YouTube to Launch 25 Professional Channels?

REUTERS / Eric Gaillard

Not content going head-to-head with Netflix and iTunes by offering streaming video-on-demand movie rentals, YouTube is rumored to be close to announcing a $150-million plan to unveil multiple new channels of all-original content in the hopes of becoming a rival to major television networks

The project, which according to Deadline New York may be officially announced by the end of this month, is expected to "redefine" YouTube as a destination for professionally-produced content from some of television's most respected producers in an attempt to lure more advertisers to the site.

(MORE: Decision 2012 Goes Viral: YouTube Launches Politics Channel)

Rumors place the number of channels around 25, with the Hollywood Reporter naming companies like Warner Bros., BermanBraun and FremantleMedia as potential partners for the project.

Other names linked include, oddly enough, skateboarder Tony Hawk, suggesting that this project may have some overlap with the idea of YouTube's "celebrity channels" that was floated at the start of the year (In fact, the rumored budget-per-channel for both projects is the same: $5 million). The new channels are expected to go live at the start of 2012.

MORE: Web 2.0 is Dead - Is Celebrity The Future of The Internet?

Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

Chen Xianmei, Humble Hero: Online Furor Grows Over Hit-and-Run in China

• Related Topics: Asia, China, , bystanders, car accident, Chen Xianmei, China, China hit-and-run, Foshan, Good Samaritans, heroes, hit-and-run, Wang Yue, Yue Yue This image from video shows a girl just before she was hit by a van in a market in the Chinese city of Foshan on Oct. 13. (Photo: Reuters)

If there is a bright note to the sad story of Wang Yue, the two-year old who was ignored by more than a dozen passers-by after a hit-and-run collision, it is 57-year-old scrap picker Chen Xianmei, who stopped to help the gravely injured toddler. The incident has prompted a vast outpouring of online anger and soul searching as to how so many people could be so callous towards the suffering of a child.

Wang Yue was hit by a van in hardware market the southeastern city of Foshan on Thursday. The van that ran over her didn't stop, and a second van that also hit the child didn't stop either. Security camera video of the incident shows multiple people walk or drive past the girl on scooters and three-wheel carts.

Chen arrived about 10 minutes after the girl was hit, and can be seen in the footage dropping her bag of recyclables, straining to move the child out of the path of oncoming vehicles and then calling for help. The child's mother, who was hanging up laundry nearby, came rushing to the scene after hearing Chen's calls, which had been ignored by others, according to state media. On Monday night the child's mother posted an online update that said Yue Yue remained in intensive care and could not breathe on her own, but that she had gained some feeling in her limbs. The drivers of both vans have been arrested.

Chinese press reports said Chen had moved to Foshan from a smaller city in Guangdong, and that she spent her mornings working as a cook and collected bottles and cans in the afternoons. In video and photos online Yue Yue's sobbing parents can be seen bowing before their daughter's rescuer, a skinny woman who appears not much bigger than a child herself. In an interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily, Chen sounded flustered at the response her actions have received. The local government gave her a $3,000 reward, and a businessman reportedly offered another $15,000. "I only did a simple thing," she told the newspaper.

But her actions have raised complicated questions. Recently China has seen prominent cases of bystanders ignoring injured people. In Wuhan last month an elderly man who had fallen in a market died after he suffocated from a nosebleed. While a large crowd had gathered, no one had offered to help, and he was only taken to the hospital by family members who arrived more than an hour later, according to the official China Daily. As my colleague Hannah Beech reported, one explanation is that many Chinese fear the liability they might incur, because Good Samaritans have sometimes seen the people they intend to help turn on them. In one famous 2007 case in Nanjing, a young man who helped a woman who had fallen while getting off a bus was later sued. The woman claimed that he was the one who pushed her, and a court ruled that he was partly responsible.

Other explanations include the so-called "bystander effect," in which crowds make people less likely to help injured people. Still others discuss a decline of morality that has shadowed China's dramatic economic reforms. But it is worth noting that such questions have been around since before the People's Republic was founded. In his 1939 work Peasant Life in China, Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong examined how social obligations were determined by the closeness of relationships. Fei "called this a concentric pattern of social relations with positions measured by how close one stood in relation to the actor," Linda Wong wrote in her 1998 book Marginalization and Social Welfare in China. "The more distant the location from the centre, the weaker the claim, so that ultimately one did not have any obligation to people unknown to oneself."

There are direct echoes of that description in Chen's description of events. She told the Southern Metropolis Daily reporter that many of the people she asked for help responded that if it wasn't her child, she shouldn't bother with it. Thankfully, Chen had the decency to ignore that advice.

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$28.3 Billion: Record Apple Earnings, But Disappointed Analysts

ROBERT GALBRAITH / REUTERS

Apple has just released its fourth quarter earnings, reporting "quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share." The same quarter last year, Apple posted "revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share."

It's a new September-quarter record for the company, though earnings fell short of analyst expectations of $29.4 billion. Apple sold just over 17 million iPhones—a 21% increase over Q4 last year; just over 11 million iPads—up 166% over Q4 last year; and almost five million Macs—up 26% over Q4 last year. Sales of iPods continued to decline—down 27% over Q4 last year, likely cannibalized by iPod features built into the iPhone and iPad.

Apple's earnings call is available here.

"I'm confident we'll set an all-time record for iPhones this quarter," said CEO Tim Cook, alluding to the iPhone 4S' big opening weekend that saw four million units purchased. Those will count for the December quarter, as Apple's most recent quarter ended in September before the 4S shipped.

(MORE: Apple iPhone 4S Review: It's the iPhone 4, Only More So)

When asked about Amazon's $200 Kindle Fire tablet and its ability to compete with the iPad, Cook said, "We've seen several competitors come to market to try to compete with the iPad... I think it's reasonable to say that none of these have gained traction over time." Cook cited the iPad's extensive app catalog, new iOS features and iCloud integration before saying, "I feel very, very confident about our ability to compete."

