Last Modified: Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 12:20 a.m.
The Columbiettes of Dr. Lawrence J. O'Rourke, Auxiliary 4726 have sent $1,021,345.53 worth of coupons to the military through June 10.
The coupon idea started in March 2011 when Jan Read and Margie Zamana heard about the Overseas Coupons Program ? sending manufacturers' coupons to overseas military bases where they can be used six months past the expiration dates.
The Columbiettes began cutting out their Sunday newspaper coupons for group collection and the project has expanded to a well-oiled production.
Ed Zamana, Margie's husband, and Margie start with cutting, separating and counting coupons, bagging and boxing them, and then mailing them. Helpers are many.
Betty Hunter cuts coupons donated by The Hamptons' residents amounting to $10,000 to $12,000 at one time. Columbiette Annie Winn and her father, John Meroni, separate coupons into non-food and food piles, and count them.
Cutting coupons are Columbiettes Jan Read, Marie Oliver, Maria Lopez, Helen Forster, Audrey Daniels, Louise Windhauser, Vergie Fuentes and Tracy Hartpence.
And Knights of Columbus members Charles Langbein and Tom Berdis also help with the coupons. Bingo players of Knights of Columbus 4726 help, including Julie Roberts and Nhi H. Linne among other ladies.
Columbiette Sylvia Moulton cuts coupons and collects those that are cut by Laura Irish, Ann Wentworth and Flo Grace from Woodland Lakes Park, and delivers them to Ed Zamana to finish getting ready to mail.
This has grown from one box a month sent to one Air Force Base in Incirlik, Turkey, to two to four boxes a month sent to two military bases. The other base is a Marine Corps Air Base in Iwakuni, Japan. This program wouldn't be such a huge success if it weren't for all the help from those who care.
Anyone can start an Overseas Coupons Program by going to www.ocpnet.org.
SUMMERLIN ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
Summerlin Academy is accepting applications for the freshman class. Those interested in applying are encouraged to pick up an application at Summerlin Academy's main office, 1500 S. Jackson Ave., Bartow.
Applications will be accepted until July 18.
The prestigious military academy is a college preparatory school for young people striving for an exceptional educational opportunity and an atmosphere of structure and discipline.
Summerlin Academy has been training JROTC cadets since it opened its doors Aug. 7, 2006. It birthday remains Nov. 8, however, because that's when in 2005 the Polk County School Board formally gave the approval for Summerlin Academy.
Parents who are interested in learning more about Summerlin Academy should the school directly at 863-519-7504.
AUBURNDALE PRINCIPAL REWARDED FOR SURVEY
The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) awarded Auburndale Central Elementary Principal Badonna Dardis $3,000 for her school after she did a stellar job of filling out a survey about the Common Core State Standards.
The standards were developed with teachers, school administrators and experts to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare students for college and the workforce.
NAESP collaborated with the American Institutes of Research (AIR) to survey a pool of kindergarten through 12th-grade principals to determine their needs and concerns related to implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
Ten respondents were selected and received an incentive for participating.
ANGEL'S CARE CENTER NEEDS DONATIONS
As The Angel's Care Center of Eloise continues making and distributing toiletry and first aid kits, it is in need of deodorant, sunscreen and insect repellent to provide to patients' families through the hot summer months.
There remains an ongoing request for all toiletries (shampoo, soap, wash cloths, toothbrushes and paste, etc.) and first aid items (bandages, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, cotton balls, Q tips, etc.).
These kits really make a difference in the health of those served.
For details on where to take your donations, call the center at 863-875-5595.
In other news, Larry Powell, the board's president, has been appointed to the Eloise Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Committee by the Polk County Board of Commissioners.
COMPUTER CLASS AT LAKE ALFRED LIBRARY
The basic computer class is available free at Lake Alfred Public Library, 245 N. Seminole Ave., from 2 to 3 p.m. Thursdays.
The Friends of the Library continue to hold its weekly used book sales in the library from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.
Send community news and photos to bbrader@tampabay.rr.com.
It's no secret Republicans are worried about Hillary Clinton earning the 2016 Democratic nomination and steamrolling the fresh-faced crop of candidates they have lined up, so it's no surprise that Republicans are already reminding everyone that she is, in fact, quite old. Yes, that's the latest Republican strategy against Hillary Clinton's oft-theorized Presidential run.?
RELATED: Hillary Clinton Is Running for President, OK?
