Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/320022832?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, July 19, 2013
Where Is the ?Post-Racial? America President After the Zimmerman Verdict?
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After Zimmerman verdict, Obama needs to speak about racism
By Janet Langhart Cohen, Washington Post
Janet Langhart Cohen is the author of the play ?Anne and Emmett,? an imaginary conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till. She is on Twitter: @LanghartCohen.
In the wake of the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, President Obama has called on the American people to engage in calm reflection. Few expected the president to denounce the verdict or call upon people to take to the streets in protest, but we did expect him to speak in a way that touched the heartbreak, despair and quiet rage that so many of us feel at this moment.
On multiple occasions, Obama has asked blacks to understand the high wire he is forced to walk on the subject of race. He has pleaded that we cut him some slack. Most have done so even as conditions in the black community have become more desperate.
We have waited and watched the president address issues of importance to women, gays and lesbians, Latinos and the security of our allies. We praised his boldness in speaking to the issue of sexual orientation during his visit to Africa.
?
?
For the past four years, we have remained silent; some have been satisfied that Obama being the first black president was reason enough to seal our lips and muffle our voices. But most were convinced that, once he entered his second term, Obama would be liberated from the racial harness that politics forced him to wear.
During this period of self-imposed silence, we have watched our criminal laws become racialized and our race criminalized. Blacks continue to be faced with punishing unfairness and inequalities. Soaring rates of unemployment, discriminatory drug laws, disproportionate prison sentences, unequal access to health care and healthy food, unfair stop-and-frisk policies and ?accidental? shootings of unarmed black men by the police ? these and more are treated with indifference or contempt. We?re told to stop complaining, to get over it. No one cares.
But that?s just the point of living in the United States. Somebody is supposed to care. Our elected officials, beginning with the president, are charged with the responsibility of listening to the needs, the grievances, the voices of the people ? including people of color.
It?s the reason why every black leader from Frederick Douglass to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have urged us to speak up, agitate, march, brave the beatings from fire hoses, bull whips and dogs, to touch the conscience of the American people with the righteousness of our demands for equal opportunity and justice.
It is my hope that Obama will do what Nelson Mandela did when he was forced to stand trial before an Afrikaner court for the crime of fighting for freedom.?
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Zimmerman book dies after Twitter campaign
A woman known as Juror B37 thought writing an anonymous book about her experiences on the George Zimmerman trial was a good idea.
Many people, including a powerful and tireless group of outraged Twitter users, thought otherwise.
News reports surfaced Monday morning that the woman, who gave an exclusive interview that night with CNN's Anderson Cooper about her experiences on the six-woman Zimmerman jury, had signed with a literary agent and was working on a book proposal about the trial. The agent was identified as Sharlene Martin, who has worked on such other post-trial tomes as O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" and Mary Jo Buttafuoco's "Getting It Through My Thick Skull."
Then came the Twitter backlash, led by 29-year-old New Yorker Genie Lauren, who goes by @MoreAndAgain on Twitter. Lauren saw the juror's interview on CNN and decided to take action.
"I was angry and I didn't think it was right that someone would make money off of this tragedy -- especially after they let Zimmerman go free," she told NewsOne.
Lauren tracked down contact information for Martin, including her Twitter handle, e-mail address, mailing address and phone number, and posted it on the social network and on Storify, which displays social media posts in a blog-like stream. She then asked her followers to write Martin and urge her to drop B37 as a client.
Next she launched a Change.org petition with the title, "Sharlene Martin: Drop Juror B37 from Martin Literary Management," which quickly hit 1,346 signatures.
Immediately, people began venting on Twitter and contacting Martin. In a matter of hours, Martin announced late Monday afternoon that she and the juror were no longer moving ahead with the book.
In a statement released by Martin, the juror said, in part, "I have realized the best direction for me to go is away from writing any sort of book and return instead to my life as it was before I was called to sit on this jury."
