Wis. governor to meet with district attorney (AP)

MADISON, Wis. ? Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Friday he will meet with a district attorney leading a secret investigation that has already led to charges being filed against five former close aides and associates.

The development brings Walker closer to the investigation than ever before, a potential vulnerability for him as he faces an effort to recall him from office.

Walker said in a statement released through his campaign that he has been cooperating with the Milwaukee County district attorney's office on the probe that began 20 months ago.

"My cooperation in this matter extends beyond a willingness to supply any and all requested documents," Walker said in the statement. "I have already said that I would be happy to sit down with the people looking into these issues and answer any additional questions they may have."

The criminal charges so far have come against people who worked for or were associated with Walker's county executive office in Milwaukee before he was elected governor in 2010.

Kelly Rindfleisch, Walker's deputy chief of staff before he became governor in 2011, has been charged with four felony counts of misconduct in office. Darlene Wink, who was Walker's county constituent services coordinator, faces two misdemeanor counts of political solicitation by a public employee.

It is illegal for public workers, while engaged in their official duties, to raise funds or otherwise work on political campaigns or use their public workspaces to do so.

Two other former Walker associates, Tim Russell and Kevin Kavanaugh, were charged Jan. 5 with embezzling more than $60,000 from veterans and their families. Another man is charged with child enticement charges, evidence of which was allegedly discovered while investigating one of the others.

Walker said Friday he hired two attorneys, Mike Steinle and John Gallo, to "assemble additional background information." Walker said no public money will be used to pay for that work.

"While all of us need to let this matter run its course, I will continue to cooperate and provide any appropriate information that is requested," he said.

Steinle is a criminal defense attorney in Milwaukee. Gallo is a former federal prosecutor in Chicago. His online biography says his practice includes representing criminal defendants and grand-jury targets.

Barry Solomon, a spokesman for Gallo's law firm Sidley Austin, said the firm does not comment on ongoing cases. Steinle did not immediately return a message.

Walker said he was voluntarily meeting with District Attorney John Chisholm, but he did not indicate who instigated the meeting. Walker's campaign spokesman did not immediately return a message.

A spokeswoman for Chisholm said he had no comment.

Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski said Walker needs to talk with the people of Wisconsin, not just with prosecutors, about what was going on in his county office.

State elections officials are in the process of verifying that at least 540,208 signatures were submitted last month to force an election. Recall organizers said they turned in 1 million.

If an election is ordered, it's not likely to take place until spring or summer. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is the only Democrat to have announced she will challenge Walker, but many others are considering it.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120203/ap_on_re_us/us_wisconsin_governor_investigation

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US Marine fights conviction for suicide attempt (AP)

HAGERSTOWN, Md. ? A discharged Marine private who slit his wrists in a suicide attempt is fighting his military conviction for deliberately injuring himself, arguing the punishment is inconsistent with the armed forces' efforts to battle a rise in suicides during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's not clear how often the Marines or any other service branch prosecute active duty members for trying to kill themselves. But the defense lawyer for Pvt. Lazzaric T. Caldwell says it's wrong to punish service members with mental health problems for genuine suicide attempts. Suicide prevention has become a priority across the military as numbers climbed in the past decade with the increasing stress of combat and multiple deployments in the wars.

Caldwell, 25, of Camp Pendleton, Calif., never deployed to a war zone but was diagnosed in 2009 with post-traumatic stress disorder and a personality disorder, according to court records. In 2010, he slashed his wrists in his barracks at Camp Schwab in Okinawa, Japan.

He pleaded guilty at a court-martial that year to "intentional self-injury without intent to avoid service," a criminal charge that the government says helps maintain good order and discipline in the armed forces. The charge is sometimes used in self-injury cases when there isn't enough evidence to prove malingering, military justice experts say.

Caldwell was sentenced to 180 days in jail and a bad conduct discharge. Military rules allow an appeal after a guilty plea in some cases, but Caldwell's initial appeal to the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals was denied in December. His lawyer, Navy Lt. Mike Hanzel, said this week he will ask the military's highest court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, to hear the case.

"I think it definitely touches important issues which are affecting all the branches of the armed forces right now," Hanzel said in a telephone interview from Bremerton, Wash.