"The 2016 election may be far off, but one theme is becoming clear: Republican strategists and presidential hopefuls, in ways subtle and overt, are eager to focus a spotlight on Mrs. Clinton?s age," writes?The New York Times' Jonathan Martin. Everyone from Mitch McConnell to Scott Walker to Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's old?lieutenant, have gone out of their way to remind crowds recently that Clinton is 65 years old right now. By the time 2016 rolls around, she'll be 70 years old. That's so many years old. And when you compare Clinton's age to the relatively ripe crop of stars expected to contend for the Republican nomination -- Bobby Jindal (42); Marco Rubio (42); Walker (45); Rand Paul (50); Chris Christie (50) -- well, the Republicans kind of have a point.?
RELATED: Hillary Will Be Watching HGTV While Ignoring 2016 Questions
It's not the first time Clinton has faced an attack over her age, either. She's been called wrinkly and dowdy by the Republican press in the past. Her pantsuits -- those precious pantsuits! -- have been the target of Republican criticisms before. They've drawn attention to Clinton's wrinkles and crevices, her needing a rest, while she was flying across the world, leaning in and having it all as Secretary of State.?
RELATED: How Do We Tell If Hillary Is Running in 2016?
Now you're probably thinking, this is all a little rich, no? It was only last year that Barack Obama, 51 years young, soundly defeated the card carrying senior citizen Mitt Romney. Four years before, it was hope-y, change-y 46-year-old Obama who took out the balding, white-haired John McCain.
RELATED: Will Michelle Obama Lean In?
The script has flipped just so in the intervening years. The Republicans were regrouping and looking young while the Democrats were waiting on the older, experienced powerhouse waiting in the wings. But, perhaps in the most ironic twist, this "you're old" strategy is exactly what Bill Clinton used when he was elected President, too:?
A yesterday-versus-tomorrow argument against a woman who could be the last major-party presidential nominee from the onset of the baby boom generation would be a historically rich turnabout. It was Mrs. Clinton?s husband, then a 46-year-old Arkansas governor, who in 1992 put a fellow young Southerner on the Democratic ticket and implicitly cast the first President George Bush as a cold war relic, ill equipped to address the challenges of a new day. Mr. Clinton then did much the same to Bob Dole, a former senator and World War II veteran, in 1996.
So you can't say the tactic isn't tried and true. But it all adds up to a full course of obstacles facing Clinton heading into 2016. Besides attempting to become the first woman elected President, Clinton will have to overcome being old and, as The Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve explained, quite short. The?diminutive?Clinton is an inch shorter than Rand Paul, the shortest of the Republican candidates, and America historically does not elect short people. She does have one advantage, though: her hair and heels give her the inches to play on an equal field with Christie, her tallest potential foe.?
Apparently, everybody wants to ditch their teen idol image. Miley Cyrus clearly wants you to forget she was ever Disney-esque. And with each passing day, it seems Justin Bieber takes another step toward eviscerating his once squeaky- clean reputation. The story du jour? Now he's allegedly dating a married woman... with (sigh) accessible Twitter and Instagram accounts.
New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez was dropped from the NFL team just after he was arrested by police at his home and taken away in handcuffs. Hernandez had been charged with murder in the death of Odin Lloyd, who was found less than a mile from the football player’s North Attleborough, Massachusetts home. ...
Blu-ray players have come a long way in a few years. It used to be that $300 would get you a "high-end" Blu-ray player that could load a disc in a minute and maybe access Netflix. Now nearly every Blu-ray player is connected, solid models are available for just over $100 (like our budget Editors' Choice, the Panasonic DMP-BDT230), and midrange models offer remarkably fast speeds. The LG BP730 is a $199.99 (list) Blu-ray player that doesn't just pack a ton of features into its attractive design, but loads discs consistently in less than 20 seconds.
The BP730 is very full-featured, with nearly every bell or whistle you could want for a Blu-ray player?save high-end home theater connections like the second HDMI port, analog surround audio outputs, or RS232C port found on the high-end Editors' Choice Oppo BDP-103. The BP730 supports Blu-ray, has built-in Wi-Fi a/b/g/n for accessing LG's Smart TV apps, and perhaps most interestingly, supports extensive smartphone integration: The player comes with an NFC sticker so you can connect your NCF-enabled smartphone to the player with a tap. LG's remote app can not only control the player and stream content to and from the player, but can turn your smartphone into a wireless headphone device for watching movies quietly.