She elaborated in a statement Wednesday to CNN, saying, "There was an agreement with a literary agent to explore the concept of a book which discussed the impact of sequestration on my perceptions of this serious case, while being compared to the perceptions of an attorney who was closely following the trial from outside the 'bubble.'
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Thursday, July 18, 2013
Egypt Cabinet has women, Christians; no Islamists
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's interim leader swore in a Cabinet on Tuesday that included women and Christians but no Islamists as the military-backed administration moved swiftly to formalize the new political order and present a more liberal face that is markedly at odds with the deposed president and his supporters.
The changes came at a time of deep polarization and violence in Egypt, including new clashes that killed seven people as part of the continuing bloodshed that has marked the days following the armed forces coup that swept President Mohammed Morsi from office and cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's military already wields great influence behind the scenes, and the army chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi on July 3, was given a promotion in the Cabinet. He became a first deputy prime minister in addition to keeping his post as defense minister.
For most of the two years since the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the country has been split into two camps ? one led by Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, and another led by secular Egyptians, liberals, Christians and moderate Muslims.
The fault lines remain, except that the Islamist camp is no longer in power. It does not include members of any Islamist parties ? a sign of the enduring division that follows the removal of Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.
The interim president's spokesman had earlier said posts would be offered to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the group promptly refused, saying it would not take part in the military-backed political process and would continue protests until the legitimately elected Morsi is reinstated.
"We refuse to even discuss it," a senior official of the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, told The Associated Press. "What is built on illegitimacy is illegal," he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media before the party issued a formal statement on the formation of the Cabinet.
The only Islamist party that supported Morsi's ouster ? the ultraconservative Salafi el-Nour party ? was not represented and criticized the leadership as "biased," lacking inclusion and repeating "the same mistake the last government was blamed for."
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he had talked with el-Sissi about 10 times in the past week.
"We have encouraged publicly and privately the leaders of Egypt, including the interim president, the interim vice president, and the prime minister in particular, to be inclusive, to bring all political parties in, to allow them to participate in the writing of the constitution and the elections," Hagel told reporters in Florida. "That's the only way it will work. We've been very clear on that."
Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist in his 70s, leads the government of 33 other ministers. Sworn in by interim President Adly Mansour, it reflected the largely liberal, secular bent of the factions who brought millions into the streets at the end of June calling for Morsi to step down and backed el-Sissi's removal of the president.
Women have a somewhat higher profile in the government, with three ministries ? including the powerful information and health ministries. Most past governments for decades have had at most only two women.
The Cabinet also includes three Christians, including one of the three women, Environment Minister Laila Rashed Iskander. That is also a first, since successive governments had no more than one or two Christians.
Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim, appointed by Morsi, remains in his post, which oversees the police. Nabil Fahmy, who was Egypt's ambassador to the U.S. from 1999-2008 and a nuclear disarmament expert, becomes foreign minister.
In a nod to the revolutionary youth groups that engineered the 2011 uprising and this year's massive protests, Mansour renamed the Justice portfolio the Transitional Justice and National Reconciliation Ministry and gave it to Mohammed el-Mahdi, a career judge.
The groups have been campaigning to bring to justice those responsible for the killings of hundreds of protesters since Mubarak's fall. Reconciliation is a longstanding demand by most political forces to end Egypt's polarization, which often spills over into street violence.
At least three senior figures from the National Salvation Front ? the main opposition group during Morsi's year in office ? were included in the government. In addition, the new deputy prime minister in charge of international cooperation, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, is a member of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of the Salvation Front.
Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the Front's top leaders and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has already been installed as Mansour's vice president.
In a first, Mansour also swore in a leading figure in Egyptian soccer as sports minister. Midfielder Taher Abu Zeid starred in Cairo's el-Ahly club and the national team in the 1980s. He was a member of the national squad that won the African Nations' Cup in 1986.
