Monday, August 5, 2013

Why US senators want tougher sanctions on Iran's new president

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Why US senators want tougher sanctions on Iran's new president

In the US, 76 senators are demanding tougher economic sanctions to force Iran to scale back its nuclear program. President Obama wants to give Iran's President Hasan Rouhani ...

2 days ago | News Analysis (Article)

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Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans (reuters)

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NCAA investigating Johnny Manziel


Talented and reckless, Manziel heading in an unfortunate direction


This time last year 90 percent of college football fans had not even HEARD of Johnny Manziel.
He was a redshirt freshman and just another quarterback in the mix at Texas A&M. The depth chart in the Aggies' 2012 preseason media guide listed "Jameill Showers OR Johnny Manziel OR Matt Joeckel" at quarterback.
I had a couple of conversations with new head coach Kevin Sumlin in the preseason, and in one of them he said: "Jameill Showers was the leader coming out of the spring, but we have a redshirt freshman named Manziel. If we can teach him to throw a little better, he might be able to help us this year."
Kliff Kingsbury, then the offensive coordinator, told me last August: "Manziel is a little different. I think he has a chance to get on the field."
Fast forward 12 months and Johnny Manziel is not only one of the most famous athletes in the world, but through a series of steps and missteps, today the sophomore finds himself intoxicated and ultimately trapped by a TMZ level of fame.
And now comes a report on Sunday that the NCAA is investigating whether or not Manziel took a five-figure payday to sign memorabilia. If he did it, Manziel is looking at a serious suspension at best. Remember that Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green lost four games for selling one of his game jerseys for $1,000. At worst, if he lied to NCAA investigators, he could be done.
There is really no point in fans wringing their hands talking about the injustice of it all and how athletes should be able make money off their signature because everybody else, by God, is making money. That's a valid argument and one that we should have. But it ain't gonna help Johnny Football.
We should have seen this coming.
Last week two very good pieces of reporting and writing, first by ESPN The Magazine's Wright Thompson, and then by Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated, gave us an uncomfortably close look as Manziel's struggles to stay "normal" in what is anything but a normal world that has grown up around him since he became the first freshman in history to win the Heisman Trophy.
Both of these articles paint the picture of an extremely talented young man still trying to grow up under a spotlight that sometimes glows too hot and is always too intrusive. He enjoys the fame when he's sitting court side at the NBA playoffs or throwing out the first pitch at a major league baseball game. He enjoys the fame when he and his dad are playing Pebble Beach (He birdied 18 for a crowd-pleasing 79).
He doesn't enjoy the fame when he gets hammered on Twitter after complaining about College Station when his car got keyed. He doesn't enjoy the fame when video goes viral of him getting tossed out of a fraternity party at his school's bitter rival, the University of By God Texas.
And I'll just bet he's not enjoying the fame right now.
In an age of Twitter, Facebook, and the 24-hour news cycle, Fame is a cruel sword that cuts both ways. Two quotes from Andy Staples' piece summarize where Manziel's head appears to be right now:
"I'm adapting. I'm learning. I'm trying to learn from these mistakes. But I'm not going to change who I am because the media wants me to be this, this or this. I'm not going to do that. . . . You love me when I'm running around being dangerous and a loose cannon. What makes me special on the field is what people don't like off the field. I'm still learning how to put that into perspective."
And this one, which also makes it clear that Manziel is having problems with the idea that Fame should change his lifestyle.
"That probably is what's getting us in trouble ? wanting to be normal," Manziel said. "We want to be just like we've always been, where none of this is a big deal."
So from one perspective Johnny Manziel is a victim of his own success and his difficulty of living up to the demands of his media-created persona. Texas A&M, goes this narrative, is getting rich off the kid while Manziel and his parents wonder if he can make it through another year of this madness and not explode. The family doesn't like the fact that the NCAA is all up in their business. So they really aren't going to like what happens next.
Based on these stories, it's pretty clear that the tension that exists between the Manziel family and Texas A&M is significant. But as our Dennis Dodd pointed out earlier Sunday evening, Texas A&M did everything it could to keep the kid from self-imploding.
I'm not here to downplay the pressures of what it is like to be Johnny Football. As Staples points out, the world in which Manziel now lives didn't exist 10 years ago. Most college football fans are as nice as they can be. Others are flat out crazy and will chase celebrities across the street to get something signed. They either don't recognize boundaries or they recognize them and really don't care. What Johnny Manziel and his family are going through is very real.
But another perspective on this issue takes me back to something my father said to me more than once: "Son, if somebody wants to shoot you, don't hand them the gun and the ammunition."
Johnny Manziel is not the first college athlete to reach icon status at an early age.
I was around when Herschel Walker arrived at Georgia in 1980. As an 18-year-old true freshman, Walker led Georgia to an undefeated season and the national championship. I can promise you that no athlete in my lifetime was more adored and mobbed than Herschel Walker was in his three years at Georgia. But thanks to Claude Felton, Georgia's Hall of Fame Sports Information Director, and head coach Vince Dooley, Walker's fame was managed. Walker played two more years of college football after winning the national championship and then turned pro.
"It got to the point where we had to have two state troopers with our traveling party. One for me and one for Herschel," said Dooley, who won three straight SEC championships (1980-82) with Walker as his tailback. "Everybody wanted a piece of Herschel. But he handled those sorts of things so well."
There has never been an athlete more in demand than Florida's Tim Tebow, who played from 2006-2009. He won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore in 2007 and then played two more seasons for the Gators. But what Florida did -- and we in the media didn't like it at the time -- was put up a wall around Tebow to protect him so that he didn't have to say no to the thousands upon thousands of requests for him to appear in public. And Tebow was willing to live inside those walls.
You don't think the whole world wanted a piece of Bo Jackson when he was playing at Auburn? Jackson played four years of college football, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1985. Bo knew how to handle it because he and his coach, Pat Dye, listened to David Housel, one of the best sports information directors who has ever lived.
Yes the world has changed. The media beast has grown much larger and needs to be fed 24 hours a day. Everybody can be a reporter/gossip columnist with their cell phones. Nothing a high-profile athlete does in public is ignored and most of it ends up on the Internet. I get all that.
The point is that fame, and the demands that come with it from media and fans, cannot be controlled. But it can be managed. You have to have a plan and a client willing to make the adjustments to carry out the plan.
Based on Wright Thompson's reporting, Texas A&M had a plan which included some behavior modification by Manziel. In short, the Aggies quarterback and those around him needed to put up some walls and set some limits. He needed to get off of Twitter, period. Manziel would also see a therapist to deal with his anger and frustration over the issue. In short, the very public life of the 20-year-old quarterback needed to get a lot less public.
The reality, however, is that Johnny Manziel enjoys being Johnny Football. He enjoys sitting at courtside for the NBA playoffs. He enjoys meeting LeBron James and Drake. He enjoys throwing out the first pitch at a San Diego Padres game. There is nothing wrong with any of that.
But on the heels of his early exit from the Manning Passing Academy?and some people will forever be skeptical about his story (I overslept) on that one-- Johnny Manziel absolutely, positively must know that he
CANNOT go to a fraternity party at the University of Texas. That is tempting Fate one too many times. It showed a tone deafness that many people find off-putting.
I don't think Alabama's AJ McCarron goes to frat parties at Auburn. I don't think Tebow spent a lot of time on the Florida State campus knocking back brewskies with his buds.
And Johnny Manziel damned sure knows, whether the rule is fair or not, you can't sign a bunch of stuff that is going to be sold on the Internet.
I really enjoy watching this kid play. He's special. I hope that this turns out not to be true and he has a monster year. I hope he gets back to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation. When the time comes I hope he makes a ton of money in the NFL.
But he has to learn that, at the end of the day, no one is bigger than the game. You have to adjust to the game. The game doesn't adjust to you. And for the elite college athlete, managing Fame and temptation is part of the game.
If he has ignored that fundamental truth, Manziel's college football experience is not going to end well. And that would be a very sad thing to see.

