Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/300921247?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013
The Lenovo Ideaphone K900 is coming May 6; looks like the best phone you'll never get to use
Intel's Clover Trail processor is coming soon to the far east market
Remember back at CES when we looked at the Lenovo K900? Five months later and it finally has an official release date of May 6 according to Lenovo's Chinese website. There is no price or any other information attached, but it certainly looks like this one is destined for China and / or the rest of the far east only. And that's a shame.
I'm certain there are plenty of us here on this side of the world who would love to see the first Intel Clover Trail powered smartphone for sale. The 5.5-inch 440+ ppi screen hides a 2.0GHz dual-core Intel processor and 2GB of RAM, with a 13MP camera (including a Sony Exmor lens) around the back. It's all tied together with Android 4.2 inside a nice metal chassis. The whole package left us pretty impressed when we had a look.
If this one ever ends up in the Americas, I'd love to take it for a spin. In the meantime, we have some lovely pictures of it at the source link. At least Kobe gets to play with it.
Source: Lenovo; via: GSM Insider
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/UqFCYVkc3A8/story01.htm
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The Bank of Apple (AAPL) - Bill Tatro - Townhall Finance ...
Given the dramatic plunge of Apple, Inc. stock over the past several months, I decided to take a break from all the current ills of the world, as well as seek some relief from President Obama?s latest indiscretion (did he actually host a million dollar Memphis Soul party at the White House?) in order to determine if I can assist with Apple?s turnaround.
First, I needed to verify the negative factors that are influencing the company.? The list is actually not that long:
??????? Essentially no new products since Steve Jobs passed away (iPhone 31 doesn?t count)
??????? CEO Tim Cook hasn?t quite grasped the jeans and t-shirt look?? ?
??????? Cannibalization of iPad, to smaller iPad, and then smallest iPad, does absolutely nothing for the bottom line
??????? Cheapening the products by cheapening the components diminishes quality control
??????? Competition knocking at the door (actually the competition is already inside the house) reduces the likelihood? of corporate bonuses
OK, enough with the negatives.? The positives are rather obvious:
??????? It?s Apple for goodness sake
??????? The stock features a really cool dividend of 2.5%
??????? The ?anticipation marketing? is second to none
??????? There isn?t anybody in the entire universe who hasn?t heard of Apple (except creatures from outer space)
??????? Obviously, Apple has a lot of money ? just not here
In fact, this positive aspect of money really made me think.? If investors are anticipating an increase in the abovementioned dividend, they will be sadly disappointed (get away from the negatives already) because Apple?s upper management team decided to utilize only their domestic funds to maintain, not increase, the dividend payout.?
Source: http://townhall.com/columnists/billtatro/2013/04/23/the-bank-of-apple-aapl-n1575609
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The Reference Frame: Scott Aaronson: a prototype of some ...
Quantum mechanics is natural, not plagued by problems; maths relevant for physics worships the rules that are natural for continuous, not discrete, structures
I received my copy of Scott Aaronson's book ? thanks to him ? and I sometimes find some time to read a chapter or two. So let me post several comments on my impressions ? and generalized comments about thinkers like him.
First, the book is very witty, narcisistically witty. Its language is very informal. It's totally OK with me because at least one-half of my parental background is extremely detached from any world resembling the Academia (and even rural if one returns by one more generation). However, the average-man-on-the-street language sometimes sounds really bizarre and astroturfal if you realize that the author is a archetypical model of a left-wing Academic carefully parroting all these people's collective delusions ? including "gems" such as the very global warming hysteria ? and confined to a snobby ivory tower. ;-)
The preface tells you a funny story how Scott Aaronson didn't sue the authors of a commercial who quoted a few sentences from his talk or whatever it was. But it already presents some "basic scientific philosophy". The only problem is that most of the basic theses are wrong and even when it comes to the correct ones, Scott talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.
