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Sunday, July 15, 2012

Dan Satterfield wrote a new post, Tornado/Land Spout On The Eastern Shore of Virginia Today, on the site Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Near Onley, VA. Image by Cole Boniwell and Ted Painter

This was probably a water spout over land, but the thunderstorm was very intense and it may have been a regular tornado. The damage was light but there was some power outages and trees down,?along?with some minor?structural?damage. The storm formed along the?sea-breeze?and the local changes in wind direction?likely?helped to produce the rotation that was stretched?vertically by the updraft,?and formed the funnel.

Notice that the funnel forms in the updraft part of the storm, with the heavy rain just behind it, where air is descending. Land spouts can produce damage but usually it?s in the EF0 to EF 1 category. The term ?land spout? was coined by Dr Howard Bluestein at the Univ. of Oklahoma (and one of my former OU Meteorology instructors). That said, the more images I see make me believe this may have been a regular tornado?

GOES visible image of the storm over the southern part of the Delmarva in Accomack County, on the eastern shore of Virginia. NASA GOES image.

Source: http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2012/07/14/tornadoland-spout-on-the-eastern-shore-of-virginia-today/

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New proteins to clear the airways in cystic fibrosis and COPD

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2012) ? University of North Carolina scientists have uncovered a new strategy that may one day help people with cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder better clear the thick and sticky mucus that clogs their lungs and leads to life-threatening infections.

In a new report appearing online in The FASEB Journal, researchers show that the "SPLUNC1" protein and its derivative peptides may be able to help thin this thick mucus by affecting the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC). Not only does this research have implications for cystic fibrosis and COPD, but it also enhances the understanding of hypertension due to the role it also plays in controlling blood pressure.

"We hope that this study will pave the way for a new class of peptide-based channel inhibitors that can help reverse the mucus dehydration seen in Cystic Fibrosis and COPD," said Robert Tarran, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Cystic Fibrosis/Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "This would help restore mucus clearance and kick-start the lung's ability to clear unwanted pathogens."

To identify which part of SPLUNC1 actually affects ENaC, scientists eliminated parts of the protein until it lost function. In fact, even after the eliminating 85 percent of SPLUNC1, it still affected ENaC, suggesting that the ENaC inhibitory domain was in the remaining 15 percent. Researchers then synthesized an 18-amino acid peptide of this region and tested its ability to bind to ENaC and to inhibit fluid absorption in human bronchial epithelial cells derived from people with and without cystic fibrosis. This peptide inhibited ENaC and fluid absorption in all systems tested, without affecting structurally-related ion channels. They also found that ENaC activity was affected for more than 24 hours in cystic fibrosis airway cultures, suggesting that this peptide may be therapeutically beneficial for the treatment of cystic fibrosis patients who suffer from over-active ENaC and consequentially have too little lung fluid.

"Breathing is something most healthy people take for granted." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "However, people with cystic fibrosis and COPD battle for every breath because sticky mucus plugs their airways. This research should give scientists a new way of clearing the air for people with cystic fibrosis and COPD."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

Journal Reference:

Carey A. Hobbs, Maxime G. Blanchard, Stephan Kellenberger, Sompop Bencharit, Rui Cao, Mehmet Kesimer, William G. Walton, Matthew R. Redinbo, M. Jackson Stutts, and Robert Tarran. Identification of SPLUNC1's ENaC-inhibitory domain yields novel strategies to treat sodium hyperabsorption in cystic fibrosis airways. FASEB J, 2012 DOI: 10.1096/fj.12-207431

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

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/yYC008TBbIw/120713122947.htm

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Remaking Marital Law

This article was originally publish by C4SS Senior Fellow and Molinari?Institute?President Roderick T. Long for Reason on July 12, 2012.

Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law, by Elizabeth Brake, Oxford University Press, 240 pp., $24.95.

Does legalizing gay marriage go far enough?

Opponents of same-sex marriage are quick to raise the specter of polygamy. If ?everybody should have the right to marry,? Rick Santorum asked on the campaign trail earlier this year, then ?what aboutthree?men?? While Santorum clearly intended this quip as a reductio ad absurdum of calls for marriage equality, the Arizona State University philosopher Elizabeth Brake argues in?Minimizing Marriage?that recognizing polygamous and polyamorous unions is not only required by justice but doesn?t go far enough.

