fourth spectate: June 2012

Saturday, June 30, 2012

W. African leaders meet on Mali crisis

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/w-african-leaders-meet-mali-crisis-130140541.html

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Hoax prompts free tacos in Alaska town

FILE - This Wednesday, June 6, 2012, file photo shows a Taco Bell restaurant in Richmond, Va. After a hoax had residents of Betlhel, Alaska thinking they would soon be getting Taco Bell, executives for the chain restaurant have arranged to fly enough ingredients from Anchorage to make 10,000 free tacos for a feast on Sunday, July 1, 2012. The city of 6,200 people is about 40 miles inland from the Bering Sea in far western Alaska, and the closest fast food other than a Subway sandwich shop is in Anchorage, 400 miles and a $500 round-trip plane ticket away. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? Residents of Bethel, Alaska, know from cable TV ads what the major fast-food chains offer: chicken at KFC, burgers at McDonald's and tacos at Taco Bell.

They just haven't been able to get any of it.

The city of 6,200 people is about 40 miles inland from the Bering Sea in far western Alaska, and the closest fast food other than a Subway sandwich shop is in Anchorage, 400 miles and a $500 round-trip plane ticket away.

So they were elated to learn that Taco Bell was soon going to open a restaurant.

The joy, however, turned into disappointment. The flyers announcing the chain's arrival were a hoax ? the result, police say, of a feud between two residents.

But all was not lost.

Taco Bell executives learned of the mix-up and arranged an enormous feast for Sunday. They plan to fly enough ingredients in from Anchorage to make 10,000 tacos.

"It'll be a big event for our community," Mayor Joe Klejka said.

Taco Bell will offer its fare for free. There will be 950 pounds of seasoned beef, 300 pounds of lettuce, 150 pounds of cheddar cheese, 500 pounds of reduced fat sour cream and 300 pounds of tomatoes.

The chain is accustomed to feeding large groups of people in far-flung places.

"If we can feed people in Afghanistan and Iraq, we can feed people in Bethel," company CEO Greg Creed said, declining to discuss the cost of the feast.

The community-wide event comes at the right time.

Since it is the start of the Fourth of July holiday, the population is expected to rise, up to 10,000, as people from outlying villages arrive for the week.

Police Sgt. Chris Salyers said the hoax appeared to be the result of one resident retaliating against another.

Flyers went up in June, announcing the opening and including a phone number to call to inquire about a job at the new restaurant. The number belonged to the targeted person.

Bethel has a large transient population, with people moving from the Lower 48 to work in the hub city. The city has no bars, and will soon have its first movie theater, said Angela Denning-Barnes, news director at radio station KYUK.

There are a dozen or so restaurants, most with similar menus. A couple of restaurants offer some Mexican food, but the price is prohibitive ? $15 for a burrito and rice.

The Subway is quite popular, but getting a taco means flying to Anchorage.

"It's kind of an expensive taco," said Sam Blankenship, who works for the city.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-06-30-Taco%20Bell-Alaska/id-99c9975fd07a4e79bca17b7f7064a58d

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Chrome 20 browser released: exclusive 64-bit Linux Flash, fewer MacBook crashes

If your new MacBook is having kernel panics, or you're forced to run a 32-bit browser in Linux because you need Flash, Google's brought relief with version 20 of Chrome. While acting sheepish about "yet another release," the Chrome Blog said "hundreds of bugs" were fixed, including a MacBook resource leak issue which was temporarily patched by disabling some GPU features. Also, Linux users will finally get full 64-bit support for Flash with Adobe's PPAPI "Pepper" version, but since it was made exclusively for Chrome, Penguin users will be stuck with that browser if they want the feature. To get it, check the source after the br... oh, right, background update. Nevermind.

Chrome 20 browser released: exclusive 64-bit Linux Flash, fewer MacBook crashes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 05:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do oil prices help forecast real GDP?

It has long been argued that changes in the price of oil can help forecast US real GDP growth. This column addresses the common concern among many policymakers that the feedback from oil prices to the economy may become stronger once the price of oil reaches a certain level.

There has been much interest since the 1970s in the question of whether lagged oil price changes help forecast US real GDP growth (Hamilton 2009). This question has taken on new urgency following the large fluctuations in the price of oil in recent years. There is interest not only in the question of possible asymmetries depending on whether the price of oil goes up or down, but also in the idea that increases in the price of oil beyond certain time-varying thresholds may trigger recessions. In a recent study together with Robert Vigfusson, I examine how successful a number of linear and nonlinear models of this type are in reducing the out-of-sample prediction mean-squared error (MSPE) of US real GDP growth (Kilian and Vigfusson 2012).

