Pope leads traditional Good Friday rite at Rome Colosseum

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - Thousands of people holding candles turned out at Rome's Colosseum to see Pope Francis mark the first Good Friday of his pontificate with a traditional "Way of the Cross" procession around the ancient amphitheatre.

Francis, who was elected on March 13, sat under a red canopy on Rome's Palatine Hill as representatives of the faithful from around the world alternated carrying a wooden cross on the day Christians commemorated Jesus's death by crucifixion.

"Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent," the Argentine pope said, speaking slowly in Italian and in a somber voice at the end of the evening service.

"And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us," he said.

"Christians must respond to evil with good," he said, urging them to beware "the evil that continues to work in us and around us".

The meditations for the 14 "stations of the cross" which commemorate events in the last hours of Jesus's life - from when Pontius Pilate condemned him to death to his burial in a rock tomb - were written by young people from Lebanon.

The wooden cross was passed from one group and person to another - including a person in a wheelchair. Those who carried it came from Italy, India, China, Nigeria, Syria, Lebanon and Brazil.

Several of the meditations, read by actors, referred to conflict in the Middle East and the suffering of its people.

One meditation called the Middle East "a land lacerated by injustice and violence".

Francis praised those Lebanese Christians and Muslims who tried to live together and who, he said, in doing so gave a sign of hope to the world.

Prayers were read out for exploited and abused children, refugees, the homeless and victims of religious intolerance, war, violence, terrorism, poverty, injustice and drug addiction.

There were also prayers against abortion and euthanasia.

Good Friday is the second of four hectic days leading up to Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar.

On Holy Thursday, two young women were among 12 people whose feet the pope washed and kissed at a traditional ceremony in a Rome youth prison, the first time a pontiff has included females in the rite.

After celebrating an Easter eve service, on Easter Sunday he will deliver his first "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message in St. Peter's Square.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-leads-traditional-good-friday-rite-rome-colosseum-220528001.html

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IRS knowingly sends Billions in Fraudulent Refunds to Illegal ...

A WTHR-TV Indianapolis investigative report exposes a fraudulent scheme wherein the IRS is sending $4.2 billion per year to illegal immigrants as an "additional child tax credit" for children who don't even live in the U.S.

Further, the IRS and Congress have been ignoring the scheme for years. ?The Inspector General's office has repeatedly identified the problem in audit after audit.? The IG, Russell George says, "The magnitude of the problem has grown exponentially," but the IRS is doing nothing to stop it.

"It's so easy it's ridiculous," the tax preparer whistleblower who exposed the fraud admits.? Names are simply listed on the IRS form. "The more you put on there, the more you get back." No questions asked?the check's in the mail.

Below is the video of the shocking report.

The whistleblower notified the IRS of dozens of returns that were "fraudulent, 100% fraudulent tax returns." But, no response was ever received from the IRS. Out of frustration he went to WTHR investigative reporter Bob Segall.

"If the opportunity is there, and they can give it to me, why not take advantage of it?" admits one of the undocumented perpetrators to Segall on camera.

Segall found that there are "2 million?undocumented workers right now who are getting tax refunds because of this loophole."

Meanwhile, American school kids hoping for the opportunity of a lifetime to see the inside of the White House find the doors are closed supposedly because we can no longer afford to let them in.?

Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2013/03/30/irs-knowingly-sends-billions-in-fraudulent-refunds-to-illegal-immigrants-n1553242

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Risk and reward at the dawn of civilian drone age

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The dawn of the age of aerial civilian drones is rich with possibilities for people far from the war zones where they made their devastating mark as a weapon of choice against terrorists.

The unmanned, generally small aircraft can steer water and pesticides to crops with precision, saving farmers money while reducing environmental risk. They can inspect distant bridges, pipelines and power lines, and find hurricane victims stranded on rooftops.

Drones ? some as tiny as a hummingbird ? promise everyday benefits as broad as the sky is wide. But the drone industry and those eager to tap its potential are running headlong into fears the peeping-eye, go-anywhere technology will be misused.

Since January, drone-related legislation has been introduced in more than 30 states, largely in response to privacy concerns. Many of the bills would prevent police from using drones for broad public surveillance or to watch individuals without sufficient grounds to believe they were involved in crimes.

