Bits Blog: Keeping the Internet Safe From Governments

Even before the World Conference on International Telecommunications took place last month in Dubai, Internet activists anticipated trouble. So did Congress, which issued a resolution calling it “essential” that the Internet remain “stable, secure and free from governmental control.”

The worries proved prescient. The conference, which supposedly was going to modernize some ancient regulations, instead offered a treaty that in the eyes of some critics would have given repressive states permission to crack down on dissent. The United States delegate refused to sign it. Fifty-four other countries, including Canada, Peru, Japan and most of Western Europe, voted no as well.

The OpenNet Initiative estimates that about a third of Internet users live in countries that engage in “substantive” or “pervasive” blocking of Internet content. They tended to be among the 89 countries that signed the treaty, including Russia, Cambodia, Iran, China, Cuba, Egypt and Angola.

Those in favor of a free and open Internet have long had a problem with the International Telecommunication Union, the affiliate of the United Nations that ran the conference. They see the I.T.U., which dates back to 1865, as longing for the pre-Internet era, when its influence and fortunes were greater. As a result, activists think, the I.T.U. has become aligned with, and a tool of, countries that desire more governmental control over public speech.

In the wake of the Dubai meeting, there are renewed calls to scale back United States financing of the I.T.U. drastically. The logic is, why are taxpayers supporting an organization whose motives they oppose?

“Paying for both sides of a conflict is unsustainable and illogical, and should simply be corrected,” says the De-Fund the I.T.U. Web site, which has posted a petition on the White House Web site.

The De-Fund site notes that the petition is not asking the United States government to take an unprecedented first step. “Many of our free-market democratic allies, led by Germany, France, Spain and Finland, have already de-funded the I.T.U. Likewise, right-thinking American companies like I.B.M., Cingular, Microsoft, Fox, Agilent, Sprint, Harris, Loral and Xerox, and others, have already withdrawn their private-sector contributions from the I.T.U.”

The petition was the brainchild of Bill Woodcock, the Berkeley-based research director of Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit institute. “This is really about whether people should be allowed to say what they think,” Mr. Woodcock said. “The Internet enables free speech, and that makes it very dangerous to countries that try to control public discourse.”

The United States government contributes about 8 percent of the I.T.U.’s budget. The 55 countries that voted against the treaty contribute about three-quarters of it. If the White House receives 25,000 signatures by Feb. 10, it will review and quite possibly act on the petition. As of Tuesday, it had about 600 signatures with minimal publicity.

A spokesman for the I.T.U., which is based in Switzerland, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

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County official calls car leasing contract procedure 'embarrassing'









Auditors reviewing a $1.75-million car leasing contract given to a company with a politically connected lobbying firm found that Los Angeles County officials had failed to create a "truly competitive" process, but that there was no evidence of improper influence.


Investigators with the county auditor-controller's office reviewed the Enterprise Rent-a-Car contract at the request of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. A report by KCET-TV had raised questions about the way the business was awarded.


Enterprise was given a sole-source, five-year deal in March to provide 60 leased  vehicles to the county's Community Development Commission and to maintain the agency's existing fleet. Commission staff projected that outsourcing the fleet services would save about $300,000 a year.





The Nov. 28 report on KCET's "SoCal Connected" focused on the lobbying firm Englander Knabe & Allen and questioned whether its clients — including Enterprise — got an unfair advantage because partner Matt Knabe is the son of county Supervisor Don Knabe, who voted along with all the other supervisors to award the contract.


Both Knabes have said that their relationship has never posed a conflict, and a spokesman for the Englander firm has said Matt Knabe never lobbies his father directly.


The auditor-controller found no evidence of attempts to influence the rental car award. Matt Knabe told investigators that no one from his firm had lobbied on the contract, and the commission's executive director said he was "100% confident" the supervisor's son did not influence the process.


"The report shows that Matt acted professionally and used no undue influence in his dealings with the county," said Englander partner Eric Rose.


But the review did find that county staff did an "inadequate" job of trying to find other potential bidders.