A useful reference point for this debate is the ability of oil prices to improve on simple univariate autoregressive forecasts of US real GDP growth at horizons up to two years. It can be shown that there are at best small out-of-sample MSPE reductions when forecasting cumulative US real GDP growth from bivariate linear VAR models that include the percent change in the price of oil in addition to real GDP growth. This finding is robust to whether the price of oil is specified in nominal or in real terms and whether the oil price is treated as exogenous or as endogenous with respect to US real GDP. One possible explanation for this result is that the predictive relationship in question is nonlinear. Indeed this possibility has been discussed at length in the existing literature, but the out-of-sample forecasting performance of these nonlinear models has never been evaluated systematically. In fact, suitable econometric models have been developed only very recently.

In this context, Hamilton (2003) made the case that the predictive relationship between oil prices and US real GDP is nonlinear in that (1) oil price increases matter only to the extent that they exceed the maximum oil price in recent years and that (2) oil price decreases do not matter at all. He provided in-sample evidence that including appropriately defined lagged net increases in the price of oil in an autoregression for real GDP growth helps predict US real GDP growth one quarter ahead. This evidence is backed up by our study looking at more recent data (Kilian and Vigfusson 2011). Evidence of in-sample predictability, as documented in these studies, however, need not translate into out-of-sample gains in forecast accuracy, which is the ultimate question of interest to policymakers and applied forecasters.

To resolve this question, it is necessary to evaluate and compare a wide range of out-of-sample forecasting models for US real GDP based on nonlinear transformations of the price of oil that are asymmetric in oil price increases and decreases. A striking result of this comparison is that, among the many alternative asymmetric models that have been suggested in the literature, only a multivariate generalisation of the predictive model proposed by Hamilton (2003) produces systematic MSPE reductions at longer horizons. There is no evidence in support of forecasting models based on the one-year net oil price increase, models based on the uncensored percentage oil price increase, or models based on large percentage increases in the price of oil, in contrast.

The performance of the three-year net increase model in some cases is impressive. For example, based on the three-year net increase in the US refiners? acquisition cost for crude oil imports, the MSPE reductions are between 19% and 26% at the one-year horizon and between 18% and 17% at the two-year horizon. Similar results are obtained with some other oil price series as well. At the one-quarter horizon, however, the results are less clear cut and depend on the precise definition of the oil price variable.

To date much of the perceived empirical success of the three-year net oil price increase specification has been attributed to the fact that this oil price measure is asymmetric, with little attention to the fact that this definition also embodies other nonlinearities. In this regard, it can be shown that reductions in the MSPE at least as large as for the three-year net oil price increase model can be obtained based on an alternative forecasting model that is symmetric in the three-year net oil price increases and decreases. The results for this net oil price change model specification suggest that the asymmetry embodied in the three-year net oil price increase measure is irrelevant for out-of-sample forecasting, if not harmful. This result is consistent with the fact that all other asymmetric specifications considered appear inferior to forecasting models that are symmetric in the price of oil.

The three-year net oil price change model not only tends to be at least as accurate as the corresponding three-year net oil price increase model, but it is more robust to the definition of the oil price variable, more robust across forecast horizons, and more robust to changes in the forecast evaluation period. In short, if there are nonlinearities that matter for forecasting they appear related to how far the current oil price deviates from its most recent extreme values, not to whether the price of oil increased or decreased relative to that threshold. This evidence directly addresses the common concern among many policy makers that the feedback from oil prices to the economy may become stronger once the price of oil passes certain possibly time-varying thresholds. Furthermore, a number of alternative and equally economically plausible symmetric nonlinear specifications (including models that focus on large oil price changes or models that control for time variation in the oil share) cannot replicate the forecasting success of the three-year net oil price change model.

A question of obvious interest is how much of the decline in US real GDP growth during 2008/09 could have been forecast with the help of the three-year net oil price change model. Based on the four-quarter-ahead forecast, further analysis shows that the three-year net oil price change model anticipated about one third of the observed decline in US real GDP in 2008, while linear models essentially failed to predict any decline. These results appear much more plausible than the corresponding forecasts from the three-year net oil price increase model, which imply that virtually all of the 2008 recession could have been forecast one year in advance and that the financial crisis played no role in the 2008 recession. The latter economically implausible result can be traced to over fitting problems in small samples.

In fact, a similar ? if much less severe ? overfitting problem also afflicts to the three-year net oil price change model. The apparent over fitting may be countered with some simple ad hoc adjustments of the model coefficients. With these corrections, the three-year net change model would have forecast only about 15% of the observed cumulative decline in US real GDP in 2008 one year in advance, which is still much larger than the decline implied by linear VAR forecasts, but more in line with other nonlinear symmetric forecasting models.