Talented and reckless, Manziel heading in an unfortunate direction - CBSSports.com

Source: http://forum.askthebookie.com/showthread.php?t=48403&goto=newpost

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Sikh temple attack united victim's son, ex-racist

In this July 31, 2013, photo, Pardeep Kaleka, right, and Arno Michaelis pose for a photo at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wis. At left is a bullet hole from a shooting at the temple a year ago when a white supremacist shot and killed six temple members, including Kaleka's father, Satwant Singh Kaleka. Michaelis, a former skinhead, reached out to Kaleka after the shooting and since then the pair have formed an unlikely alliance, teaming up to preach a message of peace throughout Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

In this July 31, 2013, photo, Pardeep Kaleka, right, and Arno Michaelis pose for a photo at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wis. At left is a bullet hole from a shooting at the temple a year ago when a white supremacist shot and killed six temple members, including Kaleka's father, Satwant Singh Kaleka. Michaelis, a former skinhead, reached out to Kaleka after the shooting and since then the pair have formed an unlikely alliance, teaming up to preach a message of peace throughout Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

In this July 31, 2013, photo, Pardeep Kaleka, left, and Arno Michaelis show what remains of tattoos on their palms at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wis. A year ago a white supremacist shot and killed six temple members, including Kaleka's father, Satwant Singh Kaleka. Michaelis, a former skinhead, reached out to Kaleka after the shooting and since then the pair have formed an unlikely alliance, teaming up to preach a message of peace throughout Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

In this July 31, 2013, photo, Pardeep Kaleka, left, and Arno Michaelis talk at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wis. A year ago a white supremacist shot and killed six temple members, including Kaleka's father, Satwant Singh Kaleka. Michaelis, a former skinhead, reached out to Kaleka after the shooting and since then the pair have formed an unlikely alliance, teaming up to preach a message of peace throughout Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) ? Six weeks after a white supremacist gunned down Pardeep Kaleka's father and five others at a Sikh temple last year, Kaleka was skeptical when a former skinhead reached out and invited him to dinner.

