Clinton, Suu Kyi vow to promote Myanmar reforms

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following a meeting at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Soe Than Win, Pool)

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, two of the world's most recognizable women leaders, pledged on Friday to work together to bring democracy to Suu Kyi's long isolated and repressive nation.

Wrapping up a historic three-day visit to Myanmar, Clinton held hands with Suu Kyi on the porch of the Nobel peace laureate's lakeside home where she spent much of the past two decades under house arrest and thanked her for a her "steadfast and very clear leadership." The meeting was the second in as many days for the pair who appeared to have bonded almost as sisters after a private, one-on-one dinner in Yangon on Thursday.

"You have been an inspiration but I know that you feel you are standing for all the people of your country who deserve the same rights and freedoms as people everywhere," Clinton told Suu Kyi. "The people have been courageous and strong in the face of great difficulty over too many years. We want to see this country take its rightful place in the world."

Suu Kyi has welcomed Clinton's visit and tentatively embraced reforms enacted by Myanmar's new civilian government. She thanked the secretary and U.S. President Barack Obama for their "careful and calibrated" engagement that has seen the U.S. take some modest steps to improve ties.

"We are happy with the way in which the United States is engaging with us," she said. "It is through engagement that we hope to promote the process of democratization. Because of this engagement, I think our way ahead will be clearer and we will be able to trust that the process of democratization will go forward."

As she did in the capital of Naypyidaw on Thursday, Clinton said more significant incentives will be offered but only if the government releases all political prisoners, ends brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities, respects the rule of law and improves human rights conditions.

Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections that were ignored by the then-military junta but now plans to run in upcoming parliamentary elections, endorsed that approach and called for the immediate release of all political prisoners and cease-fires to end the ethnic conflicts..

"If we move forward together I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy," Suu Kyi said, referring to her party, the government, the United States and other countries, including Myanmar's giant neighbor China. "We are not on that road yet, but we hope to get there as soon as possible with the help and understanding of our friends."

Suu Kyi, a heroine for pro-democracy advocates around the world, said Clinton's visit, the first by a secretary of state to Myanmar in more than half a century, represented "a historical moment for both our countries."

With U.S. assistance and pressure on the government, which is still backed by the military, she said she believed change was on the horizon for Myanmar

"There have been times that Naypyidaw has weakened but I don't think it has ever really broken," she said.

Clinton's meetings with Suu Kyi were the highlight of the U.S. secretary of state's visit to the long-isolated country known as Burma and forcefully underscored a U.S. challenge to Myanmar's leaders: The new civilian government must expand recent reforms, including the release of political prisoners, to improve relations as it emerges from more than a half-century of repressive military rule.

"We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released," the Clinton told reporters on Thursday. "One political prisoner is one too many in our view."

U.S. officials warned that even the modest incentives Clinton offered to Myanmar's new, military-backed leaders this week would come off the table if the country fails the political-prisoners and other tests of reform.

In meetings with top Myanmar officials in the capital of Naypyidaw and then with Suu Kyi in the commercial hub of Yangon, Clinton said the country's leaders must end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea

Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps President Thein Sein and other leaders have already taken but said the U.S. was not ready to lift tough sanctions on the country. Removing some of those sanctions would require approval by Congress, where many lawmakers have criticized the Obama administration for rewarding Myanmar too quickly without enough evidence of change.

The modest first steps Clinton announced include Washington no longer blocking enhanced cooperation between Myanmar and the International Monetary Fund that could lead to the approval of much-needed loans and support for the poorest nation in the region. Also, the U.S. would support intensified U.N. health and microfinance programs and resume bilateral counternarcotics efforts.

Those steps could be followed by an upgrade in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Myanmar, Clinton said, although U.S. officials stressed that concrete action on American concerns must be completed first. The U.S. has not had an ambassador in Myanmar since the early 1990s and is represented now by a charge d'affaires.

___

Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-02-Clinton-Myanmar/id-34a1377ffaf24d0c90061f33f3769301

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"Dallas" trailer points to status as "important" television (omg!)

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - If gold-tinged lighting, a slowed-down theme song and a long shot of chains falling to the dirt aren't enough to tell you how important "Dallas" was to the history of television, the cast of its reboot will be happy to tell you.

