malaysia's Taxi Apps Duke It Out
There is an ongoing land grab for taxi drivers in Malaysia, with taxi app startups aggressively targeting the handful of taxi drivers keen to jump on a digital platform. Two year-old taxi booking startup, MyTeksi has been busy recruiting cab drivers over to its service. When I visited its offices two weeks ago, Aaron Gill, MyTeksi’s product and marketing head, said the company ramped up its efforts over the past six months to convince drivers to get smartphones and data plans. It’s had to sell the benefits of getting hooked up to a service that allows drivers to receive jobs, rather than have to drive around looking for passengers by the side of the road. So far, MyTeksi has recruited about 2,500 drivers covering the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, as well as Putrajaya, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. The platform receives one booking every eight seconds, or 10,000 per day, which nets the company about $3,100 (10,000 MYR) daily. Several competitors have joined the fray: Hopcab and TaxiMonger launched last year. But things really started heating up in the past month, when Rocket Internet debuted its Easytaxi service in the country. Since Easytaxi’s launch, there have been rumors of its staff approaching cabs with MyTeksi decals and getting them to hop over to Easytaxi instead. Sources close to the companies said that Easytaxi’s staff have also helped delete the MyTeksi app from drivers’ handsets, instead replacing them with Easytaxi’s app. Joon Chan, managing director at Rocket Internet did little to deny the rumors. “Drivers are free to use any app they want on their phones. It’s only fair since they pay for their own phones and data plans,” he said. He added that only about 10 to 15 percent of the drivers in the country have smartphones, indicating that the addressable pool of drivers is even smaller. But MyTeksi may be deploying its own anti-competitive tactics. Chan produced a photo of the MyTeksi app apparently prompting the driver to remove the Easytaxi app. Chan said Easytaxi started driver acquisition on the 12th of May, and has been putting up kiosks at gas stations to recruit drivers. The startup is expanding quickly?in the past month, it’s added five new employees each week, he said. Gill of MyTeksi, commenting on Rocket’s entrance in its space, said: “They’ve made us better and sharper. We are growing our fleet at a faster pace now,Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dqxKKnqOmmg/
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Rev. Susan Russell: Hasta La Vista, Exodus International
While all eyes were on the Supreme Court awaiting the Prop 8 and DOMA rulings this week, there was another indication that the arc of the moral universe is bending toward LGBT justice in the news that Exodus International, the notorious "pray away the gay" ministry, is closing up shop.
The end of the Exodus era was announced in a statement filed June 19 stating that the organization had become "imprisoned in a worldview that's neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical." It followed a widely circulated "apology" from Exodus president Alan Chambers, which read, in part:
I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. ... I hope the changes in my own life, as well as the ones we announce tonight regarding Exodus International, will bring resolution, and show that I am serious in both my regret and my offer of friendship. I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good.
So here's what I have to say about that.
There are not enough words in the world to undo the harm done to LGBT people who have been damaged, devalued and, in far too many cases, destroyed by the toxic narrative that their sexual orientation was an illness to be cured. Homosexuality does not need healing. Homophobia does.
There is not enough regret on the planet to rectify the misuse of biblical texts as weapons of mass discrimination against the LGBT members of God's beloved human family. God does not ask, "Whom do you love?" but, "Do you love?"
But -- and it is a significant "but" -- the end of the Exodus era is yet more evidence that the tide is turning, that evolution is not a theory, and that there really is a lavender light at the end of the tunnel.
The end of the Exodus era is a tribute to the hard work and perseverance of all who have stood against the fiction of reparative therapy for LGBT people and offered instead the good news of God's love available to absolutely everybody.
And the end of the Exodus era is an incremental victory on the road to the audacious goal of the eradication of homophobia from our communities, our churches, our country and our world. Hasta la vista, Exodus. You will not be missed.
?
Follow Rev. Susan Russell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revsusanrussell
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Thursday, June 20, 2013
Andy Warhol and the Persistence of Modernism - NYTimes.com
[unable to retrieve full-text content]To continue doing brisk business, arts institutions have had to ignore Andy Warhol's radical undermining of modernism in the visual arts. ... He presented himself as a kind of empty mirror for the images that were already all around us in advertising or entertainment or packaging. And his persona was famously cool and withdrawn, or even blank: just the opposite of the outsized, impassioned personalities of Picasso or Pollock. Nevertheless, like the arts establishment ...
