Egypt soccer riot: Could it hasten military's exit from politics?

Anger pulsed through Cairo today after 73 soccer fans were killed in clashes yesterday. The protests may provide an opportunity for civilian politicians to come to grips with the military.

It's hard to put a positive spin on the events of the past two days in Egypt. At least 73 soccer fans were killed in a post-match riot yesterday that incompetent police could not stop.?Today, angry crowds of soccer enthusiasts and activists against continued military rule, took to the?streets of Cairo.

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What ensued was tear gas, rock throwing, and dozens of injuries around Tahrir Square. In the mid-evening, a group of angry protesters surrounded a central security truck and briefly sought to detain the officers inside before cooler heads prevailed. More turmoil in Egypt, still trying to forge a new path after decades of authoritarian rule and with an economy badly damaged by the upheaval of the past year, is certainly not a good thing.

But people who attended the protest said you only had to walk a few blocks to find calm Cairo streets and a night that feels much like any other. Though the passion and anger of the thousands in and around Tahrir is real, it hasn't come anywhere close to igniting a major conflagration -- at least not yet. And some good may yet come if?Egypt's new crop of civilian politicians, recently seated in parliament, can capitalize on it to clip the military's wings.

Writing at the London Review of Books blog, Issandr El Amrani draws attention to the stunning security lapses ahead of the soccer match between the?Masry and Ahli teams. Both teams have hardcore "ultras" supporters clubs, and a history of mutual enmity. Typically a match like that would see heavy security, with guards searching fans for weapons before allowing them into the stadium.?No such searches were carried out yesterday, allowing a number of Masry supporters to bring in knives and clubs that were used in the violence after the final whistle.?

Many Egyptians believe that this may have been deliberate: a piece of engineered chaos intended to convince the public that a strong guiding hand from the military is needed to keep the country secure. But even if that were the intent (and there is no evidence yet), it backfired. What everyone is talking about in Cairo today, from protesters to new members of parliament, is the stunning failure of the police and of the military that continues to rule Egypt.

Amrani writes that it may be nudging the Muslim Brotherhood, the new power in parliament, towards demanding faster presidential elections:

Until yesterday, the top concern in Cairo was the mounting tension between revolutionary protesters and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) now controls 46 per cent of parliament and is in a position to negotiate ? alone if it wants to ? the terms by which the military will transfer power to civilians later this year. The protest movement wants an immediate handover of power, either to a senior judge as interim president, to parliament, or to a president to be elected as soon as possible ? and certainly earlier than 15 June, the date the generals have set for a presidential election. The Brothers, along with the more hardline Salafi Islamists, were sticking with the military schedule, but what happened last night has changed that.

In a special session of parliament today, the idea of forming a government of national salvation was discussed. MPs, including those of the FJP, also want to sack the interior minister and interrogate the chief of intelligence. It is as yet unclear whether they have the power ? legally or practically ? to do this, and what it might mean for the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). But it is a first sign of confrontation between the Brothers and the SCAF, and is encouraging the Tahrir protesters to hold fast to their demand for accountability and civilian rule sooner rather than later.

The sooner the military is removed from politics, the better the chances Egypt will have of building a new form of governance where powers flow from civilian politicians empowered by the ballot box. SCAF has been in power for nearly a year and has ruled much like the military-backed regimes of the past half century. The longer SCAF remains,?the more influence it will exert on the writing of a new constitution and resist civilian restraints on its powers.

So that's the good that may come out of this tragedy. And the protests could still yet swell. It's easy to dismiss the ultras as a rabble or thugs, but they are highly organized and have an ethos of pushing back against confrontation. (I've embedded a clip of an Ultra Ahlawy display of mourning for a killed member from last year at the bottom to get a sense of their level of organization). I also highly recommend this blog post, an apparent account by one of the Ahli supporters who attended the match in Port Said to get a feel for his group, and the security failures that left 73 people dead yesterday (but take it with a grain of salt; I haven't independently confirmed it's accurate, but it passes the smell test).?