For Brake, marriage not only should not be restricted to opposite-sex couples, or indeed to couples at all. It constitutes unjust discrimination, she argues, to restrict marriage to romantic or sexual relationships. Instead, the social and legal status of marriage should be available to ?caring relationships? of all kinds (though not to Santorum?s further bugaboos of ?man on child? and ?man on dog? unions, since parties to marriage contracts must be legally competent). Moreover, the terms of such marriages should be flexible, rather than fixed by a state-imposed one-size-fits-all model; one might, as in one of Brake?s examples, choose to cohabit with a lover but confer one?s spousal health care benefits on an impoverished relative, and authority for end-of-life decisions on a close friend. The result is what Brake calls ?minimal marriage?: marriage with minimal requirements for recognition.

These proposals will sound attractive to many libertarians who seek to make marriage a purely contractual matter. But Brake does not follow the path to complete privatization, arguing instead that caring relationships are ?a good that the state should support.? However minimal it may be, Brake?s ideal of marriage still entails such traditional legal accompaniments as access to government benefits (mandatory spousal leave, tax-funded relocation assistance) that libertarians typically condemn as unjust, and exemption from legal requirements (immigration restrictions, duty to testify) that many libertarians would exempt the unmarried from too.

While Brake is a Rawlsian liberal rather than a libertarian, her ideal of ?minimal marriage? is explicitly modeled on Robert Nozick?s conception of the ?minimal state??the most extensive restriction compatible with justice. And like Nozick, Brake must fight a war on two fronts: against those who want more state restriction than minimal marriage offers, and against those who want less.

Against those who want more, Brake?s arguments are bold, careful, and devastating. She takes as her starting-point the idea of liberal neutrality, according to which it is unreasonable to impose controversial conceptions of the good (even correct ones) on dissenting citizens, since respect for the coerced requires that coercion be justified in terms of reasons that they could accept. Liberal neutrality is often invoked on behalf of same-sex marriage, but for Brake, restrictions on multiple-partner marriages are no less problematic. And just as heteronormativity privileges opposite-sex relationships over same-sex ones, so ?amatonormativity? (Brake?s coinage) privileges amorous relationships over other caring relationships such as friendships. Thus, the state violates liberal neutrality when it allows controversially amatonormative views about good human relationships to shape marriage law.

To concerns about children, Brake argues that childrearing and marriage are separate issues that should be legally decoupled. To worries that polygamy is frequently oppressive toward women, Brake counters that in the ?small patriarchal religious communities? where polygamy flourishes, monogamy is no better; the solution is to combat oppression generally, not just the polygamous variety.

And in response to the University of Chicago law professor Mary Anne Case?s argument that the legal function of marriage is the ?designation, without elaborate contracting, of a single other person third parties can look to in a variety of legal contexts,? Brake argues that however efficient this may be, it is unjust insofar as it privileges one marriage form over others. (Libertarian readers may be reminded of Kevin Carson?s?argument?that ?by providing a ready-made and automatic procedure for incorporation? and so reducing the associated transaction costs, the state has ?tilted the playing field decisively toward the corporate form? and so ?reduced the bargaining power of other parties in negotiating the terms on which it operates.?)

Against those who want less than minimal marriage?i.e., those who favor making the terms of marriage a purely private matter?Brake maintains that caring relationships are ?primary goods? whose value is agreed upon by virtually everybody, regardless of their more specific moral or religious convictions. States exist, in part, to ensure equitable distribution of primary goods; and since these goods are not controversial, the state?s involvement does not violate neutrality. Here libertarians are likely to find her arguments less convincing. Neutrality worries aside, are states well-suited to the task of distributing primary goods equitably? The institution?s track record does not inspire confidence.

Brake argues that simply privatizing marriage would ?cede control of this still socially powerful institution to the churches and other private-sector groups,? while continuing state involvement ?makes equal access to marriage as a social status more likely.? Yet this argument asks us to contrast a state sector imagined as reformed and improved, one whose apparatchiks have evidently read her book and taken her advice, with an unchanged private sector where her arguments have made no impact?in short, a world where marriage traditionalists still dominate public discourse but somehow never get elected. Is this a fair or plausible comparison? (Brake also maintains that the state is best suited to administer marriage because it is ?centralized? and ?not subject to market pressures,? which to libertarian ears is like saying that because a certain material is highly flammable it?s the best choice for home insulation.)

Brake dismisses the likelihood of ?ludicrously large marriages,? on the grounds that caring relationships ?require that parties be known personally to one another, share history, interact regularly, and have detailed knowledge of one another.? But whence this requirement? Epicurus famously numbered his friends (Facebook friends?avant la lettre?) by the cityful. For those of us who have been reared on a more Aristotelean, exclusive conception of friendship, the Epicurean view may seem impoverished; but by the standards of political liberalism, can the superiority of Aristotelean over Epicurean friendship permissibly be invoked in the framing of marriage law without violating liberal neutrality?