Design The Blu-ray player's design is black and angular, measuring 1.6 by 16.9 by 7.8 inches (HWD) and weighing a solid three pounds. It consists of a brushed metallic black top half and a glossy black lower half that holds the controls and display. Instead of a disc tray, the player uses a slot-loading optical drive located on the left half of the player, on the seam between the brushed and glossy black halves. The right half holds on the glossy black part facing up a row of touch-sensitive LED-backlit controls, and on the glossy black part facing forward a blue LED display and a USB port covered by a small door. The back of the player holds a minimum of ports: an HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and an optical audio output.
Remote and Features Instead of a conventional remote, the BP730 comes with a curved Magic Remote similar to the remotes that come with LG's connected HDTVs. It's dominated by a large navigation pad with a scroll wheel that doubles as a main button, and features only a few other buttons including playback controls and four color buttons. The remote works as a motion controller, moving an on-screen cursor in addition to the standard navigation pad menu item selection. I've complained about LG's Magic Remote in the past because of the scroll wheel doubling as a button, but the scroll wheel on this remote is much stiffer than previous remotes, so I found myself almost never accidentally pinning the wheel with my thumb when pressing the button.
LG's Smart TV system gives the BP730 loads of online content. Not only does it have a wide selection of online services in its Premium menu including Netflix and Hulu Plus, but it has a library of smaller and more specialized apps on top of them. It also features a Web browser that is made easier to use with the on-screen cursor and the Magic Remote, even if typing remains clunky. With DLNA support and app-based remote control and media streaming support for mobile devices, the BP730 can display your media regardless of how you want to access it. The only thing it seems to miss on this front is an SD card slot, though the USB port can be used to access your media that isn't networked.
Performance The BP730 is blazingly fast. I tested its speed by taking the average load times of three Blu-ray discs (in this case, Piranha, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Black Swan) six times each from inserting the disc to first showing information on the screen. Between the three discs, the BP730 took an average of 15 seconds to start playing, and even the slower-than-usual?Black Swan clocked in at 18.7 seconds, with a particularly sluggish 22.5 load time the first time I put the disc in. For comparison, the Panasonic DMP-BDT230 took an average of 17.3 seconds to load a disc.
We test Blu-ray player video processing with the HQV 2.0 benchmark Blu-ray disc, and the BP730 passed all video tests with flying colors. It handled both 30fps video and 24fps film footage easily, and showed little to no judder or tearing from horizontal motion.
The LG BP730 is a shining example of how far Blu-ray players have come in the last few years. It's loaded with features, takes about 15 seconds to load most discs, and handles any video format you throw at it without processing issues. Since it's missing certain ports and connections, it doesn't quite have the flexibility to integrate into a complicated, high-end home theater system. But at $200 it's easily our new midrange Editors' Choice for Blu-ray players. You can save some money with the Editors' Choice budget Panasonic DMP-BDT230, but the BP730's extra features and slightly quicker performance are worth the extra cash.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan mobile operator Warid Telecom has been put up for sale by its Abu Dhabi owners and is likely to draw interest from China Mobile and Etisalat, sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The Abu Dhabi Group, a conglomerate led by a ruling family member in the oil-rich emirate, is seeking to sell all 100-percent of shares in Warid Telecom, two of the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The third source, however, said the company would also be prepared to sell a smaller controlling stake.
Pakistan's mobile telecommunications sector has five operators and is ripe for consolidation after a period when a troubled economy, increasingly high levels of market penetration and stiff competition has forced companies' margins lower.
The sellers have mandated U.S. investment bank Lazard and British lender Standard Chartered as advisers for the process, the sources said. One estimated a sale could fetch about $1 billion.
Walid Irshaid, the chief executive of Pakistan Telecommunications (PTCL), a unit of United Arab Emirates-based Etisalat, said the company is weighing a potential bid.
"We are interested to see if it makes sense for us, but it's not only us. Warid is an existing operator that has been here for many years and so we're saying 'let's look at the prospects,'" he told Reuters.
"There are too many players in Pakistan. Margins have eroded for everybody and the market must consolidate - we're all operating under low margins and low ARPU (average revenue per user) and that isn't long-term sustainable."
Warid Telecom declined to comment. China Mobile, which has increased its subscriber base by nearly three-quarters since 2010-11 and operates under the Zong brand, was not immediately for comment.
SHRINKAGE
Warid launched its cellular services in Pakistan in May 2005 and had 12.54 million subscribers at the end of March of this year, down from 17.39 million in 2010-11, making the company the country's smallest operator.
Pakistan's total subscriber base rose 12.2 percent to 122.1 million over the same period, meaning Warid's market share fell to 10.3 percent from 16 percent.
The other operators in Pakistan are Oslo-based Telenor and Orascom Telecom, which operates under the name Mobilink and is the sector leader. Neither was immediately available for comment.