Now, after I have finished reading Chapters 1-3 as well, the preface looks much less agreeable to me than it did before, probably because I see what was actually the "grander goal" of various sentences and I can evaluate in a more "moral" way than just by their literal validity.
Right after I finished the preface, I thought that the comments about the author's "suspicion about everything that is continuous" were the only major problem. But right now, it seems that most of the basic philosophic tenets are deeply flawed.
For example, the counter-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics is already discussed in the preface. And if I realize what he actually wrote, it seems so fundamentally flawed to me! First, Scott wants to make as "modest" claims about the interpretations as possible. So he announces he won't pick any preferred one but he will agree with anyone who says that there is a problem with quantum mechanics and disagree with every interpretation that presents quantum mechanics as a complete and consistent framework to do physics.
In most respects, I would also prefer to be independent of "tastes" and ill-defined words and philosophies that don't produce in principle observable differences from others but the main message that goes beyond these things would be exactly the opposite one's than Aaronson's. There isn't any problem with quantum mechanics. If you want to find a problem with a theory within the scientific method, you must actually show what it is ? its incorrect prediction of an observation or an internal inconsistency. These people's vague feeling that "something must be wrong with a theory" even though they know very well that there doesn't exist any sensible observation that would actually back this criticism only shows that these people's thinking is unscientific. They prefer emotions, feelings, animal instincts, dogmas, and stupidity over cold reasoning and empirical evidence.
The problem gets even more manifest when the author says what we should do when we find out that our intuition was wrong. We should fix our intuition to be sure that next time, we will have more sensible expectations and what Nature is telling us won't look crazy or extremely unlikely to us again. I originally thought that this was what he was writing and I would agree with that.
However, now I think that this "right reaction" was just the beginning of his explanation that ended up with a totally different conclusion. He thinks that he was told that his physical intuition was wrong while no one gave him a path to correct his intuition. It's like flunking him on an exam without providing any hint how he could have done better, Aaronson wrote. He thinks that it's sensible for him to switch to other courses where he can earn As.
But whether someone told him how to correct his intuition, the most important thing is still that he has failed the exam! His intuition didn't agree with Nature's actual behavior so he and his musings had to be flunked. The purpose of science isn't to provide help to children who were left behind. The purpose of science is to find the truth by eliminating the ideas that are wrong. In Aaronson's analogy, flunking the bad students isn't a negative side effect of science; it is its very purpose! And I think that much like the Islamic terrorists, he is personifying the wrong ideas about quantum mechanics ? they become a student in his metaphor ? in order to convert such a student to a human shield whose destruction should be considered inhuman. But it's still totally necessary to destroy what is behind the student if we want to study these things scientifically!
Now, it's sensible for a flunked student to try something else (falsified ideas in science usually get no additional opportunities: that's a difference showing why the personification is misleading). But it's still important that if he hasn't found a way to correct his knowledge or intuition, he has not mastered the subject. In these circumstances, it's kind of painful for him to write a book about the subject he has not mastered! Claiming that the exam was hard, the examiners were cruel, and they didn't provide the poor whining student with any hope how to get better shouldn't be used as an excuse to write rubbish about things he doesn't understand.
Incidentally, this particular opposition to science ? "science must be corrected so that no poor child is left behind" ? is a predominantly left-wing assaults against the dignity of science (I count spoiled whining frats who flunked an exam among the leftists). The association of the phrase with George W. Bush is an exception that confirms the rule.
May we help the students to understand how to fix their intuition (about quantum mechanics and, more generally, about other things)? I have tried to do so for years and the results are mixed. But these are mere pedagogical efforts, not a part of the scientific research. Even if almost no one can be explained how to correct his intuition, it means absolutely nothing for the validity of quantum mechanics. The validity of a scientific theory doesn't boil down to the science's being accessible to most people. Indeed, most of the modern science ? and not just quantum mechanics ? is pretty much inaccessible to most people in practice. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong about the science! To show that there is something wrong with a scientific theory, one must find valid evidence of an internal contradiction or a contradiction with the experiments according to the proper professional rules of science, not just to whine that these things are hard to understand!