Stephen Ingley, executive director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, says resistance to the technology is frustrating. Drones "clearly have so much potential for saving lives, and it's a darn shame we're having to go through this right now," he said.

But privacy advocates say now is the time to debate the proper use of civilian drones and set rules, before they become ubiquitous. Sentiment for curbing domestic drone use has brought the left and right together perhaps more than any other recent issue.

"The thought of government drones buzzing overhead and constantly monitoring the activities of law-abiding citizens runs contrary to the notion of what it means to live in a free society," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

With military budgets shrinking, drone makers have been counting on the civilian market to spur the industry's growth. Some companies that make drones or supply support equipment and services say the uncertainty has caused them to put U.S. expansion plans on hold, and they are looking overseas for new markets.

"Our lack of success in educating the public about unmanned aircraft is coming back to bite us," said Robert Fitzgerald, CEO of the BOSH Group of Newport News, Va., which provides support services to drone users.

"The U.S. has been at the lead of this technology a long time," he said. "If our government holds back this technology, there's the freedom to move elsewhere ... and all of a sudden these things will be flying everywhere else and competing with us."

Law enforcement is expected to be one of the bigger initial markets for civilian drones. Last month, the FBI used drones to maintain continuous surveillance of a bunker in Alabama where a 5-year-old boy was being held hostage.

In Virginia, the state General Assembly passed a bill that would place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by state and local law enforcement. The measure is supported by groups as varied as the American Civil Liberties Union on the left and the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation on the right.

Gov. Bob McDonnell is proposing amendments that would retain the broad ban on spy drones but allow specific exemptions when lives are in danger, such as for search-and rescue operations. The legislature reconvenes on April 3 to consider the matter.

Seattle abandoned its drone program after community protests in February. The city's police department had purchased two drones through a federal grant without consulting the city council.

In Congress, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-chairman of the House's privacy caucus, has introduced a bill that prohibits the Federal Aviation Administration from issuing drone licenses unless the applicant provides a statement explaining who will operate the drone, where it will be flown, what kind of data will be collected, how the data will be used, whether the information will be sold to third parties and the period for which the information will be retained.

Privacy advocates acknowledge the many benign uses of drones. In Mesa County, Colo., for example, an annual landfill survey using manned aircraft cost about $10,000. The county recently performed the same survey using a drone for about $200.

Drones can help police departments find missing people, reconstruct traffic accidents and act as lookouts for SWAT teams. Real estate agents can have them film videos of properties and surrounding neighborhoods, offering clients a better-than-bird's-eye view though one that neighbors may not wish to have shared.

"Any legislation that restricts the use of this kind of capability to serve the public is putting the public at risk," said Steve Gitlin, vice president of AeroVironment, a leading maker of smaller drones.

Yet the virtues of drones can also make them dangerous, privacy advocates say. The low cost and ease of use may encourage police and others to conduct the kind of continuous or intrusive surveillance that might otherwise be impractical.

Drones can be equipped with high-powered cameras and listening devices, and infrared cameras that can see people in the dark.

"High-rise buildings, security fences or even the walls of a building are not barriers to increasingly common drone technology," Amie Stepanovich, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Council's surveillance project, told the Senate panel.

Civilian drone use is limited to government agencies and public universities that have received a few hundred permits from the FAA. A law passed by Congress last year requires the FAA to open U.S. skies to widespread drone flights by 2015, but the agency is behind schedule and it's doubtful it will meet that deadline. Lawmakers and industry officials have complained for years about the FAA's slow progress.

The FAA estimates that within five years of gaining broader access about 7,500 civilian drones will be in use.

Although the Supreme Court has not dealt directly with drones, it has OK'd aerial surveillance without warrants in drug cases in which officers in a plane or helicopter spotted marijuana plants growing on a suspect's property.

But in a case involving the use of ground-based equipment, the court said police generally need a warrant before using a thermal imaging device to detect hot spots in a home that might indicate that marijuana plants are being grown there.

