M@h*(pOet)?ica The Number Poems of Richard Kostelanetz

In a preface Richard Kostelanetz wrote to his 1976 collection, NUMBERS: POEMS & STORIES,¹ he spoke of his life-long enjoyment of numbers, ordinary numbers out of the everyday.? ?In New York State, where I live,? he said, ?license plates frequently have a single number followed by a letter and then four more numerals ? something like ?5W4925.? Even today, I instinctively divide the four right-hand digits by the left-hand integer, in addition to noting . . . the squares of 7 and 5. I hope this art reflects that kind of concern and pleasure.?? For me, the following certainly does:

Steps

Among the paragraphs in Richard?s preface (many of them stand-alones deserving an essay-worth of discussion), the following is the one I find most helpful as a doorway into (warning!) my idiosyncratic, possibly cnofusde beginning attempt Permanently To Say What?s What About This Poem?And All Such Artworks:

Though recent visual artists have tried to incorporate into their works a wealth of material and. imagery previously considered sub-artistic, visual art (had) scarcely assimilated the language of numbers; for few of the numerals appearing in contemporary visual art (other than my own) were numerically articulate.

As is my custom, I?ve made up a term to assist me.? It covers nothing new?just ?imagery previously considered sub-artistic? that some artist has included in a piece (e.g., traffic sounds in a musical composition)?and there are other terms that mean much the same thing.? It makes me feel comfortable using it, though, so it?s here, like it or lump it!

Marcel Duchamp seems to be the originator of such art (possibly unwittingly, as he thought he was mocking Art rather than extending its possibilities). Almost a century later, Philistines continue to deride it.? Needless to say, there are many examples of it that deserve derision, but Richard?s ?Steps? isn?t one of them.

The point of aesthetically re-contextualized mundanity is to provide aesthetic pleasure by taking some image a person would not look at or think about twice when encountering it where the person is accustomed to finding it, and re-contextualizing it somewhere wrong (as when Duchamp?s urinal (which is quite interesting sculpturally if you really examine it) was put in a museum devoted to visual art).

If the re-location works, the person involved will (1) experience a ?wuhthuh,? as I think I?ve called it somewhere²?with annoyance. This will bring his accommodance³ into play. That?s what I call the mechanism I claim we all use to lower our cerebral energy.? The lower our cerebral energy, the less focused our thinking will be.? Hence, we will experience a combination of relatively unfocused remembering and increased environmental input.? This is good because a wuhthuh is by definition something not predicted and thus something for which we have no memory of an effective response readily to activate.? In other words, accommodance puts us into an experimental mode.

Here, to put it crudely, is what next happens (again, when the right person meets an aesthetically re-contextualized mundanity he is unprepared for⁴): the person sinks into whoknozewhut⁵, or swirl of relatively off-topic data.? (Which is the same place?often called the sub-conscious?that Richard got his work from, according to my theory of creativity.)? Ideas bounce around until a few of them fuse into possible resolutions of the wuhthuh afflicting the person. At that point, accelerance comes into play.? As I hope you can guess, accelerance is the opposite of accommodance: it raises one?s cerebral energy, in the process increasing one?s focus; the latter facilitates rapid critical analysis of the possible resolutions.? If none works, accommodation drops the person back into the creative flow he had been in, and the process repeats until a possible resolution turns out to be effective.

In the case of ?Steps,??an unprepared person encountering it?in an anthology of poetry, say, with no other like works to that point?will be taken short by it. The anthology is supposed to contain poems but all he sees are numbers?a wuhthuh contradicting his expectations.

He will quickly find the diagonal starting at its bottom 1 is familiar, which may cause pleasure, but may on the other hand cause indifference because so familiar to most people; but when he next perceives that the upward diagonal beginning with ?6? repeats the numerical order of the diagonal to its left, his familiarity with the steps (rather pretty ones) that it?s taking may win a slight smile from him.? Quickly then (because of the piece?s title) he?ll be won over (if he?s anything like me) by his discovery that the steps by 5 taken in the diagonals going the other way (downward, which is important because of the slight change of direction his eyes must take to perceive it), and the horizontal steps by 6?and the magic of everything in the design?s being ordered? to provide a refuge from the disorderliness of reality, which might be considered mathematics? intrinsic final aesthetic value.

Note, by the way, that while the numbers in ?Steps?? are arranged in a pleasant design, it is the patterning of that design that the numerals in it can be said to have numerically articulated, which I take it to mean primarily numbers that tell you about themselves, thus doing more in a painting than causing visioaesthetic pleasure (i.e., looking good) as in the famous piece by Charles Demuth, The Figure 5 in Gold below:

The Figure Five In Gold

I love displaying this not only because it has always been a favorite painting of mine, but because it gives me an excuse to include the following poem⁶ by one of my poet-heroes, William Carlos Williams, in this entry:

The Great Figure

As for Demuth?s painting, the five is entirely a design element.? Connotatively rich, to be sure, but it doesn?t say, ?this is what numbers can do,??the way the numbers in ?Steps? do.? Which gets us into taxonomy, another subject of intense interest to me.? I say that Demuth?s painting is entirely visual art, although it can be called a specimen of textual design, and certain colleagues of mine would consider it ?asemic writing,? or maybe even visual poetry since the ?5? is a word.? When I come to power, however, they will be executed.

While there may be those who?d call Williams?s text a mathematical poem, no taxonomy of poetry would be of any value if so small and minor a detail of its subject matter were used to define a category.

The work by Richard is taxonomically much more difficult to get a fix on. I consider it numerical but not mathematical?as I believe Richard also does.? Counting is pre-arithmetic for me, not arithmetic.? But one, I?m sure, will experience it in the mathematical portion of one?s brain, and read it verbally⁷.? So, I provisionally deem it a numerical visual poem.? Apologies for the digression but it?s Very Important to me to say what things iz!⁸

One last thought about Richard?s poem: it nicely illustrates this paragraph from his preface: ?My Numbers are primarily about properties peculiar to numbers; rarely do they attempt to refer to anything outside of numbers. Nonetheless, they reflect a world that is full of numbers and thus hopefully enhance our experience of numerable life.?? I would add that the uniquely asensual beauty of ?Steps? is a salient feature of all his number poems.

