Eurozone unemployment ends 2011 at record high (AP)

LONDON ? Unemployment across the 17 countries that use the euro ended 2011 at a record high of one person in every 10, official figures showed Tuesday, a day after EU leaders acknowledged that they would have to boost economic growth with the same urgency that they had shown in combating their nations' debts.

Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said the 10.4 per cent unemployment rate in December was unchanged at its highest level since the euro was launched in 1999, as November's was revised upward from a previous estimate of 10.3 percent. Unemployment has been steadily rising over the past year ? in December 2010, it stood at 9.5 percent ? largely because of Europe's debt crisis.

There are huge disparities across the eurozone, however, with those countries at the front line of Europe's current financial turmoil, such as Greece and Spain, suffering record rates of unemployment that are stoking concerns about the social fabric of their societies ? Spain's unemployment stands at a staggering 22.9 percent and Greece's is not far behind at 19.2 percent.

What even those figures mask is that unemployment among the young is much, much higher. Latest figures from Spain show unemployment among people aged under 25 was 48.7 percent, prompting concerns that an entire generation of people could fail to accumulate the necessary skills and experience for a prosperous life.

At the other end of the scale, some countries like Austria are operating not far off what is considered to be the natural rate of unemployment in an economy of 4.1 per cent, while Germany's rate at a post-unification low of 5.5 per cent.

Since Europe's debt crisis exploded around two years ago, the focus has been on austerity, with governments getting their houses in order with big, often-savage spending cuts, and tax increases.

However, there are growing signs that Europe is changing tack, and that measures to boost growth and jobs are now central to the crisis resolution effort.

On Monday, at a summit in Brussels designed to shore up the euro's budgetary defenses against debt, EU leaders promised to stimulate growth and create jobs across the region.

"Yes we need discipline, but we also need growth," said Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

The leaders pledged to offer more training for young people to ease their transition into the work force, to deploy unused development funds to create jobs, to reduce barriers to doing business across the EU's 27 countries and ensure that small businesses have access to credit.

The task is hand is massive, with just under 16.5 million people unemployed in the eurozone, up 751,000 on the year before. Across the EU, which includes non-euro countries such as Britain and Poland, the number of unemployed stands at 23.8 million, or 9.9 percent of the potential work force.

Even if reforms to economies across Europe help boost growth and potential employment opportunities, there are many headwinds that will be difficult to overcome, not least the fear that many economies will slip back into recession in the wake of ongoing austerity measures and subdued global demand.

"Governments in these countries urgently need to deliver labor market reforms that make it more attractive to hire workers and ensure that young people in particular are not put at risk of permanent exclusion from the work force," said Tom Rogers, a senior economic adviser at consultants Ernst & Young .

"Such reforms, if swiftly implemented, could have a powerful impact on confidence in the near term, and help ease the burden of the current crisis," Rogers added.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_europe_economy

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US stock futures dragged down by euro worries

In this Jan. 25, 2012 photo, traders John Santiago, left, and Craig Spector work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. World stock markets fell Monday, Jan. 30, 2012, as uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece's debt crisis weighed on investor sentiment ahead of a summit of European leaders. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

In this Jan. 25, 2012 photo, traders John Santiago, left, and Craig Spector work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. World stock markets fell Monday, Jan. 30, 2012, as uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece's debt crisis weighed on investor sentiment ahead of a summit of European leaders. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. stock futures are falling as uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece's debt crisis weighs on investor sentiment ahead of a summit of European leaders.

Dow Jones industrial futures are down 65 points to 12,549. The broader S&P 500 futures are down 7 points to 1,305. The Nasdaq composite is 14 points lower at 2,443.

The leaders gathering in Brussels hope to focus on how to stimulate economic growth when huge government spending cuts threaten to push many countries back into recession.

The latest data showed Spain's economy shrank in the last three months of 2011.

European markets also declined. In Asia, most indexes fell as investors reacted to Friday's release of data showing the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the fourth quarter.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-30-Wall%20Street/id-fcae722701464cb1aa840188e9e0b03d

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Mike Ragogna: From "Don't Mean Nothing" to "Dance With My Father": A Conversation With Richard Marx

A Conversation with Richard Marx

Mike Ragogna: Richard, last year, you released a Christmas EP, but what else have you been up to recently?

Richard Marx: The Christmas EP obviously came out around Christmas time, so I was working on that for a few months prior. All in all it was pretty painless. It was just an EP, so it was only five songs, but we're going to do a whole album for Christmas 2012, which I'm going to be recording in about 10 days time around April. But this one was pretty painless, it was fun. I got to sing live with me in a booth in one room and the band and strings in their booths - very old school. I had a lot of fun.

MR: Recording everything live, old school.

RM: Right. Or as opposed to all of the vocals being sung by Justin Beiber, I sang these myself.

MR: (laughs) Can you tell us what inspires you as an artist?

RM: Well, my process has been the same for a long time. Unless I'm collaborating with someone and have set a specific time to write a song with someone, I write alone and there is no set time or organization about it. I write something every day, but I don't usually sit down to write a song. Luckily, something forces itself on me every day. It may be a melody that hits me while I'm in my car or a lyric that hits me in the shower. I just make a point to collect these ideas. Some of them just demand to be worked on or finished immediately, some I just tuck away and I may not get to them for months. I don't use an instrument to write when I'm writing by myself. I've found that that's limiting, you know? No matter how good a player you are - and I'm not a good player - you still have to be able to play an instrument. But if that instrument is your imagination, then I'm not limited to anything, and I find that my songwriting is much more interesting. That's one part of my process.

The music almost always comes first and sort of tells me what the lyrics should be. Beyond that, I don't really try to write, I sort of just let it happen. Luckily , for decades now, it just keeps happening. I've found that some of the musicians that I admire so much are so proficient at their instrument or multiple instruments if they're lucky, but they have no freedom. I have had amazing artists tell me that they just know too much about their instrument and the music to use their imagination to its full musical potential. They're limited by their wealth of knowledge if that's possible. There are no limitations in your head to what you can come up with. I wouldn't have come up with a lot of the themes or musical landscapes that accompany my songs if I was sitting with an acoustic guitar or piano. It just wouldn't happen.

MR: That's a great insight. I usually wait with this question until the end of the interview, but let me ask you now. Do you have any advice that you might want to share with new artists?

