World News(Stuff to Discuss) Free For All
 

Christian graves desecrated in the West Bank
 

Vandals have desecrated about 70 graves in two Palestinian Christian cemeteries in what a Palestinian Authority official said was a rare attack on the Christian minority in the occupied West Bank.


A church official in the village of Jiffna near Ramallah, where the attack took place, called in Palestinian security officials to investigate, but neither he nor the investigators said they had any initial clues who was responsible.

"This unfortunate incident has brought Muslims and Christians closer and many from the Muslim community have shown solidarity with us and have condemned this action," said George Abdo, Greek Orthodox Church official.

He said grave stones had been smashed and metal and stone crosses knocked off graves in the attack, which was discovered on Sunday. The head and a hand of a statue of the Madonna adorning one of the graves were also broken off.

Mr Abdo said it was the first time such an incident had occurred in the village.

Issa Kassissieh, a Palestinian Authority official and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas on Christian affairs, said he believed it was "an isolated act against Christian symbols".

"Palestinian Christians and Muslims have always lived in harmony in the Holy Land," Kassissieh said.

Jiffna, northeast of Ramallah, is home to some 1,600 inhabitants, about two thirds of whom are Christians from the Greek Orthodox and Catholic communities.

The Palestinian Authority says 50,000 of the West Bank's 2.5 million Arab population are Christians.

Though statistics are unclear, officials say many Christians have emigrated in recent decades. Most cite economic hardships under Israeli occupation, though some also voice fears of less tolerant forms of Islam growing among Palestinians, who in 2006 gave a parliamentary majority to the Islamist movement Hamas.

During a visit this month Pope Benedict tried to soothe Muslim anger over past remarks on Islam and urged Palestinian Christians not to follow others in emigrating abroad.

Church of Scientology could be banned in France
 

The Church of Scientology faces being thrown out of France if it is found guilty of organised fraud in a landmark trial which opened in Paris.



The charges, which also include claims of illegally prescribing drugs, were filed by France's professional pharmaceutical association and two women who accuse the Scientologists of bringing about their financial ruin.

One woman claimed she was psychologically pressured into paying thousands of pounds for lessons, books, drugs and a device called an "electrometer" which the church says can measure a person's mental state.

The church's main structure in France, the AGES-Celebrity Centre, and its bookshop face charges of "organised fraud", along with six of its leaders.

The six, including Alain Rosenberg, 60, the manager of the AGES-Celebrity Centre, face a maximum million-euro fine and ten year jail term if convicted. The church itself faces a five million-euro fine and closure.

The case has taken ten years to come to court.

Scientology is not banned in France but has been considered a sect since 1995.

It is a recognised religion in the United States, where it was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer. Followers include Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

This is only the second time the church itself has been targeted in France. All other trials have been of individuals.

One of the female plaintiffs, Aude-Claire Malton, was allegedly approached by Scientologists in a Paris street in 1998 and offered a personality test, which, according to the prosecution were "void of scientific value". The Scientologists' sole aim, they argued, was to "claim their fortune" by "exercising a psychological hold" over her.

The 33-year old was allegedly gradually persuaded to hand over around ?20,000 on books, communication and "life healing" lessons, as well as "purification packs".

Three other former Scientologists retracted their complaints after reportedly reaching an out-of-court financial settlement with the church.

One reportedly received 33,000 euros (?29,000).

The Church of Scientology said: "It's a trial for heresy: this could only happen in France... Let people choose their own path." The body's lawyer, Patrick Maisonneuve, said that all organisations contained "lost sheep" ? including the Catholic Church ? but "the only question in this trial is: was there embezzlement ? certainly not whether Scientology is a religion or not".

The trial runs until June 10.

The Church of Scientology has powerful supporters in the US, notably Tom Cruise, the film star, who discussed his beliefs with Nicolas Sarkozy when he was still interior minister in 2004. Their meeting took place two months after the end of the embezzlement investigation.

Controversy erupted last year, when President Sarkozy's private secretary, Emmanuelle Mignon, said that sects in France were a "non-problem" and said that the Church of Scientology should be allowed to "exist in peace".

Governor plans to completely eliminate welfare for families
 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to completely eliminate the state?s welfare program for families, medical insurance for low-income children and Cal Grants cash assistance to college and university students.

The proposals to sharply scale back the assistance that California provides to its neediest residents came in testimony by the administration this afternoon at a joint legislative budget committee hearing. It followed comments by the governor earlier today that he would be withdrawing a proposal to help balance the budget with billions of dollars of borrowing and replacing it with program reductions.

The proposals would completely reshape the state?s social service network, transforming California from one of the country?s most generous states to one of the most tightfisted. The proposals are intended to help close a budget deficit estimated at $21.3 billion.

Tony Blair believed God wanted him to go to war to fight evil, claims his mentor
 

Tony Blair viewed his decision to go to war in Iraq and Kosovo as part of a "Christian battle", according to one of his closest political allies


The former Prime Minister's faith is claimed to have influenced all his key policy decisions and to have given him an unshakeable conviction that he was right.

John Burton, Mr Blair's political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years, says that Labour's most successful ever leader ? in terms of elections won ? was driven by the belief that "good should triumph over evil".

It's very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior," he says. "It was part of Tony living out his faith."

Mr Blair has previously admitted that he was influenced by his Christian faith, but Mr Burton reveals for the first time the strength of his religious zeal.

Mr Burton makes the comments in a book he has written, and which is published this week, called "We Don't Do God".

In it he portrays a prime minister determined to follow a Christian agenda despite attempts to silence him from talking about his faith.

"While he was at Number 10, Tony was virtually gagged on the whole question of religion," says Mr Burton.

"Alastair [Campbell] was convinced it would get him into trouble with the voters.

"But Tony's Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone ? Iraq too ? was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better."

Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair's mentor, says that his religion gave him a "total belief in what's right and what's wrong", leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as "a moral cause".

"I truly believe that his Christianity affected his policy-making on just about everything from aid to Africa, education, poverty, world debt and intervening in other countries when he thought it was right to do it.

"The fervour was part of him and it comes back to it being Christian fervour that spurred him into action for better or worse."

Mr Burton says that inherent in Mr Blair's faith was the belief that people should be treated fairly: "He applied that same principle in everything he did ? from establishing the Social Exclusion Unit to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and ridding Iraq of the evils of Saddam Hussein's rule."

The comments will add to the suspicions of Mr Blair's critics, who fear he saw the Iraq war in a similar light to former US President George W Bush, who used religious rhetoric in talking about the conflict, as well as the war in Afghanistan, describing them as "a crusade".