In some states economic concerns have trumped public unease. In Oklahoma, an anti-drone bill was shelved at the request of Republican Gov. Mary Fallin, who was concerned it might hinder growth of the state's drone industry. The North Dakota state Senate killed a drone bill in part because it might impede the state's chances of being selected by the Federal Aviation Administration as one of six national drone test sites, which could generate local jobs.

A bill that would have limited the ability of state and local governments to use drones died in the Washington legislature. The measure was opposed by the Boeing Co., which employs more than 80,000 workers in the state and which has a subsidiary, Insitu, that's a leading military drone manufacturer.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., recently drew attention to the domestic use of drones when he staged a Senate filibuster, demanding to know whether the president has authority to use weaponized drones to kill Americans on American soil. The White House said no, if the person isn't engaged in combat. Industry officials worry that the episode could temporarily set back civilian drone use.

"The opposition has become very loud," said Gitlin of AeroVironment, "but we are confident that over time the benefits of these solutions are going to far outweigh the concerns, and they'll become part of normal life in the future."

___

Associated Press writer Michael Felberbaum in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-03-29-Everyday%20Drones/id-2898ef918ddb4166839776f7d86a1295

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Deal for Martin to replace Hamlin blows up

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? A deal to loan Mark Martin to Joe Gibbs Racing as a replacement driver for injured Denny Hamlin fell apart Friday, when Michael Waltrip Racing said Martin will fulfill his commitment to its team.

When the dust settled for both teams, Brian Vickers wound up as Hamlin's replacement driver for at least four races. He was already scheduled to drive Martin's car for MWR at Martinsville next week and will keep that commitment, with Martin driving Hamlin's car.

Then Martin will go back to MWR, and Vickers will drive Hamlin's car until he's medically cleared to return from a fractured vertebra in his lower back.

The about-face came down from MWR roughly 24 hours after JGR said Martin will take over the No. 11 Toyota until Hamlin returns. He's out at least five races.

"We were a bit premature in determining Mark's status past Martinsville," J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing, said in a Friday night statement.

MWR said Martin will return to his regular car after Martinsville and "resume his previously scheduled run of events with MWR" for the rest of the season.

"I think it is great that a driver of Mark's caliber is available to support our fellow Toyota team during this difficult time for them. We wish Denny a speedy recovery" said MWR founder and co-owner Michael Waltrip. "Mark is a big part of our organization and is committed to our sponsors, especially Aaron's and Toyota. We have a lot of goals yet to reach this year and we are very focused on accomplishing them."

It's believed a deal between the teams to swap Martin for Vickers in the Sprint Cup Series races had been completed, but JGR prematurely announced it before MWR sponsor Aaron's had given its approval. No reason has been given why Aaron's didn't approve the swap.

MWR has been eyeing Vickers as a potential replacement for Martin in the No. 55 Toyota, and Vickers is scheduled to run nine races for Martin this year. Because Vickers is seen as an option for that ride, MWR was in favor of loaning Martin to the Gibbs camp to get an extended look at Vickers in its equipment.

Instead, JGR turned to a Plan B, which is Vickers, a day after Gibbs said the team wanted to use just one driver for consistency sake.

Vickers had the commitment to MWR for the first race, and Elliott Sadler, the second driver in JGR's Nationwide Series camp, already has commitments to drive the Cup races at Kansas and Talladega in a fourth car for JGR.

"Obviously, having to find someone to fill in for Denny is not an ideal situation to have to be in, and when you start a process like this you obviously begin to look at the drivers that are not only available but also able to drive for your race team and manufacturer," Gibbs said. "We're real happy to have the opportunity to get Brian in our Cup cars and with him driving Nationwide for us we think we have some continuity there that is beneficial.

"We really appreciate everyone at Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota for working with us through this process. The good thing for us is that we have drivers the caliber of Mark and Brian to help fill in until Denny comes back."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/deal-martin-replace-hamlin-blows-003814704--spt.html

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Guest Post: The Knowledge Economy's Two Classes of Workers ...

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

The knowledge economy has important implications for both workers and organizations.

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Setting aside that our economy is by and large organized to benefit a State-financial Elite and the technocrat Caste that serves them,?let's consider the two classes of worker in what Peter Drucker labeled the Knowledge Economy in his 1993 book?Post-Capitalist Society.