RM: You know, I think it's a really bad time to start asking people for advice because it's pretty grim out there right now. The music business has gotten smaller since you and I started talking. (laughs) It's shrinking a little bit more every day. I don't have a crystal ball, nor have I ever been good at forecasting things like that. I only know that I'm super-grateful that I came into the business when I did. I feel really bad for young singer-songwriters now because the opportunities that existed for me in the early '80s before I was singed to learn about the business don't exist anymore. And they have been replaced with anything equally great. If I were starting out now, I would feel robbed - and I'm sure there are a lot of young artists out there who feel a little ripped off. The opportunities to really make it a lucrative career have diminished a lot, not that that should ever be anyone's motivation. Before, there was always that hope of writing a hit song and making tons of money. It's a shame because that opportunity and the fantasy of that have been demolished over the last few years, and I don't see that toothpaste going back into the tube. So, in my long-winded answer, I would say if you want to write songs and play in bands and perform because it feeds something in you and you're following your bliss, do it. If you feel like you need it to sustain yourself or to make a living, you're probably going to have to do something else in addition. And that's too bad.

MR: True. Though, I would argue that because of the Internet and social networking and other technologies, I would say that people have more of an opportunity to promote and proliferate their material more freely, more so than I've ever seen in the industry.

RM: Yeah, "getting your music out there" doesn't necessarily mean anything - everyone's music is out there. It doesn't mean it's connecting with anybody. If you've got 17 Facebook friends who all really like your music, that's awesome. And if that's enough to keep you writing songs, that's great. That doesn't mean that your music is "out there." It's great that we no longer have to rely on large record labels - they don't do anybody any good. Most major labels won't even sign someone who hasn't already done most of their social networking promotion ahead of time. It's almost a chicken or the egg situation because they may not sign someone who doesn't have 150,000 Facebook friends. But if they have 150,000 Facebook friends, what do they need a record company for, you know? The one glimmer of hope for the industry is that young people don't need a big corporate machine behind them to get their music heard. But in order to get it started enough to be able to sustain a career? Facebook ain't gonna do it.

It's much more complicated than people think, and I see super-talented people week after week that just aren't going to get by without having that one major hit unless they get by selling records on the DL, playing gigs, and can keep that train going. But if they want to live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, this is not for them. It's way more complicated than even I can understand. We could sit and have a round table discussion about it for hours and we still probably wouldn't come up with any answers. It's a tricky time for the music business. I think the saddest part is that we're at a time in our society where the competition for public attention is greater than ever, music is losing. People are still buying and downloading music, but I don't think the passion for music is what it was even five years ago. People are really taking music for granted now. Do you know why? Because it's tiny, you can't even see it now. It's all measured in megabites. When something gets that physically small, I think there's a brain correlation that says it's also not that important.

MR: Right, and the perceived value has dropped considerably because of pirating and such, wouldn't you say?

RM: Right. And frankly, maybe the next thing to be hit in this way will be sports and professional athletes, only because I feel like the general public has seen the rockstar excess and this legion of people that didn't look like they appreciated it. People don't want to support people like that. I feel it'll be the same with pro athletes. If we see them with everything and still bitching and moaning about it, the average man isn't gonna continue to support these people anymore. At the end of the day, for every negative part of the conversation, there's a positive. For instance, The Civil Wars have been carving out a name for themselves the old fashioned way - from the ground up. They're brilliant talents who are just now starting to get recognized for who great they are.

MR: Richard, before we get into talking about your records and many hit singles, can you tell us how your career started?

RM: Sure. I was about 17 and I'd written about five or six songs, but I had an amazing leg up in the fact that I was born into a musical family. My mom was and still is a great singer, and my dad was a jingle composer and producer. By the time I came along, his business was already growing and thriving, so he built an office in Chicago. Years later, when I had these songs that I'd written, I had this amazing place to go and have them demoed. It wasn't like I was home recording on a tape recorder. I could make really decent demos. I had to save up the money to pay the musicians - my dad didn't front the money. He told me that if I wanted to do this, I'd have to pay for all of it. I put together four or five really good sounding demos and sent them out to every record company, and every record company threw them in the trash. But some friends of mine would play demos like they were records and just listen to them all the time. So, a really good friend of mine was away at college playing the demo in his room and his roommate heard it and really liked it and said he knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who worked with The Commodores. Somehow, my tape with my number on the back wound up in Lionel Richie's hands and he called me up. I was about 3 or 4 months away from graduating from High School. He talked to me for about half an hour on the phone and was so encouraging and gave me some great sage advice. He didn't make me any sort of job offers or anything at the time. But he did tell me that he knew I probably planned on going to college or something but if I decided to come to LA and get my career going, look him up.

That completely rebooted my whole thought process. To have arguably one of the most talented guys in the music business at the time tell me I was talented changed things. So, I bailed on college and went out to LA. One day, I went to his studio to meet him - we'd only talked on the phone before and he put me up in the studio to sing background vocals on his song called "You Are." He was working on his first solo record at the time. For the next couple of years, anytime he was in the studio, he would invite me to be there. Sometimes, I would sing background vocals on things, but the rest of the time, he would just let me be in the room and watch and learn. I can't say enough about what a gracious and generous guy he is, even to this day. I owe a tremendous amount of my career to him.

MR: It seems as though you were in the prot?g? role, right?

RM: Yeah. I mean, I had that with a couple of different people, but he was the first one who was making records that let me sort of be a fly on the wall. It was actually Lionel who recommended me to Kenny Rogers who was also at the top of the charts at the time. That's how I started getting songs placed because the first couple of songs I had placed were with Kenny Rogers. I met Kenny during those recording sessions, and I wouldn't have gotten onto those sessions if it weren't for Lionel.

MR: Right. Some of the hits you had with Kenny were "Crazy" and "What About Me?"

RM: That's right, and those were both from the same album. There was another song on that album as well, but it wasn't a hit. I had three songs on that album and I was only 19, so it was crazy that I was in that situation. But it was all because of Lionel.

MR: Nice. And "What About Me?" was technically your first #1 hit.

RM: Yeah. And "Crazy" followed as the #1 country song. The first song I ever placed was a #1 AC song, though I think it hit #15 on the pop charts. But I definitely thought to myself that it was never going to happen again, I wasn't the kind of guy that thought it was just that easy. I really thought that it was great that it happened and that it would never happen again, but I was ready to do the work to get back to that again.

MR: You went on from there to work a little with the group Chicago.

RM: Well, I sang background vocals on a song on Chicago's 17 record. Robert Lamm, who I was a huge fan of, wrote all of my favorite songs and he and I just hit it off. He was another person that was a huge mentor to me. He asked me to write a song with him but it didn't make the 17 record because it wasn't really good enough. It ended up being on the We Are The World album by Chicago, so I can technically say that I have a Chicago cut. (laughs) It wasn't a spectacular song. I was still such a kid when I wrote that song. But it was so great to work with Robert and we're still friends to this day.