But Kaleka accepted, and he's grateful he did. Since then, the grieving son and repentant racist have formed an unlikely alliance, teaming up to preach a message of peace throughout Milwaukee. In fact, they've grown so close that they got matching tattoos on their palms ? the numbers 8-5-12, the date the gunman opened fire at a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple before killing himself minutes later.

It wasn't easy for Kaleka to meet Arno Michaelis, a 42-year-old who admits he contributed so heavily to the white-power movement that he might have helped influence the shooter. Kaleka knows Michaelis' history ? his lead singing in a white supremacist band, the white-power and swastika tattoos, the countless fights and more than a dozen arrests.

But he also saw the good work Michaelis has done since he quit the racist movement in the mid-1990s. Kaleka, 37, wanted his father's death to be a catalyst for peace, and he saw in Michaelis a partner whose story could reinforce the message that it's possible to turn hate into love.

"We were both hoping ... we could take something tragic and turn it into something positive ? a learning experience for the entire community," Kaleka said. "We were both on that same mission, in our different ways."

Michaelis had written a book called "My Life After Hate," in which he describes how he lashed out at the world starting in kindergarten and how the birth of his daughter made him realize he needed to change. He also works with kids on community service projects.

Kaleka still has lingering fears that Michaelis might relapse and return to his old ways. But as he's gotten to know Michaelis, he says the boulder of doubt has become a pebble.

Michaelis, an information technology consultant, understands the skepticism. He knows he hurt so many people during his seven years in the white-supremacy movement that his sincerity will always be questioned, which is why he works even harder to regain people's trust.

The two men have teamed up to create Serve2Unite, a community group that works to counter violence with peace. Kaleka, Michaelis and others visit middle schools and high schools, where Kaleka describes how gunman Wade Michael Page walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin last year and killed six people he didn't know. Then Michaelis describes how the gunman's white-supremacist background was nearly identical to his own.

Invariably, the children are riveted, Kaleka said. Afterward several will come up and ask how they can get involved.

Kaleka and Michaelis look nothing alike. Kaleka is a clean-cut Indian who teaches high school social studies. Michaelis, who's white, has both arms covered in tattoos that mask earlier racist messages. But as they sat together in the temple recently, just down the hallway from the bedroom where Kaleka's father was shot, they seemed like brothers, insulting each other good-naturedly and arguing over who was more handsome.

That brotherhood began at their first dinner. Sitting in his car outside the restaurant, Kaleka watched Michaelis walk inside and wondered if he was crazy to be meeting with a former skinhead. Still, he summoned the courage to do it.

Michaelis immediately asked about a bandage on Kaleka's eye, the temporary remnant of a mishap Kaleka suffered while bathing his daughter.

"There was no, 'Hi, how you doing?' He went straight from seeing me to showing concern," Kaleka said. After Kaleka told him what happened, Michaelis admitted that he too was a klutz, and a friendship was born.

Michaelis doesn't shy away from discussing his past. He grew up in an alcoholic, emotionally cold household. He began to rebel as early as kindergarten, bullying other kids on the bus and picking fights on the playground. He eventually got into the white-power movement for the shock value, but the more he associated with haters, the more he began to hate.

But hating was exhausting. He couldn't watch Green Bay Packers games because black and white players were playing together. He couldn't watch TV because Hollywood was a Jewish conspiracy. He loved "Seinfeld" but he had to record it on a videotape labeled "Amber's second birthday party" so his white-power friends wouldn't know he thought a Jew was hilarious.

Eventually, the combination of his daughter's birth and a friend dying in a street fight was the catalyst for him to move on.

His past never really left him, though. When he heard that the gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple was a white supremacist, he lay awake that night agonizing that the gunman might have been someone he'd recruited into the white-power movement or inspired as the lead singer of the hate band Centurion. It turns out he hadn't known Page but he still felt responsible for his actions.

"We were both white-power skinheads. We were both in white-power bands," Michaelis said. "In just about every sense, I used to be him."

That's why his message now is one of peace. He tells kids they're not being tough when they counter aggression with aggression ? what takes real strength is walking away. He acknowledges that his younger self would have ignored that message, but he still hopes to make a difference with a new generation.

