jeremypinc.com

ROME (Reuters) ? Italy’s head of state begins talks on Sunday to appoint an emergency government to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and handle a crisis that has brought the euro zone’s third largest economy to the brink of financial disaster.

President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to ask former European Commissioner Mario Monti to try to form a government of technocrats in time for the opening of markets on Monday.

The appointment of a new government will come after Berlusconi faced a chorus of jeers and insults as he was driven to the Quirinale Palace to hand his resignation to Napolitano.

Crowds built up steadily after parliament passed a new budget law in the late afternoon on Saturday, clearing the way for Berlusconi to fulfill a pledge to resign after he failed to secure a majority in a crucial vote on Tuesday.

Following weeks of political uncertainty and growing calls from international partners for action to control its towering public debt, Italy’s borrowing costs soared to unmanageable levels last week, threatening a Europe-wide financial meltdown.

Monti, named as Senator for Life last week, met European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and politicians from various parties on Saturday as preparations for a transition began even before Berlusconi stepped down.

He has not so far been named officially but he has received the backing of the main opposition groups and the conditional acceptance of Berlusconi’s center-right PDL after objections from several factions in the party were overcome.

“In the end, a sense of responsibility prevailed,” said Mario Baccini, a PDL lawmaker. He said the PDL would support a Monti government as long as it stuck to reforms agreed by the outgoing government with the European Union.

With the next elections not due until 2013, a government of technocrats could have about 18 months to pass painful economic reforms but will need to secure the backing of a majority in parliament and could fall before then.

Italy came close to a full scale financial emergency this week after yields on 10-year bonds soared over 7.6 percent, levels which forced Ireland, Portugal and Greece to seek an international bailout.

With public debt of more than 120 percent of gross domestic product and more than a decade of anaemic economic growth behind it, Italy is at the heart of the euro zone debt crisis and would be too big for the bloc to bail out.

Financial markets have backed a Monti government and as prospects of Berlusconi going became firmer last week, yields dropped below the critical 7 percent level.

TECHNOCRATS

It now falls to Berluconi’s successor to try to reassure markets that a new government will be able to control spending and pass the kind of reforms to pensions, public service and labor markets that his government was unable to implement.

A technical government under Monti would avoid the need for a long and divisive election campaign, unsettling markets further, but its future will depend on maintaining the support of parliament.

A tough negotiator with a record of taking on powerful corporate interests as European Competition Commissioner, Monti will have to navigate the treacherous waters of Italian politics to survive.

On the left, likely reforms such as an increase in the pension age or easier hiring and firing rules could prompt strong opposition from unions once the elation of Berlusconi’s departure has passed.

But the threat could be at least as great from the center-right with Berlusconi’s old Northern League coalition partners declaring they will oppose a Monti-led government and many in the PDL also harbouring deep reservations.

In a potentially ominous sign of the dangers that may face a Monti government, Italian news agencies reported that Berlusconi had told party colleagues that they would control the future of a new administration.

“We can pull the plug whenever we want,” he was quoted as telling party allies.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111113/wl_nm/us_italy

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You and I have been over this before.

A person doesn’t have the right to drag me out of my house and shoot me. How do 10, 100, 1000, or 100,000,000 people acquire that right when as individuals they do not possess it?

They don’t acquire that right; their actions never acquire a veneer of morality. They merely assert violence. And they are moral monsters.

The US is not foundationally a democracy, by the way. But I’ve explained this to you before. The nature of who and how the laws are made is basically irrelevant to the moral correctness of a society; there was originally some debate as to whether or not George Washington ought to be our first King as opposed to our first president.

By “half the population”, I refer of course to the half that actually fund the federal government. The dependant half obviously never have anything pointed at them except fistfulls of my money. Those of us who provide may see the value in doing basic fundamental research and may already be funding it independantly of the amount that is currently coercively extracted.

That doesn’t change the basic claim that I made: that currently, the US government pays for science via the veiled threat of breaking into homes and dragging people out, guns drawn.