At the end, the scientific claims on quantum mechanics in the book (so far) are bad but they aren't that bad. He wants the information to become the central player. It's just fine with me. It's an OK sketch of the philosophy predestined as a theme for a book. However, if such a meme is promoted to a key dogma that decides about the validity of all other detailed scientific questions, you shouldn't be shocked that one ends up with wrong answers to most questions. Science can't be guaranteed to obey predetermined dogmas. No one can guarantee that if you try to write a book where a whole scientific discipline is presented as a consequence of a short slogan, it will be a valid book. Indeed, most likely, it will be garbage.
Chapter 1 focuses on Democritus, atomists, and some very general philosophical questions about experience vs abstract scientific theories. But they aren't really brought to the level of the state-of-the-art science. So in some sense, it remains a superficial chapter about the ancient Greek philosophy that is disconnected with the rest.
Chapter 2 talks about sets, their elements, axioms, quantifiers, axioms of Peano Arithmetics, cardinals, ordinals, Axiom of Choice, continuum hypothesis, models for axioms, and general observations about the consistency of axiomatic systems. It's nicely written but given the fact that the book is supposed to be primarily a book about a discipline of physics, I would say that this chapter is pretty much disconnected from the primary topic of the book. The questions related to set theory aren't "remolded" to become useful for or valid from the viewpoint of physics. The most likely reason is that the author just hasn't understood what the relationship is. So he's only eclectically combining things he has heard from different sources.
What's the relationship?
Axioms and set theory may be used as a starting point to define the mathematical frameworks used in physics. But axiomatic systems and physics aren't the same thing. The most important difference between mathematics and natural sciences is that in mathematics, one may study pretty much any sets of axioms he finds interesting; in natural sciences, we want to learn the true axioms that are respected by Nature, at least within an approximation.
I am afraid that Scott Aaronson ? and pretty much everyone who is trying to reshape physics as a discipline of computer science ? just fails to understand this basic fact about the scientific method. He apparently thinks that if he writes down some facts about the integers or discrete sets or Peano algorithms or algorithms, they ? because they look "elementary" or "fundamental" from some viewpoint (as starting points, they contain no reducible beef in them) ? must be fundamental things behind physics, too.
But that's now how natural sciences work. Peano Axioms or algorithms or Turing machines may be the elementary concepts in various branches of maths and computer science but they're not guaranteed to be ? and they actually aren't ? the key ideas upon which the structure of physics is built. In science, we must be open-minded what are the right axioms ? even what is the "general spirit" of the axioms, the philosophy of the right theories, and the character of the mathematical structures that are used to describe the world. Those things simply aren't up to us.
Scott Aaronson and pretty much all the computer scientists trying to conquer physics, "discrete physicists", and related sets of people just can't accept this basic point.
They pompously think that they're in charge, they may order Nature to follow their dogmas, and it's Nature's duty to find a way to follow them (and to pay income taxes, carbon taxes, and 50 other types of taxes as well). But Nature won't accept this role. Nature is a harsh examiner who evaluates Scott Aaronson's predictions and ? more generally ? intuition. She finds out that he fails in Test 1 and Test 2, among others (he thinks that Nature should be discrete etc.), so she flunks him. When he starts to whine that Nature is obliged to help him to get a chance to get an A, She just tells him to sh*t up, f*ck off, and, if needed, hang himself. He has no f*cking business to tell Nature how She should behave or even to promote the culture of entitlement or other left-wing diseases and corruption.
Chapter 3 reformulates G?del's Completeness and Incompleteness Theorems in terms of (hypothetical) algorithms that either stop or not or decide whether another algorithm stops or not. By a trivial "I am a liar" argument, such an algorithm can't exist which proves the Incompleteness Theorem. I totally agree that the computer scientist's way of thinking about such things simplifies much of G?del's thinking tremendously. Turing gets some credit here. And Aaronson talks about the consistency of axioms supplemented with additional assumptions about their (in)consistency. It's all nice. But again, these things haven't really passed the tests of "validity from the viewpoint of physics".