Last week, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, was accused of sending the Mr Bush memos during the Iraq war that featured quotes from the Bible alongside images of American soldiers.

Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.

Mr Blair was not worried by people questioning his decisions, Mr Burton says, but was "genuinely shocked if they questioned his morality because there was never a dividing line between his politics and Christianity".

Although key advisers such as Mr Campbell tried to stop him talking about his faith while prime minister ? famously declaring "we don't go God" ? Mr Burton says that he was nevertheless determined to fight secularism.

Mr Burton, who coauthored the book with Eileen McCabe, a journalist, said Mr Blair wanted to "buffet the secular society that dominated life in Britain" and thought it was "time to nudge it in the other direction".

Tony Blair complained in 2007 that he had been unable to talk about his faith while in office as he would have been perceived as "a nutter".

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," he said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter."

Since leaving Downing Street, he has set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and given a number of interviews about his faith.

Last month, he challenged the attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to "rethink" his views.

Cash for Aussie 'grateful dead'
 

The Australian government has admitted that cash hand-outs aimed at stimulating the economy have been sent to thousands of people who are dead.

The money was part of a multi-billion dollar package under which every tax-payer was entitled to a payment of up to A$900 ($700, ?440).

About A$14m of the money went to dead people, ministers said, and A$25m to Australians living overseas.

Local media have dubbed the deceased recipients "the grateful dead".

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said that the money would still help Australia's economy.

"Even where they go to people who are dead, of course they go to the estate," he told local media.

"The estate typically is going to consist of ordinary Australians who will in turn get the payments, and on balance over time, will spend those payments."

He did acknowledge that a "tiny proportion" of the money might be spend overseas, by expatriates.

But another minister said more than 99% of the money had gone to the right people.

Members of the opposition were not appeased.

"If anybody saw any of the dead out there spending up big at Harvey Norman or Coles or Woolworths, please let me know," ABC news quoted Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham as saying.

Taliban claim responsibility for Lahore attack
 

Crackdown on 'Cleavage of the Buttocks'
by : Tim McElreavy
June 9th, 2009



Lawmakers in the city of Yakima, WA, have apparently had enough. Yesterday the city council voted 5-2 to change the city's indecent exposure laws to include "cleavage of the buttocks," that is, exposing a thong or G-string in public. Women caught showing off their assets can now be fined $1,000 or face up to 90 days in jail. If a child under the age of 14 is considered a victim of indecent exposure, those penalities are increased to $5,000 and up to a year in jail. The new law was spearheaded by Yakima's Mayor Dave Elder in response to a new trend in hiring scantily clad women to work in coffee shops. Dubbed 'sexpresso,' businesses are now using sex in the form of attractive barristas exposing thong underwear to sell coffee. Three such establishments have opened recently in Yakima. Many of the town's women have complained about the new law. One resident wrote in a letter to the editor in the local newspaper, "For those who do not have horse's blinders on, it's the society that prohibits that ends up being like the Taliban." However, Elder, a church pastor, defends his position, "If you want to create an environment where crime can happen, you turn a blind eye to adult businesses. And that's why this is important to me." Sounds like somebody in that town needs to turn the other cheek.

Are Baby Boomers Killing Facebook and Twitter?
 

By Robert Strohmeyer, PC World

It may seem like Facebook and Twitter widen the gaps between boomers, Gen X-ers and members of Generation Y, but online social networks may bring us all closer.

The story is as old as the Web: A social network born among 20-something college kids and young wired professionals sprouts up, apparently out of nowhere, and grows into a cultural phenomenon. Eventually, it reaches critical mass and explodes, its mushroom cloud drawing the attention of millions of baby boomers, leading to a huge influx of new users, which in turn triggers complaints from the youngsters who started it all. The invasion of the boomers spurs some members of younger generations to flee the carnage (and the fallout) in search of fresher territory.

We've seen this scenario play out on MySpace and Facebook, and now it is starting to happen on Twitter. When the Baby Boomers -- traditionally defined as anyone born in the United States between 1946 and 1964 -- arrive, they tend to do so en masse. And when they set up camp, they invariably change the dynamic of the social network itself. Whether due to their distinctive social habits or the sheer vastness of their demographic, a mass migration of 50-and-over folk brings in its train everything from increased political activity to a proliferation of spam.

That boomers dramatically alter the social networks they adopt should come as no surprise, according to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a think tank that studies Americans' online habits. "Boomers are the mainstream of the country now," Rainie says. "When you attract a mainstream audience, you're going to attract a lot more commercial interests. Boomers validate that this is a big market, and that this is a place where commercial interests can make money."

End of innocence
The twin processes of mainstreaming and commercialization mark an end of innocence on a social network, as younger users lose what was once their private playground or -- even worse -- have to share it with their parents.

"Younger folks don't want their parents there," Rainie says. "But does that mean they'll all flock to different places?"

Not yet, according to data collected by Rainie and his colleagues at the Pew Research Center. Though a few early adopters may jump ship as a social network that was once on the electronic frontier gets swallowed up by digital suburbs, most stick around -- at least until a major new network arrives to supplant the old one, as Facebook has done with MySpace.

Still, there's no shortage of anecdotal evidence that sharing the online world can be a source of intergenerational strife. Take Will Smith (no, not the actor), for example. When this 33-year-old tech professional received a Facebook friend request from his father in March, he was floored. Not because he didn't want to connect with his dad, but because doing so on the same network that he shared with so many peers and colleagues raised a host of complex concerns.

"My father, who I dearly love, has a tendency to forward e-mails that are pretty off-color," Smith says. "It's probably nothing that would get me fired, but stuff that could earn me a trip to HR, if I ever opened them [at work]. My concern was that he would post that type of message on my wall or in another public venue on Facebook without realizing it was a public venue. Since everyone from my immediate supervisor to the president of my company is in my friend list, there's potential for bad things to happen. I don't think anything actually would, but there was strong potential for embarrassment."

To reduce the likelihood of a career-damaging dust-up, Smith sent his dad an e-mail in which he laid out what he considered reasonable limits for their online father-son bonding. Off-limits: "Politics, sex, jokes, things you find funny but offend me, comments about family members, any combination of the aforementioned items and pretty much every e-mail you've ever sent me."

Ultimately, Smith's worst-case scenario never came to pass and -- perhaps because of that e-mail -- his father never logged back into Facebook. But according to data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, people of the same age as Smith's father are logging onto Facebook in droves, and baby boomers are now the fastest growing population on the social network.