Do We Really Need to Protect Children From the Internet?

Jeff Jarvis on Why We Don't Need to Protect Children From The Internet | TIME Ideas | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos HomeContributorsLetters InternetDo We Really Need to Protect Children From the Internet?By focusing on the dangers of the Internet, we risk losing sight of its benefitsBy Jeff Jarvis | @jeffjarvis | October 18, 2011 | View CommentsTweetGetty Images

Jarvis's latest book is Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live.

The Federal Trade Commission is recommending updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which sounds timely, wise, and worthy. But it is doing so blind to the impact and unintended consequences of its regulation.

COPPA requires that sites serving children under the age 13 must give parents notice and get consent if they collect and use personally identifiable information — which is broadly defined—about a child. Under the proposed changes, parents may no longer use email to grant consent but must jump through hoops — printing, signing, and scanning or faxing forms or holding videoconferences with the site’s employees.

The unintended consequences of COPPA are many, but the most obvious is that children have learned to lie about their age. On the Internet, everyone is 14.

(MORE: Should Kids Be Allowed on Facebook?)

On a conference call organized by the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry group, I asked Mamie Kresses, senior attorney for the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, whether there had been any study about how truthful children are reporting their ages online. They have no such research, she said. I asked whether the FTC had any data about how often parents use the means of notice and consent COPPA provides. None, she said.

The most disturbing unintended consequence of the regulation, I think, is the chill it likely puts on serving children online. In the early days of the web, I started the Yuckiest Site on the Internet — about goo, bugs, and science — to serve young readers at the local news sites I ran. After COPPA, my employer decided the risk in serving young people and even inadvertently recording a child’s name or targeting an ad was too great.

We don’t know how many sites have not been started to serve children online. Isn’t this the group we should be serving best? I asked Kresses whether the FTC had done research on the extent of a chill. No, she said.

Finally, I asked whether the FTC had revisited the reasons for COPPA. What harm are we trying to prevent by restricting identity online — and is it effective? She responded with circular logic: They are giving parents the opportunity of notice and consent regarding children’s information.

But why? In the panic around privacy brought on by technology — the Internet today and the portable camera a century ago — the discussion is being driven by the worst case, the often unspoken, presumptive fear of what bad could happen. Could children be exploited online? Sadly, yes. Are they sometimes kidnapped from streets? Tragically so. But they still play outside under our watchful eye, because they need to.

Children need to play online, too. They should create and get credit for their creativity. They should be able to establish a relationship with an educational site where they can track their own progress. Technology and the net don’t just present danger; they afford opportunity. But by focusing only on the former, we can risk losing sight of the latter.

So how do we protect young people? In the research for my book about publicness and privacy, I learned much from Danah Boyd, a leading researcher in social media and youth for Microsoft and NYU. In matters of privacy, she cautions against concentrating only on the gathering of information and suggests we focus more on regulating the use of information. That a site knows my child is from New Jersey isn’t necessarily sinister, a case of stranger danger; it’s what the site does with that knowledge that matters. In not addressing that issue, COPPA both overreaches and underserves.

Jarvis, author of Public Parts, directs the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University of New YorkRead other related stories about this:Update Urged on Children's Online PrivacyThe New York TimesRelated Topics: COPPA, Internet, Jarvis, online privacy, Business & Tech, Internet
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousWriteView Comments@TIMEIdeasLatest on TIME IdeasElections | October 18, 2011Gogues and Demons

One GOP frontrunner worships demons. The other is the anti-Christ. What’s an extremist Christian to do?

From our PartnersPlatinum Citizenship Dylan Ratigan, HuffPoEven State Immigration Laws Have to Face RealityTamar Jacoby, CNNThe Shameful Bias Against MormonsKathleen Parker, Washington PostLaw | October 18, 2011What Will Deter Insider Trading?

Longer prison sentences, like Rajaratnam’s, don’t necessarily have a greater impact. Maybe we should try public shaming

previousThe Steve Jobs Backlash BeginsnextWhat Will Deter Insider Trading?blog comments powered by Disqus Letters to the EditorOctober 17, 2011Defending Local FarmingA reader says the local food movement is not — and never was — meant to solve the global hunger problem October 14, 2011Childbirth DebateThe president of Lamaze International takes issue with a TIME Ideas piece about the myths of natural childbirthOctober 12, 2011American ProtestationsWhat does "antiglobalization" mean?Send us your letters | View more lettersMore on TIME.comPhotos: Occupy Wall StreetChicago Ideas Week 2011: Intelligence SquaredWhat You Need to Know About BullyingFull ListMost PopularTIME.COMIdeasMove Over, China: Why India May Be the Better Partner for Latin AmericaToddler Hit-And-Run Sparks Outrage in ChinaMaldives: In a Troubled Paradise, Time Runs Out on Environmental DeadlineStudy: 1 in 6 Cell Phones Contaminated With Fecal MatterScandal and the Vatican: Let's Not Talk About Kansas CityJudge Orders More Review on Polar BearsGilad Shalit and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Processjapan's booming sex niche: elder pornWhat Slovakia's 'No' Means For The EuroWhat If the China Bubble Bursts?The Steve Jobs Backlash BeginsThe Next Abortion Battleground: Fetal HeartbeatsA Prelate In The DockDo We Really Need to Protect Children From the Internet?They’re Alive! Why Apple Products Are IrresistibleWhy PSA Tests Will Be So Hard To Give UpThe Real Reason Zombies Never DieThe Real Learning CurveFrom the Arab Spring to the American Fall?Can Whites Say The N-Word?Historic TIME LettersJuly 21, 1967Source of EmbarrassmentGovernor Reagan wants an explanationSeptember 8, 1975The Hustle EmbracedGinger Rogers on discoNovember 8, 1948She is My Wife and I Have to Live With HerHumprey Bogart sticks up for Miss Bacall Powered by WordPress.com VIP Stay Connected with TIME.comSubscribe to
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iPhone 4S Battery Life Worse Than iPhone 4