Source: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/andy-warhol-and-the-persistence-of-modernism/
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AP Exclusive: Taliban offer to free US soldier
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? The Afghan Taliban are ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.
The offer to exchange U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for the Afghan detainees came as an Afghan government spokesman said President Hamid Karzai is now willing to join planned peace talks with the Taliban ? provided that the Taliban flag and nameplate are removed from the militant group's newly opened political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar. Karzai also wants a formal U.S. statement supporting the Afghan government.
Bergdahl, 27, of Hailey, Idaho, is the only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.
In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl "is, as far as I know, in good condition."
Col. Tim Marsano with the Idaho National Guard said Bergdahl's parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, plan to speak at an event honoring the soldier in Hailey on Saturday.
"They're aware that the possibility of a transfer or exchange is on the table and they're encouraged by it," Marsano said.
Bergdahl's parents earlier this month received a letter from their son through the International Committee of the Red Cross. They did not release details of the letter but renewed their plea for his release. The soldier's captivity has been marked by only sporadic releases of videos and information about his whereabouts.
The prisoner exchange is the first item on the Taliban's agenda before even opening peace talks, said Suhail, a top Taliban figure who served as first secretary at the Afghan Embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad before the Taliban government's ouster in 2001.
"First has to be the release of detainees," Suhail said when asked about Bergdahl. "Yes. It would be an exchange. Then step by step, we want to build bridges of confidence to go forward."
The reconciliation process with the Taliban ? seen by most as the only way to end the nearly 12-year war ? has been a long and bumpy one. It began nearly two years ago when the U.S. opened secret talks that were later scuttled by Karzai when he learned of them.
It was then that the U.S. and Taliban discussed prisoner exchanges and for a brief time it appeared that the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners would be released and sent to Doha to help further the peace process. But Karzai stepped in again and demanded they be returned to Afghanistan over Taliban objections.
Since then, the U.S. has been trying to jumpstart peace talks and the Taliban have made several offers ? including sharing power in Kabul. The Taliban have also attended several international conferences and held meetings with representatives of about 30 countries.
The idea of freeing some of the Taliban's most senior operatives has been controversial over fears they would simply return to the battlefield. Afghan and U.S. officials have said the Taliban being considered for any exchange deal are:
? Mohammad Fazl , a former Taliban chief of army staff and the deputy minister of defense.
? Abdul Haq Wasiq, former Taliban deputy minister of intelligence, who was in direct contact with supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar during the Taliban rule, according to military documents.
? Mullah Norullah Nuri , who has been described as one of the most significant former Taliban officials held at Guantanamo. He was a senior Taliban commander in Mazar-e-Sharif and previously was a Taliban governor in two provinces in northern Afghanistan,
? Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban minister of the interior and military commander. According to military documents, he had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden and was also a friend of Karzai.
? Mohammed Nabi, former chief of security for the Taliban in Qalat, the capital of the southern province of Zabul.
If the Taliban hold talks with American delegates in the next few days, they will be the first U.S.-Taliban talks in nearly 1? years.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was expected in Doha ahead of a conference there scheduled for Saturday on the Syrian civil war. He was not expected to meet with the Taliban although other U.S. officials might in coming days.
On Wednesday in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had "never confirmed" any specific meeting schedule with Taliban representatives in Doha.
Prospective peace talks were again thrown into question Wednesday when Karzai became infuriated by the Taliban's move to cast their new office in Doha as a rival embassy.
The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner that evoked the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." Later, the Taliban replaced the sign to read simply: "Political office of the Taliban."
At the ceremony, the Taliban welcomed dialogue with Washington but said their fighters would not stop fighting. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed four American service members.
The U.S. expectation had been that U.S.-Taliban talks would be followed several days later with direct talks between the Taliban and a Karzai peace delegation.
But on Wednesday, Karzai announced that his government would not participate, apparently also angered by the way Kabul had been sidelined in the U.S.-Taliban bid for rapprochement.
The Afghan president also suspended negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement that would cover American troops who will remain behind after the final withdrawal of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014.
That left U.S. officials scrambling to save the talks, and Kerry spoke with Karzai in phone conversations in an effort to bring him back on board.
On Thursday, Karzai spokesman Fayeq Wahidi said the Afghan president is willing to join peace talks with the Taliban if the U.S. follows through with promises he said were made by Kerry over the phone.