Share and share alike?
To get a more personal take on the way family politics play out on Facebook, I called up a baby boomer I know pretty well: my Aunt Linda. She is on my Facebook friend list, as are her three children, ages 20, 23 and 25. In contrast to the Smiths, for whom an online connection proved troubling, my aunt came to Facebook in the first place because her college-age daughter invited her. For Aunt Linda, it's mainly a fun way to keep up with her kids while they're away from home.

"I try not to meddle," she says. "I typically go on there, look at their latest pictures and log off."

But like many of her generation, she is deeply concerned about the amount of personal information that her kids -- particularly her 20-year-old daughter, who is still in school -- share online.

"It really worries me. Not just possibility of stalkers, but also because of the way it represents her online. I know that [her older brother] had employers checking out his MySpace page when he was interviewing for jobs right out of school."

Pew's Rainie confirms that my aunt's concerns are hardly unusual for a member of her generation. "Older Americans are worried about the way younger users behave -- how much they disclose, how they present themselves. They wonder, 'Aren't they concerned about the future?' They're aware that [kids] are creating a permanent record on the Internet."

It's the Smith family dynamic in reverse: The voice of age and experience seeks to caution the young against potentially harmful exuberance in the online world.

Different strokes
In addition to basic differences in attitude that seem to arise with differences in age, each generation tends to use social technologies in different ways. To get a broader sense of these differences, I asked 1,200 of my closest friends on Facebook and Twitter what they thought of the online generation gap. Surprisingly, the answers I got -- from people as young as 19 and as old as 60+ -- were fairly consistent.

The gap is most evident in the way people use the networks, not in whom they connect with. The networks of nearly everyone who responded to my questions span multiple generations of users. But the observations my correspondents made about the kinds of posts that other participants submit were telling.

One representative response came from a Twitter user who had this to say: "Gen Dvide=Usage Dvide <25 Tend 2 use 4 form of "stalking" celebrities & peers >25 tend 2 use 4 customized networking/info/culture/research"

Translation: It's all in how they use it. Common gripes about the inanity of Twitter updates -- stereotypically oversharing every moment of daily life from breakfast to dinner, including all rest stops -- may be largely due to the tendency of 20-somethings to broadcast their personal lives in their status updates. (The Twitter criticisms can be rebutted, of course.) Nearly every respondent acknowledged that members of Generation Y--often defined as those born in the 1980s and 1990s -- seem bent on publicizing every detail of their daily life over the Internet.

By contrast, members of Generation X -- tagged as those born between 1964 and 1984, who now make up much of the mainstream workforce -- tend to post more information about their professional lives, conferences they're attending and projects they're working on. To some older observers, it looks like self-absorbed bragging, though many 30-somethings claim to have reaped career-boosting benefits from this type of crowdsourcing. (There is much argument over when the different generations start and stop: Sometimes the Cultural Generation definition is more important than the actual birth year.)

Toward the upper end of the age spectrum, baby boomers tend to use social networks for connecting with old friends, sharing political news, discussing religion and exploring hobbies. Due to the rocky economy, they're fast getting used to networking for jobs via the Internet, as well.
A Facebook contact wrote: "All the 20-somethings I know have hundreds of friends; it seems like they connect with everyone they've ever met. I think 40-somethings like me are more selective -- I don't accept requests from people I don't know, and tend to think of Facebook more in terms of networking and connecting with old friends."

Another Twitter denizen had this perspective: "There is a divide. As services become more organized, they attract older users. Once it becomes more organized, the kids leave."

Rainie agrees. "There's probably some generational divide," he says. "Because people hang out with their friends, there's bound to be some clustering." But he sees no evidence of a serious online generation gap and says that his own friend list spans multiple generations.

Though the cross-chatter between members of the various age groups can get a little noisy, none of the people I talked to saw it as a bad thing. Instead, most seemed glad for the diversity of their friend lists.
In the future, Rainie envisions a day when social networks will more closely reflect the way real-world social networks function, allowing users to discriminate better between close ties and loose ties. When that happens, much of the cross-chatter may be lost. But when that happens, we may also lose a great opportunity to share ideas across the generations.

Robert Strohmeyer, a card-carrying Gen X-er, also is a senior editor at PC World. He keeps his Facebook profile private, but tweets openly as rstrohmeyer. For PC World's foray into fantasy Facebook profiles, read "Facebook Pages We'd Like to See."

Police arrest two gangs involved in random robbery attacks in Dubai
 

Police arrest two gangs involved in random robbery attacks in Dubai
By Siham Al Najami. Staff Reporter
Published: June 04, 2009, 22:31


Dubai: Dubai Police managed to recently arrest two separate Asian gangs involved in robbery and attacking pedestrians.

According to Colonel Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), a number of robbery reports were made to Dubai Police about the presence of robbers stealing from people walking during the night at the industrial areas.

"The Asian gang composed of five members was taking advantage of the remote and quite locations of the industrial areas to attack and rob individuals," he said.

The CID formed an undercover operation and increased police cars patrolling Al Qusais industrial areas and workers' accommodations in Al Muhaisinah 2, and managed to arrest the entire group and referred them to the public prosecution.

The second case involves a robbery attack on a Chinese woman while she was walking next to Al Maktoum Hospital in Deira. According to Colonel Al Mansouri, two Asians attacked the woman and stole her handbag.

The robbers managed to take hold of her passport, mobile phone, and cash that were in her handbag.

Upon receiving the complaint, Dubai Police managed to arrest one of the Asian suspects at the scene of the robbery attack; while the second suspect was later arrested before he could flee the country. Upon arresting the latter Asian suspect, police officer found the stolen items with him.

Both suspects were referred to the public prosecution, said Colonel Al Mansouri.

"I assure everyone that these random robberies are under control and that we have increased patrol cars in different areas in Dubai to ensure the safety of its citizens, residents, and visitors," he said.

Moslon Forcing Retirees To Sober Up
 

Molson, a division of Molson Coors, is looking to save itself about $900,000 a year by cutting off the free beer supply that?s given to all retirees. Over the next five years the retirees will see their monthly allotment drop from 72 beers per month to zero. Every company is feeling the effects of the economy but this is just a dickhead move. I mean a guy that puts in 32 solid years of work with promise of glorious free beer at the end shouldn?t have that taken away. How about they cut 30 seconds of their bullshit ?Silver Bullet? Super Bowl ads and then these old geezers can continue to enjoy their free suds up there in the great white north.

Since their killing the program I realize I would be fucked but if someone had told me there was a company that provided free beer to all retirees I would have made it my mission to work for said company.

Hallelujah: Beer Hydrates Better Than Water
 

At last, I no longer have to act ashamed whenever people discover my hydration bladder is full of Miller High Life?I'm simply ahead of my time. Our pal Science now says that beer, yes beer, is more effective for rehydrating the body than plain ol' water. I think I'm not alone when I say that this qualifies as news on par with peace in the Middle East.