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At the risk of simplifying Drucker's nuanced account, here is a precis:

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The Marxist class division of labor vs. capitalist/management no longer adequately describes the new economy, as knowledge workers own "the means of production" which is first and foremost knowledge. Corporations and government offer an organization within which workers can apply their knowledge (i.e. the means of production in a knowledge economy).

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Since the new economy is no longer characterized by capital vs. labor, it is a post-capitalist economy.

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Knowledge workers are a minority of the workforce; the majority are service workers, either skilled or low-skilled.

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Economist Robert B. Reich divides the workforce into similar categories: "symbolic analysts" (knowledge workers) and two classes of service workers: "routine producers" and "in-person servers."

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Since the service workers own and leverage less capital (knowledge), their ability to create surplus value and thereby demand high wages is intrinsically lower than the knowledge workers.

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This creates a structural tension, as society has to establish a way to maintain the wages of the service workers in an economy where the value and income they can generate by their labor is capped.

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The other root cause of our present difficulties with the workforce might be termed a general lowering of employees' frustration tolerance.Many employees, particularly the younger ones, are increasingly reluctant to put up with factory conditions.?Despite the significant improvements we've made in the physical environment of our plants. Because they are unfamiliar with the harsh economic facts of earlier years, they have little regard for the consequences if they take a day or two off.

For many, the traditional motivations of job security, money rewards, and opportunity for personal advancement are proving insufficient.

Large numbers of those we hire find factory life so distasteful they quit after only brief exposure to it.?The general increase in real wage levels in our economy has afforded more alternatives for satisfying economic needs.

There is also, again especially among the younger employees, a growing reluctance to accept a strict authoritarian shop discipline. This is not just a shop phenomenon, rather is a manifestation in our shops of a trend we see all about us among today's youth.

More money, time and effort than ever before must now be expended in recruiting and acclimatising our quality control programs have been put to severe tests; large numbers of employees remain unmoved by all attempts to motivate them; and order in the plants is being maintained with rising difficulty.

That this is not simply a bosses' problem was expressed by youthful Gary Bryner, President of the Lordstown local of the UAW (July 25, 1972):

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There are symptoms of the alienated worker in our plant-- the absentee rate, as you said, has gone continually higher. Turnover rate is enormous. The use of alcohol and drugs is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. So has apathy within our union movement towards union leaders and towards the Government ... (The worker) has become alienated to the point where he casts off the leadership of his union, his Government...?He is disassociated with the whole establishment.

Here's the key quote from this excellent historical essay:

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Modern capitalism can, by and large, cope with the traditional type of economic problem, for instance those dealt with by Marx, it can continue to develop production.?It is in difficulties, however, when confronted with a massive resistance to its values, priorities and whole pattern of authority.

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In the traditional labor vs. capital framework, we expect the resistance to come from labor;?in the knowledge economy, that resistance is arising from those who own and control the means of production, the knowledge workers themselves.

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This has important implications for corporations, non-profit organizations and government alike.?In Drucker's view,?"Every organization has to build in organized abandonment of everything it does. Increasingly, organizations will have to plan abandonment rather than try to prolong the life of a successful policy, practice or product."

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In other words, creative destruction is the necessary result of constant, purposeful innovation. Any organization which fails to do so will become obsolete. The same can be said of those providing the knowledge capital to the organizations, the knowledge workers.

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One consequence that none dare speak is the absolute reduction of any functional need for layers of management, or anything resembling traditional management.The Internet is a tool for eliminating management, along with generally needless/useless meetings and the other sources of unproductive friction in modern corporate and government organizations.

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Management exists to minimize the problems created by its own hiring mistakes.Valve says the secret of their management-free environment is hiring good people. That sounds right to me. We don't have any weak contributors in our start-up so we have never felt a need for management.
One of the interesting aspects of better global communications, better access to information, and better mobility is that collectively it reduces the risk of making hiring mistakes. When employers were limited to hiring people who lived nearby, and the only information at their disposal was lie-filled resumes, every growing company would necessarily absorb a lot of losers. But now that entrepreneurs can hire the best people from anywhere in the world, we have for the first time in human history the ability to create teams so capable they require no management structure. That's new.