A physics-oriented question appears at the end of Chapter 3: Are we really talking about continuous objects themselves or about finite sequences of symbols that talk about continuum?
That's a good question and I am inclined to say the latter. If we talk about specific things, these specific things are always countable because they must be describable by a finite sequence of symbols. Even when we talk about intervals of real numbers that arguably contain an uncountably infinite number of real numbers, we must still specify the endpoints of the interval by a finite sequence of words or symbols ? and such sequences are "discrete" i.e. "countable".
This is why I tend to consider the very fact that real numbers are uncountable to be nothing else than a linguistic curiosity: the actual, well-defined real numbers you may ever encounter form a countable set! This is why the uncountability of the real numbers ? and the whole discipline of maths based on this formally provable claim and similar claims ? doesn't have implications for "talking about physics".
On the other hand, the fact ? let me now fully assume that I do take this position, and I mostly do ? that we only talk about finite sequences of symbols does not mean at all that discrete maths and its axioms should be the foundation of physics. Even when I say that we are talking about finite sequences from a discrete set, it's still important what we're saying about them. And to do physics, we should organize these sequences and "discrete objects" in such a way that they talk about properties of continuous objects because those are ultimately fundamental in physics, as we know because of many general reasons.
So talking uses finite sequences from a countable set but in physics, it still matters what we are saying, and if we're not saying things about intrinsically continuous structures and properties that continuous structures may have, it will be either invalid or non-fundamental as chatter about physics!
I hope that the dear TRF reader crisply understands the difference between the statements "all language and communication uses discrete symbols" (true) and "Nature is fundamentally based on axioms describing discrete mathematical structures" (false). But I do feel that Scott Aaronson must be overlooking this not-so-subtle difference. It reminds me of Amy Farrah Fowler's silly comments to Sheldon Cooper when she suggested that neuroscience was more fundamental than theoretical physics because she may understand the functioning of a brain that is discovering an important theory in physics. The problem is that while she may, she doesn't. To find a right theory is a task that can't be reduced to the understanding of the functioning of the brain; after all, she hasn't completed the task. Similarly, theoretical physics can't be reduced to grammar, linguistics, and the history of languages because it still matters what the physicist is saying and a linguist has no idea about that ? that's why linguists don't have any credentials to claim to master theoretical physics, either. I could add a few similar examples with additional occupations. Secretaries and bakers also provide something important for the physicists but they are not physicists themselves. My broader point is that it is comparably silly to start with Peano Arithmetics as the foundation of physics as it would be to start with some basic rules of grammar or linguistics. They may be the natural starting points in a discipline but the discipline just isn't physics. What is true and fundamental in physics is decided according to the rules of physics, not according to the rules of bakeries, bureaucracy, linguistics, or set theory.
At the end, pretty much all the silly "conceptual" things that people (not only Scott Aaronson) are saying about the foundations of science boil down to the same problem: these people just refuse the scientific method as a method to verify the basic tenets of their belief systems. From this viewpoint, some people's belief that alternative medicine or homeopathy must be much more potent than just the narrow-minded modern Western medicine is based on the same "intellectual mistake" as Scott Aaronson's belief that continuous objects or quantum mechanical postulates are "suspect". It's a belief. They aren't willing to put this belief at risk and test it. They aren't willing to find out whether it is right. They aren't willing to learn that their belief systems are actually based on tons of stinky feces. They prefer to believe rubbish and search for allies and excuses explaining why flunked spoiled frats should still write lots of things about things they haven't mastered.
I may continue with Chapter 4-??? sometime in the future.
