Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315672759?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Asia stocks rise after release of positive US data
BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets were boosted Friday by further proof that the U.S. economy is on the upswing.
Reports showing better-than-expected consumer spending, a jump in pending home sales and a drop in jobless claims emboldened investors to dive into riskier assets like stocks. Wall Street posted its third-straight gain of the week.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 3.3 percent to 13,648.81. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.3 percent to 20,708.18. South Korea's Kospi added 1.5 percent to 1,862.56. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3 percent to 4,826.40.
Investors were also encouraged by comments from key U.S. Federal Reserve officials. The president of the New York branch of the Fed said the central bank would likely keep buying bonds if the economy failed to grow at the pace expected. Jerome Powell, a member of the Fed's board in Washington, said investors appear to have incorrectly concluded that the Fed will taper its purchases soon.
That brought a sign of relief to markets fearing that a pullback by the Fed would deflate stock and commodity markets, where investors have turned due to the low interest rates created by the bond buying program.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.8 percent, to 15,204.49. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.6 percent, to 1,613.20. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.8 percent, to 3,401.86.
Benchmark oil for August delivery was up 12 cents to $97.17 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.55 a barrel to close at $97.05 on the Nymex on Thursday.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asia-stocks-rise-release-positive-us-data-033121093.html
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Veterans' uphill road back, struggle with suicide
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Five years ago, Joe Miller, then an Army Ranger captain with three Iraq tours under his belt, sat inside his home near Fort Bragg holding a cocked Beretta 40mm, and prepared to kill himself.
He didn't pull the trigger. So Miller's name wasn't added to the list of active-duty U.S. military men and women who have committed suicide. That tally reached 350 last year, a record pace of nearly one a day. That's more than the 295 American troops who were killed in Afghanistan in the same year.
"I didn't see any hope for me at the time. Everything kind of fell apart," Miller said. "Helplessness, worthlessness. I had been having really serious panic attacks. I had been hospitalized for a while." He said he pulled back at the last minute when he recalled how he had battled the enemy in Iraq, and decided he would fight his own depression and post-traumatic stress.
The U.S. military and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) acknowledge the grave difficulties facing active-duty and former members of the armed services who have been caught up in the more-than decade-long American involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system struggles to prevent suicides among troops and veterans because potential victims often don't seek counseling given the stigma still associated by many with mental illnesses or the deeply personal nature ? a failed romantic relationship, for example ? of a problem that often precedes suicide. Experts also cite illicit drug use, alcohol and financial woes.
The number of suicides is nearly double that of a decade ago when the United States was just a year into the Afghan war and hadn't yet invaded Iraq. While the pace is down slightly this year, it remains worryingly high.
The military says about 22 veterans kill themselves every day and a beefed up and more responsive VA could help. But how to tackle the spiking suicide number among active-duty troops, which is tracking a similar growth in suicide numbers in the general population, remains in question. The big increase in suicides among the baby boomer population especially ? linked by many to the recent recession ? actually began a decade before the 2008 financial meltdown.
Compounding the problem, the VA ? which administers health and other government benefits for veterans ? has a huge backlog of disability, medical and other claims resulting from service in the military. Eric Shinseki, head of the VA and a former Army general, promises to have the backlog erased ? but not before 2015. The Pentagon and Veteran Affairs are working to install compatible computer systems to speed up the process. And the VA just reported it had cut the backlog of claims pending more than 125 days by 15 percent in recent weeks.
Jason Hansman, of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, says the problem among military men and women stems from a support system that falls far short of the needs of a military and its veterans.
"One of the big problems now is that we are trying to play catch-up on 10-plus years of war. People have gone back and forth seven, eight, nine times. And now you have a force that is stretched to its limit," Hansman said.
"It's not just people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan who are killing themselves. About 50 percent are people who've never deployed before. So there's this broader issue going on in the military. Are there even the health services in the military to take care of the troops who have deployed, who have no first-hand knowledge of war and trauma."
Miller had plenty of first-hand experience.
"I was really good at combat. I was really good at that job. It was when I was in the States that I had a problem," he said from his home in Old Town, Maine, where he and his second wife are working toward doctorates in history at the University of Maine.
He said symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome began building as did the effects of a number of concussions that caused mild traumatic brain injury. He had gone through elite Ranger training twice and became a jump-master in the 82nd Airborne. He ignored his symptoms because he didn't want to leave combat and his job as a platoon leader. When he finally sought help from the military during his last rotation in the United States, he found what he said was a "19th century" attitude.