Asked by KCET what vendors had been contacted and given a chance to compete for the business, a county analyst created a list to make it appear the department had reached out to 50 companies. In fact, only 16 firms had been contacted, auditors found. Enterprise was the only company that responded to the email request, and staff made no follow-up attempt to contact the other firms.


According to the auditor's report, the count of 50 vendors was originally used as a "place holder" in a template document and never corrected. By the time the contract was awarded, the contract analyst "felt he could not correct the number without embarrassment."


Investigators also found that the agency violated its own policy by not advertising the contract on the commission's or the county's websites, and that the contract should have gone through a full bidding process.


In addition, several vendors that contract officials emailed to invite interest had no "realistic potential" to provide a leased fleet to the county in the first place, the review concluded.


Investigators wrote that they couldn't determine whether the commission could have gotten a better deal but said "the potential for greater savings from a more competitive process appears to be plausible."


County auditor-controller Wendy Watanabe called the situation "embarrassing" but chalked up the issues to incompetence rather than intentional steering.


"I think they got lazy, they took a shortcut, and they didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said.


Watanabe said the investigation had focused on the Enterprise contract, so she could not say whether there was a broader issue with the agency's contracting process.


Commission representatives could not be reached Monday. The commission was slated to respond to the report's findings within 30 days.


abby.sewell@latimes.com





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Video: Darpa's Robots Practice Scavenging Space Junk From Satellites



One day, robots will ascend into the heavens, take working parts off of dead satellites, and use them to construct new ones. That’s the dream of the Pentagon’s blue-sky researchers, and they’ve already gotten started in the laboratory.


The video above, released by Darpa on Tuesday, displays the initial stages of Darpa’s Phoenix project, an effort that began last year to make satellites cheaper. And the way Darpa wants to control those costs is to have space robots pluck functional antennas off of dead satellites floating above geosynchronous orbit, and combine them with small, modular “satlets” into new, longer lasting communications satellites. Darpa combined the footage of the lab research on the Phoenix component robots with a computer-generated rendering of how the project might work in space four years from now when Darpa tests it.


“The fundamental precept is cost,” says David Barnhart, Darpa’s program manager for Phoenix. “That is the bottom line: is there a way that we can completely rethink the cost-calculus of how satellites are put together?” Satellite launches are really expensive: think tens of millions of dollars for the satellite and then tens of millions of more to get it into space. And most of what’s floating in space is debris, junk and dead sats: out of 1300 “space objects,” Barnhart says, only 500 are functioning satellites. If Darpa can resurrect just a fraction of that floating junk, it points to a cost-effective way to maintain the U.S.’ edge in space.


So the ghoulish, $180 million effort depends on things like the FREND, a robotic arm designed by the Naval Research Laboratories‘ space-engineering division. The arm will be one of Phoenix’s main limbs, used to sever an antenna from a dead satellite and attach it to the network of satlets Darpa’s building. Another crucial part of Phoenix, unveiled to the public in this video, will bond materials together in space without using any mechanical parts: one model Darpa’s working with will adhere them using an electrostatic charge, and another “is patterned after how a Gecko crawls up walls,” Barnart says, “using thousands of individual micro hair-like follicles on its foot pads.” A touchscreen, shown here in a laboratory, will theoretically allow a remote human operator to control a robot as it cuts through a piece of space debris.



That is, if the tech isn’t so ridiculously complicated that it cancels out the reduced launch costs. There are a lot of variables: keeping costs down while launching the satlets into orbit; controlling fuel use; and not destroying space antennas that weren’t designed so that robots could deconstruct them. “If you cannot replace the appropriate function, which we translate into mass, of that very large satellite… to control that [antenna], then it doesn’t make sense,” Barnhart concedes. Darpa will host a “proposer’s day” for makers who might want to build the satlets, robots and associated Phoenix systems on Feb. 8 in northern Virginia.