Page LinksAdvertiseiPhone GlossaryLink Exchange FAQLinksPrivacy PolicyTop CategoriesiPhone NewsiPhone Applications: iPhone Apps, Jailbreak Apps, iPhone Web AppsiPhone RumorsHacksJailbreak iPhone, Jailbreak iPhone 4, Jailbreak iPhone 3GS, Jailbreak iPhone 3GNew iPhone, Next Generation iPhoneiPad, iPad 1iPhone 4CarriersRecent CommentsRosalyn on Jailbreaking iOS 5: Status UpdateChris on Siri Not Working For Some iPhone 4S Users [Updated]Chris on Siri Not Working For Some iPhone 4S Users [Updated]Chris on Siri Not Working For Some iPhone 4S Users [Updated]Jim R on How To Jailbreak iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS Running iOS 5 Using Redsn0wDesigned by BlogConsulting.com

iOS 5: Safari Is Most HTML5 Compatible Mobile Browser

Page LinksAdvertiseiPhone GlossaryLink Exchange FAQLinksPrivacy PolicyTop CategoriesiPhone NewsiPhone Applications: iPhone Apps, Jailbreak Apps, iPhone Web AppsiPhone RumorsHacksJailbreak iPhone, Jailbreak iPhone 4, Jailbreak iPhone 3GS, Jailbreak iPhone 3GNew iPhone, Next Generation iPhoneiPad, iPad 1iPhone 4CarriersRecent CommentsIvan on Redsn0w For iOS 5 Updated To Fix Location Services Issue; Also Includes Cosmetic FixMoodi on Redsn0w For iOS 5 Updated To Fix Location Services Issue; Also Includes Cosmetic FixStuff on How To Jailbreak iPod Touch 4G, iPod Touch 3G Running iOS 5 Using Redsn0wMoodi on Redsn0w For iOS 5 Updated To Fix Location Services Issue; Also Includes Cosmetic FixBigdaddi on Ultrasn0w 1.2.4 For iOS 5 Released [Unlock iPhone]Designed by BlogConsulting.com

Apple Planning To Launch iPad Mini With 7.85-Inch Screen Early Next Year?

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Cain Assailed for Tax Plan in Republican Debate

Republican candidates for president gather on stage before the beginning of a debate in in Las Vegas Nevada, Oct. 18, 2011.

(LAS VEGAS) — Republican presidential contenders attacked Herman Cain's economic plan Tuesday night as a tax increase waiting to happen, moving swiftly in campaign debate to blunt the former businessman's unlikely rise in the race for the party's nomination.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota led the assault moments after the debate began, saying Cain's call for a 9 percent federal sales tax would only be the beginning, with the rate rising later.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum wasn't nearly as gentle, citing one analysis that found that taxes would go up for 84 percent of the nation's households if Cain's proposal went into effect. "We're talking about major increases in taxes," he said, adding that a single person and a couple with children with the same income would pay the same tax under Cain's proposal.

Undeterred, Cain insisted the charges were untrue. He said he was being criticized because lobbyists, accountants and others "want to continue to be able to manipulate the American people with a 10-million- word mess," the current tax code.

Cain's proposal is for a 9 percent personal income tax, a 9 percent corporate tax and a 9 percent national sales tax. (See what's at stack in the latest debate.)

The former pizza company CEO is the latest and unlikeliest phenomenon in the race to pick a rival for President Barack Obama. A black man in a party that draws few votes from Africans Americans, he had bumped along with little notice as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sought to fend off one fast-rising rival after another.

That all changed in the past few weeks, after Texas Gov. Rick Perry burst into the race and then struggled. However unlikely Cain's rise, Tuesday night's debate made clear that none of his rivals are willing to let him go unchallenged.

"I love you, brother, but let me tell you something, you don't have to pay a big analysis to figure this out," Perry said to Cain. "Go to New Hampshire where they don't have an income tax and they don't have any interest in one," he said, referring to the state that will hold the first primary early next year.

The debate was the fifth since Labor Day, and the last scheduled for nearly a month in a race that is fluid in more than one way.

While polls chart a series of rises and falls for various contenders — Romney remaining at or near the top — the schedule is far from set. Florida's decision to move up its primary set off a scramble as Iowa maneuvered to make sure its caucuses are the first real test of the race and New Hampshire works to protect its half-century distinction as host to the first primary. (See if Romney is the eventual GOP nominee.)

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman skipped this debate. He was in New Hampshire instead because he's boycotting the Nevada caucuses in the dispute over the GOP primary calendar. Nevada has scheduled its contest for Jan. 14, and Republican officials are pressuring Romney and other Republicans to join Huntsman's boycott if the state refuses to hold the caucuses later in the month.

Romney has so far refused to join the boycott, though the New Hampshire primary, traditionally the nation's first, is a must-win contest for him. In a conference call with New Hampshire supporters before the debate, he reassured Republicans there that he sees their primary as important.

Romney also used the call to preview the line of criticism against Cain, who has been near the top of polls for over a week and has been facing intense scrutiny, particularly over his tax plan.

"Most people in middle income categories will have their taxes go up" under that plan, Romney said in the call, and he said senior citizens would be hurt.

In that, he and Democratic President Obama agree. In an interview with ABC News, Obama said Cain's tax plan would be a "huge burden" on middle-class and working families.