These results reinforce a growing body of work that has questioned the role of asymmetries in the relationship between the price of oil and the US economy, while drawing attention to a previously undocumented type of threshold nonlinearity in the predictive relationship between the price of oil and US real GDP. The question of how important these threshold effects are deserves further study on extended samples and on other time series. The preliminary findings in this regard discussed here have potentially important implications for applied forecasters, but also for economists interested in modelling the transmission of oil price shocks. For example, there is no theoretical model to date that would rationalise the type of the threshold effects embodied by three-year net oil price change models.

Hamilton, JD (2003), ?What Is an Oil Shock??, Journal of Econometrics, 113:363-398.

Hamilton, JD (2009), ?Oil prices and the economic recession of 2007-2008?, VoxEU.org, 16 June.

Kilian, L and RJ Vigfusson (2011), ?Are the Responses of the U.S. Economy Asymmetric in Energy Price Increases and Decreases??, Quantitative Economics, 2(4):419-453.

Kilian, L and RJ Vigfusson (2012), ?Do Oil Prices Help Forecast U.S. Real GDP? The Role of Nonlinearities and Asymmetries?, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 8980.

Source: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/8164

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Beach Reading: '50 Shades' Trilogy, John Grisham, Steve Jobs ...

Who knew Abraham Lincoln kept secret diaries? That's the first thing we learn in this clever historical mashup, where our future 16th president "reveals" that the undead killed many of his loved ones, including his mother, forcing young Abe to swear vengeance on?every last bloodsucker?among them.

Goofy? Blasphemic? Hardly - this lively read is above all?fun.?Grahame-Smith weaves vampire-centric explanations into the pivotal events of Lincoln's day, going so far as to invoke period photos to support his theory. Interest in this story should spike when the Tim Burton movie hits theaters in late June.

Source: http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-06-2012/beach-reads.2.html

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Friday, June 29, 2012

Advice For Personal Finance For You And Your Family

Managing your personal finances is imperative for any adult, especially those with children or other dependents. Make the most of your income and stop unnecessary spending by creating shopping lists and budgets. Read this article for more tips on how to spend your income in a wise manner.

Just because the economy is down, do not stop investing money in your 401(K) or other retirement accounts. While it may be a little tempting to stop investing at that time, you have to keep in mind that sometimes, more money is made at the bottom of the market than at the top.

While good financial management skills are all about keeping you out of trouble, they still have a part to play if you end up in hot water. If you?re having trouble paying your bills or repaying your debts, don?t hide from your problems. Take the initiative and contact your creditors. You?ll be surprised by how flexible they can be, if you engage with them cooperatively.

When it comes to buying a car or truck, never pay full price for a new model. Brand-new vehicles depreciate in value by thousands of dollars, the moment you leave the dealership. Instead, opt for a used vehicle that is one to three years old. You will pay a great deal less, making this a smarter investment.

Stop worrying about money. This can seem like a difficult feat, but worrying is a useless emotion. It merely paralyzes you and keeps you from making the decisions that you need to make. Instead of worrying, turn that energy into action. Start thinking about solutions, instead of focusing on the financial problems and issues that you are facing.

If you get a pretty sizable tax return, do not think of it as ?extra? money. You should look at it as money that can be used for investing. Since it is money that you would not have had otherwise, you can use it to take a few financial risks.

Think about moving to a different area. Life is more affordable in certain states than others and you might have better job opportunities in another part of the country. Think about this decision carefully and compare different factors, such as, the price of housing and the job market, before you move.

If you are in debt, get in touch with your creditors to establish a payment plan. Negotiate as best as you can because most creditors will probably, drop late fees and give you the time that you need to pay your debt back. Do not avoid your creditors. Get in touch with them and let them know that you intend on paying your debt.

Figure out what meals you are going to cook for the week. Make a list of the ingredients that you need. Bring your list with you when you shop, and check things off as you go. This will help ensure that you do not deviate from your plan, and buy too many ?extras?? that will break your budget.

Work on saving money on clothing by, going minimalist. Buy pieces in solid colors. Make sure that each piece is interchangeable, with others in your wardrobe. Use patterned scarves, interesting belts, and decorative jewelry, to add spice to your outfits. Stay with basics, and only buy a few trendy pieces each season, to keep your wardrobe updated.

In order to save money, figure out how much you are spending. Keep a notebook every month that includes all your expenses and receipts for purchases. Put these expenses into categories, so that you can figure out where you can cut back spending. This way, you will be able to save more money.

Identifying your retirement goals is an important step is establishing your personal finances. If you identify your goals, whether you want to live in the lap of luxury or maintain your standard of living, then you will know how aggressively you need to save each pay period. If you try to plan without a specific goal, you may shortchange yourself.

Think about setting up a car pool with people that you work with. If several of you live in the same area, this is a great way to save money on gas. It has the added benefit of possibly improving your relationships with the people that you work with, as well.