PTCL's mobile business is under the Ufone brand, while it has a 95 percent share of the country's fixed line subscribers.
"The board (Warid Telecom) has been looking for a business partner to add value to Warid," a second source familiar with the matter said, adding China Mobile and Etisalat had both expressed interest in acquiring the company.
In 2007, Singapore Telcommunications bought a 30-percent stake in Warid for about $758 million. That stake purchase gave Warid Telecom an enterprise value of about $2.5 billion.
SingTel sold back that stake in January for $150 million and a right to receive 7.5 percent of the net proceeds from any future sale, public offering or merger of Warid.
The Abu Dhabi conglomerate also agreed to sell Warid Telecom's Uganda business to Bharti Airtel in April without revealing the financial details of the transaction.
Bharti recently agreed to buy the remaining 30 percent in Warid Telecom Bangladesh after taking a 70 pct stake in that business in 2010.
The Abu Dhabi Group, led by ruling family member Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak al-Nahayan, invests in emerging markets and also has large investments in Pakistan including Bank Alfalah Ltd, Al Razi Healthcare and Wateen Telecom.
(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi and Lee Chyen Yee in Hong Kong; Editing by Patrick Graham)
Forget bulging muscles or a toned set of abs. If you really want to impress everyone on the beach this summer, a stunning sand castle is the way to go. And if your sculpting skills max out at Play-Doh snakes, these architectural sand castle molds will let you re-build the most stunning structures from past empires, ready to be lost to time once again once the tide rolls in.
Edward Snowden is reportedly seeking political asylum in Ecuador after arriving to Moscow today. The US has revoked his passport. The former NSA contractor has been on the run since he first revealed details of Verizon's participation in a telecommunications industry program to store information on all telephone calls, and then broke news of the NSA/Silicon Valley PRISM system that watches over the whole Interent. Developing...
Snowden's final destination may not be Havana, however. The current speculation is that he may go to Caracas after landing in Havana. Other rumors point to Iceland. Wikileaks claims his final destination is Ecuador. Julian Assange and his organization claim they are helping him.
And it's not just data that flows between the California technology giants and the NSA. Facebook's former security chief, Max Kelly, left the social network to take a similar jobwith the National Security Agency.
Tuesday, June 18, 10:45 PM?The surveillance of Americans' phone calls and Internet activity is "transparent," President Barack Obama said on television Monday night. The names of these secret programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden are turning up on job sites all over the Internet.
The NSA and FBI has had access to private accounts on Facebook, Microsoft,Google and Apple during the last six months, and appears to be expanding and extending online surveillance that first began with the controversial Patriot Act programs launched after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Monday, June 17, 10:45PM?Edward Snowden?the NSA contractor employee who revealed the secret US government spy program Prism on June 6?now says that more details are coming.
11:23 AM?Answering The Guardian readers' questions, Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden claims that more details are coming no matter what happens to him: "All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
10:42 AM?Today, Apple has admitted that the government obtained data from 9,000 to 10,000 devices as part of investigations on "robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer?s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide." The company also claims it doesn't chat messages or videoconferences and that "it doesn't store Maps, location, or Siri data in any way that could identify you."
Saturday, June 15, 2013 3:00 PM?The Associate Press has numerous sources detailing that Prism's collaboration with tech companies is just the tip of the iceberg?the NSA actually captures every single bit of data that comes in and out the United States, storing it for analysis:
...larger NSA effort that snatches data as it passes through the fiber optic cables that make up the Internet's backbone. That program, which has been known for years, copies Internet traffic as it enters and leaves the United States, then routes it to the NSA for analysis.
Thursday, June 13, 2013 1:55 PM?The Silicon Valley giants are telling a very different story than the NSA, which explained in top secret Power Point presentations exactly how the data comes from the biggest Internet companies to the government's massive spying operations.
Patriot Or Traitor: Edward Snowden and the NSA Prism Surveillance Web
Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 7:25 PM?More Americans see Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden as a patriot than as a traitor, according to a new opinion poll. But the 29-year-old former intelligence contractor who leaked the details of the NSA's massive data mining operation is still unknown to most Americans?46% have no opinion on his motivations.
1:40 PM?Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden has resurfaced in Hong Kong, telling the South China Morning Post that he's "revealing criminality" and has no other motives. He plans to stay in Hong Kong and has more secrets to reveal.
Since the shocking revelations were revealed a week ago, Snowden has been vilified as a defector but also hailed by supporters such as WikiLeaks? Julian Assange.