Wahidi said Kerry promised Karzai that the Taliban flag and a nameplate with their former regime's name would be removed and that the U.S. would issue a formal written statement supporting the Afghan government and making clear that the Taliban office would not be seen as an embassy or government-in-exile.
"If all those assurances and commitments the U.S. had given, if we are assured that they will be fully put in place on the issue of talks in Qatar," Wahidi said, "we would see no problem in entering into talks with the Taliban in Qatar. "
A decision on whether to restart the U.S. security agreement talks would be made after those assurances, he added, referring further questions to the foreign ministry.
On Thursday, the "Islamic Emirate" nameplate had been removed from the Taliban office. The flagpole inside the compound was apparently shortened and the Taliban flag ? dark Quranic script on a white background ? was still flying but not visible from the street. Journalists gathered at the office shot images of the flag through the gaps in the walls.
The Taliban have long refused to talk to Karzai's representatives but the opening of the office was seen as a first step toward those meetings.
Suhail said the Taliban are insistent that they want their first interlocutors to be the United States. "First we talk to the Americans about those issues concerning the Americans and us (because) for those issues implementation is only in the hands of the Americans," he said.
"We want foreign troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan," he added. "If there are troops in Afghanistan, then there will be a continuation of the war."
Suhail indicated the Taliban could approve of American trainers and advisers for the Afghan troops, saying that "of course, there is cooperation between countries in other things. We need that cooperation."
He said that once the Taliban concluded talks with the United States, they would participate in all-inclusive Afghan talks.
Suhail ruled out exclusive talks with Karzai's High Peace Council, which has been a condition of the Afghan president, who previously said he wanted talks in Doha to be restricted to his representatives and the Taliban. Instead, the Taliban would talk with all Afghan groups, Suhail said.
"After we finish the phase of talking to the Americans, then we would start the internal phase ... that would include all Afghans," he said. "Having all groups involved will guarantee peace and stability."
____
Gannon reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Brian Murphy in Dubai contributed to this report.
____
Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be reached at www.twitter.com/kathygannon
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-taliban-offer-free-us-soldier-073132683.html
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NASA wants your help lassoing an asteroid (+video)
NASA has issued The Asteroid Grand Challenge, an effort to solicit ideas for how to capture an asteroid and, later, send humans to asteroids.
This image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech shows a simulation of asteroid 2012 DA14 approaching from the south as it passes through the Earth-moon system in February 2013, with no chance of collision with Earth. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them.On Tuesday, NASA announced an?Asteroid Grand Challenge that solicits the public?s help in proposing asteroid-wrangling strategies for the agency?s Asteroid Initiative.
"NASA already is working to find asteroids that might be a threat to our planet, and while we have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the?Earth's orbit, we need to find all those that might be a threat to Earth," said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, in a press release. "This Grand Challenge is focused on detecting and characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with potential threats. We will also harness public engagement, open innovation and citizen science to help solve this global problem."
NASA?s Asteroid Initiative includes the capture and redirection of a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid into a stable orbit as well as missions to send astronauts to asteroids. According to the initiative?s current timeline, NASA will assess asteroid candidates until 2016, launch a mission to the asteroid in 2017, capture the asteroid in 2019, and send it into trans-lunar orbit in 2021. Throughout that timeline, NASA will test the unmanned Orion spacecraft, in hopes of sending a manned mission aboard the craft in 2021.
That timeline is ahead of the president?s goal to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and a manned mission to Mars by the 2030s. Efforts to develop the technology to deflect asteroids have become particularly meaningful since a meteor plunged to the earth near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February, killing no one but reminding us of our vulnerability here on Earth.
The space agency?s outline for how it will capture an asteroid is still vague ? and that?s why it wants the public?s help.
The Asteroid Grand Challenge is an effort to develop collaborations with government agencies, international partners, industry, and academia, as well as citizen scientists. At the same time, NASA has also put out a Request for Information, which will be open for 30 days for the agency?s potential partners to submit their asteroid-grabbing ideas.
NASA is asking $17.7 billion from the president for the fiscal year 2014, $105 million of which would go to the Asteroid Initiative.?
This is not the only Grand Challenge from the space agency. NASA has also requested the public's help on open questions like space colonization, economic space travel, and telepresence in space.
Asteroids champ John McAllister, are you up for NASA's challenge?
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Housing recovery to 'accelerate' U.S. economy: Summers
By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A recovery in the housing market and strong growth in consumer wealth will help jump-start the U.S. economy later in 2013, said Larry Summers, a former adviser to President Barack Obama.