MR: Very cool. Then came Bruce Lundvall of EMI Manhattan who then gave you your break with your first album. Can you tell us about that?

RM: Bruce and I were introduced by a mutual friend, and he basically just heard the exact same songs that everyone else had rejected. Songs like "Endless Summer Nights," "Don't Mean Nothing" and "Should Have Known Better," and he loved them. I couldn't believe it. Not only did he give me a record deal finally, but he told me I should produce my own record, which was just unheard of. That guy just changed my life and is, again, someone I keep in touch with to this very day. I owe my career as an artist to Bruce Lundvall because he singed me when no one else wanted to and gave me tremendous artistic freedom from the get-go. He didn't micromanage. He's the kind of guy that has such an illustrious career, and his philosophy is that if he likes what you do, there is no reason for him to get in the way of it. He's just such a great cheerleader and a really sweet man. Again, for me to be able to make my first record under him was just a huge blessing because that guy is a prince.

MR: Then the Grammy nominations started rolling in, like for Best Rock Vocal Performance for "Don't Mean Nothing."

RM: Yeah. But I was only up against a bunch of no names like Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. (laughs) There was no prayer I was going to win, but I was just really honored to be nominated.

MR: Which brings us to your second huge album, Repeat Offender. Can you tell us a little story behind at least one of the songs from that time period?

RM: Well, every song has a story but, "Children Of The Night" was unlike any song I had written up to that point because it wasn't personal. It wasn't about me and it wasn't a relationship song. I just happened upon a 60 Minutes profile of a woman by the name of Lois Lee who founded the charity by the same name. It's an organization in Los Angeles that houses runaway youths. Most kids who run away from home and stay away end up in jail or prosecuted for drugs or something else. It's horrendous. So, I reached out to them and talked to some of the kids in the program so that I could really understand their story. I wrote the song and decided to put it on the Repeat Offender album and donated all the royalties to them for that song. It ultimately built a new home for them in the Los Angeles area so they could house more kids. As nice as that is for them, what I got out of it was being able to meet some of the most extraordinary and courageous young people I've ever met. That's a really special song. I actually got a message on Facebook from one of the kids in the video and she's now married with kids and thriving. When I met her, and during the video shoot, she had just broken free of being a teenaged prostitute. There's a success story for you. I just love that song, and it features an amazing horn arrangement done by my late father, Dick Marx.

MR: Beautiful. Let's jump forward to your album Rush Street because it featured some pretty popular artists including Luther Vandross and Billy Joel. It also features my favorite recording you've done, "Hazard." Tell us about that song.

RM: Well, that song was musically inspired by Danny Lanois who is a brilliant arranger, producer, and musician himself. I was on tour and traveling all over at the time. He's made some of the most beautiful solo albums I've heard - they're very haunting and ethereal. I was sort of in this headspace from listening to a lot of Danny's music, so "Hazard" came out of that. It didn't particularly sound like any of his music, but it sounds like it could have been right at home on one of his records. It was just a piece of music and I didn't want to write lyrics like any other that I'd ever written. I had always wanted to write a story song, but it scared me. It's hard to tell a story in four minutes, you know? But I got an idea and I went after it. I thought it was the dumbest song that I ever tried to write, and my wife heard me playing around with it and kind of flipped out over it. She convinced me to record it and it became one of my biggest hits to this very day. Talk about a shock. I mean, I've never written a song that I thought was a hit but I was sure that nobody would care about that song. I still get people yelling it out at concerts all the time and I don't ever play a concert without doing it.

MR: Part of that, I'm sure, had to do with the spooky video that went with that song.

RM: That was a really great video. It was directed by a guy named Michael Hausman, who is a really great filmmaker. That was the closest thing to a movie that we've ever done for a video. It was a great cast as well - Jennifer O'Neill and Robert Conrad who plays the Sheriff. It's just a really great video and I can say that because I didn't do anything but appear in it.

MR: You've also worked with the late Luther Vandross.

RM: Luther and I started working together when he did background vocals on a song of mine called, "Keeping Coming Back." That experience just cemented our friendship. About a year or two later, he asked me to write a song with him for his Christmas album and we wrote a couple of other songs together after that. In fact, the last song he ever wrote called, "Dance With My Father," was a song that we wrote together, but that was much later.

MR: But that wasn't the first success you had outside your own recordings.

RM: I think the first thing I ever did after I'd had any success as an artist was working with an all-female heavy metal group called Vixen. I was on tour with them and they had finished their album, but everyone felt that they still needed their first hit single. So, I got together with a buddy of mine and we wrote a song called, "Edge Of A Broken Heart." I ended up producing that on the record for them and it was a big hit. I think that that was the first outside project that I ever took once I started touring and performing.

MR: So let's go back to "Dance With My Father," which was a huge hit and also won a Grammy, didn't it?

RM: It did - Best Song of the Year. It came about just like any other song - Luther called me up one day and said that he had an idea for a song called, "Dance With My Father." I told him that I loved the title, and we talked about the lyrics and the ideas he had for the song. The back story for that song is that my dad died in 1997, and it was very sudden and very painful because my dad and I were very, very close. The loss was so profound and it kind of sent me reeling for quite some time. One of the only people during that time who knew how to provide any sort of comfort was Luther. He would call me every couple of weeks and we would end up talking for hours. I can't even begin to tell you how much he helped me through that horrible period. Luther also came from a similar but very different situation because his father died when he was only 12. He didn't really get to know his father that well. The most vivid memory that he had of his father was seeing him come home and dance around the kitchen with Luther's mom and all the kids. It's such a sweet visual image. Luther said that he wanted to write a piece of music to remember his father, and asked if I would work on the music and we'd go from there.

I wrote a piece of music that night or the next day, and he took it and changed some stuff around and made it what he wanted, then added these amazing lyrics to it. The thing that's most beautiful about that song is everything that Luther brought to it because it was his story. I remember him saying that he thought that that song was the most important song of his career - he said that that was his "Piano Man." I was just excited that he was so excited about it. Ten days later, he had a massive stroke. He had just finished and recorded the song and then the stroke happened. It was about another year or so before he passed away, but the legacy of that song and what it means to me is so huge. I tried singing the song and I can't, I tried to sing it because I get asked to sing it a lot. It really has meant a lot to a lot of different people. People have adopted it into their lives like they have with several other songs that I've written, which I think is just incredible. But I can't sing that song because it just makes me too sad. Musical relationship notwithstanding, Luther and I were really close friends. I cherish my memories of him. But when I sing that song, it just bums me out too much, but I can and will say that I am extraordinarily proud to have been his collaborator on that song.