TNT's latest look at the new "Dallas," coming next summer, includes all the standard features of self-important trailers, including a narrator who seems awe-struck by his own words. But if you still aren't sold, it also includes the actors on the show explaining the cultural significance of the original "Dallas."

"This show set a standard that was different than anything that had been done before," says a pointing-for-emphasis Patrick Duffy, who happened to be on the original show, and returns for the new version. He adds that it was "epic in terms of appointment television."

You can see the video here: http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/dallas-trailer-watch-shows-cast-explain-why-it-so-very-important-33217

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What Time Does The Cock Crow?

Rooster, by raymondgobis/Flickr

Ed. Note: Long time readers are well aware that I have a quirk about Time. You can read my other discussions here.

The Experience of Time

Time is a measure of events, duration, and change. Thanks to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) we share a basis for discussing Time. It helps structure our expectations. I may be at my desk by 9:00 EST (UTC-05:00), but I understand that colleagues in California (UTC-08:00) are likely still in bed. Global clock time tells me that at 11:00 EST, I can reasonably expect them to be at their desks. However, our experiences with Time may differ?in accordance with local observances even along the same latitude.?While it may indeed be five o?clock somewhere, what people may choose to do at that Time may differ greatly from place to place. The meaning of five o?clock can vary greatly.

The example I often use when discussing these sorts of differences stems from an experience I had in South Florida when I found that my ?meal clock? didn?t align with local business practices. In New York City, diners might be sitting down to an early dinner at 6:00 pm, whereas in parts of South Florida, the dinner hour is winding down. We may share the same time zone, but our temporal tendencies differ.

Despite the standardization offered by the clock, Time is an intersubjective experience.?Though we don?t often consider it, local contexts can inform our temporal awareness in subtle ways. For example, consider the role roosters have played in keeping time:

The use of cockcrows in the predawn period to reckon time is extremely widespread, and has been ethnographically documented. The Bororo of Brazil keep track of time after midnight through the gradual increase in intensity and frequency of crows between the first cockcrow and dawn; the Ifugao of the Philippines state that cocks crow four times during the night with the third cockcrow at around four o?clock in the morning; and among the Saramaka, a maroon group in Surinam, cockcrow is an auspicious time for sharing secrets in the predawn hours.[i]

While it?s true that roosters can indeed crow at any time, in a recent paper anthropologist Kevin Birth discusses how avian chronobiology shapes a reliable relationship between cockcrow and the coming dawn that may help understand perceptions of time prior to the establishment of a standard global time.

A Religious Calling

Archaeological evidence reveals an abundance of domestic fowl in the Middle Ages, and for a sustainable community to have existed breeding would be have been necessary which would have required roosters?who appeared to have a prominent role in calling practitioners to predawn devotions. In the 6^th-century, cockcrow constituted one of the four periods of nighttime devotion for monasteries that followed the precepts maintained by the Rule of the Master (Regula Magistri), which required psalms be said at nightfall, midnight, cockcrow, and in the morning. The period denoted by the rooster?s crow helped manage devotions in the face of seasonal changes: psalms were said prior to the cockcrow in the winter, and after the cockcrow in the summer to account for the shifting durations of darkness. Roosters also alerted those living beyond the immediate reach of religious orders to ready themselves for morning devotions with their noisy pronouncements.

The connection between the rooster and the coming dawn offered fertile ground for associations with light and spirituality. Gregory the Great likened roosters to preachers:

First, like roosters, preachers strive against darkness to account approaching light. Second, they awaken the sluggish. Just as cocks? understanding penetrates the darkness, so should the knowledge of teachers. Also, Gregory states that cocks are louder in the darkness and more gentle as dawn approaches, and he says that this is a metaphor for how preachers should treat people?those who are in darkness receive harsher messages, while those who are approaching spiritual enlightenment should hear the ?subtlest mysteries.?[ii]

The cockcrow was a temporal signifier in the Middle Ages, but is there any biological basis for these sorts of connections?

Do Roosters Crow at Dawn?