"I remember a psychologist telling me 'officers don't get PTSD.' It was a real affront."
A few days after he nearly killed himself on July 3, 2008, Miller mustered out of the service and resumed treatment for PTSD at a VA facility in Richmond, Virginia.
The treatment was helpful but his feelings about the VA are "really mixed. My take is they are a bunch of really well-meaning people. I don't know that it's resourced for the tasks." Also huge numbers of veterans ? a tiny portion of the larger population ? live in small towns, far from the cities where veteran services are available.
The American public, largely untouched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because an all-volunteer military did the fighting, is gradually becoming aware of the problems faced by active-duty troops and military veterans. Now, some in Congress and President Barack Obama are trying to improve on the country's ability to take care of those who have signed up to fight.
None of that, however, undoes the anguish of such people as Ashley Whisler, whose brother Kyle killed himself Oct. 24, 2010. He had been driving convoys of supplies to U.S. troops from Kuwait shortly after the American invasion in 2003. He hanged himself in his home in Brandon, Florida, seven years after leaving the military. He had returned to his family in Michigan then moved to Florida, married and had a daughter. He and his wife separated before reconciling. He worked in a tattoo parlor, tended bar and began showing increasing signs of PTSD. He hanged himself while his wife and daughter slept.
Ashley Whisler said her brother spoke of fears of being ambushed when he was driving to work in Florida. After Kyle killed himself, her brother's friends told her how Kyle repeatedly called to talk about the horrors he had witnessed in Iraq and of how he couldn't sleep if there was a thunderstorm.
While she and her parents don't directly blame the military or the VA for Kyle's death, she does not let the department off the hook.
"These guys are coming back from the war and just being thrown back into society without any kind of transition or any kind of support. It's very difficult," she said.
Joe Miller says his military training, in the end, kept him alive.
"I had a gun in my hand. The second I cocked the weapon, I was back in Ranger mode and Ranger mode is not to kill yourself."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/veterans-uphill-road-back-struggle-suicide-050711276.html
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Monday, June 24, 2013
When Gadgets Should Be Repaired, Not Replaced
When I was 14, my stereo broke. Opening it up, I found a small piece of metal had been disconnected from the circuit board at the base. I grabbed a lighter, and melted the piece back in place. I plugged the stereo back in, and turned it on. It worked. It was the first time I actually got something I tried to fix working.
It's a story most of us probably have. The pure joy that follows when you fix a gadget that was once broken is hard to match, and once you do it once it becomes an addiction. However, as time has moved on, gadgets have gotten smaller and harder to work on. They're harder, if not impossible to fix, and most of us decide it's easier to just buy a new one than it is to repair one.
But just because it's easier to move on to a new gadget doesn't mean we should. Last month, I had the misfortune of losing both a hard drive and a graphics card on a notoriously impossible to work on iMac. My first reaction was to just abandon it and move on, but after a little research I found that while it was going to be a huge pain in the ass, both of those parts were replaceable. The final cost of repair? About $400, and a lot of time. The cost of a new 27" iMac? At least $1,800.
It's not just the fact I saved a lot of money. It's that I didn't have to buy a new thing. I fixed the computer I already paid (too much) money for, and breathed life back into it. When that startup chime rang again, it made my heart skip a beat.
The point is that a quick repair like this can get you something that more than meets your needs. When you're done, you realize that the newest thing isn't necessary. For me, that new iMac was shiny, but totally unneeded. Once I was running again I was happy with the old one. It's not just about repairing, it's about making what you already have work, even when you think it shouldn't.
We talk a lot about the value of making things here and doing everything yourself. But as Wired pointed out recently, the maker movement is just half of the equation. We need a "fixer movement" too:
We need, in short, a fixer movement. This would be a huge cultural shift. In the 20th century, U.S. firms aggressively promoted planned obsolescence, designing things to break...
Today e-waste has become one of the fastest-growing categories of refuse. We chucked out 2.4 million tons of it in 2010 and recycled just 27 percent. And ?recycling? often means shipping electronics overseas, where the toxic parts pollute developing countries. It?s a mess. A fixer movement could break this century-old system.
One superb place to start is fixing computers?because these days old models perform nearly as well as new ones. As hardware hacker Andrew Huang has noted, cloud computing has artificially slowed Moore?s law: An older laptop runs a browser just fine. Plus, computers are often surprisingly fixable. Vincent Lai, a Fixer Collective volunteer, gets handed ?dead? laptops??and for $20 I can fix it. It?s a user-replaceable part! For $20 the user could have fixed it.?