Brake is also confident that in most cases ?abuse of the right would have no major costs,? and in any cases where it might, she recommends ?bureaucratic oversight? and ?tests like those now used by immigration officials? to determine whether caring relationships are genuine. But Brake?s confidence about the rarity of costly abuse seems excessively optimistic; it?s not hard to imagine acquaintances who plan, for unrelated reasons, to move to the same city marrying to obtain relocation assistance. Or, more excitingly, the members of a criminal conspiracy marrying one another to obtain immunity from testifying. As for immigration-style tests of the genuineness of marriages, not only are these notoriously intrusive, but they are likely to lead in practice to the imposition of a normalizing model of the sort Brake seeks to avoid.

Still, one need not be a Rawlsian to think that, so long as the state is involved in areas where by libertarian standards it shouldn?t be, there?s a prima facie case for its involvement at least being conducted in as nondiscriminatory manner as possible. Perhaps roads should be privatized, but given that the state is currently building and funding them, they clearly should be open to drivers of all creeds, races, etc.; the analogous point holds for marriage law. And by libertarian standards, immigration restrictions are arguably a worse injustice?more destructive of people?s lives?than, say, tax-funded relocation benefits; so Brake?s proposal would involve less total injustice than the current system. Minimal marriage, then, has a serious claim to libertarian support.

All the same, minimal marriage has its risks, even as a second-best option. As Judith Butler warns in her essay ?Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual??: ?To be legitimated by the state is to enter into the terms of legitimation offered there and to find that one?s public and recognizable sense of personhood is fundamentally dependent on the lexicon of that legitimation.? Just as libertarians are divided as to whether to focus their efforts on petitioning the state for more liberty?inevitably, on the state?s terms?or on building alternative institutions that bypass the state entirely, a similar choice faces those who favor marriage equality.

Roderick T. Long?is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and the president of the Molinari Institute.

James Tuttle is a left-libertarian anarcho-ostromite, the Director for the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS), an occasional Instructor for the C4SS Stateless University Course: Introduction to Anarchism - Bravo Section, a Co-organizer for the Tulsa Anarchist Meetup, a Co-Editor of the left-libertarian zine ALLiance Journal, a Friend of Corvus Editions, and a proud Delegate of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: http://c4ss.org/content/10999

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Michael Jackson's $500 Million Debt: Nearly Entirely Paid Off!

Posted Friday July 13, 2012 4:18 PM GMT

Three years after his death, Michael Jackson's debt is almost paid off thanks to his estate which has reportedly brought in a fortune since the singer passed away on June 25, 2009 from an overdose.

According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Executors of his Estate indicate that more than $475 million of The King of Pop's $500 million debt has been generated by the estate as of the end of May.

TMZ reports that the documents show, "all of MJ's debts have been paid, with the exception of a BIG debt involving Michael's publishing catalog" but is expected to be entirely paid off by the end of the year.

However, TMZ also states that Jackson's mother, Katherine, is "asking for an additional $34,700 a month to pay for lawyers and accountants, and another $205,041 to cover lawyer and accountant fees from 2011" which reportedly amount to more than $13.6 million from May, 2010 through November, 2011.

Michael's camp is also working through some creditor claims and lawsuits against the estate but Jackson's former lawyer, John Branca, - who is also co-executor for the estate - has some insight as to where more money can be earned admitting, ?We learned a lot from the Elvis estate, and we see opportunities".

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/michael-jackson/michael-jacksons-500-million-debt-nearly-entirely-paid-693104

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Friday, July 13, 2012

Report on abuse scandal tarnishes Paterno legacy

FILE - In this Sept. 30, 2008 file photo, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno listens to a question during his weekly news conference in State College, Pa. Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegation against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters, according to a scathing internal report issued Thursday, July 12, 2012 on the scandal. (AP Photo/Pat Little)

FILE - In this June 18, 2012 file photo, former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa. Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other senior Penn State officials "concealed critical facts" about Jerry Sandusky's child abuse because they were worried about bad publicity, according to an internal investigation into the scandal released Thursday July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

Former FBI Director Louis Freeh gestures during a news conference, Thursday, July 12, 2012, in Philadelphia. After an eight-month inquiry, Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegation against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

An excerpt from the Freeh Group's report is shown in Philadelphia, Thursday, July 12, 2012. The report, Penn State's investigation into the Jerry Sandusky scandal, concludes that Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other senior officials "concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse". (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Former FBI director Louis Freeh speaks during a news conference, Thursday, July 12, 2012, in Philadelphia. After an eight-month inquiry, Freeh's firm produced a 267-page report that concluded that Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials hushed up child sex abuse allegation against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago for fear of bad publicity, allowing Sandusky to prey on other youngsters. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? A blistering report that claims Joe Paterno and other top Penn State officials concealed what they knew about Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children may prove to be an indelible stain on the beloved coach's 61-year tenure at the school where he preached "success with honor."