Lab work, extending to 2015, will test the concept. Next month, Darpa will announce the next wave of its Phoenix research, which will explore such concepts as “safe and responsible space-to-space interaction.” Just because Darpa wants its celestial handymen to combine old antennas with new mini-satellites doesn’t mean it’s cutting back on robotic workplace safety.


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Rolling Stones nominated for four NME music awards






LONDON (Reuters) – Veteran British rockers The Rolling Stones, who celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, were nominated for four NME music awards on Monday.


The Stones, back in the limelight after a photo book, greatest hits album, documentary film and mini tour to mark their 2012 golden jubilee, were shortlisted for best live band, best book, music moment of the year and best music film.






They were one of four acts with four nominations each. The others were LA sisters Haim, an up-and-coming band tipped for the top by several industry polls, Australian rock band Tame Impala and British alternative hip hop artist M.I.A.


Music magazine NME’s nominations were decided by fans voting online, and the winners will be announced at The Troxy in east London on February 27.


“When I first heard it was four things, I thought, ‘Ooh, blimey! That’s very nice!’” Stones lead singer Mick Jagger said.


“It’s funny, because when we were rehearsing at Wembley Arena last year, it was where we used to do the NME Pollwinners,” he said, referring to concerts the magazine staged in the 1960s featuring acts voted on by NME readers.


“We remembered, it was the first time we ever played ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, at one of those Pollwinners concerts!”


Nominated three times was another comeback king David Bowie, who took the music world by surprise earlier this month by releasing his first new music in a decade and promising a studio album in March.


“All the early plaudits will go to Haim, Tame Impala, M.I.A. and the legendary Rolling Stones … but it’s testament to the exquisite taste of the NME audience that artists as wide ranged as Frank Ocean, Jake Bugg, Pussy Riot and David Bowie are recognized too,” said NME editor Mike Williams.


Russian punk band Pussy Riot were shortlisted in the music moment of the year category for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral that landed some of them in jail.


Rounding out the category was Bowie’s comeback, the Olympic Games opening ceremony, The Stone Roses reuniting to play Heaton Park in Manchester and Green Day’s secret set at the Reading Festival.


Following are the NME Awards 2013 nominees in the main categories:


BEST BRITISH BAND:


- Arctic Monkeys; Kasabian; The Vaccines; Biffy Clyro; The Maccabees; The Cribs


BEST ALBUM:


- Channel Orange/Frank Ocean; Jake Bugg/Jake Bugg; Given To The Wild/The Maccabees; An Awesome Wave/Alt-J; Come Of Age/The Vaccines; Lonerism/Tame Impala


BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND


- The Killers; Tame Impala; The Black Keys; Odd Future; Crystal Castles; Foo Fighters


BEST TRACK


- R U Mine?/Arctic Monkeys; Don’t Save Me/Haim; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; Inhaler/Foals; Best Of Friends/Palma Violets; Elephant/Tame Impala


BEST MUSIC FILM:


- Searching For Sugar Man; LCD Soundsystem: “Shut Up And Play The Hits”; Hit So Hard : The Life & Near Death Story of Patty Schemel; Marley; The Rolling Stones: “Crossfire Hurricane”; Led Zeppelin: “Celebration Day”


BEST SOLO ARTIST:


- Jake Bugg; Noel Gallagher; Florence Welch; Miles Kane; Grimes; Paul Weller


BEST NEW BAND:


- Alt-J; Peace; Palma Violets; Django Django; Alabama Shakes; Haim


BEST MUSIC VIDEO:


Oblivion/Grimes; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; Where Are We Now?/David Bowie; R U Mine?/Arctic Monkeys; Don’t Save Me/Haim; Feels Like We Only Go Backwards/Tame Impala


BEST LIVE BAND:


- The Maccabees; The Cribs; Blur; Biffy Clyro; Foals; The Rolling Stones


BEST DANCEFLOOR ANTHEM:


What You Came For/Mosca featuring Katy B; Sweet Nothing/Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch; Gangnam Style/Psy; Bad Girls/M.I.A.; In Paris/Kanye West and Jay-Z; Losing You/Solange