Get a Roth IRA for your retirement because this type of account, allows you to put money aside for your retirement and not pay any taxes on it. Most people qualify for these accounts, and it is very easy to convert your current IRA into a Roth account. Ask your financial institution about these accounts.

Try to purchase generic items when they are available. Many times the generic product is just as good as the name-brand item. You will end up getting the same type of quality product for a lower price. This will help you save a lot of money in the long run.

To have to best personal finances you should look for every opportunity to save money. There are countless ways to cut back on your expenses, which will lead to having more money to save each month. You can save money on your groceries, internet service and phone services, by only looking into better prices and rates.

Get into do-it-yourself projects. There are so many ways that you can save money, when you learn to do things, like repair and hem your own clothing, hang your own wallpaper and mow your own lawn. There?s a YouTube video on how to do just about anything. Consider this the next time you have a home repair or other project that you would normally pay someone else to do.

Assess your cell phone plan. See if you actually need the type of plan you are signed up for. Do you really need that internet connection? How often do you text? Do you come close to using up your minutes? Go down to the lowest plan you need so you are not over paying.

As said in the beginning of this article, managing personal finances is imperative for any adult who has to pay bills or other necessities, like groceries. Remember the tips in this article, so that you can avoid getting into a pile of debt that seems impossible to pay back on your own.

If you want to learn to save money, then check out printable makeup coupons or you can also find out other coupons when you click here today.

Source: http://www.themediacentre.co.za/advice-for-personal-finance-for-you-and-your-family/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=advice-for-personal-finance-for-you-and-your-family

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Thursday, June 28, 2012

Ann Curry Tearfully Announces 'Today' Show Departure

'I'm sorry I couldn't carry the ball over the finish line,' she said Thursday on the NBC morning news program.
By Jocelyn Vena

Ann Curry on "Today"
Photo: NBCUniversal

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Sacramento rapid response team heads to Florida

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) -

A six-person rapid response team from Sacramento's Red Cross departed for Florida, where residents have been flooded out of their homes.

"We are high and dry here and we are able to help, so we are," said Tami Martin, a Red Cross team leader.

The all-volunteer team will assist in setting up temporary shelters in areas hardest hit by Tropical Depression Debby.

"We are hearing that hotels and motels where people had been evacuated to are now being evacuated even further back," said David Kennedy, a spokesman for Sacramento's Red Cross chapter.

Tropical Depression Debby has flooded more than 100 homes, sparked dozens of water rescues and been blamed for several deaths.

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Trump rep confirms Romney meeting for Thursday

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Hypnosis and NLP: Mind Control Question Answer | JustBeWell Blog

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Congress to hold a hearing tomorrow on the Future of Video

If you're reading this, then you're probably always looking ahead at what technology might bring next. Tomorrow at 10AM ET, US Congress members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will be doing that too. The specific segment of the market being discussed is video and on the docket to testify is a who's who of the video business. The old guard, NCTA and the MPAA, is being represented by Michael Power -- yes, the previous Chairman of the FCC -- and Michael O'Leary, respectively. On the other side are representatives from Dish Network, Sky Angel, Netflix, Roku and Public Knowledge. So yeah, this could get interesting. The NCTA has already starting posturing on its blog, Cable Tech Talk, with a post highlighting all the wonderful changes in the video distribution industry in the past 20 years -- however, curiously, the upwardly creeping price of the average bill wasn't mentioned. Of course a subcommittee hearing is just the first of a very long process towards real change, and while we'd be shocked if any of our ideas are implemented anytime soon, it's good to see some movement in Washington on a topic we care about.

Congress to hold a hearing tomorrow on the Future of Video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Campaign money case could propel more deregulation

In this June 25, 2012, photo, the Supreme Court in Washington. Corporations and labor unions have been emboldened this election season to spend unlimited sums of cash. The Supreme Court is telling them to go full-speed ahead. The high court reaffirmed its controversial Citizens United decision from 2010, following a challenge to a Montana law that prohibited corporate spending in elections. But the decision issued Monday will likely mean a push for more campaign-finance deregulation. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Corporations and labor unions have been emboldened this election season to spend unlimited sums of cash. The Supreme Court is telling them to go full speed ahead.

The high court on Monday reaffirmed its controversial Citizens United decision from 2010, following a challenge to a Montana law that prohibited corporate spending in elections. But the decision in the Montana case probably will mean a push for more campaign-finance deregulation.

In the middle of a presidential race already brimming with cash from "super" political committees, the decision leaves no ambiguity that the practice can continue ? benefiting the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney the most. Super PACs so far have spent tens of millions of dollars on the presidential election.

The ruling was a victory for those who support few restrictions, saying the First Amendment affords them the right to spend as much as they want to support or defeat a candidate. Reformers vowed to press on, hoping to craft new laws to curb what they call the corrupting influence of money in politics.