Are they all numerically articulate, as he claims?? Most of them, but not all, are, in my view.? Here?s one that seems purely visual to me, but powerfully visual:

Number Block

Perhaps you could say it articulates?emphatically?the directedness of . . . The Count, though.? As for the next one, I?m embarrassed to say I find it intriguing only because it is so completely unintriguing:

Indivisibles

Maybe it?s their near-perfect representation (or ?articulation?) of identitylessness?? And the thought of the divisibles moving on, inter-relatedly! (I?m close to withdrawing my impression that some of Richard?s number poems are not numerically articulate.)

I have little to say about the next (quite numerically articulate!) one except that the ?0? represents ?ten? (and, of course, that I like it!):

Mirror

Now, for a change of pace, here?s a poem Richard calls a fiction:

Short Fiction

In his preface, Richard says, ?Poetry composed of numbers differs from numerical fictions, the crucial distinction being that poetry aims to concentrate both image and effect, while stories create a world of related activity. Thus, most multi-page sequences are fictional, while one-pagers are usually closer to poetry; yet into a single page can be compressed material that is essentially more fictional than poetic.? As in the work just quoted.

What he says makes sense, but the lineation of ?Short Fiction??makes it poetry for me.? Very minor disagreement, yes.? Like fiction, though, it does tell a story . . . or, I should say, its title claims it does.? For me, many of Richard?s non-fictional number poems create a world of related activity??Steps,? for example); his fiction number poems, however, create (or can be imagined to create) activity by characters who seem to have some outcome in mind.

In any event, the whuhthuh⁹ in ?Short Fiction? is the idea that some arrangement of numerals like the above tells a story.? How is that possible?? Well, it shouldn?t be difficult for those capable of healthy accommodance,¹⁰ to find a story in it?a biography, in fact, since it ends in zero.? After dwindling. (And a few near-deaths, it would seem, but this one has nothing after it.)

Like many of the newer ways of creative writing, it is relatively reader-directed, the reader doing just about all the narrative work?from inside the text, so to speak, something most fiction blocks one from.? Richard, by the way, has throughout his career, been especially pioneering in the field of minimalistic fiction that in this manner increases a reader?s participation in it.? Here?s a verbal one.

Dialogues

He?s also made fictions (of all sizes, not just minimalistically small) out of geometric shapes and sundry other objects.? While also being prolifically and masterfully active as a sound artist, film-maker, hologrammist and nearly every other kind of otherstream form of art namable, and as a cultural critic.? His accomplishments have probably been recognized by more certified recognizers like the Encyclopedia Britannica than all the rest of his colleagues in the same fields combined!¹²

And now for the work here that I most like:

Ambiguity

To deal with this as a Philosopher of Aesthetics, I am now going to return to my musings on the importance of the familiarity in the appreciation of beauty.? To begin with, let me hypothesize a bright child just learning arithmetic who we will imagine has so far learned only the addition of single digits might find ?4 + 3 = 7? not very interesting, but be charmed by ?24 + 3 = 27.? My possibly simplistic theory of aesthetics explains this as due to his being too familiar with the first to take much notice of it, but be initially bothered by the second, which is unfamiliar to him?until after a moment he recognizes its ?4 + 3 = 7.? This is still incompletely familiar but familiar enough to please him, if we assume my contention that aesthetic pleasure results from encountering the familiar unexpectedly?i.e., in an unfamiliar context.

Would the child experience the same pleasure from ?%4 + 3 = )7?? Perhaps, but I suspect the context of ?4 + 3 = 7? would be unsettlingly unfamiliar to him.? In other words, the fullest expression of my contention (at this introductory level) ought to be that (advanced¹³) aesthetic pleasure results from encountering the familiar in a sufficiently, but not too, unfamiliar context.? First of all, the 2 in front of the 4 is thus made familiar, so its re-appearance in front of the 7 will please.? Simple repetition is innately at least slightly pleasurable because a thing repeated has to be to some degree familiar (since recurring)¹⁴.? Indeed, it is for that reason that repetition is the basis of all higher aesthetic pleasure.? Think only of music, the purest of the arts.

Getting back to ?%4 + 3 = )7,? not only does the ?%? not repeat but it and the ?)? are out of place among numbers; 2 had not been.

Later the child will learn the logic of ?24 + 3 = 27? and probably, at least for a short while, be enthralled by the repetition of the basic series of numbers, their reappearance according to a continuing pattern making it familiar as the context changes ever so slightly (from 1, 2, 3 to 10, 20, 30 . . .).? But so inexorable is the pattern, that it will gradually become too familiar.? Generally unnoticed.? Null.

I?m tired from all this heavy thinking, so I hope what my description of the child?s experience will be enough to help you understand why I so like ?Ambiguity.?? At some juncture in my blog adventures here, I hope to bring it (and many other poems I?ve put on display with only cursory, if any, analysis.

And now, as this session draws to a close, one last Kostelanetz number poem:

Multiples

This nicely illustrates what I?ve been saying: anyone who has learned arithmetic will quickly see what it charts?and be bored by the over-familiarity of it.? Until he notices the familiar ?2857? as part of the second product (as I did).? He will notice it or something very similar to it because of the list?s presentation as a poem, which will make him wonder enough how it is that to notice more about it than he otherwise would.? Making him do that, by the way, is a value of found art, of which this is yet another example: Richard has found a number that will produce itself (albeit a little re-arranged each time) when multiplied successively by the first six numbers.? Then comes his climactic surprise: the ?impossible? six nines in a row. Need I say more about the beyond-miraculousness conjurations numbers are capable of, or about Richard Kostelanetz?s deft discovery and presentation of them?

* * *

¹ Scheduled to be reprinted in PREAMBLES TO THE NEW (Amazon CreateSpace) later this year).

² It?s as hard for me to keep up with my terminology as it is for anyone else, which is ridiculous, but?hey?you know us creative types!

³ Now almost forty-five-years-old, but being re-discovered and given new names by current psychology academics (or so it seems to me).

