Follow our live blog as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting Sarah Palin emails with your help 12.40pm ET / 5.40pm BST: Rachel Weiner, a reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted a photograph of a stack of boxes in Juneau. Inside these boxes may be Sarah Palin’s email trail. 12.30pm ET / 5.30pm BST: Mother Jones’s David Corn has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian explaining his role in the legal background to the release of Sarah Palin’s emails: As journalists scurried to Alaska and searched for any titbit, I headed to the website for the Alaska state government and discovered the state had a decent open records law. A week after Palin hit the headlines, I sent a request to the governor’s office on behalf of Mother Jones, my magazine, asking for all “emails written by her, emails sent to her, and emails cc-ed to her”. The state had previously released emails from her office in response to narrow requests – though it had withheld a lot of material under questionable justifications. Still, I was not sure that this request, which covered a lot of records, could be processed before the November election. Other media outfits in subsequent weeks submitted related requests for particular emails, such as all of Palin’s emails to and from her husband. But I had been the one to ask for the whole pile. 12.20pm ET / 5.20pm BST: The Guardian is only one of the many media organisations in Juneau today. The Associated Press, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones and others are in town waiting to get the Palin email dump – and they all have plans to release them to the public in one form or another. 12 noon ET / 5pm BST: So what are we expecting to find in the Sarah Palin email dump? What’s being published are emails from Palin’s term as governor of Alaska: starting in January 2007 through to her resignation in July 2009. Expect lots of detail about internal Alaska state politics, not to mention Palin’s unhappy “Troopergate” affair . There’s also the negotiations over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which Palin often mentions as her biggest success as governor. But most interest will initially focus on the period when John McCain nominated her to be his presidential running mate in 2008. But who knows what else is in there? It’s the Alaska gold rush of 2011 : after a tortuous process, thousands of emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaskan governor are released publically today – and the hard work of trawling through the 24,000 pages of emails begins. Follow our live blog of the key developments as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting emails with your help. Guardian journalists in Juneau, Alaska, will be combing through thousands of Palin emails as fast as they can read. And Ian Katz explains how the Guardian plans to post the entire cache of emails , allowing readers to take part by reading through them: Given the size of the cache, we reckon the collective eyes of thousands of you will find the juicy bits more quickly, so we’ll be publishing the raw mails on our website as quickly as we can and asking you to tell us which ones are interesting and why. They’ll be pretty rough and ready – no headlines or details of what they’re about – but we hope you’ll help us by using our simple system to tag them according to what subjects they cover, and how interesting they are. We’d love it if you’d alert our editors, via a button on each email, or Tweet us at @gdnpalin , about any emails that you think our reporters should be examining. Remember that each numbered document represents a single page, so you have to click to previous and subsequent pages to see a full email. Now, as Ms Palin once exhorted: “Drill, baby, drill!” Stay tuned with our full Palin email coverage on the site – and on Twitter follow the latest developments at our special feed @gdnpalin . And of course we’ll be following all the latest developments from the US media and around the web right here. As always, you can take part by leaving your comments below. I’ll be tweeting at @RichardA . Sarah Palin emails Sarah Palin Alaska US politics United States Republicans Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
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European commission president José Manuel Barroso says country should join in 2013 after six years of negotiations Croatia took its biggest step towards joining the EU as its 28th member state on Friday when the European commission said it was ready to close six years of negotiations. In a statement awaited with both hope and fear in Zagreb, José Manuel Barroso, the commission’s president, said Croatia should join the EU in July 2013. Stefan Fuele, the commissioner for enlargement in charge of the negotiations with Zagreb, said he was confident that all EU governments would support the recommendations. Britain, along with the Netherlands, has been the most reluctant EU country to give the green light to Croatia. Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, made her first visit to Downing Street on Friday, reflecting her anxiety about UK opposition, but emerged from a meeting with David Cameron confident that the UK government would not veto entry. Membership negotiations for the small country of 4.5 million people have been troubled, lasting six years and taking longer than those for all of the eight former communist central European countries that joineden masse in 2004. The lengthy process reflected deep weariness across Europe over EU expansion, suggesting that the other five countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, face a long slog to get in, despite promises to the Balkans from Brussels. For years, Croatia was also handicapped by its refusal to locate and hand over war crimes suspects for trial at the special tribunal in The Hague and a territorial waters dispute in the Adriatic with its neighbour Slovenia, which blocked negotiations for a year. The 27 governments of the EU still have to endorse Friday’s commission proposal, meaning that the British or the Dutch could yet delay agreement. An accession treaty then has to be agreed and signed by the end of the year, subjected to a referendum in Croatia and ratified by 27 parliaments. Battling widespread corruption, especially among the judiciary, courts, police and political elite in Zagreb, has been the biggest challenge for the Kosor government, with the EU setting tougher standards for entry because of blunders made on Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007. The EU shifted the goalposts at the last minute – at the insistence of the British, the French, and the Dutch – to demand a new process of monitoring Croatia’s compliance with its EU commitments over the next two years. If things go smoothly, Croatia’s entry will be hailed as a breakthrough, paving the way for the rest of the former Yugoslavia to join the EU less than two decades after the wars of the 1990s. But growing euroscepticism, populism, and nationalism across much of Europe could jeopardise such hopes. Croatia European Union Europe Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …European commission president José Manuel Barroso says country should join in 2013 after six years of negotiations Croatia took its biggest step towards joining the EU as its 28th member state on Friday when the European commission said it was ready to close six years of negotiations. In a statement awaited with both hope and fear in Zagreb, José Manuel Barroso, the commission’s president, said Croatia should join the EU in July 2013. Stefan Fuele, the commissioner for enlargement in charge of the negotiations with Zagreb, said he was confident that all EU governments would support the recommendations. Britain, along with the Netherlands, has been the most reluctant EU country to give the green light to Croatia. Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, made her first visit to Downing Street on Friday, reflecting her anxiety about UK opposition, but emerged from a meeting with David Cameron confident that the UK government would not veto entry. Membership negotiations for the small country of 4.5 million people have been troubled, lasting six years and taking longer than those for all of the eight former communist central European countries that joineden masse in 2004. The lengthy process reflected deep weariness across Europe over EU expansion, suggesting that the other five countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, face a long slog to get in, despite promises to the Balkans from Brussels. For years, Croatia was also handicapped by its refusal to locate and hand over war crimes suspects for trial at the special tribunal in The Hague and a territorial waters dispute in the Adriatic with its neighbour Slovenia, which blocked negotiations for a year. The 27 governments of the EU still have to endorse Friday’s commission proposal, meaning that the British or the Dutch could yet delay agreement. An accession treaty then has to be agreed and signed by the end of the year, subjected to a referendum in Croatia and ratified by 27 parliaments. Battling widespread corruption, especially among the judiciary, courts, police and political elite in Zagreb, has been the biggest challenge for the Kosor government, with the EU setting tougher standards for entry because of blunders made on Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007. The EU shifted the goalposts at the last minute – at the insistence of the British, the French, and the Dutch – to demand a new process of monitoring Croatia’s compliance with its EU commitments over the next two years. If things go smoothly, Croatia’s entry will be hailed as a breakthrough, paving the way for the rest of the former Yugoslavia to join the EU less than two decades after the wars of the 1990s. But growing euroscepticism, populism, and nationalism across much of Europe could jeopardise such hopes. Croatia European Union Europe Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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The US Airways plane that ditched into the Hudson River off Manhattan heads down a highway in North Carolina, nearing its final resting place at a museum in the state. (June 10)
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Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean and Sara Evans help kick off the CMA Music Festival in Nashville – playing for free and donating proceeds to charity – to say thank you to fans. (June 10)
Continue reading …CNN Poll: Americans Worried About A Depression. When Will President Obama Have His ‘Aha!’ Moment?
June 10, 2011 No CommentPeople are openly using the “D” word , yet the president and his pal Tim Geithner still seem to think there’s going to be a second Obama term if they only make the bankers happy. Go figure: Some economists might be worried about a double-dip recession, but a large number of Americans have an even worse scenario in mind. Approximately 48 percent of Americans say they think that a Great Depression is either very or somewhat likely to occur within the year , according to a CNN Opinion Research Poll, the highest percentage of respondents that have stated that level of certainty since CNN first started asking the question in October 2008. Respondents’ fear that they would soon become unemployed also spiked to an all-time high of 30 percent. That stands in contrast another post-recession low: the 18 percent that said they either recently became unemployed or are related to someone who recently became unemployed. The seeming contradiction might be explained by the average length of unemployment now hitting an all-time high, as The New York Times recently reported.