MR: You performed that song with Celine Dion on the night of the Grammys the year it won.

RM: Yeah, and Celine's father had passed away not too long before that. It was really hard for her to get through that. Luther was still alive at that point, though he was pretty incapacitated in the hospital. Celine is flawless though, so I went to Vegas to run through the song with her before the show. That particular year at the Grammys, there were a lot of big production numbers featuring Outkast, Earth, Wind & Fire, and 40 different people on stage at the same time. (laughs) Then we came out, very simply, I played the piano and Celine sang. It was really powerful. She really felt the song in her own way because, as I said, her dad had just passed. Simply the fact that I got to play the piano for Celine Dion is a big high point for me.

MR: You've also sung background vocals for Madonna.

RM: Yeah. That was actually one of the many sessions I did before I had a record deal.

MR: And you worked with Richard Carpenter as well, right?

RM: Yeah, I wrote a song with Richard. That was a great experience.

MR: What are some of your favorite Richard Marx hits from over the years.

RM: That's a nearly impossible question for any artist to answer. I've never heard any artist answer that question properly because there's no way to answer that question without denigrating some of the other songs. There's also no song that I've written that I've seen as a part of one of my live set lists and thought, "Oh, God, I can't wait until this song is over," you know? I'm sure that there are songs of mine that random people hate, but I don't have any. There are none that I'm embarrassed by or that represent a low point or anything. Believe me, I've written a ton of really crappy songs but you've never heard them. I'm not going to let anyone listen to anything that I don't think is the best I can do at any given time.

MR: Well, is there a song that you've written that has a particularly special place in your heart or story behind it?

RM: Again, for every song I've written, there are tracks on albums that are just as important or were just as powerful writing processes to me. When I came back from China, a crowd sang every word of "Right Here Waiting" with me; that was really special. Everywhere I go around the world, people know that song. It was very special and personal to me when it was written. Every song has its own story and life, and there isn't one song of mine that I would consider just a song. They all have a point and an origin, you know? They all have their own lives and entities and it's nearly impossible to just pick one out of the bunch.

MR: Do you have anything lined up for the near future besides beginning to work on that full length Christmas album?

RM: Well, I started touring and playing solo and acoustic last year after decades of playing with a band. I did it mainly because it frightened the hell out of me, but I have since found that it's some of the most exciting and rewarding performing that I've ever done. I'm so in love with it. It's almost like finding a new hobby or activity that you really love. Like all those guys who take up golf and then become obsessed with golf, I'm obsessed with my acoustic show. I'm just really enjoying putting all of my energy into all of those shows. I'm doing a bunch more of those shows this year all around the world. In addition to doing the new Christmas album, I'm also doing a new studio album over the summer, and I'm always writing with different people. I just worked with Keith Urban a few months ago, and I'm hoping to work with him again in the future. Beyond that, I don't make huge plans. I just sort of wait and see what happens. I'm actually working on a project later this year with my friend Fee Waybill who is one of the greatest rock performers ever and a brilliant songwriter on some new solo rock songs for him to be able to put out a record. I can't wait to finish that.

MR: Fee Waybill from The Tubes. You'll have to come back and talk with us about that. Well, Richard thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule to chat with us.

RM: Thanks so much for having me, Mike.

Transcribed by Evan Martin

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/from-dont-mean-nothing-to_b_1240740.html

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The Cain-Gingrich Endorsement (Little green footballs)

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Egyptians move to reclaim streets through graffiti (AP)

CAIRO ? The conflict between Egypt's ruling military and pro-democracy protesters isn't just on the streets of Cairo, it's on the walls as well, as graffiti artists from each side duel it out with spray paint and stencils.

Earlier this month, supporters of the ruling generals painted over part of the largest and most famous antimilitary graffiti pieces in the capital.

The military's supporters then made a 15-minute video using footage posted by two young men stenciling pro-revolution graffiti and wearing Guy Fawkes masks, the grinning face made famous by the movie "V for Vendetta". In an attempt mock the revolutionary street art, the military supporters declared in their video, "The police, military and people are one hand," and, "The military is a red line."

They posted the video online, calling themselves the "Badr Battalion" and describing themselves as "distinguished Egyptian youth who are against the spies and traitors that burn Egypt."

It was an ironic turnabout, with backers of the authorities picking up the renegade street art medium of revolutionary youth.

During the regime of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt had almost no graffiti on the walls of its cities. But when the uprising against Mubarak's rule erupted a year ago, there was an explosion of the art.

Taking control of the streets was critical for the thousands of Egyptians who eventually overthrew the country's authoritarian leader. The battle continues to be fought by graffiti artists who support the country's military rulers and those who want them to relinquish power.

Since Mubarak's fall on Feb. 11, graffiti is everywhere in Cairo and other cities, proclaiming the goals of the revolution and mocking the regime. Graffiti artists have continued to work, using walls, buildings, bridges and sidewalks as a canvas to denounce the generals who took power after Mubarak as new dictators and to press the revolution's demands.

Usually anti-military graffiti has a short lifetime before it is quickly painted over or defaced with black spray paint. And just as quickly the artists put up more.

The graffito that pro-military supporters painted over had survived remarkably long. Mohamed Fahmy, known by his pseudonym Ganzeer, put it up in May under a bridge. It depicts a military tank with its turret aimed at a boy on his bike who balances on his head one of the wooden racks that are traditionally used to deliver bread ? though instead of bread, he's carrying a city. It was a symbolic reference to revolutionary youth who care for the nation, heading into a collision with the generals.

Quickly after it was partially stenciled over, a new graffiti was up, depicting the country's military leader as a large snake with a bloody corpse coming out of his mouth.

Graffiti has turned into perhaps the most fertile artistic expression of Egypt's uprising, shifting rapidly to keep up with events. Faces of protesters killed or arrested in crackdowns are common subjects ? and as soon as a new one falls, his face is ubiquitous nearly the next day.

The face of Khaled Said, a young man whose beating death at the hands of police officers in 2010 helped fuel the anti-Mubarak uprising, even appeared briefly on the walls of the Interior Ministry, the daunting security headquarters that few would dare even approach in the past.

Other pieces mock members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the council of generals that is now in power, or figures from Mubarak's regime.

When a police officer was captured on an Internet video shooting at the eyes of protesters during clashes, his image immediately dotted walls, urging people to find the "Eye-Sniper."

State television is another frequent target because it has become the mouthpiece for the military's proclamations that protesters are vandals, thugs and part of a plot to throw Egypt into chaos. One graffito shows the word "Occupy" written in the shape of the State TV building. Stickers plastered on walls show the words "Go down to the street" emerging from a television set, a message to the so-called "Couch Party," people who sit and watch the protests on TV.