Paterno's supporters are legion, though, and some insist the late coach got a raw deal from former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose 267-page report on the Sandusky scandal Thursday asserted that Paterno and senior Penn State officials made a decision to protect Sandusky to avoid damaging the image of the school and its powerful football program.

Penn State's internal investigation into one of the worst scandals in sports history is unlikely to settle the debate about Paterno's culpability ? even as it showed him to be more deeply involved in the university's response to 1998 and 2001 abuse complaints about Sandusky than previously thought.

Damaging emails unearthed by Freeh and his team of lawyers and ex-law enforcement officials show the extent to which Paterno, Penn State President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president Gary Schultz fretted over what to do about Sandusky. Ultimately, they did nothing ? and their inaction allowed the retired defensive coordinator to continue molesting boys, the report found.

Freeh also faulted university trustees for failing to exercise proper oversight and said a culture that showed excessive reverence for the football program helped protect a pedophile. Sandusky, 68, was convicted last month of abusing 10 boys over 15 years and will likely die in prison.

Freeh's report could impact the ongoing criminal case against Curley and Schultz, who are charged with lying to a grand jury and failing to report child abuse. It will certainly factor into any future discussion about Paterno and a Hall of Fame career that includes two national championships, 409 wins, and the coach's self-proclaimed "grand experiment" that tried to blend academics, athletics and right living.

Karen Peetz, chairwoman of the board of trustees, said the panel believes Paterno's "61 years of excellent service to the university is now marred" by the scandal. Phil Knight, the Nike founder who won thunderous applause with his passionate defense of the coach at his January memorial service, acknowledged Thursday that "it appears Joe made missteps that led to heartbreaking consequences. I missed that Joe missed it, and I am extremely saddened on this day."

Yet hours after the release of Freeh's report, people were still eating scoops of Peachy Paterno ice cream at Berkey Creamery on campus, Joe Paterno shirts still hung in stores across the street from the administration building, and many of those closest to Penn State and Paterno said their faith in the coach remained unshakeable.

"I don't care what anyone says, it doesn't change the fact that he's a great man," said Briana Marshall, a junior from East Stroudsburg.

Some students and alumni felt that Freeh turned Paterno into a scapegoat, and that there was little direct evidence that he took part in a cover-up. Paterno died before he could meet with investigators.

"It's easy to vilify or blame someone who's not alive to defend himself," said Tim Sweeney, president of Penn State's official Football Letterman's Club.

Freeh, who was hired by the school's board of trustees to investigate the scandal, expressed regret for any damage to Paterno's "terrific legacy." But he stood by his work.

"What my report says is what the evidence and the facts show," he said.

What they showed, the report said, was that Paterno, Spanier, Curley and Schultz "failed to protect against a child sexual predator," burying the allegations against Sandusky out of a desire to "avoid the consequences of bad publicity."

Freeh said officials had opportunities in 1998 and 2001 to step in.

In 1998, campus police investigated after a woman complained that her son had showered with Sandusky. The investigation did not result in charges. But the emails show Paterno clearly followed the case, Freeh said, and university officials took no action at the time to limit Sandusky's access to campus ? a decision that would pave the way for Sandusky to victimize more youths.

Three years later, a coaching assistant told Paterno that he had seen Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in the locker room showers.

Freeh, citing emails and handwritten notes, concluded that Paterno intervened to stop a plan by Curley, Schultz and Spanier to report the 20001 allegation by graduate assistant Mike McQueary to child-welfare authorities.

According to the report, the administrators intended to inform the state Department of Public Welfare. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind about the plan "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe." Instead, Curley proposed to offer Sandusky "professional help."

In an email, Spanier agreed that course of action would be "humane" but noted "the only downside for us is if the message isn't (heard) and acted upon and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it."