?I?m neither traitor nor hero. I?m an American,? he said, adding that he was proud to be an American. ?I believe in freedom of expression. I acted in good faith but it is only right that the public form its own opinion.?
Snowden tells the Hong Kong paper, ?I will never feel safe."
Ron Paul Fears Edward Snowden Will Be Assassinated
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:39 PM?Congressman Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who first became a hero to young computer technicians in 2007, said today that he fears that the United States government will assassinate Edward Snowden using either a "cruise missile or a drone missile."
Google, Microsoft and Facebook released open letters today asking the U.S. government to get the tech firms off the hook for cooperating with widespread electronic spying on Americans by the biggest tech firms as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In Maryland, the father of Snowden's girlfriend described Snowden as a man of "strong convictions of right and wrong." But because Snowden is generally "shy and reserved," Jonathan Mills said he was shocked by the revelations.
Lindsay Mills, the 29-year-old girlfriend of Snowden, reportedly texted her father but did not reveal her whereabouts. Snowden disappeared from his Hong Kong hotel at least a day ago, and has yet to surface.
6:40 PM?While the world's attention turned to Edward Snowden's pole-dancing ballerina girlfriend today, the American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal backlash against the NSA and FBI's widespread domestic spying as Google and Apple sought permission from the U.S. government to disclose at least some of what's going on.
The ACLU lawsuit is the first challenge to the widespread phone company spying revealed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old American who has single-handedly brought the nation's attention back to the long forgotten issue of constant surveillance.
2:31 PM?The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald wrote the shocking stories based on Snowden's leaks, but Greenwald knows firsthand that surveillance dragnets allegedy created to target foreign terrorists are just as easily?and clumsily?turned on U.S. citizens critical of an overreaching government that increasingly seems to exist only to protect itself from the nation it ostensibly serves. The Nation's Lee Fang describes what was revealed just two years ago:
Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies, and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions, and political organizations. The plans ? one concocted in concert with lawyers for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to "combat" WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America ? fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cyber tools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.
The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the U.S., had been targetted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.
Majority of Americans Support NSA Spying
Monday, June 10, 2013 5:42 PM?NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has left his Hong Kong hotel as Republican members of Congress call for his extradition and the White House. The 29-year-old contractor for U.S. intelligence services provided details of Washington's decade-long spree of data collection on the phone calls and Internet use of all Americans, and now fears for his life.
Nearly 19,000 people have signed the "Pardon Edward Snowden" petition at WhiteHouse.gov. Daniel Ellsberg, whose life was upended by his decision to leak the Pentagon's bleak assessment of its war in Vietnam, today is praising Snowden's "conscience and patriotism."
Meanwhile, a solid majority of Americans surveyed by Pew Research Center say they're just fine with the constant surveillance of telephone calls and Internet use?56% of Americans support the illegal domestic spying, but only 27% of Americans claim to be closely following the scandal.
3:04 PM?Palantir, the Silicon Valley startup named for an evil all-seeing rock from Lord of the Rings reportedly behind the NSA's Prism program to spy on all Internet activity, takes the hobbit life very seriously. A company director explained in 2010 that a surveillance program called "Save the Shire" saw America's perceived enemies as orcs and dark wizards.
Sunday, June 9, 10:00PM?Edward Snowden: This is the man who told the world about PRISM, the NSA spy network capable of grabbing all your personal data?including private messages, photos and videos?with the help of America's top tech companies.
According to the Guardian, Snowden worked for the last four years at the National Security Agency. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," Snowden told The Guardian. ?I don?t want public attention because I don?t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the U.S. government is doing.?
Following the revelation of his identity, Edward Snowden was hiding in a Hong Kong hotel.
Despite Denials, Tech Companies Collaborated With NSA
Saturday, June 8, 3:30 PM?The Guardian has revealed the existence of a second NSA surveillance network. Its name is Boundless Informant and, unlike PRISM, it covers the entire planet. Unlike PRISM, however, this network doesn't capture the data but merely organizes it, indexing countries by the metadata obtained from local phone and computer networks.
3:10 AM?The New York Times says that Facebook, Google and Apple are collaborating with the NSA, rebutting the companies' carefully worded statements. According to their sources, companies like Facebook built specific systems so the government could easily request and access their data.
This information contradicts Zuckerberg's denial, posted on his Facebook page Friday afternoon, which has the vague sound of many, many lawyers parsing their own language:
Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access [added emphasis] to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government?or any other government?direct access [added emphasis] to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a ?back door? to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
According to the Times, the key words here are direct access. The government didn't have a backdoor to access the data, but these companies built a system for them:
[C]ompanies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information, they said.