Researchers at Granada University in Spain found this Nobel Prize-worthy discovery after months of testing 25 student subjects, who were asked to run on a treadmill in grueling temps (104 degrees F) until they were as close to exhaustion as possible. Half were given water to drink, and the other half drank two pints of Spanish lager. Then the godly researchers measured their hydration levels, motor skills, and concentration ability.

They determined that the beer drinkers had "slightly better" rehydration effects, which researchers attribute to sugars, salts, and bubbles in beer enhancing the body's ability to absorb water. The carbohydrates in beer also help refill calorie deficits.

Based on the results of the study, researchers recommend moderate consumption of beer as a part of athletes' diets. "Moderate consumption" for men is 500ml per day, and for women is 250ml per day.

Goodbye Gatorade, hello Pabst Blue Ribbon: This opens the door to a whole raft of new athlete beer sponsorships. Hopefully we'll see Lance replace the water bottle on his bike with a 40 of St. Ides in the next few months. (In fact, maybe that's why he didn't win the Giro d'Italia.)

This of course doesn't mean anything for hydration outside of strenuous exercise, but I'm not taking any chances?best to start hydrating now.

Russian girl in intensive care after restoring virginity 6 times
 

Russian girl in intensive care after restoring virginity 6 times
17 Jun, 02:08 PM


A Russian woman ended up in intensive care after restoring her virginity for the sixth time.

The woman, identified as Natalia K., got married at 24. Her husband was not the girl's first sexual partner, Life.ru writes.

When the husband confessed he was upset about her losing her virginity before the wedding and with another man, Natalia decided to make things up for him.

To celebrate their first year together as a married couple, she went to a plastic surgery clinic and had a hymenoplasty operation.

The husband was so delighted with the present, that a year later Natalia wanted to give that joy to him again. And the next year, and the year after that.

The sixth time the woman came for revirgination surgery, the doctors warned her it posed dangers for her health. Nevertheless, Natalia signed a waiver of all claims and had the surgery done.

But the doctors' fears turned out to be justified. The woman's weakened immune system failed to fight an unspecified minor infection she caught after the surgery, and landed her in intensive care.

That's a good fucking woman right there!

Police: Man attacked in Okla. for bologna sammich
 

Police: Man attacked in Okla. for bologna sandwich

Thu Jun 18, 3:08 pm ET

OKLAHOMA CITY ? A man in Oklahoma City said he was attacked for his bologna and cheese sandwich. Police say 24-year-old Roger Hamilton told them he was sitting on a bus station bench Wednesday, about to put mayonnaise on his sandwich, when another man began staring at him.

Hamilton told police that the man then punched him in the mouth and grabbed his sandwich and left.

Police said Hamilton has a swollen lip and his face was covered in blood. The police report listed the value of the sandwich at 76 cents.

Police have not found the attacker.

-----

That guy hates cans (of mayo)

Montana City Requires Workers' Internet Accounts
 

My father put 37 years in at Anheuser-Busch. He maxed out his free allotment at 24 cases per month. Most of the time before and since, he just sells the cases to co-workers and friends.

GI killed at recruiting center mourned
 

GI killed at recruiting center mourned

By Jon Gambrell - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 9, 2009 15:05:14 EDT

CONWAY, Ark. ? A white granite headstone will mark the grave of an Arkansas soldier shot to death outside a recruiting center. His family will decide whether the tombstone says Pvt. William Andrew Long was the first soldier to die at the hands of a terrorist since Sept. 11, 2001.....

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/0...uneral_060809/

Retailers Head for Exits in Detroit
 

by Andrew Grossman Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Shopping Becomes a Challenge as Auto-Industry Collapse Adds to City's Woes

DETROIT -- They call this the Motor City, but you have to leave town to buy a Chrysler or a Jeep.

Borders Inc. was founded 40 miles away, but the only one of the chain's bookstores here closed this month. And Starbucks Corp., famous for saturating U.S. cities with its storefronts, has only four left in this city of 900,000 after closures last summer.

There was a time early in the decade when downtown Detroit was sprouting new cafes and shops, and residents began to nurture hopes of a rebound. But lately, they are finding it increasingly tough to buy groceries or get a cup of fresh-roast coffee as the 11th largest U.S. city struggles with the recession and the auto-industry crisis.

No national grocery chain operates a store here. A lack of outlets that sell fresh produce and meat has led the United Food and Commercial Workers union and a community group to think about building a grocery store of its own.

One of the few remaining bookstores is the massive used-book outlet John K. King has operated out of an abandoned glove factory since 1983. But Mr. King is considering moving his operations to the suburbs.

Last week, Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep on Detroit's East Side stopped selling Chrysler products, one of the 789 franchises Chrysler Group LLC is dropping from its retail network. It was Detroit's last Chrysler Jeep store.

"The lack of retail is one of the biggest challenges the city faces," said James Bieri, president of Bieri Co., a Detroit-based real-estate brokerage. "Trying to understand how to get it to come back will be one of the most important keys to its resurgence -- if it ever has one."

Detroit's woes are largely rooted in the collapse of the auto industry. General Motors Corp., one of downtown's largest employers and the last of the Big Three auto makers with its headquarters here, has drastically cut white-collar workers and been offered incentives to move to the suburbs. Other local businesses that serviced the auto maker, from ad agencies and accounting firms to newsstands and shoe-shine outlets, also have been hurt.

The city's 22.8% unemployment rate is among the highest in the U.S.; 30% of residents are on food stamps.

"As the city loses so much, the tax base shrinks and the city has to cut back services," said Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. That causes such hassles for retailers as longer police-response times, as well as less-frequent snow plowing and trash pickup.

While all of southeast Michigan is hurting because of the auto-industry's troubles, Detroit's problems are compounded by decades of flight to the suburbs.

Hundreds of buildings were left vacant by the nearly one million residents who have left. Thousands of businesses have closed since the city's population peaked six decades ago.

Navigating zoning rules and other red tape to develop land for big-box stores that might cater to a low-income clientele is daunting.

The lack of grocery stores is especially problematic. The last two mainstream chain groceries closed in 2007, when The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. sold most of the southeast Michigan stores in its Farmer Jack chain to Kroger Corp., which declined to purchase the chain's two Detroit locations, causing them to close.

A 2007 study found that more than half of Detroit residents had to travel twice as far to reach a grocery store than a fast-food outlet or convenience store.

Michelle Robinson, 42 years old, does most of her shopping at big-box stores in the suburbs. When visitors staying at the hotel near her downtown office ask where to shop, she sends them to a mall in Dearborn, 12 miles away.