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Google introduced arguably its greatest doodle ever this morning, an interactive electric guitar to honor the 96th birthday of legendary musician and guitar innovator Les Paul. The doodle is definitely a whole lot of fun, but can also be incredibly addicting. For anyone who hasn’t spent the better part of their working day trying to figure out how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on Google’s incredibly awesome doodle, here’s a crash course to help you rock out on your desktop. Lesson 1: Notes The Google guitar can play 10 notes, starting with a low G and climbing up to a high B. To play, either strum over the doodle with your mouse or use the keyboard icon to play using, you guessed it, the keyboard. Here’s a look at each note and its corresponding numerical key, starting at the low G string: 1 = G 2 = A 3 = B 4 = C 5 = D 6 = E 7 = F# 8 = G 9 = A 0 = B And here is how those notes correspond to the doodle itself. Remember, the Google guitar includes one F#, so you can play a G major scale. Note: Google guitar’s keyboard function also works using corresponding letter keys down the rows of the keyboard, meaning that low G can be played using the 1, Q, A and Z keys, the low A can be played using the 2, W, S and X keys, and so on. Lesson 2: Chords Now that you know your way around the notes, it’s time to mix things up with a few chords. G Major = 1, 3, 5 C Major = 4, 6, 8 D7 Major = 4, 5, 7, 9 (inverted for Google guitar) With these chords, you can go ahead and practice your 12-bar blues in G: G G G G C C G G D7 D7 G G Lesson 3: Songs Let’s get this show on the road! Amateur musicians are already posting their greatest Google hits to YouTube, and with a little practice you too will be ready for the big time. This is where you can really make use of the doodle’s 30-second record feature, and share your masterpiece with the Web. Here’s one video featuring three songs — “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Joy to the World” and “Lullaby” — which you can try to replicate. Lesson 4: Stairway to Heaven Just kidding! Did you compose a ditty on Google’s guitar doodle? Send it to us by clicking “Send Photos/Video” in “Contribute to this story” below! We’ll post the best songs. Here are some of the best submissions so far: Tim: “Stand By Me” Laura O.: http://goo.gl/doodle/GQ66 Hannah: “Mary Had A Little Lamb” Tatiana: http://goo.gl/doodle/1UQn Gavin: http://goo.gl/doodle/Upns
Continue reading …Google introduced arguably its greatest doodle ever this morning, an interactive electric guitar to honor the 96th birthday of legendary musician and guitar innovator Les Paul. The doodle is definitely a whole lot of fun, but can also be incredibly addicting. For anyone who hasn’t spent the better part of their working day trying to figure out how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on Google’s incredibly awesome doodle, here’s a crash course to help you rock out on your desktop. Lesson 1: Notes The Google guitar can play 10 notes, starting with a low G and climbing up to a high B. To play, either strum over the doodle with your mouse or use the keyboard icon to play using, you guessed it, the keyboard. Here’s a look at each note and its corresponding numerical key, starting at the low G string: 1 = G 2 = A 3 = B 4 = C 5 = D 6 = E 7 = F# 8 = G 9 = A 0 = B And here is how those notes correspond to the doodle itself. Remember, the Google guitar includes one F#, so you can play a G major scale. Note: Google guitar’s keyboard function also works using corresponding letter keys down the rows of the keyboard, meaning that low G can be played using the 1, Q, A and Z keys, the low A can be played using the 2, W, S and X keys, and so on. Lesson 2: Chords Now that you know your way around the notes, it’s time to mix things up with a few chords. G Major = 1, 3, 5 C Major = 4, 6, 8 D7 Major = 4, 5, 7, 9 (inverted for Google guitar) With these chords, you can go ahead and practice your 12-bar blues in G: G G G G C C G G D7 D7 G G Lesson 3: Songs Let’s get this show on the road! Amateur musicians are already posting their greatest Google hits to YouTube, and with a little practice you too will be ready for the big time. This is where you can really make use of the doodle’s 30-second record feature, and share your masterpiece with the Web. Here’s one video featuring three songs — “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Joy to the World” and “Lullaby” — which you can try to replicate. Lesson 4: Stairway to Heaven Just kidding! Did you compose a ditty on Google’s guitar doodle? Send it to us by clicking “Send Photos/Video” in “Contribute to this story” below! We’ll post the best songs. Here are some of the best submissions so far: Tim: “Stand By Me” Laura O.: http://goo.gl/doodle/GQ66 Hannah: “Mary Had A Little Lamb” Tatiana: http://goo.gl/doodle/1UQn Gavin: http://goo.gl/doodle/Upns