⁴ I?m assuming a person without enough experience with the kind of art I?m discussing here and in later examples of the effect to catch on to it at once.? For the knowledgeable, things will be more complicated?for instance, a knowledgeable person will catch on relatively quickly, and take it further, if that?s possible (as I believe it is with Duchamp?s urinal because of its sculptural beauty) or not find anywhere further to go from its?to him?unsurprising re-location, and therefore find it boringly predictable.

⁵ Don?t worry, I won?t use this term when my text is reprinted in Nature.¹¹

⁶ From Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems, Four Seas Company, Boston, 1921.

⁷ Which doesn?t necessarily mean ?out loud,? which my annoyance with all the people who speak of giving instructions ?verbally? or the like when they mean ?orally? compels me to insert.

⁸ And izunt, because so many people fail to understand that a definition must distinguish what it defines from something that it izunt.

⁹ ?Whuthuh? has more than one spelling; why should anyone expect such a word not to?

¹⁰ You better not have forgotten already what this is!

^{11 ?}Yes, you will, you trivial iconoclast!??my couch, a sibling of Jonah Goldberg?s couch

¹² I refuse to hold this against him, though!

¹³ I distinguish the ?advanced? aesthetic pleasure I?m concerned with in this entry from the? automatic aesthetic pleasure one gets instinctively from many stimuli such as primary colors or certain musical chords (so long as unproblematized by wuhthuhs and other complications).

¹⁴ Actually, I believe that repetition is instinctively pleasure-giving, when recognized?but only until arising too predictably whence artistically chosen wuhthuhs must attached to them to overcome the boredom they painfully cause.

Previously in this series:

M@h*(pOet)?ica
M@h*(pOet)?ica: Summerthings
M@h*(pOet)?ica?Louis Zukofsky?s Integral
M@h*(pOet)?ica?Scott Helmes
M@h*(pOet)?ica?of Pi and the Circle, Part 1
M@h*(pOet)?ica ? Happy Holidays!
M@h*(pOet)?ica?Circles, Part 3
M@h*(pOet)?ica-?Karl Kempton
M@h*(pOet)?ica ? Mathematics and Love
M@h*(pOet)?ica?Mathekphrastic Poetry
M@h*(pOet)?ica?Mathekphrastic Poetry, Part 2
M@h*(pOet)?ica ? Matheconceptual Poetry

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Microscopy technique could help computer industry develop 3-D components

June 28, 2013 ? A technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for improving optical microscopes now has been applied to monitoring the next generation of computer chip circuit components, potentially providing the semiconductor industry with a crucial tool for improving chips for the next decade or more.

The technique, called Through-Focus Scanning Optical Microscopy (TSOM), has now been shown able to detect tiny differences in the three-dimensional shapes of circuit components, which until very recently have been essentially two-dimensional objects. TSOM is sensitive to features that are as small as 10 nanometers (nm) across, perhaps smaller -- addressing some important industry measurement challenges for the near future for manufacturing process control and helping maintain the viability of optical microscopy in electronics manufacturing.

For decades, computer chips have resembled city maps in which components are essentially flat. But as designers strive to pack more components onto chips, they have reached the same conclusion as city planners: The only direction left to build is upwards. New generations of chips feature 3-D structures that stack components atop one another, but ensuring these components are all made to the right shapes and sizes requires a whole new dimension -- literally -- of measurement capability.

"Previously, all we needed to do was show we could accurately measure the width of a line a certain number of nanometers across," explains NIST's Ravikiran Attota. "Now, we will need to measure all sides of a three-dimensional structure that has more nooks and crannies than many modern buildings. And the nature of light makes that difficult."

Part of the trouble is that components now are growing so small that a light beam can't quite get at them. Optical microscopes are normally limited to features larger than about half the wavelength of the light used -- about 250 nanometers for green light. So microscopists have worked around the issue by lining up a bunch of identical components at regular distances apart and observing how light scatters off the group and fitting the data with optical models to determine the dimensions. But these optical measurements, as currently used in manufacturing, have great difficulty measuring newer 3-D structures.

Other non-optical methods of imaging such as scanning probe microscopy are expensive and slow, so the NIST team decided to test the abilities of TSOM, a technique that Attota played a major role in developing. The method uses a conventional optical microscope, but rather than taking a single image, it collects 2-D images at different focal positions forming a 3-D data space. A computer then extracts brightness profiles from these multiple out-of-focus images and uses the differences between them to construct the TSOM image. The TSOM images it provides are somewhat abstract, but the differences between them are still clear enough to infer minute shape differences in the measured structures -- bypassing the use of optical models, which introduce complexities that industry must face.

"Our simulation studies show that TSOM might measure features as small as 10 nm or smaller, which would be enough for the semiconductor industry for another decade," Attota says. "And we can look at anything with TSOM, not just circuits. It could become useful to any field where 3-D shape analysis of tiny objects is needed."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/l3YXanJMEUE/130628131025.htm

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Channing Tatum Says Kanye And Kim Should Prepare For A Baby Showdown

'White House Down' actor and co-star Jamie Foxx ponder whether his new baby could take down North West during 'After Hours.'
By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709683/channing-tatum-white-house-down-jamie-foxx.jhtml

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Obama telephones Calif. gay marriage plaintiffs

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama has telephoned his congratulations to the plaintiffs in a gay marriage case before the Supreme Court.

Obama telephoned gay rights advocate Chad Griffin, who had the couple in a California gay marriage case listen in.

The White House confirmed that Obama placed the call as he flew to Africa aboard Air Force One.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-telephones-calif-gay-marriage-plaintiffs-153041273.html

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Microsoft announces Visual Studio 2013 preview: now available for download, 5,000 new APIs in Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 isn't just good news for users, as the new OS version is also bringing the goodies for developers as well, in the form of 5,000 new APIs for devs to play with. Along with 8.1's arrival is a new version of Visual Studio that'll allow devs to write native apps for Windows 8 and optimize them for the platform. The software comes with all the diagnostic tools any good Win8 developer needs, including a way to see an app's power consumption and network efficiency. The Visual Studio 2013 preview is available for download today, so devs anxious to dig in can do so at the source below.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Visual Studio

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Nv4pXRu69zM/

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Paparazzo sues Justin Bieber for alleged assault

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Justin Bieber has been sued by a paparazzo who claims the singer kicked and punched him last year at a Southern California shopping center.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges the "Baby" crooner attacked Jose Osmin Hernandez Duran after Bieber and his then-girlfriend went to the movies at The Commons in Calabasas.