"The Supreme Court today has left standing the disastrous Citizens United decision and the enormous damage it is doing to our democracy and political system," Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said Monday.

The ruling, more importantly, leaves the campaign finance system with fewer restrictions on how money may be spent in politics. It could mean that advocates of deregulation will push for stripping away existing limits on direct contributions to candidates, or turning back disclosure laws some call anathema to anonymous speech.

Citizens United and a handful of other recent federal court decisions have collectively wiped out many campaign finance regulations born out of the Watergate era and the early 2000s.

Election law observers had awaited Monday's decision, which could have seen the court revisit Citizens United.

The Montana case could give the Supreme Court "an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a dissenter in Citizens United, said in granting a February stay of the Montana Supreme Court's decision upholding the state's century-old law.

Instead, the opposite happened: The high court did not revisit Citizens United. And campaign finance experts said the court's new decision makes it clear that states must follow it.

"Unless there is a change in the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Citizens United decision is alive and well, and the states are obligated to follow it," said Robert Kelner, an election law expert at the law firm Covington & Burling.

It's a legal paradigm that Michael Toner, a Washington election lawyer at Wiley Rein, said will endure beyond November.

"It's clear that the Citizens United decision remains the law of the land at the federal level and in all 50 states," Toner said, "and that Citizens United will remain the law of the land through the presidential election."

___

Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jackgillum

Associated Press

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Selena Gomez Says New Album Won't Be Justin Bieber 'Tell-All'

Follow-up to 2011's When the Sun Goes Down 'going to be the biggest one for me personally,' singer says.
By Jocelyn Vena

<a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/gomez__selena/artist.jhtml">Selena Gomez</a> is readying work on her brand-new music. She recently shared she wanted to work with a whole bevy of artists ranging from <a href="/news/articles/1687055/selena-gomez-fun-taylor-swift-new-album.jhtml">New York rockers Fun. to Nashville princess Taylor Swift</a>, but don't expect her to get another world-famous pop star on the album.And, don't even expect her to sing about him, either. "It's not going to be necessarily, 'Here's my tell-all,' " Gomez explained to <a href="http://www.eonline.com/news/selena_gomez_guess_what_shes_doing_again/325968" target="_blank">E! News</a> about the possibility of her getting personal about her relationship with Justin Bieber on the record. "It's going to be more of something that people could say, 'It could be that or it could be this or it could be that.' At the end of the day, I only make my music because I want it be really fun, and if I could have people dance to it, relate to it, have a good time, that's all I want."<div class="player-placeholder right" title="Selena Gomez Wants To Collaborate With Fun. And Taylor Swift" id="vid:790228" width="415" height="255"></div>Having already met with producers to begin talks about this whole new set of music, her follow-up to 2011's When the Sun Goes Down, she wants to grow. She's met with the likes of Toby Gad and Rock Mafia. "I think this is going to be the biggest one for me personally. I want to be able to write about things I've never talked about before and tell a story with this album, because I've never actually had time to go in and do that," she said. "I've never worked on a song for more than two days."In an interview with MTV News, Gomez shared that she wanted to get into the studio by year's end and confirmed she hoped to try out a whole new set of sounds on it. "Very different! I want to go for producers that probably wouldn't want me to do their songs," she said. "I just want to knock on their door. I also want to work with Fun. I want to work with just different styles of music."Gomez has yet to announce a release date, but the album is expected to drop in 2013.<div class="player-placeholder right" title="Why Selena Gomez Enlisted Fans To Help Create Her Fragrance" id="vid:767891" width="415" height="255"></div>

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Court keeps upcoming health care decision secret

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It's the biggest secret in a city known for not keeping them.

The nine Supreme Court justices and more than three dozen other people have kept quiet for more than two months about how the high court is going to rule on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

This is information that could move markets, turn economies and greatly affect this fall's national elections, including the presidential contest between Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But unlike the Congress and the executive branch, which seem to leak information willy-nilly, the Supreme Court, from the chief justice down to the lowliest clerk, appears to truly value silence when it comes to upcoming court opinions, big and small.

No one talks, and that's the way they like it.

Contrast this with the rest of the government, which couldn't keep secret President Barack Obama's direct role in supervising an unprecedented U.S. cyberattack on Iran's nuclear facilities or the existence of a double agent inside al-Qaida's Yemen branch who tipped the U.S. to a new design for a bomb to put on a jetliner.

As Republicans air their suspicion that the leaks might be deliberate to enhance the Obama administration's stature, Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two U.S. attorneys to investigate those two disclosures and probably additional recent national security leaks. Because far more people, of necessity, know about such secret national security operations, those investigators must examine hundreds, even thousands, of federal workers who might have known at least a chunk of the guarded information.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the law in the upcoming week or so. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking to a lawyers' convention June 15, noted a steady stream of "rumors and fifth-hand accounts" in the media about what the high court was likely to do.