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/7m6rAH8hwoE/Egypt-soccer-riot-Could-it-hasten-military-s-exit-from-politics

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Man charged with homicide in death of baby sitter

OGDEN, Utah (AP) ? Prosecutors charged a Utah man Tuesday with child abuse homicide in the overdose death of his teenage baby sitter whose body was found in a shallow grave more than a month after she was reported missing.

Suspect Eric Millerberg also faces charges of having sex with a minor, obstructing justice and desecration of a body, Weber County Attorney Dee Smith said. Millerberg's wife, Dea, was charged with desecration of a body.

Alexis Rasmussen was babysitting for the Millerbergs at their North Ogden home on Sept. 10 ? the night she vanished. The 16-year-old's body was found Oct. 18 off a nearby interstate after police received a tip from a confidential informant.

Smith said Rasmussen died of a drug overdose but declined to elaborate.

"We do know what happened to Alexis," Smith said.

Eric Millerberg faces the homicide charge because he provided the drugs that led to the girl's death, the prosecutor said.

The Millerbergs were arrested in October on separate drug charges stemming from the investigation.

Eric Millerberg has since been sent to prison on a probation violation. Dea Millerberg was released on bond pending a May 24 trial on charges of prescription drug fraud and child endangerment.

Dea Millerberg's defense lawyer, Michael Bouwhuis, said his client is "relieved" to have finally been charged.

"She has always maintained that she did not cause the death of Alexis Rasmussen, and this charge bears that out," Bouwhuis said. "She is very sorry about the untimely death of Alexis Rasmussen and sincerely hopes that the Rasmussen family will someday soon find healing and comfort."

A call to a public defender who previously represented Eric Millerberg was not returned Tuesday.

Smith previously said only that Rasmussen died in a house on or around Sept. 11 and that her body was moved to a grave near Interstate 84, about 35 miles from North Ogden.

The Standard-Examiner of Ogden has reported that, according to a now sealed search warrant, Dea Millerberg drove the girl to buy $100 worth of prescription medication and a small amount of marijuana on the night she vanished.

The search warrant cited statements from people interviewed by police who said the Millerbergs had a drug-fueled, salacious sexual relationship with Rasmussen and that the girl was paid in pills the night she disappeared.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-31-Missing%20Teen-Utah/id-45cbc0cb64f14cfe9ad3c4bfd6b4b789

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Experts say Gingrich moon base dreams not lunacy (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wants to create a lunar colony that he says could become a U.S. state. There's his grand research plan to figure out what makes the human brain tick. And he's warned about electromagnetic pulse attacks leaving America without electricity.

To some people, these ideas sound like science fiction. But mostly they are not.

Several science policy experts say the former House speaker's ideas are based in mainstream science. But somehow, Gingrich manages to make them sound way out there, taking them first a small step and then a giant leap further than where other politicians have gone.

Gingrich's promise that "by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon" got amped up in a recent debate in Florida, which lost thousands of jobs with the end of the space shuttle program. By then, the lunar base had become a colony and even a potential state, and his moon ideas were ridiculed by rival Mitt Romney.

Returning to the moon and building an outpost there is not new. Until three years ago, it was U.S. policy and billions of dollars were spent on that idea.

Staying on the moon dates at least to 1969, when a government committee recommended that NASA first build a winged, reusable space shuttle followed by a space station and then a moon outpost. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush proposed going to the moon and staying there.

Sixteen years later, in 2005, his son, President George W. Bush, proposed a similar lunar outpost, phased out the space shuttle program and spent more than $9 billion designing a return to the moon program.

George Washington University space policy director Scott Pace, who was NASA's associate administrator in the second Bush administration and is a Romney supporter, said the 2020 lunar base date Gingrich mentioned was feasible when it was proposed in 2005.