Summers, considered a possible candidate to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when his current term ends next year, said a further boost would come from an increase in U.S. energy production
"There are no certainties, there are enormous risks and there are some substantial problems but ... the American economy is coming back," Summers, Obama's top economic adviser until November 2010, told a conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
"Barring a major shock from abroad, U.S. growth will move to the 3 percent range by the end of the year and will accelerate from that because the housing sector, which is only 4 percent of the economy but more than half of the business cycle, has turned decisively."
The Fed projects U.S. economic growth of 3.0-3.5 percent in 2014.
Obama this week hinted that he may be looking for a new Fed chief, saying Bernanke has stayed a lot longer than the current chairman had originally planned.
Bernanke, who has tried to nurse along the ailing U.S. economy since the 2008 financial crisis, is widely expected to step down when his second term as chairman expires at the end of January.
When asked whether his various speeches this week in Jerusalem were a form of lobbying for Bernanke's job, Summers told Reuters: "Absolutely not. Absolutely not."
He declined to comment on whether he was interested in the post.
Housing prices have risen 10 percent over the past year, partly as an excess of housing capacity has swung to a shortage, said Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council in 2009-2010 and treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton.
He said consumer wealth was pushing historic highs as house prices and asset prices have risen.
U.S. fiscal policy is also improving as steep government spending to boost the economy has slowed while tax income has grown, he said. At the same time, public sector employment will likely rise, in a reversal of the past few years.
Still, "there is no question that the U.S. requires further fiscal adjustment", Summers said. "If Congress takes no further action, according to conservative projections, the U.S. debt-GDP ratio in 2015 will be lower than it is now in 2015 and in 2020, it will be lower than in 2015."
Health care costs are estimated to be $1 trillion less over the next decade than was the case two years ago, in part due to Obama's measures, he said.
"So, the budget deficit situation is less serious," he said.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Alison Williams)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/housing-recovery-accelerate-u-economy-summers-203914457.html
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GOP staffer claims to live on food stamps without problems, suggests cutting more
With dozens of Democratic lawmakers struggling to live on a food stamp budget to protest GOP cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a Republican staffer says he is living on a SNAP budget without problems.
Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman?s communications director and agriculture policy advisor, Donny Ferguson, says he has been able to eat well on $27.58 for a week, less than the $31.50 House Democrats have limited themselves to for their ?SNAP Challenge.?
?I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps.? I didn?t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself.? I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling,? Ferguson said of the challenge.
Stockman?s office noted that Ferguson did not use coupons, discount programs, or a shopping list, and he shopped at locations accessible via public transportation.
?Not only did I buy a week?s worth of food on what Democrats claim is too little, I have money left over.? Based on my personal experience with SNAP benefit limits we have room to cut about 12 percent more,? Ferguson said.
?I didn?t use coupons, I didn?t compare prices and was buying for one, instead of a family. I could have bought even more food per person if I were splitting $126 four ways, instead of budgeting $31.50 to eat for one.? Ferguson added. ??I could have bought cheaper vegetables instead of prepared red beans and rice, but I like red beans and rice.? Folks aren?t buying fast food instead of vegetables because of benefit limits, they?re buying fast food because fast food tastes great and vegetables taste like vegetables.?
To be sure, hot food and food eaten within a store are not SNAP eligible purchases.
The food he has left over, Stockman?s office explained in their press release, will be donated to a food bank, along with the $3.92 left over.
Ferguson?s shopping list included $21.55 spent at Dollar Tree to purchase:
Two boxes of Honeycombs cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler?s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
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The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name, Of A Beetle For A Beer Bottle
It was early September ? that's springtime in Western Australia ? and two young biologists, Dwayne Gwynne and David Rentz, were on a field trip, wandering dirt roads near the highways, looking for insects, when one of them noticed a loose beer bottle lying on the ground ? not so unusual in the Dongara region, where Australians zooming by often launch beer bottles from their car windows. This particular bottle was a "stubbie," squat, 370 milliliters, colored golden brown.
When the two looked more closely, they saw something extra, hanging on the bottom end. It was a beetle, and it was fiercely gripping the glass. They shook it, and it wouldn't fall off. It wanted to be there.
Looking even closer, they recognized it as an Australian jewel beetle, and looking closer, they noticed it had (as they wrote later) its "genitalia everted ? attempting to insert the aedeagus," which is a very polite way to say they were looking at a beetle attempting to mate with a glass container. Clearly, this was a very confused individual.