"My favorite among the press pieces wisely observed: 'At the Supreme Court ... those who know don't talk, and those who talk don't know,'" she said.

The justices, of course, know, having officially voted on the results the same week they heard arguments. But they are not the only ones in the loop: Each of the nine justices has four clerks who know not only how their justice voted but also how the other justices stand because these clerks help research and craft the majority opinions and dissents that are circulated for justices to sign if they agree.

In addition these 45 people surely in the know, there are an assorted number of secretaries, aides, security guards, janitors, support staff and family members keenly attuned to the inner workings of the Supreme Court's upper floors where the justices keep their chambers. At the last moment possible, printers who prepare the paper opinions to be handed out will know.

If any of these people also know anything about how the case is going to come out, they're not talking.

Unlike the president, who needs to be re-elected every four years and needs positive publicity to help, the justices have lifetime appointments and don't need favorable publicity to keep their jobs. Unlike the other constitutional branches, the justices rarely appear on television and don't even allow cameras inside their main workplace, the Supreme Court.

But that silence trickles down even beyond the justices.

Those 36 clerks, who have inside knowledge of the court's deliberations, are just as mum as their bosses despite growing up in the Internet age of bloggers, camera-phones, social media and instantly free-flowing information.

Clerks are warned from day one not to reveal anything about their work, said lawyer Stephen Miller, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.

Miller remembered Chief Justice William Rehnquist warning all of the clerks in his year of the perils of leaking information from the court. "Leaks were unacceptable," Miller remembers the chief justice sternly telling all of them.

In addition to losing their job, one of the most highly sought positions for up-and-coming lawyers in the nation because it usually leads to a six-figure salary upon completion, any clerk caught revealing information would immediately be ostracized in the legal profession, Miller said. No law firm would be willing to take a chance on a lawyer who talks or leaks information to outsiders without permission.

If the leaking clerk isn't caught, the entire class would have that stigma, leading to strong peer pressure to stay silent, he said.

"So what's in it for a clerk to leak?" Miller said.

The court's mystique and reputation for silence means there have been no special warnings from the justices for employees not to spill the beans on the health care decision. It's not that the health care decision isn't important. It's that clerks, secretaries, aides, janitors, and all of the other staff know they are not supposed to talk about anything the court does until the official announcement.

That doesn't mean that the court's always been perfect at withholding information until its formal release. For example, the court inadvertently posted opinions and orders on its website about a half hour too soon in December.

The last apparent leak occurred more than 30 years ago when Tim O'Brien, then a reporter for ABC News, informed viewers that the court planned to issue a particular opinion the following day. Chief Justice Warren Burger accused an employee in the printing shop of tipping O'Brien and had the employee transferred to a different job.

Miller noted that all the lampposts at the entrances and exits of the Supreme Court building are supported by turtle sculptures, which can also be found elsewhere in the building. It's an apt symbol for the court.

"They like information to move slowly and deliberately," Miller said.

___

Online:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/PPAACA.aspx

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Vicious wildfires spread to Colo. tourist centers

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ? Wildfires moved in on some of Colorado's most popular summer tourist destinations over the weekend, destroying nearly two dozen homes near Rocky Mountain National Park and emptying hotels and campgrounds at the base of Pikes Peak.

A wildfire near Colorado Springs erupted Saturday and grew out of control to more than 3 square miles early Sunday, prompting the evacuation of more than 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists. Authorities said Sunday that they were allowing about 5,000 of those residents to return.

On Saturday, a blaze destroyed structures near the mountain community of Estes Park, where many visitors stay while visiting the park. The Larimer County Sheriff's Office said Sunday that 22 homes and 2 outbuildings had been burned.

The two fires are among eight burning in Colorado a week before the Fourth of July, a key time for family vacations to national parks and other destinations. A statewide ban on open campfires and private fireworks has been in place for more than a week.

"We're used to flooding and tornadoes, nothing like this," said Amanda Rice, who recently moved to the area from Rock Falls, Ill. Rice, her husband, four children and dog left a Manitou Springs hotel late Saturday.

Rice, scared when she saw flames, took her family to the evacuation center before she was told to go.

"It was just this God-awful orange glow. It was surreal. It honestly looked like hell was opening up," Rice said Sunday.

With Colorado midway through its worst wildfire season in a decade, travelers have seen some of their favorite sites closed to the public, obscured by smoke and haze. Some travelers were awoken with evacuation orders.

Plumes of gray and white smoke poured from the mountains Sunday, obscuring at times Pikes Peak, the most-summited high-elevation mountain in the nation and inspiration for the song "America The Beautiful." Winds were pushing smoke away from Colorado Springs, but residents and tourists watched nervously as haze wrapped around the peak.