"It's about a message in the street. It reaches the poor, the rich, the trash collector, the taxi driver," graffiti artist Karim Gouda said. "Most of these people are away from the Internet and the social networking world so it's a way to reach them."

Not everyone is receptive. Gouda said he was accosted by residents as he put up posters depicting a rotting face with the words "open your eyes before it's too late" in the impoverished Cairo district of Sayeda Zeinab. They accused him of trying to create civil strife and of trying to encourage Egypt's Christian minority to take over from the Muslim majority. Such accusations about activists were rife at the time after an October protest by Christians in Cairo, which was crushed by soldiers, killing more than 20.

The residents tore down Gouda's posters and chased him out of the neighborhood.

Under Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, political expression on the streets was repressed by his powerful police forces. Once every five years, parliamentary elections would see the country littered with posters for elections that always favored the ruling party. Billboards advertising a lifestyle that only a privileged few could afford for companies whose owners were often closely affiliated with the regime towered over the sprawling slums of Cairo, a bustling city of some 18 million people.

"It's liberating to see," blogger Soraya Morayef said of the proliferation of street art.

Morayef, who has dedicated her blog Suzeeinthecity to documenting graffiti artists' work, said the street art reflects what happened in the whole country.

"The fear barrier was broken," she said.

___

Soraya Morayef's blog on graffiti: http://suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_graffiti

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Rough seas still delay work on grounded liner (AP)

GIGLIO, Italy ? Rough seas off the Tuscan coast have delayed for a second day the start of operations to remove half a million gallons of fuel from the grounded Costa Concordia.

Officials called off both the fuel removal and search operations Sunday after determining the ship had moved 4 centimeters (an inch and a half) over six hours.

University of Florence professor Riccardo Fanti said the movements could either be caused by the ship settling on its own weight, or slipping into the seabed.

Recovery operations Saturday yielded a 17th body, identified as Peruvian crew member Erika Soria Molina. Fifteen crew and passengers remain missing.

The Concordia, with 4,200 people aboard, ran aground on Jan. 13 after the captain deviated from his planned route and gashed the hull of the ship on a reef.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_ship_aground

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Criticism mounts of RBS bonus for CEO (AP)

LONDON ? U.K. politicians are fuming about a bonus of nearly a million pounds ($1.5 million) given to the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, which cost the U.K. government 45 billion pounds to bail out and nationalize three years ago.

Stephen Hester, the current CEO, was brought in to rebuild the bank and, for his work, the board of directors has decided to award him 3.6 million shares. But at a time when the government is hitting Britons with painful spending cuts and tax hikes, the question of bonuses in nationalized companies like RBS has become sensitive.

"Some bankers have decided not to take a bonus this year, like the chief executive of Lloyds," Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Friday, referring to Antonio Horta-Osorio, CEO of part-nationalized Lloyds Banking Group. He has said he would not accept a bonus in view of his two month absence because of stress.

"It's up to Stephen Hester, frankly; that's his individual decision," said Clegg.

A spokesman for the opposition Labour Party said Hester didn't deserve a bonus. Chuka Umunna, Labour's business spokesman and a former member of the Treasury Select Committee, said that Prime Minister David Cameron's government had failed to act to curb excessive pay.

"People listening to this program will be flabbergasted that nothing has been done about this," Umunna said in a BBC radio interview.

Hester's bonus is worth 963,000 pounds based on Thursday's closing share price of 26.75 pence and comes on top of his annual salary of 1.2 million pounds. He cannot sell the shares, however, until late 2014.

Taxpayers, who own 82 percent of the RBS shares, will recoup their 45 billion pounds investment in bailing out the bank only if the share price rises to 50 pence. At that point, Hester's bonus is worth 1.8 million pounds.

RBS shares were down 0.4 percent in midday trading in London Friday, recovering from a 2 percent drop earlier.

Jeremy Browne of the Liberal Democrat party noted that Hester's pay in three days is as much as the annual pay of a soldier in Afghanistan. "I think he should reflect on that," Browne said, suggesting that Hester refuse the bonus as a matter of honor.

But Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, argued that the comparison was "somewhat irrelevant, with the real issue being what Mr. Hester could earn in a similar role elsewhere."

Prime Minister David Cameron had said he hoped Hester's bonus would be significantly lower than what he got last year.

"He said he thought the chief executive's bonus should be lower than it was last year and it less than half what it was last year," said a spokesman for Cameron, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.

A year ago, Hester was awarded 4.5 million shares, then said to be worth 2 million pounds. They would be worth 1.3 million pounds at the current share price.

Though RBS' share price had fallen by nearly half last year, Chairman Philip Hampton said the board was pleased with the progress which had been made under Hester.

"His pay is strongly geared to the recovery of RBS, which he was recruited to turn around, having played no part in its collapse," Hampton said.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, a Conservative like Cameron, said he found the bonus hard to justify.

"I find it absolutely bewildering because RBS occupies the same status in the economy as Gosbank did in the Soviet Union: it's a state-owned bank," Johnson said. "The idea that this is not in the control of the Government seems to me to be far-fetched."

Hester was hired to run the bank after Fred Goodwin, who led RBS's ill-fated takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro, stepped down in October 2008 as the government was spending billions to prop up the bank.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_rbs

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What if we could predict tornadoes a month out? Scientists make strides.

Scientists have only a fledging ability now, but a new approach to prediction could eventually allow forecasters to identify portions of states facing high risk for tornadoes in an upcoming month.

Scientists have developed a fledgling ability to predict monthly tornado activity in the US up to one month in advance.

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The technique, which uses existing weather-forecasting tools, is not yet ready for prime time. But in initial tests, the approach showed "statistically significant skill" in predicting regional tornado activity during most months of the year, including the peak of the spring tornado season, the researchers say.

If the approach can be honed sufficiently, eventually it could allow forecasters to identify portions of states facing the highest risk for tornadoes in an upcoming month.

In addition, the technique could help scientists explore a potential direct relationship between global warming and tornado activity. So far, such efforts have focused largely on the relationship between global warming and conditions that can spawn severe thunderstorms, which may or may not trigger tornadoes.

Though the results so far are modest, "this is exciting, because it's a hard problem," says Michael Tippett, a researcher with Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society, who lead the team.

The effort represents "an important early step" along the road to seasonal forecasts of tornado activity, says Harold Brooks, a researcher at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

One potential audience for such forecasts would be federal and state emergency managers, Dr. Brooks suggests.