But it is no longer, felled by funding cuts and President Barack Obama's decision to cancel the program. Pace said it would be hard to figure out when NASA could get back to the moon, but that such a return is doable.

What kept killing return-to-the moon plans were the costs, starting in 1969. The proposal died 20 years later when the price tag was released: more than $700 billion in current dollars. The second President Bush's plans started running into problems due to insufficient funding. After a special commission said those plans were not sustainable, Obama cancelled the return-to-the-moon program. Instead, he ordered NASA to aim astronauts toward an asteroid and eventually Mars, something many space experts say is even more ambitious.

"Some of you may like it and you may dislike it, but I gave the boldest explanation of going into space since John F. Kennedy in 1961," Gingrich said this week in Florida. "I believe in an America of big ideas and big solutions. I believe if we unleash the American people we will rebuild the American dream."

In Florida, nearly all the Republican presidential candidates promoted private companies sending astronauts into space. Several companies are building private spaceships. Commercial space companies taking over the job of getting Americans into low Earth orbit is a cornerstone of the Obama space plan. But, again, money has been an issue.

For example, NASA received $406 million in its current budget for private space programs. Obama had asked Congress for $805 million.

Neal Lane, former head of the National Science Foundation and White House science adviser during the Clinton administration, said Gingrich's proposals aren't crazy, although he may disagree with some of them. Gingrich's ideas and actions are "very pro-science," said Lane, who credited Gingrich with protecting federal science research from budget cuts in the 1990s.

"He's on the edge of mainstream thinking about big science. Except for the idea of establishing a colony on the moon, it's not over the edge," added Syracuse University science policy professor Henry Lambright.

In Iowa, Gingrich pushed a "brain science" initiative that advocates spending more private and federal money to map the human brain to help fight and cure Alzheimer's disease. He said the idea was based on the experience of watching his late mother's transformation from a happy person with friends to living in a long-term care facility suffering from bipolar disease, depression and physical ailments.

Gingrich said his "whole emphasis on brain science" is based on his mother's depression and mental illnesses. Discussing the issue in Iowa, he wiped away a tear, saying: "It's not a theory. It's in fact, my mother."

The idea of mapping the brain to figure out how it works is a traditional scientific approach to a difficult problem. Scientists have tried to conquer disease by mapping the human genome and figuring out the basic biology of cancer, said Arizona State University science policy professor Dan Sarewitz. The trouble is that, in the past, it hasn't paid off as promised, he said.

Gingrich also has raised eyebrows with his dire warnings about the threat of electromagnetic pulses. The fear being that a nuclear bomb detonated hundreds of miles above America could knock out the country's electricity for a long time. In 2009, Gingrich said it "may be the greatest threat we face ... We would in fact lose our civilization in a matter of seconds."

Paul Fischbeck, a professor of engineering and risk at Carnegie Mellon University, said the threat has existed for about a half a century and is real. But "it's getting more likely and more dangerous" as America becomes more electronic-dependent and other countries advance in technology, he said.

Still, it's space where Gingrich dreams biggest and raises the most eyebrows.

Much of the criticism of his space plans, especially in the media, have been unfair, said Alan Stern, NASA's space sciences chief during George W. Bush's administration. He said Gingrich is just thinking big, like a pioneer.

"That's how `Star Trek' begins," said Stern, vice president of the Southwest Research Institute and director of the Florida Space Institute. "But when a government guy or politician talks that way, they just get clobbered about being unrealistic and that's unfortunate."

___

Associated Press writer Shannon McCaffrey in Florida contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120201/ap_on_sc/us_space_newt

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Rooney Mara???s Super Bowl Connection (omg!)

(Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)February is a big HUGE month for actress Rooney Mara. Not only is the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" star up for a Best Actress Oscar on the 26th, but the New York Giants, the team that was founded by great-great-grandfather Tim Mara, is in the Super Bowl.