Romney, too, expected challenges, including over how he plans to help the economy if he does become president.

He told the Las Vegas Review Journal's editorial board in an interview: "Don't try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom. Allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up,"

Obama's campaign — increasingly focused on Romney as the likely Republican nominee — responded immediately. "Mitt Romney's message to Nevada homeowners struggling to pay their mortgage bills is simple: You're on your own, so step aside," spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report.

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Inside the Ludicrous Donald Trump Primary

Inside the Ludicrous Donald Trump Primary | Swampland | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos 2012 ElectionDebatesDemocratic PartyPollsRepublican PartyMichele BachmannMitt RomneyRick PerryWhite HouseBarack ObamaJoe BidenCongressBudgetsHouseSenateLobbyingJohn BoehnerMitch McConnellNancy PelosiHarry ReidDomestic PolicyAbortionAgricultureDebtEconomyEducationHealth CareHousingForeign PolicyAfghanistanChinaDiplomacyHillary ClintonIranIraqPhotosSpecialsVideos Republican PartyInside the Ludicrous Donald Trump PrimaryBy Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | October 18, 2011 | View CommentsTweet

With her poll numbers sagging, her political organization dwindling and prognosticators declaring her moment to have passed, Michele Bachmann called in a big gun Monday night: Donald Trump.

In a bid to bask in the reflected glow of Trump’s spotlight, Bachmann held a tele-town hall billed as an exclusive opportunity for fans to hear a real-estate mogul turned reality-TV star — whose signature phrase is “You’re fired” — hold forth on how to create jobs.

“We’re extremely excited to have Mr. Trump,” Bachmann said, during an effusive introduction in which she thanked him no fewer than four times. “He’s on the call because he’s admired, he’s respected, he’s known all over the world as a man who knows the economy.”

Never mind that the forum was news to Trump. (“I didn’t even know I was doing it until you just told me,” Trump told Fox & Friends a few hours before the conference call.) The invitation, extended by Bachmann during a breakfast meeting last week, underscores the degree to which a confab with the Donald has become an obligatory pit stop on the path to the Republican nomination. Since abandoning the successful publicity gambit of pretending to seek the presidency, Trump has gobbled pizza with Sarah Palin, talked shop at tony Jean-Georges with Rick Perry, and hosted Mitt Romney and Herman Cain on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. Neither Trump’s slim political resume nor his regrettable fling with the birther movement has dissuaded these presidential aspirants from seeking his counsel.

“He’s the godfather of politics. Everybody comes to kiss the ring,” boasts Michael Cohen, a Trump executive and confidante who has steered the mogul’s quest for political clout. “Right now in the GOP there are four recognized kingmakers. Number one, there’s Donald Trump. Number two, there’s Chris Christie. Mike Huckabee. And the fourth – is it Senator or Governor DeMint?”

Beyond the bluster, there’s a kernel of truth to this. Trump’s political platform consists mostly of gassy pronouncements about America’s declining might and the need to assert its dominance over its rivals, but it has struck a chord with a fearful electorate. “I have to give you very high marks,” Barry from Pennsylvania told Trump on the call, “because you were the first and a very profound voice to call out OPEC.”

“They suck the blood out of you every time the economy starts getting good,” Trump agreed.

While Trump’s call for tightening the screws on China may be gaining currency — the Senate passed a bill last week that would punish the Chinese for manipulating theirs — that isn’t why the Republican field is taking turns making the pilgrimage to his Fifth Avenue skyscraper. Trump has a pair of assets far more valuable than any scraps of policy wisdom he might dispense: a thick Rolodex and a significant soapbox.

For candidates struggling to fill their coffers, Trump’s connections could be a valuable ticket into Manhattan’s moneyed elite. “Trump can deliver anything to whoever the GOP nominee would be,” Cohen says. “Many of Trump’s closest friends are the titans of Wall Street, the largest developers in the world. He can raise an inordinate amount of money.”

Maybe so. But what Trump is really selling is his own ubiquity. There are few people with his bold-face cachet, which makes Trump’s endorsement — splashed across his TV show, social media platforms and the headlines he generates — a coveted one. By the same token, his megaphone is loud enough that it’s worth paying obeisance to avoid having it turned against you. Public courtship has its benefits for suitors, each of whom has been the recipient of praise for their efforts. “I have a lot of respect for Michele Bachmann,” Trump announced at the tele-town hall. “We had a wonderful breakfast the other day.”

Trump is hardly the only potential rainmaker on presidential hopefuls’ agendas; he just brags about it more. And his months roaming the fringe questioning Obama’s citizenship have made him a target for political opponents. On the day Romney slipped into Trump’s office a few weeks ago, the DNC released a video linking the two. Jon Huntsman hasn’t participated in what his spokesman has derisively dubbed “Presidential Apprentice,” and taken pains to highlight the fact that Romney has. Establishment Republicans are not going to ask how high when Donald Trump tells them to jump.

Bachmann, on the other hand, is appealing to a segment of the electorate for whom Trump’s dalliance with birtherism or boilerplate about President Obama’s weak leadership is hugely appealing. But in the end, she may be wasting her time. Trump has said he may not endorse until next summer, and that if Republican voters don’t tap a candidate he deems capable enough, he’ll consider an independent bid for the presidency.

This isn’t a credible threat. (Why would a guy who claims he’s committing to ousting Obama make that task tougher by vulturing conservative votes?) But by cracking the door a tad, Trump ensures that he’ll be able to siphon off the political spotlight a while longer. It’s a fitting plot point for a presidential campaign that has become the most sordid reality show of all.