Obama Says PRISM Exists To "Keep Us Safe"
Friday, June 7, 3:31 PM?A mysterious Facebook-connected startup called Palantir?a Lord of the Rings reference to a magical method of surveillance?appears to be the entity that runs the NSA's PRISM program just revealed to be spying on all Americans at all times, with Barack Obama's approval. Obama was in Silicon Valley this morning shaking down the tech billionaires for campaign money:
1:36 PM?Obama claimed the massive, unprecedented national surveillance system involves only "modest encroachments on privacy." As for any political fallout in Congress, Obama also made it clear that "your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing."
12:41 AM?Barack Obama, speaking live in Silicon Valley right now, said the electronic snooping "helps protect us from terrorism" and insists all the eavesdropping of every mobile call, email, instant message and file attachment is completely legal. Obama is in San Jose raising campaign money from the Internet billionaires who allow the NSA to spy on all Americans.
Newly exposed proof that all the major telecommunication companies in America continue to hand over all phone data to the National Security Agency means that the White House's illegal mass wiretapping of people suspected of no crime has continued for a dozen years.
Along with monitoring of web traffic, email and searches through the major telecom carriers, all phone calls been wiretapped with full cooperation of the communications companies since at least 2001. That the practice is illegal hasn't stopped the White House or NSA from continuing the wholesale surveillance. Congress reliably moves to make illegal spying legal whenever there's a scandal like the current Verizon outrage.
White House Says Spying On Millions of Verizon Calls a "Critical Tool"
Wednesday, June 6, 2013 9:03 AM?America's spy agencies have had full access to US cellphone call data to and from Verizon customers since April, the Guardian reports. The Obama Administration is defending the National Security Agency phone spying as a "critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States."
The secret order was obtained by the British newspaper and reported Wednesday night.
The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack. Read...
The White House on Thursday defended the National Security Agency's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens, calling such information "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats." Read...
[T]he extent of the NSA?s surveillance shows that it has focused specifically on Americans, to the degree that its data collection has in at least one major spying incident explicitlyexcluded those outside the United States. Read...
A senior Obama administration official [...] stressed that the information acquired by the purported order "does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call." Read...
Data from all incoming and outgoing calls is provided to the NSA under the top secret order, which the Washington Post describes as a "routine renewal of a similar order first issued in 2006." The White House did not specifically address the Verizon order this morning, but referred to at least one telecommunications company.
Past revelations of major U.S. telecommunications companies spying on Americans suspected of no crimes has shown that the other carriers have consistently opened their lines and data banks to America's spy agencies since 2001.
[Photos by the Associated Press and Getty Images. Illustrations by Front]
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All Critics (149) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (146) | Rotten (3)
For at least three-quarters of the way, this is a fine film, and one that kids and parents could see together.
There is an enchanted-fairy-tale aspect to Mud, but its bright, calm surface only barely disguises a strong, churning undercurrent.
A modern fairy tale, steeped in the sleepy Mississippi lore of Twain and similar American writers, and with a heart as big as the river is wide.
Nichols has a strong feeling for the tactility of natural elements-water, wood, terrain, weather.
Nichols takes his time with the story, dwelling on how the boy is shaped by the killer's tragic sense of romance, yet the suspense holds.
"Mud" isn't just a movie. It's the firm confirmation of a career.
Just like its lead character, this film is packed to the brim with sadness, swagger and soul.
All the women in this movie are shrews, liars and/or emasculators.
Mud is a moving exploration into the nature of manhood, with superb performances, striking location and engrossing story creating a mesmerising and heartfelt coming of age drama.
A stripped back approach to tracking the process of growing up, but lacks the faith to see the plan executed to the end
Nichols takes his time unravelling Mud and Ellis's entwined fates, but his characters are so rich that it's well worth being in their company.
In its energy and nuance, Mud seems like the kind of film Hollywood would've made in the Seventies, and would've continued to do if not for the advent of market-conscious filmmaking.
More than a mere tribute to Twain and Dickens: this has all the makings of a modern classic.
An extremely sophisticated and progressive examination on how adolescent masculinity is defined by often-contradictory cultural attitudes towards femininity.
Mud is as beautiful to watch as it is to listen to, and feel kinship to, whether you're from the South or just Southern at heart.
In Jeff Nichols, America has a champion of the religious and working class. With the schism between the right and left in the U.S. growing ever larger... his ascent couldn't have come at a better time.