A few retailers are thriving. Family Dollar Stores Inc. has opened 25 outlets since 2003. A handful of independent coffee shops and a newly opened Tim Horton's franchise cater to workers downtown.

Discount grocer Aldi Inc. opened stores in the city in 2001 and 2005. A spokeswoman said the chain is "very bullish" on Detroit. Farmer's markets draw crowds looking for fresh produce.

Olga Stella, an official at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, works to persuade businesses to move to the city. She says companies have underestimated Detroit's economic potential and that Aldi and Family Dollar are proof there's money to be made here.

Meanwhile, the former Lochmoor Chrysler Jeep is now Lochmoor Automotive Group, a used-car dealership and repair shop. Gina Russo, daughter of the dealer's longtime owner, is being groomed to take over the family business. She has agreed to start selling small pickup trucks made by India's Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

__________________________________________________ _______________

Why does anyone who still want to live in this shit city? Even Cleveland is a paradise as compared to Detroit!!!

NIH Funds $423,500 Study of Why Men Don't Like to Use Condoms
 

FOXNews.com

Friday, June 19, 2009
The National Institutes of Health are funding a $423,500 study to find out why men don't like to wear condoms during sex. (Reuters)
Researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why "young, heterosexual adult men" have problems using condoms. The study will include "skill-based intervention" to teach grown men how to use protection.

The first phase of the two-year study will be a simple Q&A, but doctors say the second phase will plumb uncharted territory.

"The second phase involves a laboratory study, and focuses on penile erection and sensitivity during condom application," reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute.

"The project aims to understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems."

The study, which was first reported by UWire, is one of many being funded by the NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

But it has government watchdogs rolling their eyes at what they say is a clear waste of taxpayer money.

"This government is so out of whack with what the priorities are that this actually makes sense that we'd be wasting money on a condom study rather than the real problems facing the country," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, which tracks wasteful spending in the federal budget.

For American men -- many of whom have already undergone years of awkward sex ed in the care of gym teachers -- the study might not offer much of a boost, Williams said.

"Are they going to hand out the study and are people going to go, 'Ohhh ... I'm going to do things differently this time?'" he asked, noting that the private sector was successfully handling issues related to erectile dysfunction.

"I don't think they should have any delusions of grandeur that what they're doing is going to change behavior and that it's really going to fundamentally change the way men and women get together."

But the study's directors say their project performs a vital public health service and could help develop prevention and intervention programs to stop the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"Our study addresses important public health concerns in the U.S. and is the first study to test claims about arousal and sensation loss in a controlled scientific environment, while exploring factors that may be addressed in prevention and intervention programs," Janssen told FOXNews.com.

Neither Janssen nor the study's abstract provided details on how many subjects will be involved in his laboratory testing, or how exactly the scientists intend to measure sensitivity.

The $423,500 grant for the study is just a crumb in the NIH pie. The NIH spends $29 billion each year to help fund thousands of health studies at home and abroad.

But some questionable queries have come under close scrutiny, including a $400,000 study being conducted in bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk; a $2.6 million study dedicated to teaching prostitutes in China to drink less while having sex on the job; and a $178,000 study to better understand why drug-abusing prostitutes in Thailand are at greater risk for HIV infection.

Williams, the taxpayer advocate, doubted whether eliminating one potentially wasteful project would have a large effect overall.

"Getting rid of this study is not going to change the country and solve all of our monetary problems, but it just kind of reminds people that government is out of touch with the real needs of the country," he said.

Google Steps Up Anti-Porn Efforts in China
 

Google Inc. said Friday that it was working to block pornography reaching users of its Chinese service after a mainland watchdog found the search engine turned up large numbers of links to obscene and vulgar sites.

Google said in a statement that company officials had met government representatives "to discuss problems with the Google.cn service and its serving of pornographic images and content based on foreign language searches.

"We have been continually working to deal with pornographic content ? and material that is harmful to children ? on the Web in China," the statement said.

The statement followed accusations from the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center that Google had failed to "filter pornographic contents from its search engine results according to China's relevant laws and regulations."

The watchdog said tests found that the search engine provided links to a large number of lewd and vulgar pictures, videos and articles, though it gave no specific examples.

China, with the world's largest population of Internet users at more than 298 million, has the world's most extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship and has issued numerous regulations in response to the rise of blogging and other trends.

While the government claims the main targets are pornography, online gambling, and other sites deemed harmful to society, critics say that often acts as cover for detecting and blocking sensitive political content.

State media reported Friday that the government had stopped some of Google.cn's search functions. Details weren't given, and it wasn't exactly clear what had been closed off.

In its statement, Google said the company was working to fix any problems with improper searches. "This has been a substantial engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed the large majority of the problem results," it said.

Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, has struggled to expand in China, where it says it has about 30 percent of the search market. China's homegrown Baidu search engine remains the most popular, with about 60 percent of the market.

The company launched Google.cn with a Chinese partner after seeing its market share erode as government filters slowed access for Chinese users to its U.S. service.

While sites on topics such as the banned Falun Gong sect or Tibetan independence are perennially blocked in China, readers could still gain some access to such information through Google's cache function.

Google.cn returns search results on sensitive political topics only for sites not offensive to the government. Human rights activists have criticized the new service, which excludes search results on human rights, the Dalai Lama and other topics banned by the communist government.

The accusations against Google.cn come as a controversy simmers in China over a government order to load Internet-filtering software on every new computer sold on the mainland from July 1.

The government says the Green Dam Youth Escort software is aimed at blocking violence and pornography, but users who have tried it say it also prohibits visiting sites that discuss homosexuality and even blocks images of pigs because it confuses them with naked human bodies, according to Hong Kong media reports.

The software has also aroused safety concerns, with computer scientists at the University of Michigan reporting last week that it contained "serious security vulnerabilities due to programming errors," and recommended users protect themselves by uninstalling Green Dam immediately.

After a major outcry by citizens used to the relative freedom of online life, legal challenges and petitions, the government appears to have backed off slightly, saying users would not be obligated to use or install the software.

Grow a pair.

27 yo Iranian woman murdered
 

No one was murdered during Bush vs. Gore.

Makes you think about what we are really doing over here.


Free Image Hosting by ImageBam.com

Damn this is the first time I've actually seen this Neda. She was hot and it's really a shame. Good will come now that she's a martyr and a rallying cry.

FUCK YOU MULLAHS! May a MK-77 drop on your heads.

I've been reading blogs from Iranian women over the last few months and the stories they tell are horrific and cool. Since 70% of the population is under 30, most of them just want to be like us in the West.