MUSIC MOMENT OF THE YEAR:


- David Bowie returns; The Stone Roses play Heaton Park; Olympics opening ceremony; The Rolling Stones play London’s O2 Arena; Green Day’s secret set at Reading Festival; Pussy Riot’s punk prayer


HERO OF THE YEAR:


- David Bowie; Bradley Wiggins; Pussy Riot; Barack Obama; Frank Ocean; Dave Grohl


(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Well Pets: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor house cat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany in which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can be shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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DealBook: In China, the Appearance of Consensus Is Breaking Down

GUANGZHOU, China — For two decades after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, China seemed on the surface like a country where free-market and even laissez-faire principles prevailed. It looked as if a consensus had been reached on putting economic policy and the headlong pursuit of affluence ahead of ideology and politics.

That appearance of consensus, which in fact had always masked some internal divisions in the Communist Party and in Chinese society at large, is now breaking down. The question is whether this will lead to greater political openness, an authoritarian clampdown to restore the veneer of stability, or social turmoil — all possibilities that could have hard-to-predict consequences for the country’s economic expansion, and for the world’s.

The unraveling has been visible in several ways, including the large environmental protests that have occurred in nearly a dozen Chinese cities over the last year and a half. Tens of thousands of residents of each of those cities, including Dalian and Tianjin, have turned out in successful efforts to block the construction of chemical factories, smelters and power plants, as fears of pollution outweigh the promise of job creation.

The breakdown was also apparent in September, when thousands of demonstrators carried large portraits of Mao past the Japanese embassy in Beijing as tension between China and Japan mounted over disputed islands near Taiwan.

The protesters’ choice of Mao posters conveyed an undercurrent of criticism of the country’s present leaders, who conspicuously omit Mao and his collectivist ideology from most speeches these days.

And even more recently, the breakdown of the consensus was evident during four days of protests over free speech this month outside the offices here of the most famous crusading newspaper in China, Southern Weekend, also known as Southern Weekly.

The journalists were calling for the removal of a provincial propaganda chief who had rewritten a New Year’s editorial, contorting an anguished review of social troubles into a paean to the accomplishments of the Communist Party.

“It is very clear that the kind of willingness that has been there, in the name of economic growth, to brush everything under the carpet is now gone,” said Odd Arne Westad, a professor of international history at the London School of Economics.

While the police peacefully persuaded demonstrators to go home on the fourth day, it was significant that the protest lasted as long as it did.

“People were standing on the podium saying, ‘press freedom, press freedom,’ and the police did not drag them down — it shows that the police in dealing with societal conflict now respect the right of free speech, and it is a new evolution that the people feel they have the right of free speech,” said Yuan Weishi, a retired historian at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou who is also one of the best-known liberal intellectuals in southern China.

Clutching several placards covered with slogans in Chinese characters, a short-haired young man in a brown jacket bravely hovered near the newspaper’s driveway through the fourth day of the protest, despite police efforts to persuade him to leave. As police officers formed a human wall that moved back and forth to prevent him from walking over to talk to a foreign journalist, he yelled over their shoulders, “The police have no right to prevent me from speaking to anyone.”

While the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, that freedom has only infrequently been permitted on a broad scale since the founding of the Communist state in 1949, and seldom in the centuries before that. But the growing perception that the freedom exists or should exist, particularly among young people accustomed to fairly freewheeling discussions on the Internet, suggests a fundamental shift in Chinese society.

Equally important is that young people in China today increasingly seem to feel not only that they have a right to speak out, but also that they have a responsibility to air social problems.

Mr. Westad, who was living in China before, during and immediately after the Tiananmen Square killings, noted that among the young, this sense of personal responsibility in addressing social ills in a public way was last apparent in the 1980s, before nearly disappearing in the subsequent repression and amid the “get rich quick” mentality that later emerged.