Bieber's representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Duran claims Bieber started to leave the shopping center in his Mercedes, but got out of his car and sprinted toward him.

Duran says Bieber jumped into the air from 6 to 8 feet away to deliver a martial-arts-type kick to the photographer's gut before punching him in the face.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for "severe and extreme emotional distress" and negligence.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paparazzo-sues-justin-bieber-alleged-assault-023647768.html

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Reports reflect Fed's message of stronger economy

In this Monday, May 6, 2013 photo, construction is underway on the infrastructure of a multi-acre housing development in Zelienople, Pa. The Commerce Department reports on new-home sales for May, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

In this Monday, May 6, 2013 photo, construction is underway on the infrastructure of a multi-acre housing development in Zelienople, Pa. The Commerce Department reports on new-home sales for May, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

In this Wednesday, May 15, 2013 photo, pedestrians walk in and out of the Walgreens flagship store in the Empire State Building, in New York. The private Conference Board reports on consumer confidence for June, on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. housing recovery is strengthening. Factories are fielding more orders. And Americans' confidence in the economy has reached its highest point in 5? years.

That brightening picture, captured in four reports Tuesday, suggests that the economy could accelerate in the second half of the year. It underscores the message last week from the Federal Reserve, which plans to slow its bond-buying program this year and end it next year if the economy continues to strengthen. The Fed's bond purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates low.

Investors appeared to welcome the flurry of positive data. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 100 points to close at 14,760, and broader stock indexes also ended the day up. Those gains made up only a fraction of the markets' losses since Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the Fed will likely scale back its economic stimulus within months ? a move that would send long-term rates up.

But the rising confidence of U.S. consumers shows that most Americans are focused on a better job market, said Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at Standard & Poor's.

"Maybe households agree with the Fed: the economy is improving," Bovino said.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index jumped this month to 81.4, the highest reading since January 2008. The New York-based research group said consumers appear more encouraged by economic conditions and more optimistic about where the economy and job market are likely headed over the next six months.

Last month, U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs, which almost exactly matched the average increase of the previous 12 months. Steady job growth has gradually reduced the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent from a peak of 10 percent in 2009. And rising home and stock prices since the recession ended four years ago have made many Americans feel wealthier.

The combination has kept consumers spending this year despite higher Social Security taxes and steep government spending cuts that took effect this year.

The survey was completed June 13, so it didn't reflect the past week's plunge in stock prices. The market turmoil might lower July's consumer confidence. Still, many economists say they doubt that any drop in confidence would be dramatic.

For most Americans, the biggest investment is their home. And a steady rise in prices is allowing them recover much of the wealth they lost during and immediately after the Great Recession.

U.S. home prices jumped 12.1 percent in April compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. That was the biggest year-over-year gain since March 2006.

For a fourth straight month, prices rose from a year earlier in all 20 cities in the index. Twelve cities posted double-digit price gains.

More buyers and a limited supply of available homes have lifted prices in most cities. Higher prices have, in turn, fueled further sales and encouraged builders to ramp up construction. A more sustainable housing recovery is contributing to economic growth and creating more jobs.

Sales of new homes rose in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000, the Commerce Department said. That was the fastest pace since July 2008. Though sales of new homes remain below the 700,000 annual rate that most economists consider healthy, the pace has jumped 29 percent from a year ago.

Last week, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously occupied homes in May surpassed the 5 million mark for the first time since November 2009.

At a news conference last week, Bernanke noted that the strength in housing was a key reason the Fed had raised its outlook for growth next year and is moving toward slowing its pace of bond buying.

The Fed's bond purchases have helped fuel the housing gains by keeping mortgage rates down. As recently as early last month, the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.35 percent, just above the record low of 3.31 percent. The average remains historically low at 3.93 percent.

Many investors worry that many consumer and business loan rates, which have already started to rise, will jump once the Fed scales back its bond purchases. More expensive loans could slow the housing recovery and sap the economy's momentum at a critical moment.

Even so, Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo, said the reports point to underlying strength that should enable the economy to withstand jittery financial markets.

"The economy is strong enough now that it can handle a couple of rough days on Wall Street," Vitner said.

The weakest part of the economy this year has been manufacturing, which has been held back by a recession in Europe and tepid growth in other overseas markets. But factory activity may start to rebound, according to a report from the Commerce Department. The department said orders for durable goods rose 3.6 percent.

Most of the increase was due to commercial aircraft orders, which tend to fluctuate sharply from month to month. Still, businesses also ordered more computers, communications equipment, machinery and metals.

As a result, a category of orders that's viewed as a proxy for business investment plans ? which excludes the volatile sectors of transportation and defense ? rose 1.1 percent. That matched similar gains in April and March. This category hadn't risen for three straight months since 2011.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said he still thinks economic growth is slowing in the April-June quarter to an annual rate below 2 percent. That would be down from a 2.4 percent annual rate from January through March.

But Ashworth said the pickup in orders should help drive a stronger economy in the July-September quarter. He said growth could exceed an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the final three months of the year.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-25-Economy/id-57a7f10592614ec1a1294624a659670d

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Putin says no to US request to turn over Snowden

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media following a meeting with the Finland's President Sauli Niinisto at the presidential summer residence Kultaranta in Naantali, Finland, Tuesday June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Lehtikuva, Kimmo Mantyla) FINLAND OUT

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media following a meeting with the Finland's President Sauli Niinisto at the presidential summer residence Kultaranta in Naantali, Finland, Tuesday June 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Lehtikuva, Kimmo Mantyla) FINLAND OUT

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, saying that Snowden hasn?t crossed the Russian border as he seeks to evade prosecution. Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with Snowden or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn?t say where Snowden is, but he angrily lashed out at the U.S. for demanding his extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

FILE - In this June 21, 2013 file photo, a banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, is displayed at Central, Hong Kong's business district. The Hong Kong government says Snowden wanted by the U.S. for revealing two highly classified surveillance programs has left for a "third country." The South China Morning Post reported Sunday, June 23, 2013 that Snowden was on a plane for Moscow, but that Russia was not his final destination. Snowden has talked of seeking asylum in Iceland. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, saying that Snowden hasn?t crossed the Russian border as he seeks to evade prosecution. Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with Snowden or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn?t say where Snowden is, but he angrily lashed out at the U.S. for demanding his extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

Light shines through a cabin window on seat 17A, the empty seat that an Aeroflot official said was booked in the name of former CIA technician Edward Snowden, during Aeroflot flight SU150 from Moscow to Havana, Cuba, Monday, June 24, 2013. Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Snowden grew on Monday after SU150 Aeroflot flight filled with journalists trying to track him down flew from Moscow to Cuba with the empty seat booked in his name.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly rejected U.S. pleas to turn over National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden on Tuesday, saying he is free to travel wherever he wants and insisting that Russian security agencies haven't contacted him.