But then they found three more stubby beer bottles, and on two of them, surprisingly, were more male beetles, also "mounting" their bottles. That makes three frustrated males.
Hmmm. That got them interested. So they wandered about, found four loose stubbies, and placed them side by side on open ground where they could be seen by any male beetles flying overhead. "Within 30 minutes," they wrote later, "two of the bottles had attracted beetles. In total, 6 male beetles were observed to mount the stubbies. Once on the bottles, the beetles did not leave unless displaced by us."
More surprising, Gwynne and Rentz found one beetle hanging onto his bottle even while "a number of ants" were busy biting "the soft portions of his everted genitalia" ? and still he stuck to his business. This was not just a pattern, this was a mission. What, the two scientists wondered, could explain these beetles' superallegiance to Australian beer bottles? It wasn't the beer. These males didn't gather at the spout end, and the bottles, the scientists said, were long dry.
The answer became obvious when they got a close look at a female Australian jewel beetle. Females, as it happens, are golden brown. They are big ? much bigger than the males. But most important, they are covered, as you see here, with dimples, little bumps.
Australian beer bottles at the time (this happened in the 1980s) were also big, also golden brown, and down near the base they also had little bumps, arrayed very much like the bumps on a female jewel beetle.
Clearly, Gwynne and Rentz wrote in their paper, the males were unable to distinguish between beer bottles and lady beetles. They thought ? or rather their inner wiring told them ? they were mating.
This is what biologists call "an evolutionary trap." It's what happens when birds, turtles, moths, beetles, all kinds of animals, wired to respond to certain cues in nature, bump instead into human inventions and get confused. They try to do the right thing ? like having a little baby beetle, and end up spending hours scraping glass.
When sea turtles finish laying eggs on beaches, they look for moonlight over the ocean. The light tells them which direction leads back to the sea. Hotels with big lights on their end of the beach can confuse mother turtles, making them go the wrong way. Some hotels now douse their lights when sea turtles come to lay their eggs.
There are so many examples. Farmers in the Midwest used to put red insulators on their electric fences. Hummingbirds thought they were red flowers. If they touched the wire with their beaks, they died. The insulator company, when it realized what was happening, stopped using red paint, and farmers eventually substituted not-red models. As the world gets more crowded, some humans are learning to try ? at least some of the time ? to be less of a nuisance to other animals.
That, happily, is how our jewel beetle story ends. When beer companies in Australia learned that their bottles were having a discernible effect on the population of jewel beetles ? so many males were spending useless hours fornicating, often dying under the hot Australian sun and leaving no heirs ? the companies decided to change their bottles. The little bumps were eliminated to be replaced by smooth glass, the beetles lost all interest in bottles, and life in the Australian west ? at least beetle life ? went back to normal.
The problem is, this problem doesn't end. Humans keep inventing things. Animals keep bumping into these things, sometimes with very unhappy results, and we have to keep correcting our mistakes. That's one reason we've been given the big brains, I suppose, to help us undo the many things we've done when didn't even know we were doing them.
Thanks to Carl Zimmer, Radiolab regular and author of the wonderful blog, The Loom, whose musings about evolutionary traps and the work of Bruce Robertson of Bard College, Jennifer Rehage of Florida International University and Andrew Sih of the University of California, Davis, got me thinking about all this. Also, thanks to two wonderful songwriters out of Britain, Flanders and Swann, who years ago wrote about the impossible love of an armadillo for an Army tank ? one of the most poignant evolutionary traps ever. Their song includes these lines ...
Then I saw them in a hollow, by a yellow muddy bank
An Armadillo singing ... to an armour-plated tank.
Should I tell him, gaunt and rusting, with the willow tree above,
This - abandoned on manoeuvres - is the object of your love?I left him to his singing,
Cycled home without a pause,
Never tell a man the truth
About the one that he adores.
And to further celebrate my theme, for those of you who want to see beetle/bottle footage from Australia, here's a BBC video which would be X-rated if you were an underage beetle unaccompanied by an adult.
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Grief and Bipolar Disorder: Remembering That I Can Feel | Her ...
Sorrow makes us all children again ? destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ?Ralph Waldo Emerson
My emotions have been snowballing.
First, my sister starts to become unpredictable. Her relationship with my mother disintegrates.