Related Topics: donald trump, herman cain, jon huntsman, Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, rick perry, Republican Party
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousWriteView Comments@TIMEPoliticsLatest on SwamplandUncategorized | October 17, 2011The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

It’s sort of fun to watch as the right-wing press attempts to handle the phenomenally unprepared and unworthy Herman Cain with kid gloves. Here, for example, is the neoconservative Weekly Standard, explaining Cain’s cluelessness about neoconservatism on Meet the Press:

 ”Would you describe yourself as a neoconservative then?” [David] Gregory asked.

Like any good Socratic neoconservative, Cain answered the question with a question: ”I’m not sure what you mean by neoconservative?  I am a conservative, yes.  Neoconservative?–labels sometimes will put you in a box. I’m very conservative, but…”

“But you’re familiar with the neoconservative movement?” Gregory asked.

“I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement,” Cain replied. “I’m familiar with the conservative movement.” Cain was able subtly to indicate that he knows, unlike Gregory, that neoconservatism is apersuasion or tendency, not a movement.

Are you kidding me? A subtle Socratic? Actually, Cain has a tendency to be unsubtly unpersuasive on a cornucopia of issues.

From our PartnersJimmy Carter: 'I'm Optimistic' Obama Will Win 2012Huffington PostFive Questions for President ObamaPoliticoMichele Bachmann: Rick Perry Rewarded Donors With State MoneyHuffington PostBarack Obama | October 17, 2011Obama’s ‘Campaign’ for the Jobs Bill

Arizona Senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain took to the Senate floor Monday to lambast the President’s listening tour this week on jobs. From his remarks:

The president is now on his listening, quote, listening tour, at taxpayers’ expense the president made these remarks on a taxpayer-paid-for, riding in a Canadian bus, visit for the next three days… White house officials insist the trip is about jobs, not votes. So much so, in fact, they a conference call to reiterate that point several times pointing out that the trip is fully on the taxpayers’ dime, not the republicans’ re-election campaign. So the president has taken to the road and, I mean, he spent a number of minutes attacking our plan, and I understand that. I think he has the — certainly in a political venue — the right and privilege to do that. I think the question might be, though, is that appropriate on the taxpayers’ dime, since it is clearly campaigning. And, I must say again, I’ve never seen an uglier bus than the Canadian one. He’s traveling around on a Canadian bus touting American jobs. So — and one of the reasons why Americans and I and my colleagues are a bit skeptical, because we’ve seen this movie before. We saw this movie before. It feels a little bit like something we’ve heard before.

Setting aside the fact that, as White House Communication director Dan Pfeiffer pointed out to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus was made by the same company, there are two interesting points here.

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Should School of the Americas' 'Coup Academy' Be Closed?

General Manuel Antonio sits February 28, 1988 in Panama.

Stephen Ferry / Liaison / Getty Images

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in Le Monde.

MEXICO CITY — Few of the hemisphere's training centers can boast as many ex-leaders and government strongmen among its graduates. For many schools, this would no doubt be an excellent marketing pitch. Not so for the School of the Americas (SOA). None of its famous alumni reached power by way of the voting booth. Some are even behind bars now, either convicted or facing prosecution in their respective countries for abuse of power.

Created in 1946 by the U.S. government, the SOA was initially set up in Panama. During the Cold War, it was the primary training grounds for military hierarchies across Latin America. Among its more famous students is Manuel Noriega, who established a military dictatorship in Panama and is currently in prison in France, accused of working for the Medellín cocaine-trafficking cartel. Elias Wessin, who participated in the coup that toppled the Dominican Republic's Juan Bosh, also attended the academy, as did Hugo Banzer of Bolivia, who went on to become his country's dictator. Then there was the ex-president of Argentina, Roberto Eduardo Viola, and Vladimiro Montesinos, aid to former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. Montesinos oversaw Peru's intelligence service. He was later jailed for arms trafficking and corruption. The list goes on. See pictures of Culiacán, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.

SOA alumni have been actively connected to human rights violations throughout the region, first in their fight against the extreme left, and then in the fight against drug trafficking. In the end, many of them ended up allied with the drug traffickers themselves. In Venezuela, Gen. Efraín Vázquez, an SOA graduate, was involved in the failed coup d'état attempt against Hugo Chavez in 2002.

This record was enough for some U.S. lawmakers to finally take a stand. Last August, 69 members of the House of Representatives (two republicans and 67 democrats) signed a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (Whinsec), as SOA was re-christened in 2001. Since opening, the school has changed names five times, "but not the curriculum," says Pablo Ruiz, spokesperson for SOA Watch (SOAW), an NGO that has worked to close the institution down.See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.

A free trip to the United States

Lieutenant Zarza (a pseudonym) is one of 1,764 Mexican soldiers who have studied at SOA. Although he spoke openly with AméricaEconomía, he was pushing the bounds of acceptable military behavior, and asked not to be identified to avoid punishment.

Zarza arrived at SOA in the second half of the 1990s, and he admits that when his superior recommended him for the course on intelligence, he knew little to nothing about the school. His education, up to that point, had been in the line of duty, and he was often on the front lines of the battle against drug trafficking.

"For me, it was a scholarship to go to the United States. I wasn't high ranking and I didn't have any specialty in the field, but I had the highest grades in the preparatory courses, so in spite of the complaints of higher ranking officials, I went to Fort Benning," he says.

Some time thereafter, he ran into the institution's history when he saw his name and rank on the Internet, as part of a list of former students that various NGOs make public.

"I can't speak to what happened at the SOA in the past, but when I attended courses, I didn't see anything spectacular," he says. "I would even say that the courses weren't very good, and there wasn't anything new about the military policy. Mexico and the United States have very similar doctrines."

Zarza doubts that it is possible to brainwash someone in the three or six months that students attend courses at the SOA. "We even had a Colombian instructor who advised us to be careful with the gringos, so that we wouldn't have the same problems as in Colombia," he remembers.