If you ever read the Scarlet Letter or been to Witch Trial country in Salem, Massachusetts, imagine living like that ALL THE TIME in this day and age.

These Iranian chicks want to FUCK!!!!

Theyve been ready for centuries....

State cuts tax exemptions for kids
 

California parents beware: Those little tax deductions running around the house are now worth less (in a strictly financial sense, of course).

To help balance its budget, California has reduced the state tax credit for dependents.

The change will increase a family's California taxes for 2009 by about $210 per dependent compared with 2008.

A family with one dependent that normally gets a state-tax refund will get back $210 less when they file their 2009 return next year. A family that normally owes money will have to pay $210 more. Multiply that by two or more dependents, and it really adds up.

This may come as a shock to parents who have been too busy shuttling between soccer games and viola lessons to keep up with the state's budget fiasco. The Franchise Tax Board is trying to get the word out, so families can prepare.

At issue is the exemption you get for each person listed on your tax return. The credit reduces your tax bill dollar for dollar. (The exemption credit phases out for couples with more than roughly $326,400 in adjusted gross income and singles with more than $163,200. This column applies to those under the limit.)

The change essentially takes us back to where we were before 1998.

Before then, the credit was the same for adults and dependents. But in 1998, when the state was awash in cash, it roughly tripled the amount for dependents.

In 2008, the exemption was $99 for each adult and $309 per dependent.

Now that the state is swimming in red ink, it decided to take away that gift to families and set the dependent credit equal to the adult amount for 2009 and 2010. So the dependent credit will shrink from $309 to roughly $99. (The credit is indexed for inflation; the final amount for 2009 will be announced later this summer.)

If you are in this boat and would rather not face a big tax bill early next year, you could pay more state tax this year, either by increasing the amount withheld from your paycheck or - if you are self-employed - by making bigger estimated quarterly tax payments.

To increase your withholding, file a new Form DE 4 with your employer. (This is the state version of the federal Form W-4.) You can get one at work or download it at links.sfgate.com/ZHLJ.

You don't have to do this now. The Franchise Tax Board will not slap you with an underpayment penalty that results from this change on your 2009 taxes. But it could for 2010.

If you don't increase your withholding, make sure you're saving enough to pay the tax next year, says Gina Rodriquez, Sacramento bureau chief with Spidell Publishing, which provides education and research to tax professionals.

Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Heads to the House
 

Supporters of legalization and decriminalization of marijuana received a boost from Capitol Hill Tuesday, as Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank introduced a bill to the House of Representatives, which, if passed, would decriminalize marijuana on the federal level.

The bill, labeled H.R. 2493, the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009, would remove federal penalties for personal possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana (roughly 3.5 ounces), and would reduce the penalty for smoking pot in public to a mere $100, echoing Massachusetts?s similar (though controversial) marijuana law, which passed last November.

?I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s,? said Congressman Frank, ?when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don?t hurt anyone else. It?s a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and our prisons are over-crowded. We don?t need to spend our scarce resources prosecuting people who are doing no harm to others.?

On top of explicitly (re-)granting citizens the right to marijuana possession, the bill would give states legal breathing room to draft less insane, life-crushing drug laws without having to contradict federal law in the process.

But don?t get your bongs out yet ? Frank introduced a similar bill last year, which failed miserably. So if you want to help push this bill through congress, visit MPP.org, here to sign their petition to congress. It?s called being active, people. Which, if you smoke enough pot, you probably know nothing about.

I agree with this. people should be able to smoke it just like in Amsterdam, every city or state should have a certain area were it's cool to just go and smoke and buy.

I don't even smoke and I support it. I guess I'm just really passive on topics like this, abortion, weed, gay marriage I could care less is someone wants to get high, get married, not ruin their life by having a child when their not ready

Bound to happen with Jacko
 

Jackson Remark Prompts Knife Threat
Suspect In Bus Confrontation Arrested

POSTED: Friday, June 26, 2009
UPDATED: 3:23 pm EDT June 26, 2009



BSO
Henry Wideman
NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Broward Sheriff's Office said a man's comment about the death of Michael Jackson prompted a confrontation on a Broward County Transit bus Thursday evening.

James Kiernan, 60, of Coral Springs was riding the bus near Kimberly Boulevard and State Road 7 when he received a text message saying that Jackson had died. He told the other passengers on the bus about Jackson's death.

The bus driver commented, saying Jackson should have been in jail long ago, BSO said.

"The world just lost a great musical talent," Kiernan said.

For some reason, BSO said, that comment enraged another passenger, 54-year-old Henry Wideman of North Lauderdale. Police said he told Kiernan to shut up, and Kiernan said, "I can say whatever I want."

According to BSO, Wideman started yelling profanities, pulled out a 6-inch folding knife, moved toward Kiernan and threatened him as Kiernan backed away.

The bus driver told his dispatcher of the situation and pulled over near Rock Island Road and Kimberly Boulevard to wait for police.

BSO said Wideman got off the bus and went to a nearby Quick Stop, where deputies arrested him. Wideman faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Coming to an internet near you
 

This week, an open letter appeared on Chinese blogs and online bulletin boards. ?Hello, internet censorship institutions of the Chinese government,? it said. ?We are the anonymous netizens. We hereby decide that from July 1 2009, we will start a full-scale global attack on all censorship systems you control.?

Beijing?s attempts to manipulate the internet would, the message predicted, ?soon be swept on to the rubbish pile of history?.

Chinese internet users, although skilled at dodging the censors, are angrier than they have ever been. The anonymous declaration of war is just one sign of the strains emerging as the global spread of internet access, and its embrace by activists of all stripes, triggers an unprecedented crackdown by national governments that threatens to transform the way hundreds of millions of people communicate.

China is trying to force censorship software on to every new personal computer, while Iran succeeded this week in virtually eliminating the spread over the internet of first-hand accounts from protests in the streets at the handling of its presidential election.

That stifling of web freedoms that many people around the world take for granted are being accompanied by more novel means of combating cyber opponents. Those methods range from directing stealthy technological attacks that shut down dissident websites to unleashing swarms of paid commentators to argue the government position on supposedly independent blogs.

Both carry the added attraction of deniability: many regimes are employing advanced repressive techniques that are hard to identify in action, let alone circumvent. At a time when new communication technologies, from text messaging to Twitter, promise to put greater power in the hands of the individual, these techniques are having a chilling effect. Internet experts from more open societies fear that this will lead to greater self-censorship by organisations and individuals, which they see as the most effective tool of all.