Military prosecutors didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the case. In an appellate brief, the government stated that Caldwell "was not charged with, or convicted of, attempting suicide. He was charged with, and properly convicted of, intentionally injuring himself to the prejudice of good order and discipline or the discredit of the service."

Hanzel claims military law prohibits intentional self-injury prosecutions for genuine suicide attempts induced by depression, PTSD or other mental illness because the mental illness makes it impossible to prove a guilty intent. He also noted that successful suicides are presumed by the military to have been committed in the line of duty, and the service member's death isn't considered to have been due to their own misconduct.

"(I)f you succeed in committing suicide your service is treated honorably and your family receives full benefits," Hanzel wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "(I)f you are unsuccessful in a genuine suicide attempt, you can receive a federal conviction and get a bad-conduct discharge and jail time, which is what happened to Pvt Caldwell."

The Marine Corps wasn't immediately able to provide statistics on prosecutions or convictions for intentional self-injury without intent to avoid service. The Navy, which handles some justice services for the Marines, said only that no such cases came before Navy court-martials last year.

Retired Army Judge Advocate Victor M. Hansen, a professor at the New England School of Law in Boston, said it's fairly unusual for commanders to convene courts-martial on self-injury charges. "It happens but it doesn't happen a lot," he said.

The military has had an increase in suicide rates among all branches since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marine Corps reported a record 175 suicide attempts among active-duty Marines in 2011. It said 33 Marines committed suicide last year, down from 37 in 2010.

Back in 2010, Caldwell told the court he tried to kill himself minutes after he was told he was going to the brig to await trial on charges including larceny for allegedly helping a friend steal a belt from a local shop. He had learned a day earlier of a friend's death, and he said those events were the last straws in a series of emotional blows that included the deaths of several family members, a stabbing by his former fiance, a 60-day confinement for other alleged offenses and personal problems within his unit.

Caldwell said in a telephone interview that after he was patched up and put in the brig, he was surprised to learn he would be charged with self-injury

"I thought it was unfair and I thought it was just kind of morally wrong to punish somebody for something of that nature," Caldwell said in a telephone interview.

"Seeing the kind of state I was in, there should have been a way of getting help instead of just a punishment," he said.

Caldwell said he took the plea in hopes it would be the quickest way to get home to see his sick mother.

The bad-conduct discharge made him ineligible for certain veteran's benefits, though, so Caldwell, who has since married an active-duty Marine, said he's getting no mental-health treatment.

The judge in Caldwell's case accepted his guilty plea without ordering a mental-health examination, which Hanzel claims was another error.

The charge has been on the books since at least the 1940s. It is applied in self-injury cases in which the government can't prove an intent to avoid service but can show that the act was detrimental to good order and discipline, or could bring discredit upon the armed forces.

Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said the case raises fundamental questions about the purpose of military justice, which allows for prosecution of some acts that wouldn't be crimes in the civilian world.

"One would have to assume that the pre-trial investigating officer and the convening authority would have given long and prayerful consideration to the wisdom of pursuing such a case," he said

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/usmilitary/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120202/ap_on_re_us/us_military_suicide_prosecution

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Are PPC Ads Following You? - Small Business Trends

Telling people what I do for a living has always been a bit difficult. If I say that I do pay-per-click management they ask me how I could possibly spend all day managing ?paper clips.? If I tell them that I am responsible for the ads on their Google search results, I get a groan followed by ?You?re that guy.? After explaining in more detail, I usually have a very intelligent conversation and people are fascinated at how interesting PPC advertising is. But I?ve noticed that more and more people are mentioning that they feel ?creeped out? by the ads they see; like they?re being followed. But are they?

In short, yes, they probably are. This tactic has been around for a few years and is commonly referred to as retargeting or remarketing.

How Does Remarketing Work?

In March 2012, I?m going to be speaking at Conversion Conference in San Fransisco so?I?ve visited the Conversion Conference site several times to review the agenda, register and make travel arrangements. Today, I noticed the following advertisement upon my visit?here to Small Business Trends:

This ad is targeted to me because I?ve been to the site and have the cookie on my browser. Here is the technical explanation:

• The site owner places a snippet of code on their website.
• Site visitors have a cookie placed on their browser when they visit the website.
• The advertiser creates ads and targets all users with the cookie on their browser.
• Any site using Google to serve ads can then show targeted ads when the cookie is detected.