Families planning whitewater rafting trips or visits to the stunning red-rock formations in Garden of the Gods park in Colorado Springs were instead spending their vacations passing out bottled water and setting up cots in evacuee centers.

They included Mark Stein of Morristown, N.J., whose family arrived after midnight Sunday at their Manitou Springs hotel for a week of whitewater rafting and sightseeing.

"We were sleeping for 15 minutes when they started knocking on the door ? a day from hell," Stein said of the day of travel. With his wife and two sons, Stein spent the first night of his vacation setting up cots for more than 200 evacuees who slept at the school.

"I think it's the best vacation ever. This is what the real world is about. There's a lot of people that need help," Stein said.

Also Sunday, a brushfire that began near Elbert, about 50 miles southwest of Denver, quickly spread to about 60 acres, forcing the evacuation of about 100 residents.

Half the nation's firefighting fleet is now battling fires in Colorado, said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. He said C-130 military transport planes from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs would begin assisting on Monday.

With eight wildfires burning ? including a two week-old fire that has scorched more than 118 square miles and destroyed 248 homes near Fort Collins ? Colorado is having its worst wildfire season in a decade.

Authorities had previously said that 191 homes were burned in that fire, but The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/NqoAkp) reported Sunday that fire officials told residents of the Glacier View subdivision that at least 57 more homes in their neighborhood have been lost.

"People recognize this is going to take a big push" to extinguish, Hickenlooper said Sunday from a Colorado Springs grocery store, where volunteers were passing out burritos, sandwiches and drinks to 350 firefighters working near Pikes Peak.

The wildfire near Rocky Mountain National Park destroyed vacation cabins and closed the most commonly used entrance to the park. Clouds of smoke blew toward the 102-year-old Stanley Hotel that inspired Stephen King to write "The Shining."

Carolyn Baty and her husband, Darrell, vacationing from Fort Worth, Texas, were evacuated from their cabin Saturday afternoon.

"I smelled smoke coming from both directions, and then I heard the knock on the door," Darrell Baty told The Denver Post.

Some evacuees were allowed home Sunday from the fire burning near Fort Collins. That blaze has become among the largest and most expensive in Colorado history.

Elsewhere in the West, firefighters made progress against wildfires in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

? In Utah, a 15-square-mile blaze around Fountain Green in Sanpete County was threatening more than 359 permanent structures and 213 mobile homes and travel trailers in four rural subdivisions, forcing about 1,000 people to flee. BLM says the human-caused fire erupted Saturday afternoon. Officials report progress on a 9-square-mile wildfire around Saratoga Springs, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City.

? In California, a wildfire about 60 miles north of Los Angeles triggered evacuations of campgrounds around an off-road recreation area on Saturday. Officials said the fire has blackened at least 1,000 acres in the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area, along the Interstate 5 corridor in Gorman.

? In New Mexico, a lightning-caused wildfire that destroyed 242 homes and businesses is 90 percent contained. The 69-square-mile fire near Ruidoso began June 4. Meanwhile, the largest wildfire in state history was 87 percent contained, having burned more than 464 square miles after two blazes merged on May 16.

? In Montana, two wildfires were burning in the southwest part of the state, including the fast-moving Antelope Fire, which started Saturday afternoon about 10 miles north of Whitehall and had grown to 462 acres on Sunday. About 100 firefighters were battling that blaze.

? In Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service said Sunday that containment against the Poco Fire, just outside of Young, is up to 50 percent and remains under 12,000 acres. Officials say many of the firefighting resources are being released to their home units or to other fire assignments.

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Monday, June 25, 2012

CKO Kickboxing Health Fitness Franchise Continues Rapid Growth ...

SEATTLE, June 25, 2012 ? CKO Kickboxing, one of the fastest-growing health fitness franchises, will open its first cardio kickboxing gym on 15901 Westminster Way in Shoreline on Saturday, July 7. The high-quality, cross-training gym provides a family-friendly setting to Seattle residents and northern suburban Seattle residents who are looking for an alternative to Pilates, yoga, martial arts, cross-fit and spinning classes.

Grand Opening festivities are in the works for July 7 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to CKO Kickboxing of Seattle owner Garett Renon.

Plans include a live DJ and a big party atmosphere with food. There?ll be tons of giveaways including boxing gloves and equipment, personal training sessions, and discounts on memberships.

CKO Kickboxing, whose franchisees include many former military members, is offering a 10 percent discount to current and former service personnel as well as police and fire personnel. Students and teachers also receive a 10-percent discount.

?I was a mechanical engineer working for the Department of Defense for 7 years. I hated just about every minute of it. But I?ve always had a passion for fitness. I am a triathlete, soccer player, snowboarder and student of Martial Arts. I remember back when I was 7 years old my parents enrolled me into a Taekwondo school. We finished every class by doing push-ups and sit-ups. I continued the routine every day for years and I have never really stopped working out since,? said Renon, age 30.