I worry about my new nephew. I notice my mother and father pulling away from each other.
In my experience, it?s hard to handle emotional pain and have bipolar disorder.
It?s magnified; too raw to explain in words.
I?ve been working on my ability to handle acute stress. My therapist and I have talked about it many times. I?m learning in therapy to let go of my worries and to put myself first.
I?m making incredible strides.
So when things started to go south in the family, I tried to help when I could, but mainly, I separated myself from the situation.
I can?t handle the drama, the anxiety constantly swirling around my mother and grandmother.
The disdain I feel in the house I used to live in. The lack of love from my parents and sister.
Two weeks ago, when my father was helping us move into our new home, he stopped me alone at the top of the stairs.
?I just want you to know that your mother and I may be separating. I don?t want you to get caught off guard.?
I tried to be brave. I started to cry a little, but quickly made myself stop.
?As long as we are still going to be the same.?
My dad hugged me. Of course it would still be the same.
We talked for a long time about how the relationships in the house I used to live in were crumbling.
My moods changed with the stages of grief. And shortly after this I noticed my moods changing.
I was doing so well ignoring everything for so long.
But I couldn?t do it any longer.
I was hurting.
I could no longer hide from myself that even though I had made great strides in my bipolar recovery over the years, I was still able to experience great pain.
It doesn?t go away just because you?re doing better. When things hurt, they hurt regardless.
I have been rather erratic with my medication lately. I?ve irritable and I am not handling stress well.
However, these behaviors are nothing new. Sometimes I slip off the middle path due to grief.
Just when I started to think I could handle things, they got worse.
When I met my dad for breakfast on Father?s Day, he told me his father died that morning.
All I could do is hug him and tell him I was so sorry. I couldn?t imagine how that must have felt on Father?s Day. My grandfather lived a long life, and was a happy man, but losing someone so integral and to your life is always devastating.
I cried again. This time the pain hurt more. I tried to keep things light at breakfast and he did too. But I knew he was destroyed. I hadn?t seen him like that since his cousin was murdered years ago.
He was trying to be strong, but honestly, I didn?t expect that.
I tried to give him as much love as I could. He?d be leaving that afternoon to tend to his mother and family. The funeral would be during the week, and I?d be 1000 miles away from him, unable to comfort him.
Just like when I found out about my parents, I was numb. I could only keep joking and smiling because I didn?t know what else to do.
But when the sun set that night, when I realized how much pain my family was in, how the men around me had turned to boys, how a part of my heart was gone, I felt a deep, natural depression that I hadn?t felt in a long time.
I haven?t seen my therapist in three weeks. Just after I saw her, all of this started happening. Tomorrow I go again. I will need this. I don?t necessarily feel that grief can be processed alone.
I remember now how deeply I can feel.
Having bipolar allows you to love and experience emotions in ways that other people cannot. It is a gift, but it can be intense.
Right now, I don?t know how to continue. I don?t know how I can help my family, how I can take the pain away from my heart, how I can just let it go.
I know that I have to let this grief envelop me until it decides to go away. I?m growing older and realizing that this is the course of life.
?
Photo Credit:??Henning M?hlinghaus?via?Compfight
?
????Last reviewed: 18 Jun 2013
APA Reference
Dawkins, K. (2013). Grief and Bipolar Disorder: Remembering That I Can Feel. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 19, 2013, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/bipolar-life/2013/06/grief-bipolar-feeling/
?
Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/bipolar-life/2013/06/grief-bipolar-feeling/
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Medical Malpractice Case Filings Decrease in PA | Personal Injury ...
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Bad Connection
President Obama is shown digital learning programs during a visit to Mooresville Middle School in Mooresville, N.C., June 6, 2013.
Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
If you visit one of the public schools in Mooresville, N.C., you can get a glimpse into what the classroom of tomorrow might look like. A high-speed broadband network, personalized software, and laptops for every student allow each member of the class to learn at his or her own pace while teachers receive real-time feedback about their learners? progress. That?s why President Barack Obama went to Mooresville in early June to launch a new initiative called ConnectED, which aims to bring similar next-generation connectivity to classrooms across America in the next five years.
?In an age when the world?s information is just a click away, it demands that we bring our schools and libraries into the 21st century,? Obama declared in his speech at Mooresville Middle School. ?We can't be stuck in the 19th century,? he said, referring to the sad state of broadband connectivity at most of America?s schools. It?s a great idea. But Obama?s proposal leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The biggest unknown is perhaps the most important: funding. How the money is spent and where it comes from will determine not only whether the program meets its benchmarks but also whether it really helps ensure that ?every child in America?s classrooms has access to the fastest Internet and the most cutting-edge learning tools.?