The Cabinet is to run the country during a transition period announced last week by Mansour. The plan includes the formation of panels to amend the Islamist-drafted constitution that was passed under Morsi, then elections for a new parliament and president early next year.
After the swearing-in ceremony, the Cabinet held its first meeting and set the government's priorities as reviving the economy, bolstering public security and improving services, according to a palace statement.
El-Beblawy and his team face the formidable task of showing they are more efficient and resourceful than their predecessors. Egypt's economy has been worsening in the past two years with flight of capital and investors, slumping tourism and high unemployment among its 90 million people.
A $12 billion aid package from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates should help, but harsh reforms ? such as lifting or gradually phasing out fuel subsidies ? are still needed to put the economy on solid ground.
The new government will also have to tread carefully as it begins to deal with almost-daily street protests and violence by Morsi supporters if it is to revive the vital tourism industry and lure back investors.
Morsi's supporters are holding sit-ins in cities around the country, including two in Cairo. They accuse the military of carrying out a coup that has destroyed Egypt's democracy.
Riots broke out overnight with police firing volleys of tear gas at protesters, who burned tires, threw rocks and blocked traffic on a main road running through the heart of the capital. The Brotherhood said police used birdshot and live ammunition.
At least seven people were killed and 261 injured in the clashes in four different sites in Cairo, according to Khaled el-Khateeb, the head of the Health Ministry's emergency and intensive care department. Four of the seven were killed in fighting between residents and Morsi supporters staging a sit-in near Cairo's main university, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Egypt's state news agency said 17 policemen were injured and 401 people have been arrested.
Violence between Islamists and security forces on July 8 left another 54 people dead ? most of them Morsi supporters.?
Tuesday's violence broke out a day after Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the most senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since Morsi's ouster, concluded talks with Mansour, el-Beblawi and el-Sissi in which he called for the Brotherhood to be included in the political process.
Burns also spoke by telephone with a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters. Ventrell would not identify the Brotherhood representative or give details on the call.
___
Associated Press reporters Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-cabinet-women-christians-no-islamists-210718149.html
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NCAA to stop putting name, logo on EA video game
NEW YORK (AP) ? Hang on to NCAA Football 14, video game fans. It will be a collector's edition.
The NCAA said it will no longer allow Electronic Arts Inc. to use its logo starting next year. The move ends a lucrative business deal with the gaming industry giant and comes as the NCAA fights a high-profile lawsuit that says the governing body owes billions of dollars to former players for allowing their likenesses to be used for free.
The NCAA said it won't seek a new contract with EA Sports, which manufactures the popular game, beyond the current one that expires in June 2014. However, that won't stop EA Sports from producing a college football video game depicting powerhouse schools like Alabama, Ohio State and Oregon, and the Redwood City, Calif.-based company made that clear Wednesday.
"EA Sports will continue to develop and publish college football games, but we will no longer include the NCAA names and marks," said Andrew Wilson, executive vice president. "Our relationship with the Collegiate Licensing Co. is strong and we are already working on a new game for next generation consoles which will launch next year and feature the college teams, conferences and all the innovation fans expect from EA Sports."
The company reported $3.8 billion in net revenue during its last fiscal year and, aside from its NCAA Football franchise, is well known for Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer and other games.
EA Sports first began making an NCAA Football game in 1998 and it has generated more than $1.3 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, according to a spokesman for market tracking firm The NPD Group Inc. It wasn't known how much of what EA makes from NCAA Football goes back to the NCAA and its members in licensing deals.
Todd Mitchell, senior analyst with New York-based Brean Capital LLC, said losing the NCAA brand isn't likely to hurt EA Sports. He estimated NCAA Football accounts for only about 5 percent of EA Sports' revenue, or about $125 million.
"It's nice to have the brand, but it's more about the characters," he said.
Analyst Colin Sebastian of R.W. Baird said EA Sports likely expected to lose its partnership with the NCAA.