"If you were able to say: 'The second half of April is going to be really, really bad,' " it could provide extra lead time to marshal emergency supplies or ratchet up efforts to ensure more people know how to respond to tornado watches and warnings when they are issued, he explains.

Ordinarily, Dr. Tippett spends his time developing or improving ways to make extended-range forecasts of tropical cyclones, or swings in natural climate cycles such as El Ni?o or the Arctic Oscillation.?But that changed last April, when the US experienced its worst tornado outbreak on record. The three-day outbreak from April 25 to 28 spawned 359 tornadoes in 21 states, including four tornadoes that reached EF5, the most destructive category. The outbreak and the thunderstorms that spawned them inflicted at least $11 billion in damage and killed 322 people.

At the time, Tippett says, he noted that forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., "had identified large regions where they thought there was going to be trouble, maybe four or five days in advance."

That implied the presence of large-scale, predictable features in the atmosphere that favor the formation of severe storms.

Researchers have applied the same general concept to produce seasonal hurricane forecasts. Tippett says it dawned on him that key atmospheric features also may encourage tornado-spawning storms to form.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/rCndxLpet88/What-if-we-could-predict-tornadoes-a-month-out-Scientists-make-strides

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Grading the Jacksonville Debate (TIME)

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U.S.-based polygamist sect buys newspaper ads urging repentance (Reuters)

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Reuters) ? A breakaway Mormon sect loyal to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has placed a series of ads urging repentance in major U.S. and Canadian newspapers that display purported revelations from God via their faith's self-proclaimed prophet.

Jeffs, the 56-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls he wed as spiritual brides when they were 12 and 14 years old at his sect's Texas ranch.

"Repent ye; now be of full humbling; all peoples shall be humbled in full way; as I send full judgment," reads one of the ads, versions of which have appeared during the past week in newspapers including the New York Times, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Vancouver Sun.

It was not immediately clear to whom the ads were directed, but Jeffs had complained repeatedly during his Texas trial last year that he was being persecuted because of his religious beliefs.

Jeffs' sect, which teaches that for a man to be among the select in heaven he must have at least three wives, is estimated to have 10,000 followers in North America.

The ads appeared less than a month after Jeffs, whose sect has been condemned by the mainstream Mormon Church, lost his prison phone privileges after being accused of preaching to his followers from behind bars via a phone call in violation of prison rules.

That had been seen as the latest indication that Jeffs was trying to maintain sway over his sect, which is accused of promoting marriages between older men and girls.

The sect appears to be spending thousands of dollars on the ads, which have appeared in a variety of sizes including a quarter-page ad in the Washington Post. An ad of that size in the Post could have cost between $10,000 and $12,000, according to Marc Rosenberg, an advertising manager at that paper.

The recent newspaper ads said more revelations were for sale for $2 to $10, but a contact person listed on the ads, Vaughan Taylor, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Such revelations have been sent to public officials and government representatives across the country, some calling for Jeffs' release and detailing natural disasters predicted to hit nations such as Australia, Russia and China, including tidal waves.

The documents also ask that Israel be protected and care be given to widows, orphans and the elderly, and urge an end to abortions and homosexuality.

Ken Driggs, a Georgia attorney who has written for academic journals about the FLDS, said the advertisements were unprecedented for the sect and that the goal may be to encourage sect members to follow Jeffs.

"It may be more for an internal audience," Driggs said.

But Willie Jessop, a former FLDS spokesman who still lives in an FLDS community but says he has disavowed Jeffs, said he doesn't think Jeffs' followers will see the revelations.

Most of his followers aren't allowed to read newspapers or the Internet, nor are they allowed to look at the revelations, Jessop said, adding that Jeffs was controlling the sect through his brothers.

"If people had access to all of his revelations, they would see there is no validity or credibility to them," Jessop told Reuters.

(Reporting By Matthew Waller; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/us_nm/us_jeffs_ads

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Joan Rivers Hits The Water Pipe On An All-New ?Joan and Melissa?

On Tuesday, January 31 episode of Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best? (9PM ET/PT), Melissa’s chaotic house is about to get a little too crowded when her boyfriend’s parents come for a visit. Joan shows the “in-laws” Hollywood as only Joan Rivers can – with a VIP tour of Madame Toussaud’s wax museum and an [...]

Source: http://www.celebritymound.com/joan-rivers-hits-the-water-pipe-on-an-all-new-joan-and-melissa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=joan-rivers-hits-the-water-pipe-on-an-all-new-joan-and-melissa

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Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX available today on Verizon for $299 on contract

Today, Verizon welcomes the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX to its Android smartphone stable. You can pick it up for $299 on contract. (Or a whopping $649 outright.) We're going to be doing a full Droid RAZR MAXX review, of course, but here's the gist: It's a Motorola Droid RAZR with a 3300 mAh battery. Thank you, goodnight, we'll see you in the funny papers.

And you know what? It might well be the best 4G LTE phone on Verizon thus far. Sure, we tend to say that with every release, but Verizon's 4G devices certainly have been trending up since they debuted a year ago.

A reminder on the Droid RAZR MAXX specs:

• Launches with Android 2.3.5, will be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
• 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display
• qHD resolution (540x960)
• 8MP rear-facing camera; 1.3MP front-facing camera
• 4G LTE data
• 3300 mAh battery for up to 21. hours' talk time, 380 hours' standby time
• Motorola user interface
• Smart Actions

From our hands-on time with the Droid RAZR MAXX at CES earlier this month, it was easy to see that indeed you're really just looking at a beefed up phone. Bigger battery, with everything else the same. And the slightly increased thickness makes the phone a little nicer to hold -- it was almost too lanky in its earlier form, too thin considering how wide it is. The phone's still 8.99 mm at its thickest, which is more than respectable. And having nearly double the battery life is a must considering that it's not removable -- there's now swapping in a new one.

Anyhoo, stay tuned for our complete Droid RAZR MAXX review, and go out and get yourself one of these guys, if it's your thing.

Source: Verizon; More: Droid RAZR MAXX forums

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/DlLJDUN61Dk/story01.htm

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Obama pitches economic message in swing states (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama embarks Wednesday on a three-day tour of politically crucial states in a post-State of the Union journey to sell his 2012 economic policy goals while pitching his presidency to a divided public.

Fresh from his address to a joint session of Congress, Obama will promote his agenda to attract more manufacturing to American soil by showcasing the bookends of American industry ? a conveyor belt maker in Iowa that evokes a resurgence of the United States' industrial prime and an Intel plant in Arizona that symbolizes the promise of high technology.