And Wired's totally right. Computers and laptops are deceptively easy to fix, and their lives are a heck of a lot longer than most of us give them credit for. I fixed and cleaned up my seven year old laptop to pass on to my dad a few months ago and the thing's still kicking just as strongly as it did the day I bought it. All it took was a few hours of work
Of course, it's not just about computers. It's about every product we buy. From toasters to speakers, having the skill set (or the willingness to look online for repair guides, they're everywhere, I promise. You can also hunt down a local hackerspace for help
In some cases, companies are just making their products smaller and less user-serviceable. But the other problem is that if you try to fix something yourself you're going to void the warranty. All of these issues have prompted sites like iFixit and Sugru to post their own "fixer manifestos." Both boil down to a pretty simple set of ideas and rights, including:
- The right to open and repair our things without voiding a warranty.
- The right to choose your own repair technician.
- The right to troubleshooting instructions and documentation.
- The right to hardware that doesn't require proprietary tools to repair.
While it'd certainly be nice for companies to make repairs easier for us, more than anything it boils down to making the effort to fix and preserve things ourselves. The maker movement, and the idea of creating something from nothing is a lot easier to sell than just fixing up that 30 year old blender.
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Source: http://lifehacker.com/when-gadgets-should-be-repaired-not-replaced-534807800
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91% Gimme The Loot
All Critics (57) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (52) | Rotten (5)
'Gimme the Loot' is ... meandering and a little shallow. And even at 79 minutes it feels a little too long for what's essentially the film equivalent of a short story.
A thousand-watt jolt of mischief, a spunky, funky, ebullient indie that packs its 81 minutes with cinematic exhilaration.
It may be a slight movie, but it has its sunny charms.
A movie about teenage taggers in the Bronx should be fast and raw, scruffy and loose, and Adam Leon's Gimme the Loot is just that.
As it lopes along, the movie offers a warm but very sharp portrait of New York's have-nots and their uneasy relationship with the haves.
"Gimme the Loot" shouldn't be as appealing and exuberant as it is, it really shouldn't.
First-time feature director Adam Leon's shots are precise and full of detail.
The film's strong suit is its use of locations.
The film is episodic and determinedly offbeat, funny at its best, boring at its worst.
Shot on the streets of New York in a loose, freeform style, this lively comedy-drama feels somewhat underdeveloped, leaving us doubtful about its realism.
It's a great deal of fun, emotionally touching, and even surprisingly old-fashioned.
Some of the movie doesn't exactly convince, and some of the scenes have an actors-improv feel to them, but there's always plenty of humour and energy.
Endlessly entertaining, refreshingly light-hearted and bursting with summer soul, Gimme The Loot joins the pantheon of great New York movies.
It's a shaggy dog story with a certain amount of charm but not nearly enough drama.
The movie is unpolished, and it matters not a jot, because Leon has written super roles for these kids and invests their relationship with such sly feeling.
Hickson walks the line between bravado and vulnerability, while Washington has a charisma, spark and beauty that should ensure this won't be the last we see of her.
Bolstered by a low-key but assured aesthetic and a soundtrack of vintage soul and doo-wop, the film is infectiously enjoyable, with frequently amusing insights and an affable shagginess.
Out of nowhere, Adam Leon might just have delivered the first great New York film of the decade.
Charming and engaging low-budget indie with a witty script, likeable characters, a strong sense of time and place and a pair of terrific performances from its two young leads.
Funny and freewheeling, it's a joy.
A slim, low-budget coming-of-age tale whose richness lies entirely in its interstices. A keenly observed work that celebrates the unfettered joys of youth, and rewards by reminding of the power of a simple tale told well.
Simultaneously real and hopeful, "Loot" has almost no plot, but when the setting is so fresh and the characters feel so raw and alive, who needs one?
Ghetto laughs with a sophisticated point of view.
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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gimme_the_loot_2012/
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
WikiLeaks: Snowden requested legal help to safety
LONDON (AP) ? Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks says it is providing legal help to wanted former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
It says Snowden is bound for an unnamed "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum," and that he is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks said in its statement Sunday that Snowden requested the group "use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety."
Hong Kong's government confirmed earlier that Snowden has left the territory, where he had been hiding for several weeks since he revealed information on highly classified spy programs.
Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency is citing an unidentified Aeroflot official as saying Snowden would fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-snowden-requested-legal-help-safety-122358140.html
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