This is a film with a great naturalistic style and captivating performances and which does just about everything right.
Jeff Nichols writes characters with depth, nurtures strong performances form his cast and allows the screenplay's backwater setting to effectively create tone and texture.
This is American cinema at its very best as Huckleberry Finn meets Stand By Me.The two boys are terrific and McConaughey is sensational as Mud, dazzlingly frazzled as the hunted and haunted man on the run.
Up till just past the three-quarter mark, Mud is one heck of a nifty psychological fable.
The Southern-fried drama "Mud" is an electrifying example of what happens when you merge a crackerjack yarn with a very specific setting, and then pour on the heat with riveting performances.
McConaughey and Sheridan 's acting skills, as well as those of the entire supporting cast, make this movie better than it ought to be.
It gets under our skin because Nichols gives us time to come to know Mud's island like the places we knew as children.
As Mud might say, it's a hell of a thing.
The boys are so skillfully played that Mud also plays like cinema verite. Nichols' fluid camerawork suggests a documentary-style approach. That helps these young lads transform into flesh-and-blood characters who get our attention and support.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? NBC "Meet the Press" host David Gregory got a rise out of Glenn Greenwald by asking the Guardian reporter why he shouldn't be charged with a crime for having "aided and abetted" former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.
Greenwald replied Sunday that it was "pretty extraordinary" that someone who calls himself a journalist would ask whether other journalists should be charged with felonies.
Gregory said that the question of who is a journalist may be "up to a debate" with regard to Greenwald. The host added that he was asking a question, not taking a position.
Greenwald broke the story of Snowden's disclosure of U.S. government surveillance programs. Snowden was believed to have landed in Russia on Sunday ? possibly as a stopover before traveling to South America.
HAILEY, Idaho (AP) ? Hundreds of activists for missing service members gathered in a small Idaho town Saturday to hear the parents of the only known U.S. prisoner of war speak just days after his Taliban captors announced they want to exchange him for prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Bob and Jani Bergdahl were already on a list of speakers at the "Bring Bowe Back" celebration in Hailey, Idaho, when the Taliban proposed the prisoner swap on Thursday.
Organizer Stefanie O'Neill said the parents of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, captured four years ago June 30, haven't wavered in their pledge to address those who gather, a group that included as many as 400 POW-MIA activists aboard motorcycles riding into town.
Buses also brought POW-MIA activists from as far as Elko, Nev.
Though yellow ribbons on Main Street trees and "Bring Bowe Home" placards in Hailey shop windows are a constant reminder of the 27-year-old Bergdahl's captivity, O'Neill said the Taliban offer has lent an addition element of urgency ? and hope ? to the event.
"We're not a community without Bowe," O'Neill said. "We're doing our best, but we need him back."
Bob Bergdahl plans to ride his son's dirt bike as part of the motorcycle procession that will travel north on Idaho State Highway 75 to Hailey's Hop Porter Park. That's where young four Norway maples have been planted overlooking the children's playground to commemorate each of the four years Bowe Bergdahl been held captive following his June 30, 2009 capture in Afghanistan.
He's believed held somewhere in Pakistan, but the Taliban said they would free him in exchange for five of their most senior operatives at Guantanamo Bay, the American installation on the southeastern tip of Cuba that's housed suspected terrorists following the Sept. 11 attacks.
The militant group's proposition came just days ahead of possible talks between a U.S. delegation and Taliban members in Qatar.
The discussions would be the first U.S.-Taliban talks in nearly 1 1/2 years, and the prospect that they could include discussions over Bergdahl have raised his family's spirits in Hailey, according to Donna Thibedeau-Eddy, a family friend.
The discussions are just the latest good news Bob and Jani Bergdahl have received in recent weeks. On June 6, they announced they had received a letter in Bowe's handwriting, the first since he was taken prisoner, shuttled through the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Room 237" evolves from an ode to movie love at its most delirious to a wry examination of the crackpot mind at work.
There's enough real evidence supporting the theory that Kubrick was a genius, and that's pretty entertaining all by itself.
It's about the human need for stuff to make sense - especially overpowering emotional experiences - and the tendency for some people to take that sense-making to extremes.
An intellectual exercise, and an entertaining one, especially for those who don't want to label The Shining as just a ghost story.
It has the same entertainment value as listening to a late-night radio host indulge his listeners on Roswell, Area 51 and 9/11. Everything sounds completely crackers, until it all makes crazy sense.
What emerges from Room 237 is not a denigration of conspiracies, but a kind of celebration of our ability to create patterns where (perhaps) none exist.