When his wife, who is in the Navy, was transferred to Seattle recently, he got the chance to change his life.

?I decided to follow my passion of fitness,? he said. ?I hated the 9-5 office lifestyle. I can?t wait to just get in there and start changing people?s lives and help them lose weight.?

He had his choice of fitness franchises to invest in.

?The difference in attitude from the big-box health fitness franchises and CKO Kickboxing was like night and day. The people at CKO Kickboxing felt more caring. They were very welcoming and very friendly. It was like a family. They want you to succeed. At the other franchises I looked at I felt like I was a number,? he said. ?Not only do I love the family atmosphere at CKO I also believe in the workout 100%! Over the last 5 years I have been a personal trainer and a group fitness instructor at multiple gyms including the Military FIP program. The CKO workout is the best total body workout I have ever done. It is the best workout I have seen to help people lose weight, build muscle, and improve motor skills. The best part is you can achieve these results in as little as 1 hour a day, 3-4 times a week.?

?I am in Seattle following my dream. I can?t wait for the gym to open and offer cardio boxing classes in Seattle,? he said.

?CKO Kickboxing is now truly a nationwide sports fitness franchise with gyms from coast to coast- from New York and New Jersey to Washington and California,? said Joe Andreula, Founder of CKO Kickboxing, one of America?s fastest-growing franchises according to industry standard Entrepreneur Magazine, which included the kickboxing gym franchise in its Franchise 500 list of best franchises. The magazine also rated CKO Kickboxing, as the 48th top new franchise in 2011.

?CKO Kickboxing is emerging as one of the leading fitness franchise opportunities in the country,? he said.

CKO Kickboxing continues to grow because new franchise owners receive ongoing training on how to run a business and the coaching on the latest trends in health and fitness.

?We treat our franchisee owners like they are family, because they are,? Andreula said. ?They aren?t numbers or faceless profit centers. They are people who we want to help succeed. That?s why so many people, including former military members, want to take advantage of our fitness franchise opportunity.?

?Fitness kickboxing is a fast-growing health trend. People who have tried to lose weight with yoga, Pilates and spin classes are now getting in shape by joining kickboxing gyms,? he said. ?Kickboxing is the perfect way to cross train,? he said.

For more information about franchise opportunities, call 800-489-1964 or go to http://www.ckokickboxing.com/fitness-franchise.html

For information about the CKO Seattle call 1-800-450-0411 or go to http://www.ckokickboxing.com/seattle.html

Contact:

Garett Renon, owner
505-331-0217

Joseph Andreula

201.963.7774

# # #

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Sunday, June 24, 2012

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Magical Kaapsehoop Mpumalanga South Africa

WARNING -DO NOT VISIT IF YOU DISLIKE -Wild horses, Forests to walk in, Beathtaking views and friendly locals.

Upon arriving at Lambourne's cottage in Kaapsehoop Mia asks "Mommy is this where Faeries live ?" Not a far fetched question considering that I myself keep expecting Tinker to fly by. This is a magical garden filled with Birds, Butterflies,Ladybirds,Rock Dassies and the most gorgeous array of flowers. Even spiders look less scary here, for any of you that have watched the childrens movie 'Charlotte's web' you will know what I mean, they are too beautiful to be scary in this setting.

Mia is in the garden playing with her tea set and her imaginary (or not ) fairies , Nino is up on the rocks playing hide and seek with the Dassies and Damien is off on a hike to the escarpment. Me? Where am I you ask? I am in the Kitchen getting dinner ready while sipping on a gorgeous glass of Merlot. I want to cook in this kitchen! Who wouldn't with a view like mine out the kitchen window.

We awake to a beautiful day full of promise and head out on a hike to the

waterfall, not for the faint hearted or unfit BUT well worth it, we drink from the crystal clear steams as we move along and once down at the waterfall we bring out the food and drink and enjoy a tasty lunch.

After the long hike we head back into town with a Stop at the Bohemian restaurant where I enjoy a much needed "Mustang cocktail (giner beer based)" which is made locally.

That evening we are all off to bed early and the next morning decide to start off the day with the famous pancakes from Koen 'N Pan. It could be the view or fresh mountain air but the EVERYTHING here tastes better!

We spend our week hiking,horse riding ,eating ,drinking and being VERY MERRY!

Before we head off Mia does one last walk through the garden to bid farewell to her new friends and outside I find Nino saying a sad farewell to a wild horse that has been kind enough to let us share this amazing mountain with him.

Visting Kaapsehoop and staying at Lambourne's specifically has made me realise just how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful country.

Anyone visting Mpumlanga should include Kaapsehoop on the itinerary!

A truly breathtaking experience

Peace and Love are my wishes for all who read this and until we meet again Happy Travels

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