Source: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/04/scott-aaronson-prototype-of-some.html
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Monday, April 22, 2013
Biological activity alters the ability of sea spray to seed clouds
Apr. 22, 2013 ? Ocean biology alters the chemical composition of sea spray in ways that influence its ability to form clouds over the ocean. That's the conclusion of a team of scientists using a new approach to study tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols that can influence climate by absorbing or reflecting sunlight and seeding clouds. By engineering breaking waves of natural ocean water under purified air in the lab, they were able to isolate and analyze aerosols from the spray and determine how life within the water altered the chemistry of the particles.
"After many decades of attempting to understand how the ocean impacts the atmosphere and clouds above it, it became clear a new approach was needed to investigate the complex ocean-atmosphere system. Moving the chemical complexity of the ocean to the laboratory represented a major advance that will enable many new studies to be performed," said Kimberly Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego and director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment, who led the team of more than 30 scientists involved in this project. They report their findings in the early, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 22.
Tiny air bubbles form in the ocean when waves break, then rise to the surface and burst, releasing gases and aerosols into the atmosphere. Sea spray aerosols come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes with chemical complexity ranging from simple salts to complex biological mixtures to bacterial cells.
For decades, scientists have been studying how the chemical make-up of aerosols affects their ability to take up water, seed clouds, and react in the atmosphere. Because aerosols from other sources overwhelm field measurements, it's been difficult to isolate and study marine aerosols over the actual ocean.
"Once the ocean-atmosphere system was isolated, we could systematically probe how changes in the seawater due to biological activity affect the composition and climate properties of the sea spray aerosol," said Prather, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who holds a joint appointment at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
They pumped seawater directly from the Pacific Ocean into a specially modified enclosed wave flume in the Hydraulics Laboratory at Scripps Oceanography. By stringently filtering the air within the wave chamber, the team eliminated contamination from other sources allowing them to probe sea spray aerosol directly for the first time right after it was produced by breaking waves.
Over five days, the team systematically altered biological communities within the flume by adding various combinations of cultures of marine bacteria and microscopic marine algae, or phytoplankton. Then, as a hydraulic paddle sent waves breaking over an artificial shoal, instruments positioned along the 33 meter long flume analyzed the chemistry of the seawater, air, and aerosols.
As the seawater changed and bacteria levels increased, the composition of the aerosols changed in ways that reduced their ability to form clouds. In particular, a day after new cultures were added, bacteria levels rose fivefold and cloud-seeding potential fell by about a third. These changes happened even as the concentration of phytoplankton fell, along with levels of chlorophyll-a, the pigment essential to photosynthesis. This is an important finding because current estimates of biological activity in surface waters of the ocean rely on instruments aboard satellites that measure the color of the sea surface, which changes along with levels of chlorophyll-a, an assessment that will miss blooms of other organisms, such as bacteria.
The findings demonstrate the value of the center's novel approach for sorting through the interdependent factors governing the effects of the ocean and sea spray on climate.
Co-authors from UC San Diego include Timothy Bertram, Douglas Collins, Luis Cuadra-Rodriguez, Timothy Guasco, Matthew Ruppel, Olivia Ryder, Nathan Schoepp and Defeng Zhao from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Grant Deane, Dale Stokes, Lihini Aluwihare, Brian Palenik, Farooq Azam, Gregory Roberts, Lynn Russell, Craig Corriga, Michelle Kim, William Lambert, Robin Modini and Byron Evans Pedler from Scripps Institution of Oceanography; and Mario Molina, who holds a joint appointment. Additional co-authors include scientists from the University of Iowa, Colorado State University, California Institute of Technology, University of the Pacific, UC Davis, Northwestern University and Centre National de Recherches M?t?orologiques. The National Science Foundation's Center for Chemical Innovation supports the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CHE 1038028).
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Reese Witherspoon Apologizes For Her Behavior: Actress 'Deeply Embarrassed' After Arrest
ATLANTA ? Reese Witherspoon is "deeply embarrassed" about what she said to police officers after she and her husband were arrested during a traffic stop in Atlanta.