Paterno "was an integral part of this active decision to conceal" and his firing was justified, Freeh said at a news conference in Philadelphia, calling the officials' disregard for child victims "callous and shocking."

In a statement, Paterno's family strongly denied he protected Sandusky for fear of bad publicity.

"The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept. The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events," the family said. "Sandusky was a great deceiver. He fooled everyone."

Attorneys for Spanier, Curley and Schultz vehemently denied Freeh's conclusions and said there was no effort to hide Sandusky's behavior.

The report chronicled a culture of silence that extended from the president down to the janitors in the football building. Even before 1998, football staff members and coaches regularly saw Sandusky showering with boys but never told their superiors about it. In 2000, after a janitor saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in the team shower, he told his co-workers. None of them went to police for fear of losing their jobs.

Reporting the assault "would have been like going against the president of the United States in my eyes," a janitor told Freeh's investigators. "I know Paterno has so much power, if he wanted to get rid of someone, I would have been gone." He went on to assert that "football runs this university."

Freeh said Thursday the janitors "were afraid to take on the football program. If that's the culture at the bottom, God help the culture at the top."

Attorneys representing Sandusky's victims say the report showed that Penn State failed the youngsters it had a responsibility to protect.

"The Freeh report is absolutely devastating to Penn State," said Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, part of a legal team that represents several victims in the case, including three who testified against Sandusky. "It confirms that at the highest level, Penn State officials, including the university president and head football coach, knew that Sandusky was a child predator, but made the deliberate and reprehensible decision to conceal his abuse. They chose to protect themselves, Penn State's brand and image, and their football program instead of children."

___

Associated Press National Writer Nancy Armour and AP writers Marc Scolforo in Harrisburg, Genaro C. Armas in Scranton and Geoff Mulvihill, Maryclaire Dale and Randy Pennell in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-07-13-US-Penn%20State-Abuse/id-f4ad2e602da14a0ebd1b925a7043a34c

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Pluto now has at least five moons. Can we go back to calling it a planet?

Long considered a planet, Pluto was reclassified as a 'dwarf planet' in 2006 by the?International Astronomical Union. Will the discovery of a fifth moon prompt astronomers to reconsider?

By Francie Diep,?Space.com / July 12, 2012

This image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows five moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle marks the newly discovered moon, designated P5, as photographed by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on Saturday.

NASA/ESA/M. Showalter (SETI Institute)

Enlarge

Scientists on Wednesday (July 11) announced the discovery of a fifth moon orbiting Pluto in a major solar system find. But while many people think of moons as accessories for planets, like the Earth's moon or Jupiter's many moons, Pluto doesn't quite make the cut in the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) definition of "planet."

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Despite of some determined lobbying by die-hard supporters to change its dwarf planet status, more moons around Pluto won't change its classification, experts say.

"Does it change the planetary status? Of course not," Michael Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, wrote to SPACE.com in an email. Brown's discovery of Eris, a rocky object about the size of Pluto, was a major factor in the IAU's decision to reassess exactly what constitutes a planet.

The IAU ruled that to be called a planet, an object has to meet three conditions. It must orbit the sun without being another object's satellite, it must have enough gravity to make it sphere-shaped and it must clear the area around it of other objects. But even with Pluto's five moons, it doesn't "clear the neighborhood."

Six years after the IAU's ruling, some controversy still surrounds the decision, but the official ruling is unlikely to change in response to finding more Plutonian moons. [The Moons of Pluto Revealed (Photos)]

Pluto isn't the only dwarf planet that has moons. The dwarf planets Eris and Quaoar have one, while Haumea has at least two.

No one has found any other dwarf planet that has five moons, but that may be because scientists have studied Pluto more carefully than other dwarf planets, say both Brown and Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and an advocate for classifying more objects as planets.

"It might turn out that Kuiper Belt planets commonly have significant numbers of moons," Stern told SPACE.com.

For Pluto, at least, the number of known moons may continue to grow in the near future. As scientists continue to scrutinize Pluto, looking for objects around it that may affect the New Horizons spacecraft that will arrive at Pluto in 2015, they may find even more moons.

The scientists responsible for finding out everything they can about Pluto before New Horizons' arrival have found that Pluto's moons are arranged in concentric circles around the dwarf planet. They've found moons located in what they call positions 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

"It makes you wonder if there's something at location 2 and locations 7, 8 and 9," said Mark Showalter, a planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led the team that discovered Pluto's new moon.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?and?Google+.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/QKc2TiDG4TE/Pluto-now-has-at-least-five-moons.-Can-we-go-back-to-calling-it-a-planet

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Is Italy's Berlusconi plotting a comeback?