Continue reading …MSNBC’s Matthews Doesn’t Seem to Understand British Were Coming for Colonists’ Weapons at Lexington, Concord
June 10, 2011 No Comment“Shouldn't presidential candidates and prospective candidates have a firm grasp of American history?” Chris Matthews rhetorically asked on the June 9 “Hardball” before lamenting that Sarah Palin had a penchant for being “painfully wrong” on the subject, citing her recent inartful explanation of the famed midnight ride of Paul Revere. Yet it seems Matthews may have no idea why the British regulars were marching on Lexington and Concord in the first place, as the “Hardball” host scoffed yesterday at Palin making an “NRA ad” out of the historical ride. “Here she is with her follow-up defending her false vision of history, and turning Revere's ride into a National Rifle Association TV commercial,” Matthews scoffed as introduced a clip of Palin from the June 5 “Fox News Sunday,” in which the former Alaska governor noted that Revere warned the British when captured “you're not going to succeed, you're not going to take American arms.” Matthews may scoff Palin making Revere a hero of Second Amendment adherents and gun rights advocates, but in doing so one has to wonder what exactly he thinks the British regulars were coming for in their April 18, 1775 march on Lexington and Concord. So here's a little history lesson for Matthews courtesy of the National Park Service (emphasis mine): What was the reason for the British expedition to Concord? On the evening of April 18, 1775, General Thomas Gage sent approximately 700 British soldiers out to Concord (about 18 miles distant) to seize and destroy military stores and equipment known to be stockpiled in the town . His orders to Lt. Col. Smith, the British officer who was to lead the expedition, were as follows: Sir: Having received intelligence, that a quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will march with the Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your command, with the utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provision, Tents, Small Arms, and all military stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants, or hurt private property. Under great pressure from his superiors in England to bring Massachusetts back under control of the “lawful government,” General Gage sent the troops to Concord in the hopes that by doing so, he could convince the colonists to back down, and thus avoid an armed rebellion. General Gage also believed that seizing stockpiles of weapons was not only a military necessity, but also his prerogative as governor of the colony. The colonists actively disagreed. Matthews not understanding why Palin would take a pro-gun rights argument out of the march on Concord, Mass., is arguably much worse than Palin's Revere ride flub or Rep. Michele Bachmann erroneously stating Lexington and Concord were in New Hampshire, another gaffe which Matthews has mercilessly hounded .
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Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day — we dig deep into each topic’s history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com . The introduction of Google Wallet felt a little too good to be true, didn’t it? It’s magical, like the tech equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. In reality, the tech behind mobile payments has been around since 2003 on a much smaller scale using near-field communications , more commonly known as NFC. The idea behind Wallet (amongst other services, like ISIS) is contactless pay — using your phone as a credit card — and is just one of the many ways NFC can be useful in our everyday lives. In fact, we’re only scraping the surface of what’s theoretically possible. Google is definitely not the first company to dabble in NFC, but it appears to be poised and ready to push the tech’s adoption forward at a rapid pace with the advent of Wallet and Offers . Until now the coals have been hot; but if a fire’s going to start, someone monolithic has to throw a few newspapers in as kindling — and Google volunteered. But what good is NFC if it’s just an acronym that causes our eyes to glaze over? Is El Goog the only instigator? After the break we’ll focus on what NFC is capable of, and why we want it on our phones as soon as yesterday. Continue reading Engadget Primed: What is NFC, and why do we care? Engadget Primed: What is NFC, and why do we care? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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