The Oscar-winning actress released a statement late Sunday apologizing for her behavior to police that began when her husband, Hollywood agent Jim Toth, was arrested early Friday for driving under the influence of alcohol.
"Do you know my name?" Witherspoon is quoted as saying in a state trooper's report. She also said: "You're about to find out who I am" and "You're about to be on national news," according to the report.
"I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said," Witherspoon said. "It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. The words I used that night definitely do not reflect who I am. I have nothing but respect for the police and I'm very sorry for my behavior."
Witherspoon said she can't comment further "out of respect" for the pending case, and her publicist, Meredith O'Sullivan Wasson, offered no other details.
The 37-year-old actress was arrested on a municipal charge of disorderly conduct early Friday after a state trooper said she wouldn't stay in the car while Toth was given a field sobriety test. She was released from jail after the Friday morning arrest and was in New York on Sunday night for the premiere of her new film, "Mud." She posed for cameras on the red carpet but did not stop to talk to reporters.
The trooper noticed the car driven by her husband wasn't staying in its lane early Friday morning, so he initiated a traffic stop. He reported that Toth had droopy eyelids, watery, bloodshot eyes, and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol.
Toth told the trooper he'd had a drink, which Witherspoon said was consumed at a restaurant two hours before the traffic stop, the trooper writes.
Before the field sobriety test began, Witherspoon got out of the car, was told to get back in and obeyed, the report said. After the "Walk the Line" star got out a second time, the trooper said he warned her that she would be arrested if she left the car again.
As the test continued, "Mrs. Witherspoon began to hang out the window and say that she did not believe that I was a real police officer. I told Mrs. Witherspoon to sit on her butt and be quiet," Trooper First Class J. Pyland writes.
Toth, 42, was then placed under arrest. He was charged with driving under the influence and failure to maintain the lane.
At that point, the report says, Witherspoon got out and asked the trooper what was going on. After being told to return to the car, she "stated that she was a `US Citizen' and that she was allowed to `stand on American ground,'" the report states.
The trooper then began to arrest Witherspoon. The report says Witherspoon was resistant at first but was calmed down by her husband.
Toth and Witherspoon were then taken to jail.
News of the arrest broke shortly before Witherspoon arrived on the "Mud" red carpet.
"I can't say anything because I don't know," said director Jeff Nichols. "I literally ? the first guy on the press line to say something was the first time I heard about it so I gotta go figure it out."
Matthew McConaughey, who plays the lead role in "Mud" and is represented by Toth, said "I'm not going to comment on that because it's too fresh."
__
AP writers Sandy Cohen in Los Angeles and Lauri Neff in New York contributed to this report.
Also on HuffPost:
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Napolitano re-elected Italy's president
ROME (AP) ? Italy's Parliament on Saturday re-elected Giorgio Napolitano to an unprecedented second term as president, after party leaders persuaded the 87-year-old to serve again in hopes of easing the hostility that has thwarted formation of a new government.
Napolitano easily surpassed the simple majority required to be elected Saturday afternoon. He garnered 738 votes, far more than the 504 needed for victory for another seven-year mandate.
Parliament had a much harder time. It took it three days of balloting to choose a president, reflecting the legislature's deep polarization following inconclusive nationwide elections in February.
After the weeks of stalemate, Napolitano can formally begin one of the head of state's most important tasks once he takes a new oath of office. He must figure out who has the best prospects of putting together a new government, with enough support to successfully work with Parliament and survive a mandatory vote of confidence.
That won't be easy. Italy's main political parties ? essentially three distinct ideological blocs in Parliament and their often shifting allies ? are heavily polarized, and antagonism only grew sharper during the gridlock.
Napolitano, a former Communist, will have to quickly start sounding out parties about a potential premier. The next government faces pressure to bring urgently needed economic and electoral reforms to the recession-mired nation.
Italy has had a caretaker government for months, led by economist Mario Monti, a Napolitano appointee whose harsh austerity measures of higher taxes, pension reform and slashed spending helped keep Italy from succumbing to the debt crisis.