Even the optimists warn of setbacks. ?In the end, the winners of the race are most likely to be citizens and activists who use these technologies for democratic purposes,? says John Palfrey of Harvard University, an authority on internet filtering. But he adds: ?With respect to individual battles, the states that practise censorship and surveillance are winning some of them.?

The number of such states is in the dozens, researchers say. In Burma and Moldova, governments recently resorted to pulling the plug on mobile phone networks amid unrest magnified by text messages; in Uzbekistan, there is widespread suspicion of internet monitoring but few ways to prove it. That is despite the fact that a lot of the surveillance and security software in the hands of governments across the world comes from western suppliers. In what is by its nature among the most globalised of industries, technology companies are seeing a revenue boost from governmental interest in data mining, search and storage products, though they periodically draw fire from activists for assisting repressive states.

The most gripping evidence of the change at hand has come from Iran. The theocratic regime has been in a protracted struggle over the free flow of information and communication with many of its largely young urban populace since the day after this month?s disputed election.

STRONG-ARM TECHNIQUES

How curbs on net users work:




Internet filters
Method: Set up on the main conduits of the internet, known as backbones, these software filters block traffic from websites on a proscribed list.
Example: ?Great Firewall of China?.


Deep packet inspection
Method: A layer of software that looks to identify the content of individual pieces of information, or ?packets?. This can be used to read, store or block individual messages and connections to websites.
Example: Commercial providers including Phorm and NebuAd.


Denial of service attacks
Method: Large numbers of PCs bombard a website with requests, making it inaccessible to other users.
Example:Sites in Estonia and Georgia during conflicts with Russia.


Toeing the party line
Method: Some regimes recruit people to present their case online, sometimes paying them.
Example: ?50-cent bloggers? in China.


Self-censorship
Method: Governments bring pressure on companies to restrict access to content. Bloggers must register.
Example:MSN Spaces, Microsoft?s blogging service in China, bans phrases including ?human rights?.


Edge-of-network restrictions
Method: Censors push control to a more local level. Internet providers? terms of service make them act as agents of the state. Restrictions at the edges of the network can reach all the way to curbs installed in PCs.
Example: China?s Green Dam/Youth Escort software.

Tehran has a decided advantage in that it runs the country?s leading internet service provider. Called DCI, it throttled back the amount of bandwidth available to its citizens so that web video traffic dropped by as much as 90 per cent and e-mail leaving the country fell by nearly as much.

Data assembled by Arbor Networks, a US internet security company, show the Iranian government was picking and choosing what types of traffic to let through and which parts of the net to leave unimpeded. Just as the security forces adjusted their response to counter the changing nature of the protests on the ground, Iran?s internet police changed which sites could be reached.

F acebook and other social networks were easy to block and fell quickly. Twitter, a web-accessible broadcasting service that can process messages from mobile phones, proved harder to take down without killing off all text messaging.

Activists proved agile at hopping from one medium to another. For more than a week, outsiders would send people in Iran the addresses of ?open proxies?, computers outside the country set up to relay traffic. That way, Iranians could still reach sites they were blocked from accessing directly. But the authorities hunted down most of those proxies and cut off access. Finally, on Thursday, they killed most outgoing traffic, including Twitter blasts.

?It?s a big problem when a government is just willing to shut down communications,? says John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in San Francisco, who was helping dissidents get the word out. ?If they do that, you?re down to smoke signals.?

Iran?s response evolved rapidly, aided by filtering technology in place long before the election. No country, though, has been as thoroughly policed through as many means as China, which has long been on the cutting edge of censorship.

Now, Beijing is trying to cement its control with a decree that from July 1, all computers sold in the country must come with a program called Green Dam/Youth Escort, which the government says will be used to block access to pornography sites. Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other computer makers are protesting and have won the support of US trade officials, who are threatening to bring the matter to the World Trade Organisation.

?Green Dam will be a game-changer, if in fact it goes into effect,? says Harvard?s Mr Palfrey. ?The desktop is the last bastion of personal freedom. It would change the way people use these devices in extraordinary ways.?

Beijing has for years blocked many sites by setting up filters on the country?s largest internet backbones, using a method nicknamed the Great Firewall of China. The central government has more recently heaped additional blocking and monitoring responsibilities on to internet service providers, web companies and local censors, all of which have been upgrading the technology they use.

TRS, a Chinese supplier of internet security products, says growing numbers of police departments are replacing their traditional search engine-based efforts with state-of-the-art data mining applications, which are capable of analysing large bodies of information.

All this has its limits. ?Controlling public networks is very, very difficult,? says Tony Yuan, chief executive of Netentsec, another Chinese security provider. ?Bandwidth and traffic are huge, so normally you don?t have the computing power.?

But the latest effort by China?s central authorities takes them further still, to the PCs that stand at the edge of the network. It is not clear they will succeed. The computer makers and US government are being joined in their opposition by security researchers who have identified flaws in Green Dam that could allow third parties to take control of PCs.

Even if the blanket order is delayed, circumvented or quietly forgotten, the Chinese government has already gained access to many PCs. Earlier this year, Beijing made the bundling of Green Dam a precondition for eligibility of PCs in its subsidy programme for PC sales to rural residents. In May, it ordered all schools to install the program. ?I would estimate that we?re already looking at more than 10m computers in China with Green Dam installed,? says an executive at a Beijing internet portal company.

An estimated 300m Chinese have online access. Though the more determined among them are likely to find ways around Green Dam, many may not even try to defy the message of disapproval being sent by Beijing.

Some of the surveillance and censorship technology in Iran and China is home-grown but much of it is western. Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between the two European companies, says, for example, that it was required to sell Iran equipment for monitoring phone calls as part of a contract for a communications network. Cisco has periodically come under fire for selling its routers to China but says the same equipment is used in both open and closed internet systems.

Under laws in the US and elsewhere, telecommunications companies must make it easy for law enforcement agencies to conduct authorised wiretaps ? and equipment providers say they cannot shut that capability off depending on the customer.

Collection, in fact, is no longer so much the problem: analysing the masses of data is a bigger issue, as is massaging search technology to look for more than simple keywords that alarm officials, such as ?Tibet? and ?democracy?. That technology is becoming much better ? spurred in part by the increasing global attention to cyber security. Notably, the US defence department this week approved a new military cyber command that will answer to the National Security Agency, which in recent years has been exposed for mining Americans? e-mail without warrants.

Concerns about pernicious criminal software and ?denial of service? attacks, which have shut government websites in Estonia and elsewhere with bombardments of useless data, have prompted further efforts to scrutinise internet traffic. But according to some researchers, technologies developed to counter insidious attacks such as these will only serve to advance the techniques of information control ? to the eventual detriment of future mass revolts against oppressive political forces.