The administration has indicated that it will let the FCC figure out those details. ConnectED would be part of the commission?s E-Rate program, which provides subsidies to broadband providers to offer discounted service to schools and libraries. E-Rate, in turn, is part of the Universal Service Fund, which administers several programs to bring better access to telecommunications services across the country, especially in low-income, rural, insular, and high-cost areas.
In the past two decades, E-Rate has helped connect thousands of schools and libraries, but the program is now struggling to meet growing demand. Currently, most of the schools that receive E-Rate funding have connection speeds that are similar to those of the average home broadband user?a far cry from what they need to support large numbers of students using the next generation education applications being developed for classrooms. (It?s an even farther cry from ConnectED?s stated goal of providing 99 percent of America?s schools and libraries with minimum speeds of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students and a target of 1 Gbps by 2018.) In fact, in a survey of E-Rate subsidized schools, nearly 80 percent reported that they did not even have the bandwidth to meet their current needs, let alone to account for future growth. As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said recently, ?The problem now is not connection, it?s capacity.?
One challenge is that the program needs to ensure that schools upgrade to technology that won?t become obsolete in just a few years, like cable or wireless. Fiber is the only option that remains largely future-proof: It?s already capable of gigabit speeds and more readily scalable than other technologies to meet future demands.
The FCC should also carefully consider who would be the best stewards of E-Rate dollars. Large phone companies haven?t always proven themselves reliable in that regard, charging some schools up to 325 percent more than they charged others in the same region for essentially the same services. And the cable companies don?t even think gigabit speeds are necessary (a convenient perspective when your service relies on technology that is incapable of actually achieving those speeds). In reality, projects like Google Fiber and community networks in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Lafayette, La.; and Santa Monica, Calif.; where cities have invested in fiber infrastructure that can then be leveraged by area school districts, tend to have the fastest speeds?and these sorts of alternative models should be supported. E-rate ought to be used primarily to support substantial upgrades to infrastructure?the high investment costs that most broadband providers use to justify what they charge per month?and in return require that the network providers offer free or heavily discounted services to the schools..
So where will the money come from? President Obama?s remarks in Mooresville last Thursday and a supplemental fact sheet are notably light on details. There may be a temporary increase in the surcharge that you pay on your monthly phone bill (or bills, since it?s applied to both landline and mobile plans) to pay for the ?one-time investment.? Commissioner Rosenworcel has also suggested that savings from recent reforms in the Lifeline program (which is part of the Universal Service Fund and provides discounts for telephone service for eligible low-income households) should be used to support her version of the proposal called E-Rate 2.0, while several news articles refer to ?rechanneling? funds from Lifeline. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has even called for eliminating the Lifeline program entirely and moving all funds to the E-Rate program.
However, none of these ideas are very promising, and the call to reduce or eliminate Lifeline entirely is particularly troubling. Finding the money under the existing USF system will be difficult, and even a small increase on monthly phone bills that are already steadily rising could be problematic. And while the Lifeline program has faced some criticism, many of the problems have already been addressed by FCC reforms. Importantly, the program is currently underutilized by eligible users, and any restrictions in funding will hinder its ability to support broadband access in the future.
But ConnectED?s success will also depend on home access. Obama recognizes that students? connectivity needs to extend beyond school walls. In his remarks, he imagines ?a young boy with a chronic illness that means he can't go to school [who now] can join his classmates via Skype or FaceTime and fully participate in what's going on??a scenario that would require robust connectivity at the student?s home as well as his school. Mooresville has addressed the problem of home broadband access by convincing a local, community-owned cable company to offer broadband access to students? families for $9.99 a month, plus free Wi-Fi connections in parks, local libraries, and municipal buildings. If the Lifeline program were updated to support stand-alone broadband service, it could mean that low-income students could have broadband access in schools and other public areas, as well as complementary access at home. Simply moving funds from one Universal Service Fund program to another could cripple Lifeline?s ability to support existing service and make it much more difficult for it to support home broadband service in the future.
The ConnectED program has the potential to dramatically improve broadband access for schools across the country, but its goals won?t be achieved by tinkering at the edges of existing programs, or relying on models that have already proven inadequate.
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