Napolitano, citing his advanced age, had repeatedly refused to be a candidate for another term that would see him turn nearly 95 when it runs out. But he yielded to the appeals out of a sense of responsibility toward the nation, he said.
"We must all look, as I tried to do in these hours, at the difficult situation of the country, at the problems of Italy and Italians, and the international image and role of our nation," Napolitano said in brief remarks from the presidential palace after his re-election. He said he would elaborate on how he planned to carry out his mandate in a speech Monday.
Monti, whose own election bid to stay on as premier was soundly rejected by angry voters, telephoned Napolitano to thank him for having agreed "with great spirit of sacrifice" to continue.
Pope Francis in a telegram hailed Napolitano's wisdom and prayed that the president receive "constant divine assistance" on the job. Saying he blessed both Napolitano and the Italian nation, he encouraged the country to "build a future of harmony, solidarity and hope."
The White House welcomed the decision in a statement, saying Napolitano's continued leadership "will ensure that we move forward together in facing the challenges of our times." Secretary of State John Kerry in a separate statement commended Napolitano for "the admirable sense of duty that compelled him to continue in office in the service of the Italian people."
While Napolitano's election received a standing ovation from lawmakers and plaudits from abroad, several thousand people protested noisily outside Parliament, disappointed that Italy's old political guard hadn't changed.
Lawmakers from Parliament's third-largest bloc, the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement led by comic-turned-political agitator Beppe Grillo, galvanized supporters for the protest. Grillo had backed a left-leaning constitutional law expert for president.
Grillo and his fast-growing movement are bitterly opposed to the incumbent, who in late 2011 appointed Monti and a Cabinet of technocrats to replace an elected premier as the eurozone debt crisis threatened to engulf Italy.
Hours earlier, Parliament held a fifth ? and yet again unsuccessful ? ballot to choose a head of state. Even as senators, deputies and regional electors put their folded paper ballots into urns in the Chamber of Deputies, leaders ranging from Monti to ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi, were paying calls on Napolitano at the presidential palace to beg him to consider serving again.
Napolitano's office said the leaders had made a "fervent appeal to reconsider his oft-given reasons to be unwilling to have a second term."
Italy's presidents traditionally serve only one term, but there is no prohibition against a second mandate.
Napolitano could serve part of the term, long enough to encourage agreement over the leader and makeup of the next government and shepherd the electoral reforms.
Among those beaming and applauding Napolitano's re-election was Berlusconi. The billionaire businessman fell short in a comeback attempt in February elections for a fourth term as premier.
The conservative leader is eager to have a government that might rein in Italian prosecutors whom he contends sides with the left and is responsible for his judicial woes, including a trial in Milan for allegedly paying an underage teenage woman for sex. Berlusconi has proclaimed his innocence.
Also lobbying the president was Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani, whose lawmakers cast blank ballots Saturday morning in a stalling tactic as he struggled to find a candidate supported by a wide consensus.
The Democratic Party has been imploding under a leadership crisis since disappointing results in parliamentary elections. Bersani's forces control the Chamber of Deputies, but not the Senate. Tapped by Napolitano to see if he could pull together a government before the presidential election, Bersani failed, after refusing an offer by Berlusconi to join their bitterly opposed forces in a reform-focused coalition.
Bersani's hours as party leader were numbered after the latest humiliation from his own ranks, when party defectors Friday in the secret balloting for president sabotaged his high-profile choice of candidate, former Premier Romano Prodi, an economist who is widely respected at home and abroad.
A top party official, Enrico Letta, confirmed that Bersani and the rest of Democratic Party leadership, including himself, had resigned after the vote for Napolitano.
Meanwhile, rallying to the side of citizens feeling neglected by their political class were leaders of Italy's politically influential Catholic church.
"Too many people are living in misery," Naples Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe said in an appeal for action that he wrote for a local diocesan weekly.
___
AP reporter Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/napolitano-elected-italys-president-163443429.html
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