What is far less clear is whether the emerging, faint hints of pluralism in China can produce a new social consensus and perhaps even a few tentative steps toward democracy. The question is whether the dialogue will someday produce something like the Arab Spring, which Vali R. Nasr, dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, describes as a series of headless revolutions — hard to decapitate, but also hard to guide, control or predict.

Sharp, conflicting divisions about China’s future were visible at the Southern Weekend protests, and could someday prove to have been an early warning of social schism.

On one side of the newspaper’s driveway were a dozen self-appointed advocates of some combination of stricter authoritarianism, anti-Western nationalism and economic isolationism. These demonstrators, representatives of a “new left” group called Utopia, castigated the newspaper’s journalists as unpatriotic. They also denounced a list of culprits that might have been lifted from a far-right blog in the West, claiming an international conspiracy of financiers, the media and the United States government.

Yet more numerous and more noisy on the other side of the driveway were the free-speech protesters, mostly young journalists and their local supporters, who also received heavy support in Chinese Internet postings. They showed personal courage in assailing a senior censor, a daring that is becoming increasingly common in China as more and more people start standing up to the authorities and often suffer few penalties for doing so — except if they call for a multiparty democracy or a review of the Tiananmen Square killings.

The advocates of greater political openness may have time on their side. Utopia demonstrators tend to be middle-aged, part of a generation whose early education was stunted by the Cultural Revolution when many schools and universities effectively closed.

The free-speech demonstrators were considerably younger and far better educated, beneficiaries of China’s huge expansion of higher education in recent years.

The educated youth of China also seem less inclined for now to support aggressively nationalistic policies toward China’s neighbors, professors and young people say. College students were numerous in a previous round of anti-Japanese protests in 2005, particularly in Guangzhou. But Japanese fashions and popular entertainment have become much more popular among young Chinese since then.

The rioters who overturned and destroyed about 100 Japanese-brand cars during demonstrations in major Chinese cities in September, before a more peaceful march in Beijing, tended to be predominantly older, blue-collar workers.

Mr. Yuan, the historian, said he perceived an evolution in the thinking of the country’s elite. “The mind-set is changing, all the way from the central government to local officials,” he said.

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Live update inauguration 2013: Focus on historic arc of 1st black president









WASHINGTON – Barack Obama publicly took the oath of office for his second term Monday in a ceremony heavily laced with references to the country’s long struggle toward equality for its African American citizens.


From an invocation by the widow of a slain leader of the civil rights movement that opened the formal proceedings, to the two Bibles on which Obama took the oath, one of which belonged to Abraham Lincoln and the other to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the symbols of the nation’s 57th inaugural ceremony traced the historic arc that led toward the nation’s first black president.


PHOTOS: President Obama’s second inauguration





A flag-waving, cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands applauded as Vice President Joe Biden took his oath from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then a few minutes later, when Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. administered the oath to the President.


Four years ago, Obama took office with the country in the midst of two wars and the worst economic crisis in more than half a century. His second inauguration arrives with one war over, the other winding down and the economy recovering, but with Washington dominated by a bitter political stalemate that reflects a deep partisan divide in the nation.


Obama is expected to use his inaugural speech -- typically one of the most-watched events of a presidency -- to address that divide, aides said.


PHOTOS: Past presidential inaugurations


"He is going to talk about the fact that our political system doesn’t require us to resolve all of our disputes or settle all of our differences," senior Obama political advisor David Plouffe said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union." "But it does impel us to act where there should be, and is, common ground."


The inaugural ceremonies, themselves, highlighted the idea of bipartisanship and continuity of American democracy. Two of Obama’s predecessors, Democrats Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, were among the dignitaries gathered at the Capitol’s West Front. So, too, were many of the congressional Republicans who have battled Obama through the past four years. The country’s two living former Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, were not present; the elder Bush recently was recently released from a  hospital in Houston after a bout with bronchitis.


House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said before the ceremony that he expected most Republicans to attend the inaugural ceremony, a historic moment regardless of party. He noted that he had prime seats for Obama's first inaugural and regretted not snapping any photos of the proceedings. "I'm going to try to this time," he said.