How Can This Help Your SMB?

According to a post by Inc.com last year, a 50% bounce rate is average. That means half of your visitors leave after viewing only one page. They say you only get one chance to make a first impression and a high bounce rate may indicate you?re not making the best impression. However, utilizing remarketing allows you to make it up to them. Offer them a discount, remind them of your free offers, or emphasize different benefits.

Don?t Be Creepy

When creating your ads, be careful not to be creepy. While you may want to remind them that they were on your site, the average user doesn?t understand how remarketing works. They just see your ads in places they might not expect it. And don?t overdo the frequency. Most platforms, Google included, allow you to set a frequency cap so they only see your ad a certain number of times/day. This helps decrease the creepiness a lot.

In the end, this is a chance to bring back some of the lost sheep that you worked so hard to get in the first place ? even if it does require you to follow them around.

About the Author

Robert Brady is the owner and head PPC wizard at Righteous Marketing, a Google AdWord Certified Partner. Robert helps small business owners and large companies just getting started with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) get better results from their PPC management.

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/02/are-ppc-ads-following-you.html

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WHATS THE DEAL-BREAKER IN A FRIENDSHIP OR RELATIONSHIP

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Source: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/letitbeknownlive/2012/02/02/whats-the-dealbreaker-in-a-friendship-or-relationship

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IBEX spacecraft measures 'alien' particles from outside solar system

ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2012) ? Using data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, an international team of researchers has measured neutral "alien" particles entering our solar system from interstellar space. A suite of studies published in the Astrophysical Journal provides a first look at the constituents of the interstellar medium, the matter between star systems, and how they interact with our heliosphere.

The heliosphere, the "bubble" in which our Sun and planets reside, is formed by the interaction between the solar wind, flowing outward from the Sun, and the interstellar medium, which presses up against it. Electrically charged, or ionized, particles cannot penetrate the boundary between these two bodies. However, neutral particles, which make up about half the material outside the heliosphere, flow freely in through the boundary.

The only other spacecraft to directly detect these inflowing neutral particles was Ulysses, which more than a decade ago measured interstellar neutral helium. Although IBEX is designed primarily to map the interactions between the solar wind and ionized interstellar material, its low-energy energetic neutral atom camera has now also measured interstellar neutral particles not detected by Ulysses. From its location within Earth's orbit, IBEX has sampled interstellar hydrogen, oxygen, and neon in addition to neutral helium.

Neon and oxygen reside throughout the galaxy, but researchers are unsure of their distribution. Using IBEX data, the first direct measurements of these elements in the local interstellar medium, researchers can determine how much oxygen is in the local part of the galaxy, which materials are present in what amounts and more.

"Answering these questions is important for understanding the variability of the galactic soup -- the material from which stars, planets and life all form," says Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and an assistant vice president at Southwest Research Institute.

For example, the presence of less oxygen in the local interstellar medium compared to the Sun and galactic average could indicate the Sun formed in a region with less oxygen than exists in its current location. Another possibility is that the oxygen could be preferentially tied up or "hidden" in other galactic materials, such as dust grains and ices.

IBEX data reveal that interstellar neutrals enter the heliosphere at a speed of about 52,000 mph, roughly, 7,000 mph slower than inferred from Ulysses observations, and that they enter from a somewhat different direction. Magnetic forces play a major role in the interactions of the charged particles at the heliosphere's boundaries. As the overall particle speeds drop, however, the magnetic forces play an even more dominant role.

"With this lower speed, the external magnetic forces cause the heliosphere to become more squished and misshapen," says McComas. "Rather than being shaped like a bullet moving through the air, the heliosphere becomes flattened, more like a beach ball being squeezed when someone sits on it."

Based on the older Ulysses data, researchers had theorized that the heliosphere was leaving the local galactic cloud and transitioning into a new region of space. However, while the boundary is very close, IBEX results show the heliosphere remains fully in the local cloud, at least for the moment.

"Sometime in the next hundred to few thousand years, the blink of an eye on the timescales of the galaxy, our heliosphere should leave the local interstellar cloud and encounter a much different galactic environment," McComas says.