Sure they do! Chickens have a circadian cycle. They?re entrained to light-cycles?melatonin secretion, and regulation of the heart, brain, and liver change in response to light. For roosters, whose crows are driven by testosterone, light cycles which regulate endogenous cycles can also trigger crowing behavior.

Endogenous cycles in chickens can reset in response to incremental changes in light intensity. Gambian hens, for example, shift their roosting times in accordance with the seasons: since the days are relatively the same length, the chickens appear to negotiate roosting in relation to shifting light intensity.? Chickens, then, are able to anticipate light cycles. Research done in North-Central India, where the sun only becomes visible after it has risen higher than surrounding mountains, documents the onset of crowing approximately two to three hours before sunrise with initial intervals of about 30 minutes that decrease to about seven minutes at the time of sunrise?even though the sun is not actually visible at the moment of sunrise.

But roosters also crow at other times and for different reasons. Birth acknowledges they?re only temporally relevant during the period of predawn for a specific location?but they are an excellent means of generating contextually-relevant information.

So, Are We More ?Timely? Now?

Here?s the thing: We?ve been trying to divide the day into equal hours since at least the 3^rd-century BC by using candles and water clocks to mark the passage of Time. Clocks and universal time codes aren?t a modern marvel. Birth states these attempts represent abstract, context-independent ways of managing time, whereas the rooster?s crow is an example of context-dependent ways of understanding time. The latter requires multiple temporal indicators?because cockcrow is only relevant during a specific period?requiring multiple experiences and measures of duration and change.

Time in the Middle Ages was not wrong, nor were predawn measurements by cockcrow without relevance. Birth traces an interesting shift in the relationship to Time held by medieval and moderns with regard to the senses. Namely, Time in the Middle Ages was linked to sound?roosters can be pretty noisy. Church bells, by the way, heralding the start of mass, were meant to be heard. Sound travels. It would find you. Whether you were in the field or on the road, you could not mistake the meaning of bells, whistles, or crowing. But that changed when Time shifted to visual cues: Clock towers required you to come to them. Clock towers represented a physical reminder of shared Time, minimizing an awareness of how the experience of 5 o?clock might differ along the same time zone.

Context-dependent time takes into account the local environment, whereas clock time creates an arbitrary relationship to the local experience. Birth proposes that the rise of clock time is tied to a preference for measuring Time in terms of ?abstract durations of equal length?.[iii] As Time became commoditized with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, it was far more appealing (and arguably important) to control Time than it was to indexically define Time. And how better to control Time than to divide it up and put it in the hands of people? Who here is wearing a watch or has checked the display of their phone for the time today? Time is within your reach! And it is probably easier to manage than a?belligerent?rooster. Imagine putting that in your pocket.

Disclosure: Dr. Kevin Birth was my undergraduate adviser, and remains a close friend. He is likely one of the reasons I continue to question our relationship to Time. (And it?s a very good thing that I?ve asked those sorts of questions since my comps required an extensive discussion on Time.)

---

Reference:
Birth, K. (2011). The Regular Sound of the Cock: Context-Dependent Time Reckoning in the Middle Ages KronoScope, 11 (1), 125-144 DOI: 10.1163/156852411X595305

Citations:?[i]p 127 |?[ii]p 134 |?[iii] P138

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Video: First Read Minute

NBC?s Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro highlight President Obama?s new television campaign ad, the GOP candidate?s television ad spending and the latest allegation against Herman Cain.

Related Links:

http://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews

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CA-CANADA Summary (Reuters)

Oil sands opponents turn focus to Enbridge project

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) ? Enbridge Inc's proposed C$5.5 billion ($5.3 billion) pipeline to British Columbia poses a raft of environmental risks, according to a new report that signals the project will become the next battleground over the future of Canada's oil sands. The study by a trio of environmental groups, released on Tuesday, comes on the heels of a U.S. decision to push back approval of TransCanada Corp's Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by more than a year.

Cenovus say research proves Weyburn CO2 project safe

(Reuters) - Cenovus Energy Inc said on Tuesday studies have confirmed that carbon dioxide sequestered underground at its Weyburn, Saskatchewan, field has not been leaking or causing high concentration of the gas at a neighboring property. The company said independent research proved that carbon dioxide injected into its oil field to boost production and remove the gas from the atmosphere was not escaping.