GALLERY: Inauguration gowns through the years


Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a fiery conservative, said: "My thought for today is, this is a constitutional event and our forefathers would be proud we're following the directions they gave us."


"Tomorrow we'll start the political discussion."


Overall, of course, the crowd,  as is typical with inaugural celebrations, was heavily dominated by the president’s supporters, who cheered loudly as Obama’s motorcade arrived at the Capitol from the White House. They cheered again as the Obamas’ daughters, Malia and Sasha, were introduced and then, a few minutes later, for First Lady Michelle Obama.


In keeping with the intense enthusiasm that Obama’s presidency has generated among African Americans, the audience was disproportionately black. Several spectators commented on the special significance of the swearing-in taking place on the nation’s Martin Luther King Jr. day observance.


"It's particularly special that today is the MLK holiday," said David Anderson, 43, who traveled from Tampa, Fla. "It's kind of predestined. You can't get better than that."


Ed  Jennings, 44, who sported a knitted Obama cap, said he anticipated the president would urge unity in his inaugural address.


QUIZ: How much do you know about presidential inaugurations?


“It'll be a summary of where this country is. There was a fierce debate about where our country is going, and he won," he said.


Hazel Carter, 90, of Springfield, Ohio, attended the last inauguration and wasn't going to miss this one. "I prayed, God, just let me keep breathing until the inauguration," she said with a laugh.





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A 'Courage Board' for All Conditions






Rating: 9/10 Nearly flawless; buy it now






It’s easy to guess what The Hovercraft was built for just by looking at it: The short swallowtail and the big blunted nose all scream “powder hound.”


I did my first series of tests in early December up in Lake Tahoe, and there was a lot more crust, ice and grooms than powder, so I took it out without expecting much. I got waaay more than I figured I would: The board held its edge just fine in the groomers, but there was no surprise there. The shock came when I crossed over to the shaded side of the mountain, when the soft groomers turned into icy crud. I was fully expecting the Jones to sketch out and leave me butt-checking all over the place, but The Hovercraft’s edge sliced right into the ice and held it as well as it did the soft stuff. No transition, no adjustments — the board just went from soft snow to ice without skipping a beat.


It was so odd that it took me most of the morning before I really trusted it. But by lunchtime, I was flying down the mountain at speeds I wouldn’t dare with any of the other boards we tested. The board’s great bite is thanks to the Jones’ underfoot camber and so-called Magne-Traction edges, which essentially act like a serrated blade to bite into hard snow. These features combine to give the board a huge amount of precision and control in hard snow.


A few weeks later, I was finally able to take it out on Mt. Shasta’s backcountry to hit some deep stuff. It excelled there as well (entirely as expected) thanks to the rockered and blunted nose, which let the board float on top of the soft stuff, while the short, stiff tail made it easy to kick back and keep the nose up.


Bottom line: I’ve never seen a board perform so well in such a wide range of snow conditions. During my multi-mountain testing session of The Hovercraft snowboard, I let one of my friends ride it. He echoed my own thoughts with one simple statement: “This thing just does whatever you ask it to do.”


WIRED Simply some of the best all-mountain performance I’ve seen. Great float on powder, plus a locked-in grip on ice and crud. Seamlessly transitions from soft to hard snow. Shockingly lightweight construction.


TIRED Blunt nose and swallowtail design means you’re not gonna be riding a lot of switch.







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“Les Miserables” soundtrack tops UK albums chart






LONDON (Reuters) – The soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated movie “Les Miserables” climbed to the top spot in the UK albums chart, the first film cast recording to do so since Madonna’s “Evita” in 1997, the Official Charts Company said on Sunday.


A film version of a hugely successful stage musical based on a novel by 19th century French writer Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables” has already picked up a Golden Globe award for best movie musical, and is nominated for a best picture Oscar.






The recording of songs performed by the actors in the movie, including Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, had entered the UK albums chart in fifth position a week ago. It knocked Emeli Sande‘s “Our Version Of Events” off the top spot.