The Giants are still very much a Mara-centric team. Rooney's father, Chris Mara, is the senior vice president of player evaluations. His father (Rooney's grandfather) Wellington Mara served as owner until his death in 2005. Currently, John Mara (Rooney's uncle) is 50% owner of the Giants. He also serves as the team's president and CEO.

[ Photos: Rooney Mara's change from good girl to goth ]

However, Mara?s father is conflicted about his priorities this February, and is likely going to be watching the red carpet more closely than the football field. On the morning of the Oscar nominations, ?I let out a pretty big scream,? he told ESPN.com. ?And then I cried. I thought she was on the bubble because the category was so tough this year. It was a very tough role for her, and a lot of hard work went into it, so this is her Super Bowl.?

Mara is what some fans call ?Super Bowl royalty? because her mother also has a football connection. Mara?s grandfather on that side, Art Rooney, Sr., founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers? chairman emeritus, Dan Rooney, is her great-uncle.

Be sure to check out Yahoo! on February 4th for a Bud Light hotel concert starring Pitbull.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_rooney_mara_e280_99s_super_bowl_connection/44354447/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/rooney-mara%E2%80%99s-super-bowl-connection.html

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Comodo Internet Security Pro 2012

The folks at Comodo clearly enjoy assembling different applications out of the same building blocks. Their Comodo Internet Security Pro 2012 ($4.99/year direct) security suite is a construct containing the firewall component from Comodo Firewall 5, the antivirus component from Comodo Antivirus 2012, and the Defense+ behavior-based malware detector shared by both.

The one big bonus in the inexpensive suite is support from Comodo's GeekBuddy service. In testing the other products, I repeatedly encountered screens offering cleanup by a GeekBuddy expert, but at an extra cost. GeekBuddy support is included with the suite. Note that this is not the same as the $49.95/year full GeekBuddy service, which promises live remote-control help with every kind of PC Problem. With the suite you specifically get help for malware removal.

Low Scores from the Labs
The independent labs don't give Comodo's basic antivirus technology high marks. ICSA Labs and Virus Bulletin certify it for virus detection, but not virus removal. Virus Bulletin has tested it five times, and all five times it fell short of VB100 certification. It also failed to achieve certification in a whole-product test by AV-Test.org last year, scoring especially poorly in the malware repair test. The chart below summarizes Comodo's lab test results along with those of other current products. For details on how I interpret the various tests, see How We Interpret Antivirus Lab Tests.

Firewall and Defense+
My review of Comodo Antivirus 2012 (free, 3 stars) covered the company's Defense+ technology, and my review of Comodo Firewall 5 (free, 3.5 stars) offers details on the firewall component. Please refer to these articles for full details; I'll summarize here.

Defense+ aims to keep your system safe from malware by blocking access to sensitive system areas. When it detects an access attempt it pops up a yellow, orange, or red alert and asks you what to do. Some alerts specifically identify the program in question as malicious; others specifically state that you must make the decision yourself.

I don't approve of security software that pushes important decisions off on the user, since most users aren't trained in security. For testing, I blocked all activity reported as a red alert and allowed yellow and orange alerts. If the alert recommended running the program in Comodo's sandbox, meaning limiting its access to sensitive areas, I always chose the recommended option.

I found that Defense+ detected suspicious activity by every single one of my malware samples. However, it also popped up red alerts for every single PCMag utility I tested. I specifically used old utilities that aren't digitally signed. The majority either wouldn't install or wouldn't run when I followed my block-on-red rule.

The firewall itself properly stealthed all ports and resisted Web-based attacks, though it did nothing to block attacks attempting to exploit system vulnerabilities. In its default program control setting it blocks outbound connections and allows inbound connections. However, also by default it automatically allows any questionable connection, so in effect its program control isn't active.

Antivirus Alone
In testing the standalone antivirus, I found that it did a mediocre job of malware cleanup, especially against rootkits. Even when I turned on the hidden option to scan for rootkits, it left some rootkits running.