"I'm sure they have thought about this because of this pending litigation and the worst case scenarios," Sebastian said by telephone from San Francisco. "I don't expect it to have a significant impact on their business."
NCAA Football allows participants to play as any major college football team, though unlike in its professional sports games, the names of players are not used. The similarities between the avatars in the game and actual college athletes are at the root of a fight that could alter the way the NCAA does business in the future.
The NCAA is in the midst of a long court battle that started with a lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon after he was shown a video game with an avatar playing for the Bruins that played a lot like him.
The antitrust lawsuit also names EA and the Collegiate Licensing Co. that handles trademark licensing for dozens of schools, the NCAA and various conferences. The suit has expanded to include several former athletes who claim the NCAA and EA Sports used their names and likenesses without compensation and demand the NCAA find a way to give players a cut of the billions of dollars earned from live broadcasts, memorabilia sales and video games.
"We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games," the NCAA said. "But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the NCAA.
"The NCAA has never licensed the use of current student-athlete names, images or likenesses to EA. The NCAA has no involvement in licenses between EA and former student-athletes," it said in a statement.
Still, the NCAA said its members can seek arrangements with video game manufacturers if they wish.
"Member colleges and universities license their own trademarks and other intellectual property for the video game," the NCAA said. "They will have to independently decide whether to continue those business arrangements in the future."
Michael Hausfeld, the lead attorney on the O'Bannon case, said the NCAA cutting ties with EA could provide greater freedom for EA to make deals with conferences, schools and even players.
"No longer would EA have to pretend the avatars are not the likenesses of the real players," he said.
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H823PUTT posted READING WEEK IDEAS !?
Hey guys. My son who is attending college this fall is now on reading week and we normally do a march break trip to Myrtle Beach, for the past 5 years. just wondering where togo as my sons reading week is in february a...
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
FBI busts duo for building dud death ray?
Your gadgets 
14 hours ago
Skip Dickstein / Albany Times Union
Glendon Scott Crawford 49 of Providence, N.Y., leaves the Federal Courthouse Wednesday afternoon, June 19, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. after being arraigned.
Two middle-aged men from New York were arrested after the FBI caught them conspiring to build a machine that would fire radiation at people and kill them. The only problem: The machine the men had in mind would never have worked.
The FBI began watching the pair, Glendon Crawford, (49), and Eric Feight (54), in April last year after it was tipped off to the duo's plan. The two visited a Jewish organizations looking for help to build a machine that would take out "enemies of Israel." Shaken members of those organizations contacted the police.
Over a year of surveillance, an FBI Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force found out that Crawford and Feight were planning to build a death-ray that could be packed into a truck and driven around.
As the US Attorney's office in Northern New York described it, "the essence of Crawford's scheme" was to build a "mobile, remotely operated, radiation-emitting device capable of killing targeted individuals silently with lethal doses of X-ray radiation." According to the formal complaint, the two hoped "the target(s), and those around them would not immediately be aware they had absorbed lethal doses of radiation."
But radiation delivered in such lethal doses would need a tremendous amounts of energy to power up, and be cooled off, radiation and nuclear engineering researchers told the Albany Times Union, so it's unlikely the plan would have worked.
An FBI team led by Special agent Geoffrey Kent arrested the two on Tuesday, charging them with "conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists." According to the New York Times, Crawford was arrested as he tried to plug in a previously de-activated X-ray machine that undercover FBI agents had given him. In the release, they explain that the "device ... was rendered inoperable at all times and posed no danger to the public."
Crawford claimed to belong to the Ku Klux Klan, and as part of their watch, they FBI sent in undercover agents posing as members of the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan, the Times Union reports.
The two suspected they were being watched, the Times Union reports, and used a codewords in which Feight's alias was "Yoda."
We have contacted the U.S. Attorney's office in Albany and will update this story if and when we hear back.
Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and science. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
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