He also affirms that he never encountered any teaching about torture techniques, nor suggestions regarding coups d'états. And how can we explain that neither Colombia nor Mexico, two countries who sent a substantial number of students to SOA, have had a coup d'état? See pictures of Colombia's guerrilla army.

Zarza has a hypothesis. "Once, a South American soldier asked us how we resolved the problem with the Indians. We responded 'we are the Indians,'" he says. He thinks that the fact that the military in Chile and Argentina pulls from the upper classes increases the risks of a military coup. In Mexico, in contrast, "whoever enlists in the military does it either out of necessity or calling."

For Argentina, enough is enough

In 2006 SOAW, led by its founder, the Catholic priest Roy Bourgeois, and the organization's Latin America specialist, Lisa Sullivan, managed to get Argentina to stop sending students to SOA, which is currently located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia.

"The School of the Americas has done a lot of bad things, and it continues to push the idea of a 'war on drugs' and 'war on terrorism,'" said Argentina's then-minister of defense, Nilda Garre, during the official ceremony that made the decision law.

In Argentina today, terrorism and drug trafficking are problems that are tackled by the police, not the military. Later, Bolivia, Uruguay and Venezuela followed Argentina's example and stopped sending students to SOA.

For Kimberly Nolan, a researcher at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching of Mexico (CIDE), it is possible that both the military and SOA's critics are telling the truth. U.S. interests and the role of the military in Latin America have changed since the 1980s. "The United States doesn't think as much about the region. Latin American countries are already democratic and stable," she says.

The focus indeed has shifted from the fight against communism to the fight against organized crime. But if ever the War on Drugs goes the way of the Cold War, the SOA will find itself a military school without an enemy for its blackboards.

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Taking on the Lord's Resistance Army: Why the U.S. Should Go into Africa

Joseph Kony, leader of the rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army makes a rare statement to the media during peace talks on August 1, 2006 on the Congo-Sudan Border. (Photo: Adam Pletts / Getty Images)

WAPO and NYT reporting over the weekend that the US will send around 100 armed advisers to help the Ugandan military work the stubborn problem of the Lord's Resistance Army, a beyond-its-expiration-date insurgency that's terrorized rural populations across four states for a couple of decades now. These guys really are the worst of the worst, engaging in atrocities galore, mass rape as a tool of terror, and the forced recruitment of child soldiers. They check every box on war crimes.

No direct threat to cite here, and no linkages to transnational terrorism, so this is a pure humanitarian/regional stability play - exactly what Africom was initially sold as doing. Lately, Africom's focus has shifted dramatically to killing bad actors as part of the long war against violent extremism, so this is a good image-enhancing move already being applauded by human rights groups. Nobody likes the LRA. They're essentially an insurgency that outlived the civil war and they've been doing their crimes for so long that they don't know how to stop, so the key here will be crafting some exit strategy for the rank and file while separating the leadership for prosecution. The longtime leader, Joseph Kony, is a true nutcase.

The nice upside of this move: it has Africom working with militaries and governments in Uganda, the D.R. Congo, Central African Republic, and fledgling state South Sudan - all states in real need of military mentoring. So this is the right subject, right sort of states, and helping in the way Africom was designed to work. It's a nice move by the Obama administration that speaks to the reality that a lot of this work still needs to be done across Africa. China won't do it, so it's us or nobody.

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Gilad Shalit Release: Israeli Joy Mixed over Prisoner Swap

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit salutes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he disembarks from an army helicopter at Tel Nof air base in Israel on Oct. 18, 2011

Israel was happy, very happy. The news of a deal to bring home the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit arrived with the holiday of Sukkot, a traditionally cheerful weeklong harvest festival made effervescent by the news that a young man held captive by Hamas for five years was coming home to his family.

But by the time Shalit actually walked free on Tuesday, so frail he passed out on the helicopter ride home, the elation was tempered by the reality of the price Israelis had paid to set him free. The 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for the lone Israeli corporal turned out to include men and women convicted of some of the worst terrorism attacks in a country still haunted by the memory of the second intifadeh. (See pictures of the five-year ordeal of Gilad Shalit.)

"Ambivalent," says Aya Ilouz, of her feelings on the matter. Strolling in downtown Jerusalem with her husband Liron and their 5-month-old daughter Yael, the couple is so in sync on the question of the day that they finish each other's thoughts.

"Yes," says Liron, "we are very happy and excited to see Gilad meet his family. And on the other hand—"

"We are very concerned," says Aya.

"About what happens next," Liron explains. "When the next terrorist blows himself up, someone will have to answer."

Just around the corner, on King George Street, Alan Bauer had been walking home with his son on March 21, 2002, when a Palestinian man named Mohammad Hashaika detonated a suicide vest packed with metal scraps. The head of a screw pierced his son Yonatan's brain; the boy survived but was blind for three weeks and still limps. Another bit of metal went through Bauer's left forearm; he rolls up a sleeve to display the scar, an indentation in the flesh the shape and size of a D-cell battery. Eighty-four other people were wounded that day. Of the three killed, one was a woman pregnant with twins.

Though the bomber of course died, Israeli courts convicted the two women who drove him to the site of the bombing, easing his way past the Israeli checkpoint by buying flowers to carry in the Mother's Day crowd. The women watched from a safe distance — though still near enough that one entered a restaurant in clothes flecked with flesh.

"These women, as I speak, are being released," Bauer says.