Blocking malware from attacking a clean system was a team effort by Defense+ and the antivirus. Defense+ was always first to the crime scene, but in quite a few cases the antivirus jumped in to quarantine known malware. Comodo's malware blocking score was excellent, though tarnished by its high incidence of false positives in my testing with PCMag utilities.

I didn't invoke GeekBuddy help for each individual malware sample. Doing so would have taken an impossibly long time, and in any case Comodo scored quite well without GeekBuddy. For an explanation of how I test and score malware blocking, see How We Test Malware Blocking.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/qj8M44TlduM/0,2817,2399585,00.asp

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Sonnen earns his rematch against Silva, grinds out win over Bisping at UFC on Fox 2

CHICAGO -- It was a rough 15 minutes, but Chael Sonnen did enough to get the fight he's coveted for 17 months.

The middleweight title contender locked up a shot against UFC 185-pound champ Anderson Silva with a surprisingly tough win over Michael Bisping. In a fight, that appeared to be a toss-up for some, Sonnen took a unanimous decision, 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28, in the co-main event of the UFC on Fox 2 card at the United Center.

Sonnen's win sets up an intriguing scenario.

UFC president Dana White guaranteed the winner of tonight's tilt a shot at Silva. The champ has been sidelined since August and the promotion is pointing towards a summer return. But Silva recently hinted that he may be out beyond the summer.

Sonnen has done everything he can to call out the champ. Tonight, he made the wise decision of not poking Silva. Instead, he delivered a hilarious speech talking about his own greatness.

He was good, not great tonight, but much of that had to do with the opponent. Bisping rubs plenty of fans and media members the wrong way and, as a result, he's a bit underrated. The common thought was that the Brit would get eaten alive by Sonnen's Olympic level wrestling, but that didn't happen in the first two rounds.

Sonnen scored two takedowns in the first, but Bisping got to his feet in less than 25 seconds on both occasions. He also stuffed three other takedown attempts. In the second, Sonnen scored a takedown with 2:58 left. Bisping was up a minute later and took minimal damage. The Brit was effective in the striking game, landing a few good combinations, but nothing really rocked the hard-charging American.

Joe Rogan was convinced Bisping had won the first two rounds. That wasn't the case on the judges' scorecard, but two of them did have things 19-19. Sonnen did what he needed to in the final round. He scored a big takedown and really dominated the position for over three minutes.

Sonnen scored that takedown just 12 seconds into the round. Bisping defended well for the next minute but got a little impatient as he was just about to rise to his feet. Bisping gave us back standing and Sonnen squashed him. Then he did a brilliant job of getting both hooks in and rolling to dominant position on the ground. He worked to lock on a rear-naked, but it didn't happen. Bisping was protecting from the choke, lost his focus and allowed Sonnen to roll the position into the mount with 2:31 left. With 1:31 left, Bisping hip escaped to full guard. Bisping eventually got to his feet with less than 20 seconds left and scored a takedown of his own. He even landed a few big elbows, but it was too little, too late.

Now the question is when will the fight everyone wants - Sonnen vs. Silva - actually go down. Sonnen turned up the heat in recent weeks, plainly stating that he'll never get to fight Silva because the champ won't accept the fight.

"I'm not going to fight Anderson either way. They can say whatever they want. Anderson is never going to do that fight," Sonnen told "The MMA Insiders" show on Las Vegas' ESPN1100/98.9 FM. "I hope he's healthy and has a good life, but I'm not buying into this mythical world that Anderson is going to some day sign a contract to fight me."

Silva beat Sonnen at UFC 117 via fifth-round submission, but that was after getting dominated for 23 minutes. He's had to hear about it ever since. This is a chance to shut Sonnen's mouth and likely do it in front of a record-sized crowd in Brazil. Why would he pass on the opportunity?

Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/sonnen-earns-rematch-against-silva-grinding-win-over-022024441.html

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