Snowden is in the transit zone of a Moscow airport and has not passed through Russian immigration, Putin said, meaning he is not technically in Russia.

After arriving Sunday on a flight from Hong Kong, Snowden registered for a Havana-bound flight from Moscow on Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't board the plane.

Snowden's whereabouts since then have been a mystery, and Putin's comments were the first time Russia has made clear it knows where he is.

Speculation has been rife that Russian security agencies might want to keep Snowden in Russia for a more thorough debriefing, but Putin denied that.

"Our special services never worked with Mr. Snowden and aren't working with him today," Putin said at a news conference during a visit to Finland.

Putin said that because there is no extradition agreement with the U.S., it couldn't meet the U.S. request.

"Mr. Snowden is a free man, and the sooner he chooses his final destination the better it is for us and for him," Putin said. "I hope it will not affect the business-like character of our relations with the U.S. and I hope that our partners will understand that."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that though the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, it wants Moscow to comply with common law practices between countries where fugitives are concerned.

Putin's staunch refusal to consider deporting Snowden shows the Russian president's readiness to further challenge Washington at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are already strained over Syria and a Russian ban on adoptions by Americans.

A Kremlin decision to provide even temporary shelter and safe transit to Snowden would embarrass Washington. And despite Putin's denial, security experts believe the Russian special services wouldn't miss the chance to question a man who is believed to hold reams of classified U.S. documents and can shed light on how the U.S. intelligence agencies collect information.

Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Global Arms Trade and editor of National Defense Magazine, said Snowden would be of particular interest because little is known about digital espionage.

"The security services would be happy to enter into contact with Mr. Snowden," Korotchenko said.

Russia also relished using Snowden's revelations to try to turn the tables on U.S. criticism of Russia's rights record.

Putin compared Snowden to WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who has been provided asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, saying that both men were labeled criminals but consider themselves rights activists and champions of freedom of information.

"Ask yourself a question: should people like that be extradited so that they put them in prison or not?" he said. "In any case, I would prefer not to deal with such issues. It's like shearing a piglet: a lot of squealing and little wool."

In an apparent reference to claims that Moscow could have played a role in Snowden's exit from Hong Kong, he said that his arrival was a "complete surprise" and dismissed accusations against Russia as "ravings and sheer nonsense."

"He doesn't need a visa or any other documents, and as a transit passenger he has the right to buy a ticket and fly wherever he wants," Putin said.

Russian news media had reported that Snowden remained in a transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, which is separate from the regular departure zones. He has not been seen by any of the journalists that have been roaming the airport in search of him.

Legally, an arriving air passenger only crosses the border after clearing immigration checks.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the U.S. push for Snowden's extradition earlier Tuesday, but wouldn't specify his whereabouts, saying only that he hasn't crossed the Russian border.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violating U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct by U.S. officials."

U.S. and Ecuadorean officials had said they believed Snowden was still in Russia.

Kerry called for "calm and reasonableness."

"We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is 'a fugitive' from justice,' " Kerry said at a news conference in Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.

A representative of WikiLeaks has been traveling with Snowden, and the organization is believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum. Assange, the group's founder, said Monday that Snowden was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.

A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, saying the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, hailed Snowden on Monday as "a man attempting to bring light and transparency to facts that affect everyone's fundamental liberties."

"We're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed," President Barack Obama told reporters.

The Kremlin has previously said Russia would be ready to consider Snowden's request for asylum.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to newspapers the Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Snowden also told the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.

Some observers said in addition to the sensitive data, Snowden's revelations have provided the Kremlin with propaganda arguments to counter the U.S. criticism of Russia's crackdown on opposition and civil activists under Putin.

"They would use Snowden to demonstrate that the U.S. government doesn't sympathize with the ideals of freedom of information, conceals key information from the public and stands ready to open criminal proceedings against those who oppose it," Konstantin Remchukov, the editor of independent daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Putin has accused the U.S. State Department of instigating protests in Moscow against his re-election for a third term in March and has taken an anti-American posture that plays well with his core support base of industrial workers and state employees.

____

Huuhtanen reported from Naantali, Finland. Michael Weissenstein and Gonzalo Solano contributed to this story from Quito, Ecuador.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-25-NSA-Surveillance/id-0d036e9e2e70420db7c138b48c6dabb9

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Why You Should Add ?Building a Lexicon? to Your Copywriting Toolkit

A couple of months ago, Kane Jamison asked me to present at Content Harmony?s first ever content meet up. I was excited, but wondered what I had to say that would actually help other copywriters. And then I realized that my MFA in creative writing means I bring a different set of tools to the keyboard than someone with a marketing background.

Being a novelist obviously makes it easy to incorporate narrative into writing for clients. Less obvious, though, are the ways a creative writing background can help a writer nail down a brand voice. Let?s look at one of those techniques, building a lexicon, and how it can help you learn to speak a customer?s language, no matter how foreign it seems.

What is a Lexicon?

I alluded to lexicons in a post I wrote about how to humanize your brand with a blog, but ?lexicon? is just a fancy name for a list of words. I first built a lexicon for my first novel (set in Poland) so I could separate out the different dialects that groups of characters were speaking. There?s a group of skaters who say things like ?zajebisty? (no, I?m not translating that, this is a family-friendly blog) and (because they lived in a certain city) insert ?yo? into their everyday speech in a similar way to how an American valley girl uses ?like.? This simple cluster of words distinguishes those skaters from a group of gangster wannabes whose chosen swear word is ?pierdoli?.?