Researchers will be able to add measurements about the charged particles outside the heliosphere to the neutral particle measurements provided by IBEX as the two Voyager spacecraft leave our solar system and cross the heliopause, possibly within the next few years.

"That will give us an even more complete picture of what's happening in the regions surrounding our home in the solar system," says McComas.

The six papers detailing the new IBEX results and an editorial written by McComas were published today in a Special Supplements issue of the Astrophysical Journal called "Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX): Direct Sampling of the Interstellar Medium." The authors represent an international team of researchers from Southwest Research Institute, the University of Bern, Switzerland, the Polish Academy of Sciences Space Research Centre, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

IBEX is the latest in NASA's series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorer space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio leads and developed the mission with a team of national and international partners. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

NASA Briefing Materials: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/multimedia/013112-briefing-materials.html

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Southwest Research Institute.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal References:

1. Editorial. Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX): Direct Sampling of the Interstellar Medium. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 8 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/8
2. Lukas Saul, Peter Wurz, Diego Rodriguez, J?rgen Scheer, Eberhard M?bius, Nathan Schwadron, Harald Kucharek, Trevor Leonard, Maciej Bzowski, Stephen Fuselier, Geoff Crew, Dave McComas. Local Interstellar Neutral Hydrogen Sampled in situ by IBEX. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 14 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/14
3. M. H?ond, M. Bzowski, E. M?bius, H. Kucharek, D. Heirtzler, N. A. Schwadron, M. E. O' Neill, G. Clark, G. B. Crew, S. Fuselier, D. J. McComas. Precision Pointing of IBEX-Lo Observations. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 9 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/9
4. Martin A. Lee, Harald Kucharek, Eberhard M?bius, Xian Wu, Maciej Bzowski, David McComas. An Analytical Model of Interstellar Gas in the Heliosphere Tailored to Interstellar Boundary Explorer Observations. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 10 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/10
5. E. M?bius, P. Bochsler, M. Bzowski, D. Heirtzler, M. A. Kubiak, H. Kucharek, M. A. Lee, T. Leonard, N. A. Schwadron, X. Wu, S. A. Fuselier, G. Crew, D. J. McComas, L. Petersen, L. Saul, D. Valovcin, R. Vanderspek, P. Wurz. Interstellar Gas Flow Parameters Derived from Interstellar Boundary Explorer-Lo Observations in 2009 and 2010: Analytical Analysis. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 11 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/11
6. M. Bzowski, M. A. Kubiak, E. M?bius, P. Bochsler, T. Leonard, D. Heirtzler, H. Kucharek, J. M. Sok??, M. H?ond, G. B. Crew, N. A. Schwadron, S. A. Fuselier, D. J. McComas. Neutral Interstellar Helium Parameters Based on IBEX-Lo Observations and Test Particle Calculations. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 12 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/12
7. P. Bochsler, L. Petersen, E. M?bius, N. A. Schwadron, P. Wurz, J. A. Scheer, S. A. Fuselier, D. J. McComas, M. Bzowski, P. C. Frisch. Estimation of the Neon/Oxygen Abundance Ratio at the Heliospheric Termination Shock and in the Local Interstellar Medium from IBEX Observations. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 2012; 198 (2): 13 DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/198/2/13

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/I_fITQWzeOA/120131135743.htm

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China goes on gold binge; world wonders why

This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October?s 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China?s gold imports.

Analysts believe China bought as much as 490 tons of gold in 2011, double the estimated 245 tons in 2010. ?The thing that?s caught people?s minds is the massive increase in Chinese buying,? remarked Ross Norman of Sharps Pixley, a London gold brokerage, this month.

So who in China is buying all this gold?

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The People?s Bank of China, the central bank, has been hinting that it is purchasing. ?No asset is safe now,? said the PBOC?s Zhang Jianhua at the end of last month. ?The only choice to hedge risks is to hold hard currency ? gold.? He also said it was smart strategy to buy on market dips. Analysts naturally jumped on his comment as proof that China, the world?s fifth-largest holder of the metal, is in the market for more.

There are a few problems with this conclusion. First, the Chinese government rarely benefits others ? and hurts itself ? by telegraphing its short-term investment strategies.