Hathaway, who plays a character called Fantine, also had the 22nd spot in the singles chart with her performance of “I Dreamed A Dream”, one of the most popular songs from the musical.


At the very top of the singles chart, U.S. producer will.i.am’s collaboration with Britney Spears, “Scream & Shout”, held onto the number one ranking, fending off stiff competition from new entrants 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake.


U.S. rapper 50 Cent’s new release, “My Life”, featuring Eminem and Maroon 5′s Adam Levine, came in at number two while Timberlake, the former ‘N Sync star, nabbed the number three spot with his “Suit and Tie” featuring Jay-Z.


(Reporting By Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Sophie Hares)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Recipes for Health: Lentil, Celery and Tomato Minestrone


Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times







If you did a lot of cooking over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays you may have some celery hearts lingering in your refrigerator. You needed a few branches for a stew, a stock, or a soup, so you bought a whole bunch, and here it is weeks later and the rest of the celery is wilting in the produce drawer.




This doesn’t have to happen if you think of this vegetable as something more than an aromatic. I’m a big fan of celery, both raw and cooked, as the main ingredient or as one of several featured ingredients in a dish. You can do the traditional thing with raw celery and dice it up and add it to a potato, tuna or egg salad, or you can make a celery salad, slicing the branches as thin as you can get them and tossing them with herbs, radishes, oil and vinegar, and blue cheese. If you are cooking with celery, don’t stop at one branch when you make soup. The celery contributes a wonderful herbal flavor dimension. It retains its texture for a long time when you cook it, so I used it as the main vegetable in a risotto and loved the way it stood up to the creamy rice.


You always see celery listed as an ingredient in tonic juices and blender drinks. It has long been used in Chinese medicine to help control high blood pressure, which makes sense because it contains phytochemicals called phthalides that reduce stress hormones and work to relax the muscle walls in arteries, increasing blood flow. The vegetable is an excellent source of Vitamins K and C, and a very good source of potassium, folate, dietary fiber, molybdenum, manganese, and Vitamin B6. Another bonus attribute – it is very low in calories. However, it is on the high side as far as sodium goes.


Lentil, Celery and Tomato Minestrone


I make minestrones like this all the time, but I hadn’t made a version with this much celery in it until I made this one, and I loved the dimension of flavor it contributes to the mix.


1 cup lentils, rinsed


1 onion, halved


A bouquet garni made with 2 sprigs each thyme and parsley, a bay leaf, and a Parmesan rind


1 1/2 quarts water


1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil


1 medium carrot, diced


3 celery stalks, diced


2 garlic cloves, minced


Salt, preferably kosher salt, to taste


1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with liquid


Pinch of sugar


2 tablespoons tomato paste


1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley


Very thinly sliced celery, from the inner heart, for garnish


Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for serving


1. Combine the lentils, 1/2 onion and the bouquet garni with 1 quart water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, add salt to taste, cover and simmer 30 minutes.


2. Chop the remaining onion. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat and add the onion, carrot, and celery. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes, and add the garlic and a pinch of salt. Stir together until fragrant, about 1 minute, and add the canned tomatoes with their liquid and the sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until the tomatoes have cooked down somewhat and smell fragrant.


3. Add the lentils with their broth, the tomato paste, salt to taste, an additional 2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. Season to taste with freshly ground pepper, stir in the parsley and serve, garnishing each bowl with thinly sliced celery heart if you want some crunch, and passing the Parmesan at the table.


Yield: Serves 4 to 6 (4 if there are teen-agers in your house)


Advance preparation: This will keep for three or four days in the refrigerator. It may require thinning out. It’s even better the day after you make it. I have a teenage son and he just about polished off the leftovers – which should have served 3 – the day after I tested the recipe.


Variation: Shortly before serving add 2 cups baby spinach and simmer just until wilted.


Nutritional information per serving (4 servings): 276 calories; 4 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 49 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams dietary fiber; 392 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 17 grams protein


Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 184 calories; 2 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 32 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 261 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 11 grams protein


Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”


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