Canada mum on telecom spectrum rules, ownership

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada has yet to decide whether it will loosen foreign ownership restrictions in the telecom sector, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said on Tuesday. Nor has the Conservative government decided if it will set aside airwaves for recent wireless entrants in next year's spectrum auction as a way to boost competition, Paradis said.

Fulcrum to stay the course as Canada independent

TORONTO (Reuters) - Fulcrum Capital plans to stay the course with its meat-and-potatoes approach to investing in resources now that it has completed a spin-off from HSBC and embarked as an independent Canadian private equity fund. "What we have done in the past, and which I'm sure we would do in the future, is investments in these traditional industries where for the most part you don't need a PhD to understand them," David Mullen, the fund's chairman and managing partner, said in an interview. "Our target market is the middle market in Canada."

Analysis: Low rates put Canadian insurers under pressure

TORONTO (Reuters) - The prospect of a prolonged period of stagnant or falling interest rates could force Canada's life insurers into a long-term struggle to raise the value of their shares from their current 2-1/2 year lows. Because they are not reaping sufficient funds from investments, the insurers could be forced to go to markets to raise more capital, or to cut dividends, which would tend to push stock prices down even further. A dividend cut at Sun Life Financial is a possibility in the near term, analysts say.

Bill to scrap Canadian Wheat Board monopoly advances

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A government bill to scrap the Canadian Wheat Board's grain marketing monopoly cleared the final stage of approval by Canada's House of Commons on Monday, leaving it all but certain to become law next month. The bill would end the Wheat Board's six-decade old marketing monopoly for Western Canada's wheat and barley for milling or export, as of August 2012, the start of the 2012/13 crop marketing year.

Liberals return to second place in poll

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Liberals have returned to the position they had held for the past several years as the most popular opposition party, a poll released on Monday showed. The federal election in May had reduced the center-left Liberals to a distant third place behind the governing Conservatives and the leftist New Democratic Party, but the Nanos poll now has them edging out the NDP.

Canada won't confirm it's pulling out of Kyoto

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada dismissed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change on Monday as a thing of the past, but declined to confirm a media report it will formally pull out of the international treaty before the end of this year. Although the Conservative government walked away from its Kyoto obligations years ago, a formal withdrawal would deal a symbolic blow to global talks to save the agreement, which opened in Durban, South Africa on Monday.

Canadian retailers had strong weekend: industry group

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's holiday shopping season has started with a bang, an industry group said on Monday, as more retailers than ever offered Black Friday promotions to keep up with competitors south of the border. "Anecdotally, the malls were packed," said Sally Ritchie, a spokeswoman for the Retail Council of Canada. "Black Friday is increasingly becoming an event here in Canada."

Saskatchewan trims surplus; potash revenue surges

(Reuters) - The Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan said on Monday its budget surplus for 2011-12 will be less than a quarter of what it had forecast, due in part to a summer of severe flooding. Saskatchewan now looks to record a surplus of C$25 million ($24.3 million), down from the C$115 million it forecast in its March budget,

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111129/wl_canada_nm/canada_summary

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Qbo robot looks in a mirror, learns who he is (video)

A robot equipped with stereoscopic vision and some object and facial recognition programs opens up a whole number of different possibilities, but few quite as interesting as what happens when you place said robot in front of a mirror. It took a bit of guidance (and no doubt a bit of prep), but the open source Qbo robot was quickly able to both recognize and identify himself when he was recently placed in just such a situation. See what happened after the break.

Continue reading Qbo robot looks in a mirror, learns who he is (video)

Qbo robot looks in a mirror, learns who he is (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/29/qbo-robot-looks-in-a-mirror-learns-who-he-is-video/

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Apple Tops Android In Mobile Ad Performance, But Windows Phone Still Leads The Pack

Mobile ad optimization platform?Smaato, Inc. released the results of its mobile ad report for Q3 2011 today and found that, for the third consecutive quarter, Windows Phone (156) led the company's "Smaato Index," a measure of mobile operating system click-through rates. In second place was RIM (113), which has now overtaken both Apple (89) and?Android (84) .

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/IXsSwphOaro/

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