Gary Johnson would be someone who would agree with much of what I say; he’s a two-term governor and has climbed the highest mountain on most (if not all) the world’s continents. I don’t know who you think you know in “my” movement but I am happy with the physical and intellectual abilities of the few I’d consider my comrades.

For that matter, Ron Paul, now in his late 70s, challenged the other GOP “contenders” to a bike race through Houston in the summer heat. Nobody took him up on it.

In my conversations with you and others, a theme reoccurs. Nobody attempts to justify the morality of what they endorse, nobody questions the ethics of what I am suggesting. Everyone instead bitches about things I haven’t discussed and may or may not agree with, and they posit that my stements represent an irrelevant marginal portion of society.

I don’t mind being in the minority; I find that most of the progress of humanity has been the case of better ideas held in small numbers slowly overcoming poorer ideas held in larger numbers.

When you can explain to me why you think federal government funding of science is constitutional or ethical, I’d be happy to hear your explanation. But if history is any guide, the best you’ll do is tell me that my ideas don’t matter and I’m going to be stuck with yours whether I like it or not. And while you’re probably correct, you still won’t have answered the challenge, nor will you have successfully blanketed your naked opportunistic murderous lust for power with any veneer of morality at all.

Your move.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/DEO6JBgxaJc/ask-slashdot-crowdfunding-for-science-can-it-succeed

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WASHINGTON ? Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam can rest easy. Government officials fine-tuning guidelines for marketing food to children say they won’t push the food industry to get rid of colorful cartoon characters on cereal boxes anytime soon.

Allowing the brand icons from popular cereals to remain untouched is one of the concessions officials say they are likely to make as they work to convince food companies to curb junk food marketing to children.

The draft of voluntary guidelines released earlier this year sets maximum levels of fat, sugars and sodium, among other requirements, and asks food companies not to market foods that go beyond those parameters to children ages 2 through 17. The guidelines would apply to many mediums, including ads on television, in stores and on the Internet, in an effort to stem rising obesity levels.

The food industry, backed by House Republicans, who are holding a hearing on the issue Wednesday, has aggressively lobbied against the voluntary guidelines, saying they are too broad and would limit marketing of almost all of the nation’s favorite foods, including some yogurts and many children’s cereals. Though the guidelines would be voluntary, food companies say they fear the government will retaliate against them if they don’t go along.

Officials from the Federal Trade Commission, the Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who jointly wrote the guidelines, will on Wednesday face the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has already made its distaste for the proposal clear. In a letter last month, Republicans on the committee wrote the agencies and called the guidelines “little better than a shot in the dark.”

Following the industry objections, the congressional pushback and a public comment period on the proposal, the government agencies involved appear to be softening their approach. In testimony released by the committee before the hearing, David Vladeck, director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the coalition of government agencies is “in the midst of making significant revisions to the original proposal.

Among the changes he suggested are narrowing the age group targeted and focusing on children aged 2 to 11 instead of up to age 17 and allowing marketing of the unhealthier foods at fundraisers and sporting events. Vladeck also said that his agency would not recommend that companies change packaging or remove brand characters from food products that don’t qualify, as was originally suggested in the guidelines.

“Those elements of packaging, though appealing to children, are also elements of marketing to a broader audience and are inextricably linked to the food’s brand identity,” Vladeck says in prepared testimony. Tony the Tiger is well-known as the mascot for Frosted Flakes and Toucan Sam for Froot Loops, both Kelloggs’ cereals.

Still, industry officials say they would not be appeased by the changes suggested in the prepared testimony. Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association, said companies want the government to prove how these changes will help stem obesity and do a cost analysis looking at the effects through the chain to customers.

“The impact of these proposals would be far reaching and negative,” he said of the voluntary guidelines.

The industry came out with its own guidelines over the summer, proposing to limit advertising on some foods for children but adjusting the criteria. Though the industry proposal is more lenient than the government one, it has won praise from federal officials, who said they would consider it if they finalize the guidelines.

It isn’t clear how soon that will happen. House Republicans have attempted to delay the guidelines through the budget process by asking for further study of the guidelines’ impacts.

If they are not delayed by Congress, a final draft of the standards could come by the end of the year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111012/ap_on_he_me/us_food_marketing_children

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