How Can a Lexicon Help with Brand Voice?

A lexicon helps you sort out the vocabulary that?s pertinent to a customer base. Every customer has a way of speaking that?s unique to them, what us word nerds refer to as ?an idiolect.? When you gather a bunch of idiolects together, the place they overlap is a dialect. The classic example of this is the regional variations between whether ?soda,? ?pop,? or ?coke? is the correct word to refer to a fizzy drink. Use the wrong word, and those people you and your client are trying to sell to will know you?re not from around here. But if you use the right word, they might stay on your page a little longer.

How to Make a Lexicon

Because dialect is shaped by experiences, you want to build a customer profile (yes, this can be a persona if you insist) to see what language he or she will relate to. I?m going to break out some demographic factors I?d consider and the answers I?d expect for a group of customers shopping for prom dresses:

• Age: 17
• Gender: Female
• Region: Nationwide
• Education level: Almost done with high school
• Profession: Student
• Ethnicity: Various
• Religion: Various
• Favorite TV shows: Vampire Diaries (today), Pretty Little Liars (today), Hannah Montana (as a tween)
• Favorite magazines: Seventeen, Teen Vogue
• Where she hangs out online: Tumblr

There are a myriad of ways to get this information. Ask your clients what they already know about the customer. Do research. Listen in on conversations. Use your noodle.

Now that you have a picture of who the customer is, where she hangs out, and what media she consumes, you can start researching words that are used in those places and by people who are like her. Keep a list (I use a Google doc) and you have yourself a lexicon. Here?s part of mine for prom:

See that part about Hannah Montana? To connect with this audience on a subliminal level, I want to know not just what their current cultural referents are, but what they were at an even more formative age. We retain language from throughout our lives even when we don?t use it anymore.

You can do the same thing with an enterprise client who sells cloud computing; just reconsider all the questions in terms of a customer who is an IT Director.

Now What Do I Do with It?

The obvious use for a lexicon is to incorporate these words in your copy. The less obvious use is as an immersion point into the customer?s culture. If you?re a language person like I am, reading the words in the lexicon will transport you to the world of the customer. You?ll start to think like her and understand what she wants from life and the product. Every girl wants to ?turn heads? at prom and for her date to think she looks ?super cute.? Once you?re inside the customer?s head, you can write excellent blog posts that speak to her needs and build trust. You?re becoming her bestie who can help her find the right dress.

Are There Other Applications?

Lexicons are great for blog posts, but they work for any kind of copywriting. Use these customer-specific words in an email subject line or in onsite copy. Try them out on Twitter and see if you get more bang for your 140 characters. Remember that a lexicon is a living document that should continuously be honed and updated. If you do any multivariate testing, share the results so we can all learn from them.

How do you learn the language of your clients and customers?

Source: http://www.portent.com/blog/copywriting/lexicon.htm

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U.S. presses Russia as mystery over Snowden deepens

By Jeff Mason and Lidia Kelly

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States increased pressure on Russia on Monday to hand over Edward Snowden, the American charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, and said it believed he was still in Moscow.

Snowden, until recently a contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency, had been expected to fly to Havana from Moscow on Monday, perhaps on the way to Ecuador, according to sources at the Russian airline Aeroflot who spoke on Sunday.

But he was not seen on the daily Aeroflot flight that landed in Havana on Monday evening and the captain of the plane said he had not been aboard.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking hours after the Moscow-Havana flight took off, said it was Washington's assumption that Snowden was still in Russia and pressed Russia to use all options to expel him to the United States.

The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice Department officials were engaged in discussions with Russia, suggesting they were looking for a deal to secure his return.

"Given our intensified cooperation working with Russia on law enforcement matters ... we hope that the Russian government will look at all available options to return Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged," spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters.

Snowden flew to Moscow after being allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, even though Washington had asked the Chinese territory to detain him pending his possible extradition on espionage charges.

Julian Assange, founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks which is assisting Snowden, said the 30-year-old had fled to Moscow en route to Ecuador and was in good health in a "safe place" but did not say where he was now.

Ecuador, like Cuba and Venezuela, is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials. The Quito government has been sheltering Assange at its London embassy for the past year.

With Snowden's whereabouts still a mystery on Monday night, U.S. President Barack Obama, may face prolonged embarrassment from a young American leading the world's lone superpower on a global game of hide and seek.

Seat 17A on the Aeroflot flight to Havana had been set aside for Snowden, but reporters aboard said another person occupied the seat and it was not clear whether the plane had a section in which the American could have been concealed.

When the captain of the Aeroflot plane emerged from customs in Havana, he was surrounded by photographers and said: "No Snowden, no."

Washington has been stung by the defiance from Russia, with which Obama has sought improved relations, and China's apparent compliance in letting Snowden leave Hong Kong. Obama has met the leaders of both powers in recent months.

Obama told reporters his government was "following all the appropriate legal channels working with various other countries to make sure the rule of law is observed."

U.S.-RUSSIA DISCUSSIONS

Carney defended the administration's attempts to bring Snowden into U.S. custody and slammed those countries from which Snowden had chosen to seek protection, saying his choices belied his claim that he was focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and individuals' rights.

Carney blamed China for helping Snowden's departure from Hong Kong and said it would damage U.S. China relations.

"This was a deliberate choice by the (Hong Kong) government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant, and that decision unquestionably has a negative impact on the U.S.-China relationship," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told CNN Snowden's activities could threaten the security of China as well as that of the United States.

"People may die as a consequence to what this man did," he said. "It is possible that the United States would be attacked because terrorists may now know how to protect themselves in some way or another that they didn't know before. This is a very dangerous act."

While U.S. officials are clearly furious at the governments that have helped Snowden, analysts expect a restrained U.S. response.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Washington should avoid risking important alliances.

"Compared to all of the key issues between the United States, Russia and China, Snowden doesn't matter," he said.

U.S. HYPOCRISY SEEN

China, which itself has frequently been accused of hacking abroad, has sought the high ground, expressing "grave concern" over Snowden's allegations that the United States had hacked Chinese computers. It said it had taken up the issue with Washington.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's press secretary denied any knowledge of Snowden's movements. Asked if Snowden had spoken to the Russian authorities, Dmitry Peskov said: "Overall, we have no information about him."