"Room 237" could become an essential companion piece to "The Shining" from now on. For those who see both, it will be impossible to think about one without the other.
...all about the work of criticism - finding fresh avenues of delight.
Watching it makes you feel like you're attending a really entertaining film class where your classmates confidently let their freak flags fly.
It's an essay about the human need to reject the notion of a random universe and find order and meaning in existence. These people are developing their own creation myths, with Kubrick the mastermind responsible for the Intelligent Design.
Termitic film nerds could chow down for years on the wood chips.
You know when "Room 237? starts getting really scary? When the people in the film start making sense.
Kubrick fans and movie geeks will want to check this film out as soon as possible
Kubrick fans will take 'Shining' to 'Room 237.'
The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.
Some of the interpretations seem more of a stretch than others but all are entertainingly presented by director Rodney Ascher. (The movie) serves as a testament to Stanley Kubrick's cinematic mastery.
As fascinating as it is frustrating
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Skywatcher Roberto Porto took this photo of the biggest full moon of 2012, a so-called supermoon, in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Spai
Skywatcher Roberto Porto took this photo of the biggest full moon of 2012, a so-called supermoon, in Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Spain, on May 5, 2012.
By Miriam Kramer, Space.com
There is more to a "supermoon" than meets the eye.
Science governs the appearance of the largest full moon of the year,?and this weekend you can check out the amazing lunar sight for yourself.
On Sunday (June 23), the moon will be at its closest point to Earth ? called perigee. This relatively close brush will happen as the moon enters its fullest phase, creating the cosmic coincidence known as the supermoon. At its fullest and closest, the moon will appear about 12 percent larger in the sky. [Amazing Supermoon Photos of 2012]?
"It doesn't matter where you are, the full moon you're seeing will be the biggest for 2013," Michelle Thaller, the assistant director of science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said. "? That 12 percent size different can mean as much as a 30 percent change in the brightness, so this will be a particularly bright supermoon."
How to see the supermoon Weather permitting, everybody should be able to see the supermoon. The moon will be rising from the east right around sunset, Thaller said. It will appear huge and low on the horizon before rising brightly into the sky for the night. Saturday and Sunday should both be ideal viewing opportunities.
You can also watch a live webcast of the supermoon on SPACE.com beginning on Sunday beginning at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 June 24 GMT), courtesy of the online Slooh Space Camera, an online skywatching website (http://www.slooh.com).
?The full moon is seen as it rises near the Lincoln Memorial, Saturday, March 19, 2011, in Washington. The full moon tonight is called a super perigee moon since it is at its closest to Earth in 2011. The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March 1993.
A changing distance Supermoons occur about once annually, and this year, the supermoon is closer than it has been in a little while, Thaller said.
The distance from the Earth to the moon varies along the rocky satellite's elliptical orbit. Perigee differs from month to month, so sometimes the supermoon is a little closer or further away, Thaller said.
"The closest the moon gets can actually vary much as much as the diameter of the Earth," Thaller said. "That seems like a pretty big number, but the moon is actually 30 times the diameter of the Earth away from us. If you line up 30 Earths, that's about the average distance of the moon away, but as it swings a little bit closer to us, that distance can vary."
Moon Master: An Easy Quiz for Lunatics For most of human history, the moon was largely a mystery. It spawned awe and fear and to this day is the source of myth and legend. But today we know a lot about our favorite natural satellite. Do you?For most of human history, the moon was largely a mystery. It spawned awe and fear and to this day is the source of myth and legend. But today we know a lot about our favorite natural satellite. Do you? ??0 of 10 questions complete Start Over
Science from a moon Although it might be a brilliant skywatching opportunity, not a lot of scientific research comes from the supermoon. Scientists prefer to study the moon from a closer vantage point, Thaller said.
"The supermoon for [scientists] is a fun chance to talk about the changes in the sky [and] observing the universe," Thaller told SPACE.com. "As scientists, we like to observe the moon a little bit closer up and right now we have LRO, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft actually orbiting the moon. We're taking these incredible high resolution pictures of the entire lunar surface."
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the Sunday supermoon and you'd like to share it for a possible story or image gallery on SPACE.com, please send images and comments, including equipment used, to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
Follow Miriam Kramer?@mirikramer?and?Google+. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebook?and?Google+. Original article on?SPACE.com.
New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez was dropped from the NFL team just after he was arrested by police at his home and taken away in handcuffs. Hernandez had been charged with murder in the death of Odin Lloyd, who was found less than a mile from the football player’s North Attleborough, Massachusetts home. ...