I think the manager-free model only works for a business that has high margins and depends more on creating hits than cutting costs. The videogame business fits that model, as do many Internet businesses. And in both cases entrepreneurs can hire from anywhere in the world.

So here's my summary: Management only exists to compensate for its own poor hiring decisions. The Internet makes it easier to locate and then work with capable partners. Therefore, the need for management will shrink - at least for some types of businesses - because entrepreneurs have the tools to make fewer hiring mistakes in the first place.

Management won't entirely go away, but as technology makes it easier to form competent teams without at least one disruptive or worthless worker in the group, the need for management will continue to decline.

Even organizations based on rigid command hierarchies such as the U.S. military are finding that decentralized command decisions based on proximity to information flow, field intelligence and detailed knowledge of local assets trump sclerotic centralized command structures in getting demonstrable results.

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If this is true in sprawling bureaucracies, it is certainly true in smaller organizations.

This is the economy that every worker has to understand if they want to navigate it to their own benefit.?Every enterprise and organization that wants the most productive workers has to understand that their task is not "managing labor," it is offering workers of all levels opportunities to be effective and to contribute.

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In my view, each worker is an enterprise, and the less time, energy and money wasted on management and friction, the more time and energy there will be for wealth creation or value creation, and as a result, more money available for wages.

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Via correspondent Rui N.P.:?America: A Nation of Permanent Freelancers and Temps.

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Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-29/guest-post-knowledge-economys-two-classes-workers

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Rethinking the US Economy: Part 3 | Slog

As I said before, the US replaced economists with financial mathematicians. The difference between the two is significant. The former is concerned with eradicating scarcity/poverty and liberating a society "from pressing economic cares"?and as a Marxist vanishes at the very moment capitalism vanishes, an economist vanishes at the moment a society is unchained from its economy. The latter is simply about the mathematics of making money and nothing more. At one point in US history, around late 60s and early 70s, economists were no longer needed (the Keynesian years are the twilight of economics) and vacuum was quickly filled by those whose main project was creating an ideal environment for entrepreneurs and investors. What we have today is the result of this project: ownership society.

In ownership society, everyone is an entrepreneur (Gary Becker's human capital) and all that we do is tied to the fluctuations of the market (Carlo Vercellone's "becoming-rent of salary"). We are rational actors in the speculative paradise of an efficient market. True, this utopia took a hit in 2008, but its structure remained intact. But even if we found a way to dismantle ownership society, we couldn't just go back to Keynesian economics because we already live in a society that has eradicated poverty, a society whose scarcity is caused by cultural and not natural forces?meaning, we no longer need economics. (One solution to the death of this profession has been behavioral economics; but this solution turns out to be nothing more than a response to the flaws in the rational actor theory at the heart of the neoclassical mode?behavioral economics does not provide answers to what to do "when accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance.")

But what kind of profession should replace economics? Recall that Marx saw the universal as the metabolic relationship between humans and nature. It's this relationship that needs the attention of our best thinking. At present, we have too many good minds tied with up the mathematics of transforming pennies into nickels for those who have "semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities" (what we call economics today), when what we really should be trying to solve is the bad state of the current interchanges between the urban and nature, between human life and all other life forms, nations and biogeochemical cycles. This kind of work does not need an economist (whose main concern is, after all, economic growth and development) but men/women who specializes in the manipulation and invention of human behaviors. Human plasticity is the resource of concern for this profession. The social engineer replaces the economist.

Source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/03/28/rethinking-the-us-economy-part-3

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Texas retail gas prices drop 4 cents this week

IRVING, Texas (AP) -- Retail gasoline prices across Texas have dropped 4 cents this week.

AAA Texas on Thursday reported the average price at the pump fell to $3.53. The national average also has fallen, down to $3.64.

The association survey found Beaumont has the cheapest gasoline statewide at $3.39 per gallon. Dallas and Fort Worth have the most expensive retail gasoline in Texas at $3.62 per gallon.

Texas drivers on average are paying 28 cents less than this time last year.

AAA says it's too soon to determine whether retail prices have peaked for the spring because there's still refinery maintenance to be completed and much of the country has yet to transition to summer-blend gasoline.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-retail-gas-prices-drop-163846501.html

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