Other Russian officials said Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington, citing legislation passed in the United States to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of violating human rights.

The Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed source as saying Moscow could not arrest or deport Snowden because he had not actually entered Russian territory - suggesting he had remained in the transit area at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Putin has missed few chances to champion public figures who challenge Western governments and to portray Washington as an overzealous global policeman.

WikiLeaks said Snowden was supplied with a refugee document of passage by Ecuador and that a British legal researcher working for the anti-secrecy group had accompanied him.

Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said during a trip to Vietnam that Quito would take into account a U.S. request about Snowden and was in contact with Russia about him. He gave no details of the U.S. request.

To his supporters, Snowden is a whistleblowing hero who exposed the extent of U.S. surveillance activities.

A petition initiated by his supporters and posted on the White House website described him as "a national hero and should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs."

The petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD had garnered more than 113,000 signatures by 2030 GMT, above the 100,000 needed to oblige a White House response within 30 days.

One of three high-powered lawyers representing Snowden in Hong Kong said they had warned him he might be stuck in legal limbo for years - and possibly detained - if he stayed put and requested asylum in the city-state.

Snowden, who worked as a systems administrator at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii for about three months, had been hiding in Hong Kong, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.

He said in an interview published by Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on Monday that he took a job at U.S. contractor Booz Allen Hamilton deliberately to gain access to details of the NSA's surveillance programs.

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," Snowden said, according to the article.

Booz Allen Hamilton fired Snowden on June 10, a day after he went public about his role in revealing details of the NSA programs in a video posted by the Guardian newspaper in London. It had no comment about Snowden's latest comments.

U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were worried they do not know how much sensitive material Snowden had in his possession and he may have taken more documents than initially estimated. They were concerned that his links with WikiLeaks would increase the likelihood of their being published.

Snowden has been charged with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person. The last two charges fall under the U.S. Espionage Act.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Martin Petty in Hanoi, Sui-Lee Weein in Beijing,; Andrew Cawthorne, Mario Naranjo and Daniel Wallis in Caracas, Alexandra Valencia in Quito, Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Katya Golubkova in Havana.; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-presses-russia-mystery-over-snowden-deepens-015914306.html

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Duke Ellington Musical: 'After Midnight' Set For Broadway This Fall

NEW YORK ? "After Midnight," a musical revue celebrating Duke Ellington's years at the famous Cotton Club nightclub in Harlem in the late `20s and early `30s, will begin new performances far from its original neighborhood ? downtown at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway.

Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle with musical direction by Wynton Marsalis, the show appeared off-Broadway last year at New York City Center under the name "Cotton Club Parade." Songs include "Stormy Weather" and "I've Got the World on a String."

Casting and musicians will be announced later. One name swirling around the show is Grammy Award-winner Fantasia Barrino, who recently told the "Today" show that she was returning to Broadway in October, but didn't name the show.

"After Midnight" will open its doors in October.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/duke-ellington-musical-after-midnight-broadway-fall_n_3492619.html

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Snapjoy photo sharing service shut down following Dropbox aquisition

Snapjoy has announced that it'll be shuttering all of its services a mere six months after being acquired by cloud colossus Dropbox. In a blog post, the company said photos can no longer be imported into Snapjoy and the iPhone app is henceforth unavailable. If you've got images stored on the site, you'll have exactly a month to get them downloaded, since after July 24th, "all photos and data will be permanently deleted." The same thing happened to Audiogalaxy shortly after its acquisition by Dropbox, and of course other big fish like Google and Twitter are well known for similar behavior after eating smaller fish -- though at least we saw the #Music fruits of Twitter's buyout shortly after it happened. On the other hand, we've yet to see Dropbox do anything with Audiogalaxy, so we hope the defunct apps will be resurrected in some form soon.

Filed under: Internet, Software

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Via: CNET

Source: Snapjoy (Blog)

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High court to hear Obama recess appointments case

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court on Monday waded into a major constitutional clash between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans that could fundamentally limit a president's use of recess appointments to fill high-level administration posts.

The justices will review a federal appeals court ruling that found Obama overstepped his authority when he bypassed the Senate last year to fill three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board.

The case ? to be decided next term ? highlights the growing partisanship that has led GOP lawmakers to stall or filibuster several of Obama's choices to head federal agencies that Republicans distrust. That includes nominees to the labor board, which has issued several union-friendly decisions, and the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Constitution gives the president the power to make temporary appointments to fill positions that otherwise require confirmation by the Senate, but only when the Senate is in recess.

At issue for the Supreme Court: What constitutes a congressional recess and does it matter when a vacancy occurs?

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., held earlier this year that recess appointments can be made only during the once-a-year break between sessions of Congress. Two judges on the panel also ruled ? for the first time ? that a vacancy must occur while the Senate is away in order to be filled during the same break.

If the Supreme Court agrees, it would make it nearly impossible for a president to use the recess power, giving the opposition party in Congress the ability to block administration nominees indefinitely.

"Should they uphold the D.C. Circuit, it would be a major blow to presidential power," said Sanford Levinson, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas. "The rationale for recess appointments in the modern world is much more the ability of the president to staff his administration in the face of Senate hostility."

Obama has made relatively few recess appointments, 32 in his four-plus years in office, according to the Congressional Research Service. Bush made 171 such appointments and President Bill Clinton filled 139 posts that way in their eight years in office, the research service said.

The Obama administration argues the ruling is a radical departure from precedent that would invalidate hundreds of recess appointments made by presidents of both parties over more than 100 years. Those appointments include "three Cabinet secretaries, five court of appeals judges, 10 district court judges, a director of Central Intelligence, a chairman of the Federal Reserve, numerous members of multi-member boards, and holders of a variety of other critical government posts," Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said in his petition to the Supreme Court.

But all 45 Republicans in the Senate ? led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky? have filed a friend of the court brief asserting that Obama "made an unprecedented power grab" by making the recess picks.

The nature of the president's actions, during brief Senate breaks that Congress explicitly said were not formal recesses, is driving the current legal controversy.