Obama will highlight energy security Thursday in Nevada and Colorado and wrap up Friday by pushing education and training proposals at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Presidential travel following the State of the Union is commonplace, allowing presidents to temporarily bask in the afterglow of their prime-time performances, milking their message before key constituencies.

Obama's trip comes amid signs of economic improvements even as battling Republican presidential contenders appeal to conservatives by sounding increasingly hostile to his policies.

Underlying the president's specific policy proposals will be the election-year economic fairness argument that he has been refining since he spelled it out in Osawatomie, Kan., last month, including higher taxes on the wealthy. Reinforcing the political subtext of the trip is the fact that four of the five states he will visit will hold Republican presidential caucuses or primaries within the next month. The two caucuses ? in Nevada and Colorado ? come within two weeks of his visit.

Obama has made a point of grabbing headlines in states in the midst of Republican presidential contests, eager not to cede the political message to his rivals.

What's more, of five paths that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina has charted to win re-election in November, all foresee winning Michigan, three require winning Iowa, two require Colorado and Nevada, and one has Arizona in the Obama win column. In 2008, of the five states he's visiting, Obama only lost Arizona, the home state of then rival John McCain.

Obama will also use his trip to grant two high-profile interviews, one to the Spanish-language television network Univision and the other to ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer. With Univision, the White House hopes to reach an important Latino voting bloc, a constituency that could be important in states such as Arizona and Nevada. The White House also likes the reach ABC gives the president because the interview will be spread among three news shows ? the evening news, "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

As part of his focus on manufacturing on Wednesday, Obama's trip to Arizona marks his second visit to an Intel plant. He traveled to the firm's Oregon campus in 2011, when Intel announced it would spend $5 billion on a new computer chip manufacturing facility. Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, is a member of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Looking to increase domestic manufacturing, Obama on Tuesday reiterated his proposal to eliminate tax incentives that make it more attractive for companies to ship jobs overseas. The proposal would require American companies to pay a minimum tax on their overseas profits in order to prevent other countries from attracting U.S. businesses with unusually low tax rates.

Obama also wants to eliminate tax deductions companies receive for the cost of shutting down factories and moving production overseas. He wants to create a new tax credit to cover moving expenses for companies that close production overseas and bring jobs back to the U.S. He also wants to reduce tax rates for manufacturers and double the tax deduction for high-tech manufacturers in order to create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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Red Tape: Google's privacy policy change: What's the fuss?

By Bob Sullivan

UP FOR DISCUSSION

Because Thursday is Data Privacy Day, and thanks to Google's new privacy policy, Tuesday was ?You?ve Lost More Privacy Day,? Helen Popkin and I began a dialog, one that will continue tomorrow in an open chat with readers.

From: Helen Popkin
To: Bob Sullivan
Given that the privacy policies for all Google products just got put in a BlendTec, and Facebook, Twitter and MySpace programmers have put together the ?Don?t Do Evil? search engine, is it time to talk about what Google is really risking here?

-------

From: Bob Sullivan?
To: Helen Popkin

I?have two immediate thoughts.

1) I think most users believed this ?shared across all Google properties? thing was already true.? I mean, maybe you don?t quite connect YouTube video with Gmail ... but your Gmail ads already ?read? your email. So what if they reflect recent videos you?ve watched, too?? I think this idea of data sharing across divisions is standard across financial services companies (why Bank of America customers get offers from Merrill Lynch). In other words, is this *really* new? Remember the old Larry Ponemon privacy interest scale which says that 60 percent of Americans say they care about privacy, but their actions belie their words; 33 percent say, ?I have nothing to hide?? and only 7 percent are really privacy activists willing to take steps to protect their privacy. I suspect most users won?t notice this change, or if they do, it won?t be enough to nudge them to change their search engine habits.

2) The risk Google is taking here ? and I think it?s a big one ? is in blending Google Plus contributions with its search algorithm. Google Plus is still largely populated by early adopters, and many of them went there seeking greater privacy controls than Facebook had at the time G+ launched. Now, many avid social networkers there feel betrayed. While the general population tends to forget such insults, early adopters do not.? Many of them are privacy activists, and it?s very bad form to anger your early adopters. On the other hand, SearchEngineLand.com?s Danny Sullivan says that most of the frustration on this point isn?t from Google users ? who haven?t complained much at all ? but rather from wonks who are raising issues about it. (Read more about this issue here.)

3)?OK, a bonus thought. At a time when Facebook is offering more granularity in its privacy settings (such as they are), Google is killing granularity here. Couldn?t you see some people being OK with all this sharing as long as YouTube wasn?t included? What about the contents of Google docs? If a user finds any of this spooky, there?s nothing he or she can do about it. And that?s trouble.?

4)?OK, bonus thought two: There?s a steady, sad progression where companies like Google and Facebook encroach more and more on privacy, see what kind of firestorm they have to endure, and then try something else. I fear they are learning that the bar for really causing a cause celeb online is very, very high. Bit by bit, these large Web companies are becoming more emboldened by each incident like this.

5)?Last bonus thought. I wonder if Google?s positive vibes from SOPA (?Hey, those Google folks stood up for us against the government!?) will afford the firm a partial mulligan for this.

----?

From: Helen Popkin
To: Bob Sullivan

1) Blah blah blah. If we really cared about protecting our personal information, "password" wouldn't be a popular password and IT managers wouldn't have to enforce regularly changed and increasingly complicated log-ins that require both lower-case and capped letters, numbers, some sort of punctuation, and, I predict in the near future, wingdings. What we really want is a fat lady in a painting to guide us through our stuff, like them lucky kids in Gryffindor, but I digress.

Your average technology layperson won't care about Google's user data and privacy policy integration until #GoogleIsEvil starts trending on Twitter.

2) Re: "The risk Google is taking here ? and I think it?s a big one ? is in blending Google Plus contributions with its search algorithm." See?above.??

That said, Google is for sure getting?desperate?? hence collating its user data and privacy policies into one super product, while screwing other social networks via its new social search. "Facebook" is increasingly replacing of "Just Google it," in how we operate on the Internet, ?and Facebook is capitalizing on its increasing presence as a portal of information by actively courting news outlets, as well as other sorts of information sites ??along with e-commerce, of course ? to create a strong Facebook presence to attract clicks.

3) Re: Granular privacy settings. Many people are still operating under Facebook's default settings (which are open to share the most of your info). We like privacy as an idea but in reality, we barely notice. It's a fact of Internet life people are already inured to ? the Antiqued Pine Provence Bed, handcrafted in vintage pine reclaimed from floor joints of early 20th-century Midwest barns, which I'll never buy nonetheless haunts via ads on most any non-ecommerce website I visit hours after I leave the Sundance Catalog website where it lives, just because I clicked on the ugly-ass, overpriced ?thing once. Once! (Ok, maybe twice.) ?Such benign following we hardly notice, and it's right in our face.