Second, the central bank has less purchasing power these days. China?s foreign reserves declined in Q4 2011, falling $20.6 billion from Q3. The first quarterly outflow since 1998 was not large, but the trend was troubling. The reserves declined a stunning $92.7 billion in November and December.

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Third, the purchase of gold would be especially risky for the central bank, which is already insolvent from a balance sheet point of view. The PBOC needs income-producing assets in order to meet its obligations on the debt incurred to buy foreign exchange, so the holding of gold only complicates its funding operations. This is not to say the bank never buys gold ? it obviously does ? but there are real constraints on its ability to purchase assets that do not provide current income.

Apart from China?s central bank, there is not much demand from the country?s institutional investors for gold. There are industrial users, of course, but their demand is filled from domestic production ? China is the world?s largest gold producer. Most of China?s gold demand from foreign sources, therefore, is from individuals.

So why are individuals now buying gold? The easy answer is that the demand is only seasonal, as Jeff Wright of Global Hunter Securities believes. The Chinese traditionally buy gold presents in the run-up to the Lunar New Year, which started a week ago. Yet gift-giving does not begin to explain the surge in gold purchases that started as far back as July. November was the fifth-consecutive month of China?s record gold purchases from Hong Kong.

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A better explanation for the gold-buying binge of Chinese citizens is that they are using the shiny commodity as an inflation hedge, as the Financial Times recently suggested. Yet the buying of gold has increased while inflation has eased. And that means there must be another explanation. The best explanation is that individuals in China are using gold as a substitute for capital flight.

Although indicators showed the Chinese economy faltered only at the end of September, there had been a growing sense of pessimism inside the country for months before then. Beijing, after all, could build only so many ?ghost cities? before citizens began to notice. As Joseph Sternberg of the Wall Street Journal Asia said on the John Batchelor Show last Wednesday, ?people inside China seem to be losing faith in the Chinese growth story that we?ve been hearing so much about for the past few years.? Estimates of capital flight are sketchy, but it appears there was $34 billion of it in the third quarter of last year and a $100 billion in the fourth.

Not every Chinese citizen is in the position to export cash, so the next best tactic for the nervous is to buy gold, a refuge from plunging property prices and declining stock markets as well as an anticipated depreciation of their currency. ?Within China,? notes Michael Pettis of Peking University, ?many are going to argue that the rapid decline in the trade surplus, coupled with unmistakable evidence of flight capital, means that the PBOC should devalue the RMB.? And the fact that China?s leaders in public are talking about the adverse impact of the European crisis on China weighs heavily on sentiment.

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The worst thing about capital flight and gold purchases is that they drain liquidity out of the Chinese economy just when it is needed most. Beijing can continue to work its magic as long as strict capital controls keep money inside the country. Once they fail to do so, however, all bets are off. The purchasing of gold, of course, results in the exporting of cash.

Chinese asset values have not yet crashed across the board, but the buying of gold ? a leading indicator of panic ? is an especially troubling sign that they will. Therefore, it is not surprising that gold purchases by Chinese citizens and investors are frightening Beijing?s technocrats. At the end of last month, they shut all of the countries gold exchanges other than two of them in Shanghai.

Forbes.com: Four reasons Facebook's IPO is irrelevant

? 2012 Forbes.com

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46205510/ns/business-world_business/

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LG Optimus L3 appears in Sweden, packs entry-level style

It's not every day that we come across an entry-level Android smartphone from LG, especially one that packs this much style. The LG Optimus L3 (aka E400) recently popped up on Swedish retailer CDON's website and appears to be slotted right below the Optimus Hub (successor to the highly popular Optimus One). Specs include Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with LG's Optimus UI, a 3.2-inch QVGA (320x240 pixels, ouch) capacitive touchscreen, a three megapixel camera, dual-band (2100 / 900MHz) HSDPA 3.6Mbps and quadband EDGE connectivity, WiFi / Bluetooth / GPS / FM radios and a microSD card slot. While there's no word yet on what kind of processor powers the handset, we're guessing it's likely the same 800MHz CPU found in the Optimus Hub. Availability remains a mystery, but the Optimus L3 lists for 1290SEK (about $192) contract-free. See, style doesn't always have to cost a fortune.

LG Optimus L3 appears in Sweden, packs entry-level style originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Y8SQefKpoKU/

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