The Chicago native addressed reporters in a room where the television was tuned, like most other sets in Israel, to live coverage of Shalit's return. In an abrupt shift of tone, an organizer inserted a DVD of the documentary For the Sake of Allah and the screen was filled with jailhouse interviews of Palestinian militants discussing, often casually, the mechanics of carrying out "operations." Specifics have a way of undermining the euphoria of Shalit's release. Among the 477 prisoners released on Tuesday, in the first phase of the exchange, are an organizer of the 2002 Passover bombing that killed 30 people, the deadliest attack of the second intifadeh; a woman who developed an online relationship with a lovesick Israeli youth she then had murdered when he came to meet her; and the man who proudly displayed his bloody hands to the mob gathered outside the Ramallah building where two Israeli soldiers were beaten to death after making a wrong turn on Oct. 12, 2000. (See pictures of Palestinians freed in the prisoner swap with Israel.)

When the list became public, relatives of terrorism victims appealed, without success, to Israel's supreme court to prevent the prisoner exchange. The court hearing was interrupted repeatedly by distraught survivors, including Shvuel Schijveschuurder, who lost five of his family members in a 2001 attack at a Jerusalem Sbarro. To protest the release of the woman who drove the suicide bomber to the pizza restaurant, Schijveschuurder poured paint on a memorial to Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister slain by an Israeli extremist for signing the Oslo Accords.

"When we say 1,027 prisoners will be released, it's abstract, it doesn't mean anything," says Eliad Moreh Rosenberg, who was wounded in the 2002 terrorism bombing at the Hebrew University cafeteria. "But for victims of terror, it's a reality."

Prisoner swaps have happened often enough that statistics have been compiled. Israeli officials calculate that 60% of those released resume terrorism attacks. To help prevent that resumption this time around, Israel insisted that most of the prisoners liberated be sent either to the Gaza Strip — which is sealed off from Israel and under the control of Hamas, which says it continues to observe a cease-fire — or into exile in Turkey, Qatar or Syria. About 100 arrived in the West Bank, where the government led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas works diligently to suppress terrorism, coordinating with Israeli intelligence and military.

Still, in voting against the swap in the Israeli Cabinet, which overwhelmingly approved the deal, Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon noted that Palestinians freed in a 1985 exchange — which brought three captured soldiers home from Lebanon in exchange for 1,150 prisoners — would later cause the deaths of 178 Israelis. "They've essentially released a time bomb for which no one will take responsibility," says Bauer.

With the future unceratin, on Tuesday, Jewish Israelis stopped and stared at televisions wherever they came upon them. On the sidewalk at midmorning outside the 24-hour Hillel Market, 50 people were gathered under a flat screen to catch the first images of Shalit, looking painfully thin as he was marched through a high-ceilinged hall at the Egyptian border. Behind the cash register, Merav Cohen promised champagne for everyone the moment Shalit entered Israel.

"It was moving. It was very exciting," says Anat Rubin, 42. "I just saw photos of him getting out of the car. It gave me chills." But she says she heard Hamas say that, learning from success, it was keen to kidnap more Israelis in order to win freedom for the 6,000 Palestinians still in Israeli prisons. "I don't want to see the photos of them doing the V for victory," she says. "Like they won. They are really releasing murderers. I'm happy and sad all together."

— With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Jerusalem

See more international news in Global Spin.

Update On Siri For iPhone 4; Release Seems Unlikely

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iPhone 4S Goes To Space

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Higher Prices: The Odd Reward for Being a Loyal Customer

Businesses Overlook Existing Customers to Attract New Ones, Raise Profits | Moneyland | TIME.com /* */ Home TIME Magazine Photos Videos Specials Topics Subscribe Mobile AppsNewslettersRSS @TIME NewsFeed U.S. Politics World Business Money Tech Health Science Entertainment Opinion SEARCH TIME.COM Full Archive Covers Videos Saving & SpendingBankingBorrowingBudgetingCredit CardsIdentity TheftOdd SpendingSavingSmart SpendingTaxesPlanningDecision MakingEducational FinancingEstate PlanningInsuranceRetirementInvestingBondsMarketsPortfolio StrategyStocksWall StreetReal Estate & HomesForeclosuresHome ImprovementHome-Equity LoansMortgagesReal Estate MarketsReverse MortgageCareers & WorkplaceCareer StrategiesJob MarketsSmall BusinessesWork/Life BalanceEconomics & PolicyFinancial Values SurveyFinancial ReformPsychology of MoneyScamsThe EconomySpecials Psychology of MoneyHigher Prices: The Odd Reward for Being a Loyal CustomerBy Brad Tuttle | @bradrtuttle | October 18, 2011 | View CommentsTweetPhoto-Illustration by Alexander Ho for TIME; Getty Images (2)

New customers are routinely wooed with special discounts for services like pay TV and newspaper subscriptions. Existing customers, on the other hand, can expect regularly escalating bills unless they put up a fight or beg for a price break. Why do businesses treat loyal customers this way?

The short answer is that the pricing structure that favors new customers makes business sense, even though it’s also guaranteed to annoy many existing customers. Jacking up prices is standard business practice for pay TV, wireless plans, and newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and the short-lived special perks and introductory rates on credit cards and bank accounts work in the same way too.

But shouldn’t a business give the best treatment—along with the best prices—to its best, most loyal customers? That’d be nice, but it’s not the way things play out in the marketplace.

(MORE: Customer Service Hell)

A Minneapolis Star-Tribune column explains that, as odd as it may sound, new customers who have never given a company a dime are valued more than existing customers who have been paying regular monthly bills for years. Or at least a business’s ability to attract new customers is valued more highly by investors:

“New acquisition looks good for investors,” explains David VanAmburg, managing director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which tracks how happy customers are with everything from TV service to pet food. Unfortunately, shareholders, not customers, rule.

Once a customer is on board, the typical business M.O. is to maximize the amount the customer will spend, hoping that some combination of appreciation for the service and the inertia causing consumers to stick with the status quo allows the business to make larger profits without causing the customer to cancel the service or otherwise jump ship. Businesses bank on the “personal life hassle cost”—a phrase summing up the time, energy, and other hassles required to switch service providers—as an argument for customers to just submit to higher bills. It is someone’s job (probably, many people’s job) to carefully calculate how to sneak in incremental price hikes without overdoing things and chasing away customers.