ROME (AP) ? When Silvio Berlusconi resigned after dominating Italy's political scene for two decades, he left a country in financial shambles and a personal legacy tarnished by sex and corruption scandals.

Commentators called it the end of an era.

Eight months later, the political world is abuzz with signs that the 75-year-old media mogul is plotting a return to power that even his closest allies had considered impossible.

Even as his one-time friend, now bitter foe Gianfranco Fini appeared incredulous in a television interview Thursday night ? saying "Italians no longer believe in miracles" ? Berlusconi's allies were talking him up.

"He's our strongest candidate," said Angelino Alfano, a former justice minister previously considered as Berlusconi's heir apparent.

Berlusconi himself has yet to commit. But his friends are now openly calling him a candidate and spreading reports that business leaders are pushing him to enter the race for elections next spring. He reportedly has designed a new symbol with a patriotic touch for his party ? a kite in the Italian tricolor.

The billionaire businessman with a reputation for rebounding from setbacks was apparently keeping his supporters ? and potential ballot-box opponents ? in suspense, for now.

Excitement had been building among his backers that he might formally announce his candidacy at a political meeting Friday at a Rome hotel. Instead, after hours of waiting, Alfano, secretary of the Freedom People party that Berlusconi created, told reporters that Berlusconi "sends his regards" because he wouldn't be coming due to an unspecified "commitment."

So what's changed from the November night when he left the presidential palace by a back door following his resignation to avoid jeering demonstrators outside? The arrival of an increasingly unpopular austerity program aimed largely at reversing the excesses of his era.

Berlusconi, a three-time former premier, has always claimed to be attuned to the popular mood, such as abolishing the property tax on first homes to spur his victory in 2008 elections. His successor at the head of a technocrat government, economics professor Mario Monti, has given Italy an air of respectability in European and international circles but his economic recovery package is causing more pain than growth.

In what has become a symbol of that pain, Monti restored the property tax in one of his first acts as premier.

As Monti's approval sinks, so are Italy's economic prospects.

On Thursday, credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service downgraded Italy's government bond rating two notches on concerns that deteriorating financial conditions in Europe will lead to a sharp rise in borrowing costs. At the same time, Italy's industrial association warned that the nation was mired in recession with no sign of recovery.

One of Monti's chief economic advisers, Corrado Passera, called Moody's downgrade "unjustified," saying it failed to take into account what the Monti government has done.

Monti made clear this week he has no intention of seeking office after his term ends next spring.

The newspaper La Repubblica, one of Berlusconi's staunchest opponents, claims the possibility that the media mogul might come back "terrorizes Brussels," referring to the European Union that has been demanding reforms from debt-laden Italy. It said many in Brussels fear Berlusconi would undo Monti's reform program, although his party has been supporting it in parliament.

Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera explained the reason behind enthusiasm from his allies. It said Berlusconi's camp has figures showing his party could win as much as 28 percent of the vote with Berlusconi on the ticket compared to 10 percent without him. Nearly 30 percent would not be enough to win the election, but could make Berlusconi a major player in any coalition.

It's not that Berlusconi has been out of the public eye. His allies in the media circulate photos of him jogging to stay in shape, holding family reunions and looking after his AC Milan soccer team. Meanwhile, his media foes have gleefully shown him boarding his corporate jet accompanied by a bevy of beautiful women.

Berlusconi, however, has made only occasional appearances at his trial in Milan on charges of having sex with an underage woman and then using his office to try to cover it up. Witnesses have testified about spicy parties at Berlusconi's villa, but both he and the Moroccan woman have claimed they never had sex. In Italy, defendants are not required to attend their trials.

On the economic front, he has let himself be quoted as saying Italy should leave the common euro currency and print its own money, only to backtrack, leaving it unclear what his financial rescue plan might be.

"There is more talk in Germany of a return to the mark than in Italy of a return to the lira," he told a German newspaper.

Last year, months before he resigned, Berlusconi said he would not run again and designated Alfano as his successor at the head of his party. Now Alfano is leading the chorus of supporters asking him to take the lead.

"It's the worst (possibility)," said former school teacher Luciana Schirru, echoing many other people interviewed in Rome. " I hope he won't run and that it was the heat that gave him this idea. We are living a period of total crisis, but at least as a country we have credibility at a European level.

"If he comes back, we won't even have that."

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AP reporter Paola Barisani contributed from Rome

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-berlusconi-plotting-comeback-125344358.html

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