Connecting with children became so much easier after he and Kaleka teamed up. When kids hear from someone who used to be a violent hater, and then from someone whose father fell victim to that very hatred, the message is sobering.

"We realized the reason this (temple shooting) happens is that we magnify the differences between people. We don't magnify the similarities," Kaleka said. "So one of our main goals is to magnify those similarities and say, 'Hey, I'm not so different from you. So let's come together in a common cause."

___

Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde@ap.org.

___

Online:

Serve2Unite: http://serve2unite.org

My Life After Hate: http://mylifeafterhate.com

Sikh Temple of Wisconsin: http://www.sikhtempleofwisconsin.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-08-04-Sikh%20Temple%20Shooting-Unlikely%20Alliance/id-4759c0a7b101412b86349a40d5022bf6

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Japan Sends Talking Humanoid Robot Into Space

The robot is meant to be a communication connection between humans and machine (inquirer)

The robot is meant to be a communication connection between humans and machine (inquirer)

While sending humans to space has been going on since Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon, Japan has made a new step by sending out the world?s first humanoid, talking robot.

READ MORE: MacGyver Bot In Production From Georgia

Named Kirobo, a play on the Japanese words for ?Hope? and ?Robot,? the robot took to space in a rocket ship on Sunday from the International Space Station from Tanegashima, southwestern Japan, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

From Associated Press:?

?The childlike robot was designed to be a companion for astronaut Koichi Wakata, and will communicate with another robot on Earth, according to developers. Wakata is expected to arrive at the space station in November.

Robot designer Tomotaka Takahashi, of the University of Tokyo, advertiser Dentsu and automaker Toyota Motor Corp. worked on the robot.

The challenge was making sure it could move and talk where there was no gravity.?

The robot is only 13 inches tall (34 centimeters to be precise) and has a childlike image. When talking to reporters, it stated ?one small step for me, a giant leap for robots."

The robot, while serving as a companion for the human astronaut, Wakata, will also be communicating with an earth-stationed robot at the command center.?

The designer, Takahashi, said "I wish for this robot to function as a mediator between person and machine, or person and Internet and sometimes even between people.?

The rocket was reported to have launched successfully without any damage to the cargo or passengers.

?

Reach executive producer Eric Parra here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/neontommy/hTJi/~3/QgD-3qpi0hY/japan-sends-talking-humanoid-robot-space

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Sunday, August 4, 2013

Energy Efficiency Bill

Source: http://www.republican.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/senate-calendar?ContentRecord_id=7b60ca8c-3a2b-4084-ae50-49b284c34b82

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Union: Deal reached to end bus drivers' strike

PHOENIX (AP/CBS5) -

A union leader says the four-day bus strike in suburbs east of Phoenix has ended with tentative deal.

Specific details of the pact weren't immediately available.

"A service that so many rely on will run tomorrow (Monday), connecting our residents to work, and our students to their first day of school," said Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell. "We're pleased that First Transit and ATU reached an agreement that unifies bus service in the East Valley."

The two parties, that have been negotiating to resolve the strike, met Friday and Saturday with the federal mediator and Chief Justice McGregor.

Nick Promponas, senior vice president of?First Transit, issued the following statement:

"As you know, First Transit and the ATU recommenced negotiations yesterday at 1 p.m. under the mediation of Chief Justice McGregor. After 24 hours of continuous and productive discussions, both parties came to a resolution on an agreement with a three-year term. We are confident that this agreement serves the best interests of our Union employees, the riding public, Valley Metro, and First Transit.

"While we regret that a strike was not averted during the course of the negotiations, we appreciate that the ATU has shared our desire to resume transit service throughout the community as quickly as possible. We would especially like to thank Chief Justice McGregor for mediating the session that has led to this mutually beneficial agreement.

"We would also like to thank Mayors Mitchell, Smith and Stanton, as well as Steve Banta, CEO of Valley Metro, for their support. We are eager to move forward in providing service to the East Valley."

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton?applauded the leadership of ATU and First Transit for negotiating nonstop. "They owed it to this community and our bus passengers who keep our economy going every day," Stanton said in a statement.

First Transit and ATU 1433 inked a tentative three-year agreement Sunday afternoon that defines the labor wages, benefits and work rules for the more than 500 operators who serve 57,000 daily riders in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and Tempe. These riders also travel into Phoenix and Scottsdale.?

"We are gratified that the parties were able to come to an agreement and the buses will be rolling again," said Mesa Mayor Scott Smith.

The work stoppage began Thursday.

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ?CBS 5 (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation) contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.kpho.com/story/23038149/union-deal-reached-to-end-bus-drivers-strike

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