This business model creates profits, at least in the short run. What it doesn’t create are genuinely loyal customers—just ones who stick with the company because they don’t want to be bothered to cancel.

(MORE: Raise Prices in a Slow Economy? Nice Try)

Psychologists call the tendency to avoid change and stick with the familiar “cognitive fluency,” and it affects consumer behavior, and the way consumers are treated by companies, in obvious ways. At some point, a company is likely to overplay its hand and raise prices too quickly and without adequate explanation or justification, and its mildly annoyed customers will get annoyed enough to drop the service. Just look at what’s been happening with Netflix.

Brad Tuttle is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @bradrtuttle. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

Read other related stories about this:The high price of loyaltyStarTribuneRelated Topics: bills, brand loyalty, cognitive fluency, inertia, pay TV, utilities, Banking, Credit Cards, Economics & Policy, Psychology of Money, Saving & Spending, Smart Spending
emailprintshareLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggMixxDel.i.ciousView Comments@TIMEMoneylandLatest on MoneylandSmart Spending | October 18, 2011T-Mobile Sends Customer $201,000 Phone Bill

We’ve all gotten a utility bill that was larger than we were expecting. A $250 electricity bill here. A $100 gas bill there. This family got one, too. Except, it was a cell phone bill for more than $200,000.

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Cain's Electrified-Fence Comment Raises Concern in Mexico

A US Border Patrol vehicle drives along the fence separating the US from Mexico, near the town of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, on July 31, 2010.

Alfredo Estrella / AFP / Getty Images

While Mexico is deeply divided over a tumultuous drug war and tough economic times, the nation can always find unity in one sacred cow issue: defending its migrants in El Norte. Almost every family in the country has members in the United States, many sweating on fields, construction sites or in restaurants and sending home to dollars to keep ramshackle villages and city barrios alive. So when Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain joked about a killer electric fence to keep migrants out, political electric shocks surged rapidly south of the Rio Grande. From pulpits by the border to editorial offices in the capital, priests and editors vented their anger at comments they called "stupid," "barbaric," and "shameful."

But even if Cain's comments by themselves can be dismissed as an unsuccessful attempt at humor that produced fury instead, Mexican commentators and congressman have voiced concern about a bigger political picture. In the run-up to the Republican primaries, several candidates have been outbidding each other over who can be toughest over the southern border. Within their discourses, the issue of illegal immigration has become mixed up with that of keeping Mexico's drug war from spilling into the U.S. Pundits here fear that if this rhetoric carries over into the 2012 presidential elections, it will exasperate both anti-migrant and cross-border tensions. "In this environment, the electoral weapon has been used to Satanize migrant workers and paint them as being the cause of the lack of jobs and insecurity," an editorial in Mexico City's La Jornada newspaper declared Monday. "Each one of these excessive verbal statements increases the danger, discrimination and exploitation that foreign workers — many Mexican — face in the United States." (See 10 questions with Mexican president Felipe Calderón.)

Cain made his comments on Saturday at a campaign stop in Cookville, Tennessee. "We'll have a real fence, 20 feet high with barbed wire, electrified, with a sign on the other side that says, 'It can kill you,' " Cain said to raucous applause. "What do you mean insensitive? What is insensitive is when they come to the United States across our border and kill our citizens and kill our border patrol people." The following day, Cain clarified the statement was a joke, not a real proposal. "That is not a serious plan," Cain said. "I've also said America needs to get a sense of humor. That is a joke, okay."

However, few in Mexico could see the funny side of the comments. The Bishop of Ciudad Juárez Renato Ascencio León said following his Sunday mass that the Republican candidate was "ridiculous." "In many places such as Germany they are taking down barriers. Here they are putting them up," he said. "Many come from the United States into Mexico without any papers at all." On a national radio show, popular journalist Carmen Aristegui said Cain's comments were gravely concerning. "We are seeing a rise in extremism in the United States," Aristegui said. "These ideas are absurd, stupid." (See pictures of Mexico's ongoing drug violence.)

On the streets of Mexico City, many locals said they were concerned about the tone in the American electoral debate. "How can you joke about killing poor people who are searching for a better life?" asks Jaime Carrillo, 42, an accountant. "And what if this guy became president? These kind of comments would cause tension between our countries." Presidential hopeful Rick Perry also provoked ire earlier this month when he suggested that U.S. troops may have to cross into Mexico to fight drug cartels. Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. swiftly replied that that "U.S. troops on Mexican soil is not on the table." Candidate Mitt Romney has also waded into the issue, criticizing Perry for being too soft on the border, while saying, "Illegal immigration burdens us and is a threat."

Migrant activists point out that the candidates are actually creating heat over an issue that has already been acted on in recent years. The number of undocumented migrants entering the United States has dropped sharply over the last decade, thanks to increased security and fewer American jobs. Back in 2000, the border patrol made more than 1.6 million apprehensions on the southern border. This fell to just over one million in 2005 and to 404,000 by last year.

In a migrant shelter in the northern edge of Mexico City, several hopefuls lamented that it is much tougher to cross the border than before. "We have to find new places to get over and there are more agents," says Manuel de Jesus Contreras, 37, who had traveled from Honduras. Contreras had previously worked as security guard in Seattle, Washington but was deported because of a lack of papers. "The job situation in the United States is harder now as well. But I am determined to make it and find something. I have children to feed. I don't want to hurt or kill anybody. I just want to be able to support my family."

See TIME's video interview with Herman Cain.

See photos of a marijuana plantation found in Mexico.