It's not new that your Google search results are impure ? your results are already?based on your previous Internet behavior. Google's social search just makes that gated Internet community even smaller. Facebook, for all its Google smack talk, does the same thing. People are getting?more and more of their information from Facebook, but what we see first on Facebook is based on our clicking behavior on that site, and off as well, depending on how much you've locked down your Facebook privacy.??

4) Google, Facebook etc., are always seeing what they can get away with. Check out how much both those companies are increasingly spend on D.C. lobbying budgets. Google?spent $9.7 million on lobbying in 2011, up 88 percent from 2010.?Facebook spent comparatively modest $1.4 million ? but it's a 284 percent more than Facebook's 2010 lobbying budget.

Neither of those amounts are insane compared to other monoliths ? Big Pharma is in the triple-digit millions ??but?those budgets?gets bigger every year. Corporations that lobby are also more likely to spend money to get legislation to bend their way than to actually throw it in to something that benefits their customers.

5) Will Google lose its positive SOPA vibes? Sure, if Facebook has its way. As we saw with SOPA, if you rile up the masses via viral Facebook posts and trending hashtags, anything's possible. As you've already mentioned, Facebook, working with Twitter and MySpace (tee-hee), built a search bookmarklet to circumvent Google's social search ? which throws those sites to the dogs ? and called it "Don't Be Evil," mocking?the guiding principal Google famously declared early on. Oh snap Facebook, Twitter and MySpace!

It's not the first time Google's had this thrown in its face, but "evil" is exactly what grabbed everyone's attention with SOPA,?if another company can make "evil" stick to its competitor, what better way to sway public opinion.

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks her to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.?Because that's how she rolls.

Here?s a lot more reading material on Don?t Do Evil and the rest of the issues raised by Google?s announcement:

?Don't miss the next Red Tape:
*Get Red Tape headlines on your Facebook Wall
*Follow Bob on Twitter.?
*Get an e-mail newsletter with Red Tape stories?(requires Newsvine registration).

Source: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10235008-googles-privacy-policy-change-what-the-fuss

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Farmer Groupies and Chicken Coddlers

Thus the paradox of the modern DIY movement. Farmers have gone from 20 percent to 2 percent of the American workforce since World War II, and 80 percent of Americans now live in cities. Modern Americans may yearn for simplicity and self-sufficiency, but they?re much less familiar with the gritty realities of rural life than even 45 years ago, when more city dwellers knew or were related to farmers. The result is that today?s back-to-the-landers, whether suburban chicken fanciers, serious urban foragers, or just obsessive locavores, have much farther to go before they can even get back to the land. Along the way, they?re learning lessons like: Test the soil for poisonous heavy metals before you farm for food in Detroit. Place your beehives far away from the maraschino cherry factory. And most of all, it seems: Make sure you?re ready before you slaughter your first rabbit.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=f70558f330268605d8c651c8eaa8a5c7

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Oil near $100 as Middle East tension simmers (AP)

BANGKOK ? Oil inched toward $100 a barrel after Iran again threatened to block shipments of crude from the Persian Gulf in the wake of the European Union's widely expected decision to embargo imports of Iranian oil.

Benchmark oil for March delivery was up 9 cents at $99.67 a barrel at mid morning Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.25 to settle at $99.58 a barrel in New York on Monday.

Brent crude was unchanged at $110.58 on the ICE futures exchange in London. It gained 72 cents on Monday.

Tanker traffic out of the Persian Gulf has concerned oil traders for weeks, with Iran saying it could close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's crude is transported, in response to sanctions by the West.

On Monday, the EU said its refineries will stop buying Iranian crude after July. It also froze assets of Iran's central bank. The sanctions are meant to force Iran to talk with the West about its nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but Western nations suspect it is trying to build nuclear weapons.

The embargo itself isn't expected to affect world supplies, although markets would get reshuffled. Analysts say China, which is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian crude, probably will buy more Iranian oil at below-market prices when the embargo begins. China would reduce imports from other oil-producing countries, which would then sell more to Europe.

"Iran needs to sell its oil to someone," independent analyst and trader Stephen Schork said. "Outside the West, Iran really has only one buyer: China. That means China's probably going to get some sweetheart deals."

Experts say Iran doesn't have the firepower to close off the strait, which is the only way to get from the Persian Gulf to the open sea. But a conflict there could clog the waterway with military vessels and force the world's refineries to wait for crucial oil shipments.

In other energy trading, heating oil rose 0.8 cent to $3.01 a gallon and gasoline futures added 0.1 cent to $2.79 a gallon. Natural gas futures were up 5.7 cents at $2.58 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

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GOP CURIOUS (Balloon Juice)

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"Beasts of the Southern Wild" wins Sundance Producer's Award (Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) ? "Beasts of the Southern Wild," the narrative film that has stirred up the most attention at Sundance to date, was awarded the inaugural Sundance Institute Indian Paintbrush Producer's Award at a luncheon on Sunday.

Producer Josh Penn and Dan Janvey accepted the award for "Beasts," a raucous drama set in an isolated southern Louisiana community. Since its premiere on Friday, the film has been one of the most talked-about narrative features at the festival, with a number of exhibitors circling the film but admitting that it could be a tough sell in the marketplace.

The Indian Paintbrush Producer's Award is a collaboration between the Indian Paintbrush production company and the Sundance Institute, and is open to any filmmakers who have participated in one of the Institute's labs.

This is the first year the award has been given out. It carries with it a $10,000 grant.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/media_nm/us_sundance_award

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HDNet joins up with AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest to become AXS TV this summer

It held on as long as it could, but HDNet is following the path of INHD (which became Mojo before disappearing entirely) and Discovery HD Theater (now Velocity) by rebranding itself, and will see itself morph into AXS TV this summer. Of course, HDNet has always focused on "lifestyle programming" and from the looks of it the new channel (pronounced: access) will be very similar, at least for now. HDNet is bringing programming like HDNet Fights, Dan Rather Reports, its concerts and more to the joint venture, which will be combined with its partners AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest Media. If HDNet is currently on your programming lineup AXS TV will simply take its place when it launches, and Dish Network actually plans to increase the channel's distribution by adding it to the America's Top 120 package. If you're distressed over the future of Art Mann Presents, check out the press release after the break or a Q&A on the site for more information about what's happening to Mark Cuban's baby.

Continue reading HDNet joins up with AEG, CAA and Ryan Seacrest to become AXS TV this summer

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