The case stems from Obama's decision to fill the three NLRB vacancies on Jan. 4, 2012, with Congress on an extended holiday break. At the same time, however, the Senate held brief, pro forma sessions every few days as part of the Republicans' explicit strategy of keeping Obama from filling vacancies through recess appointments. The president also used a recess appointment to install Richard Cordray as head of the financial protection agency, a nomination the GOP had blocked for a year and a half.

In taking up the case, the court said it would also consider the narrower question of whether recess appointments can be made during pro forma sessions ? where one senator gavels in and out for a few minutes every three days. The appeals court did not address the issue of how short a break can count as a recess.

The case challenging the appointments was brought by Noel Canning, a Washington state bottling company, which claimed an NLRB decision against it was not valid because the board members were not properly appointed and that the board did not have enough members to do business without the improperly appointed officials.

Since the Canning decision, a second federal appeals court in Philadelphia issued a similar opinion finding that recess appointments can be made only between sessions of the Senate. But on three earlier occasions, federal appeals courts have upheld recess appointments.

If the latest rulings stand, they could invalidate more than 1,600 NLRB decisions, and call into question the legitimacy of enforcement actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, many of which affect the mortgage industry.

The NLRB would effectively be shut down as a ruling against the administration would leave the board with only one member, and it needs three to conduct business.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau likewise would have to cease all investigations against mortgage lenders and other financial entities.

"It's going to be sheer chaos," said Alan Kaplinsky, a consumer financial services attorney based in Philadelphia. "If the court determines it was not valid, then literally almost every act taken by the CFPB since January 2012 will be under a huge cloud of uncertainty."

Obama used the recess appointment to install Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block, union lawyer Richard Griffin and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn to fill vacancies on the labor board, giving it a full contingent for the first time in more than a year. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican. Flynn stepped down from the board last year.

The parties' roles were reversed when a Republican President George W. Bush was in the White House and Democrats controlled the Senate in the final two years of Bush's presidency. Then, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid employed the same tactic of convening the Senate every few days to keep Bush from filling vacancies through recess appointments. Unlike Obama, Bush did not press the issue.

___

Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

___

Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-24-Supreme%20Court-Recess%20Appointments/id-e54db3991a7d42119912fd81352668d2

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Hong Kong silent so far on Snowden extradition

HONG KONG (AP) ? Hong Kong was silent Saturday on whether a former National Security Agency contractor should be extradited to the United States now that he has been charged with espionage, but some local legislators said the Chinese government should decide.

Edward Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing information to the news media about two highly classified NSA surveillance programs.

It is not known if the U.S. government has made a formal extradition request ? a process that could take years, and the Hong Kong government had no immediate reaction to the charges against Snowden. Police Commissioner Andy Tsang told reporters only that the case would be dealt with according to the law. A police statement said it was "inappropriate" for the police to comment on the case.

When China regained control of Hong Kong in 1997, the former British colony was granted a high degree of autonomy and granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China. However, under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs.

Outspoken legislator Leung Kwok-hung said Beijing should instruct Hong Kong to protect Snowden from extradition before his case gets dragged through the court system. Leung also urged the people of Hong Kong to "take to the streets to protect Snowden."

Another legislator, Cyd Ho, vice-chairwoman of the pro-democracy Labour Party, said China "should now make its stance clear to the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government" before the case goes before a court.

China has urged Washington to provide explanations following the disclosures of National Security Agency programs which collect millions of telephone records and track foreign Internet activity on U.S. networks, but it has not commented on Snowden's status in Hong Kong.

Another disclosure came late Saturday when the South China Morning Post reported on its website that Snowden claimed the NSA hacked Chinese cell phone companies to steal SMS data. The paper also said, without citing any source, that Snowden was "safe" in Hong Kong and not in police custody.

Snowden claimed to have supporting documents of the text-message hacking, the paper said, though its report did not explain his alleged evidence. He spoke to the paper in a June 12 interview.

A formal extradition request to Hong Kong could drag through appeal courts for years and would pit Beijing against Washington at a time China tries to deflect U.S. accusations that it carries out extensive surveillance on American government and commercial operations.

Snowden told the Post in the same interview that he hoped to stay in the autonomous region of China because he has faith in "the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate."

A prominent former politician in Hong Kong, Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said he doubted whether Beijing would intervene yet.

"Beijing would only intervene according to my understanding at the last stage. If the magistrate said there is enough to extradite, then Mr. Snowden can then appeal," he said.

Lee said Beijing could then decide at the end of the appeal process if it wanted Snowden extradited or not.

The criminal complaint unsealed Friday in a U.S. federal court alleged Snowden engaged in two violations of the Espionage Act and committed theft of government property. All three crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison term.

If formal extradition is pursued, Snowden could contest it on grounds of political persecution.

Hong Kong lawyer Mark Sutherland said that the filing of a refugee, torture or inhuman punishment claim acts as an automatic bar on any extradition proceedings until those claims can be assessed.

"Some asylum seekers came to Hong Kong 10 years ago and still haven't had their protection claims assessed," Sutherland said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-silent-far-snowden-extradition-074920801.html

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Pakistani militants kill 10 tourists,

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? At least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death overnight a Pakistani and 10 foreign tourists who were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said Sunday.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north ? considered until now relatively safe ? is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The 10 foreigners who were killed included two Chinese, one Chinese-American and one Nepalese, said Attaur Rehman, home secretary in the Gilgit-Baltistan area where the attack took place. The other six have not been identified. One Pakistani was also killed, Rehman said.

Matt Boland, the acting spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, confirmed that a U.S. citizen was among the dead, but could not say whether it was a dual Chinese national.

"The U.S. Embassy Islamabad expresses its deepest condolences to the family and friends of the U.S. citizen and the other innocent tourists who were killed in the Northern Areas of Pakistan," Boland said in a statement sent to reporters.

Pakistan's interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said earlier that nine foreigners and one Pakistani were killed. He said the dead included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, said Khan.

It's unclear what caused the discrepancy between the two accounts.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

At least a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack, local police officer Jahangir Khan said.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed. The base camp has basic wooden huts, but most tourists choose to sleep in their own tents.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.

"We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime," the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, Volodymyr Lakomov, told reporters outside the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah.

"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pakistani-militants-kill-10-tourists-184329733.html

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