?If security starts becoming job one, then a lot of things being used by repressive states will become commercialised and normalised,? says Rafal Rohozinski, a founder of the OpenNet Initiative, which tracks filtering. ?We?ll be doing the same thing as Iran, or using the same technologies. And that?s what I worry about.?

Billy Mays is DEAD!!
 

Sunday, June 28th 2009
Billy Mays Is Dead!

NOOOOO!!!! What in the fuck is going on?! It has been confirmed that infomercial superstar Billy Mays was found dead at his home in Tampa, FL this morning. 50-year-old Billy was found by his wife at around 7:45 this morning. No cause of death is known at this time, but an autopsy on Billy's body is scheduled for tomorrow. Foul play is not suspected. Billy was supposed to have his third hip replacement surgery tomorrow. Billy's wife issued this statement:

"Although Billy lived a public life, we don't anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days. Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times."

Billy had just returned to Tampa from Philadelphia where he was filming an infomercial for OxiClean. Billy's plane had a little issues during landing. Billy Twittered yesterday: "Just had a close call landing in Tampa. The tires blew out upon landing. Stuck in the plane on the runway. You can always count on US Air."

Source

Posted by: Michael K

^^ I was just about to post that shit. :D

Ok, you get the next celebrity/quiet shouter death announcement :cool:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...901608_pf.html

High Court Rules for White Firefighters in Discrimination Suit
Ruling Reverses High-Profile Decision by Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 29, 2009 12:07 PM



The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.

The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination.

In effect, the court was deciding when avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another.

The court's conservative majority said in a 5 to 4 vote that is what happened in New Haven.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the liberals on the court and said the decision knocks the pegs from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

She read her dissent from the bench for emphasis. "Congress endeavored to promote equal opportunity in fact, and not simply in form," she said. "The damage today's decision does to that objective is untold."

On the last day on the bench for retiring Justice David H. Souter, the court failed to reach a decision on one of its most important cases of the term: whether a conservative group's production of a 90-minute film on Hillary Rodham Clinton amounted to a documentary, or merely a long commercial of the type restricted by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act.

Instead, the court took the unusual action of scheduling new arguments on the case for Sept. 9, before the court's new term begins next October. The court wants new briefings on issues that could lead to the justices declaring unconstitutional that part of the act, formally called the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002.

The court's decision probably will lead Democrats to push efforts to have a vote on Sotomayor's confirmation so she can be in place before the September hearing, although it is unclear whether her replacement of Souter would affect the outcome of the case.

Senate hearings on her nomination are set to begin in two weeks.

The New Haven case, Ricci v. DeStefano, has become the ruling that Sotomayor's critics most point to for evidence that she lets her background influence her decisions, even though her role has been somewhat inflated.


The promotion test results produced a heated debate in New Haven, and government lawyers warned the city's civil service board that if it certified the test results, minority firefighters might have a good case for claiming discrimination under Title VII. Federal guidelines presume discrimination when a test has such a disparate impact on minorities.

The board split 2 to 2, which meant the exam was not certified. Those who opposed using the results said they worried the test must be flawed in some way that disadvantaged minorities. (The test questions have not been made public.)

The white firefighters filed suit, saying their rights had been violated under both the law and the Constitution's protections of due process.

District Judge Janet Bond Arterton dismissed their suit before it went to trial. She said in her 47-page decision that the city was justified under the law in junking the test, even if it could not explain its flaws.

The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, where Sotomayor and judges Robert Sack and Rosemary S. Pooler heard the appeal. Oral arguments lasted an hour, with Sotomayor leading the questioning, as is her reputation. But instead of issuing a detailed and signed opinion, the panel said in a brief summary that, although it was "not unsympathetic" to the plight of the white firefighters, it unanimously affirmed the lower court's decision for "reasons stated in the thorough, thoughtful, and well-reasoned opinion."

Kennedy's opinion referred to the judgment of Sotomayor and the other judges only by noting the short opinion.

Kennedy said the standard for whether an employer may discard a test is whether there is a strong reason to the employer to believe that the test is flawed in a way that discriminates against minorities, not just by looking at the results.

In New Haven's case, "there is no evidence -- let alone the required strong basis in evidence -- that the tests were flawed because they were not job-related or because other, equally valid and less discriminatory tests were available to the city," Kennedy wrote.

The case has drawn considerable attention not just because of Sotomayor's role but because of the sympathetic nature of the claim brought by the firefighters, who said they were discriminated against simply because of the color of their skin.

The lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, is a veteran firefighter who said in sworn statements that he spent thousands of dollars in preparation and studied for months for the exam. Ricci said he is dyslexic, so he had tapes made of the test materials and listened to them on his commute to work.

Bernie Madoff sentencing aftermath
 

I'm watching coverage of this abortion and an elderly couple said they lost 2.5million dollars with Madoff.

Question for all....

Where does greed begin and saving for retirement end??

The new facts concerning the Madoff case has shown a new turn. It seems the Financial Advisors where directing ppl to Bernie Madoff fund in lew of large commissions. While many were greed, some where based on trust of experts.

While there are obvious greedy people involved in this plot, many were duped into investing their entire nest egg while any financial person will tell you is never advisable.

Greed is at the heart of every aspect of this case.
The advisors were getting better than average commissions on a product that was too good to be true (up in a down market), the investors themselves were willing to forgo the usual checks and balances for the returns that were unrealistic, and Maddoff is just a fuckin' leech. The worst kind of con man - no moral compass at all.
$2.5M sounds like a huge number to most of us, so I understand where these people look greedy for chasing more, but that's our system - to acquire and horde. And really, for this level of investor, if that's their liquid position, that's not the extent of their assets. The pool of retirement funds for more middle class investors is where we'll see more pain.
And this whole thing really goes to why there has been so much backlash against the privatization of social security, etc. Because at its heart, our financial system is based upon greed. Despite some controversial ruling in recent administaration to the contrary, Corporations are not citizens in the sense that they will not make decisions based upon the greater good, but are beholden to their own survival, and the advisors that placed money with Maddoff worked for those types of entities.
Maddoff's just a bigger monster than most.

Ice falls from plane and hits man
 

A Bristol man has described how he was hit by a block of ice which fell from an aeroplane as he sat in his garden.

David Gammon lives under the flight path for Bristol International Airport.

He said: "We heard a plane going overhead and then a whistling sound and all of a sudden a piece of ice the size of a grapefruit fell on my thigh."

Mr Gammon, 76, is bruised but recovering. Bristol International said there was no proof the ice had fallen from a plane using the airport.

In a statement, the airport said: "Bristol International will provide all possible support to the Civil Aviation Authority in the investigation of this matter.

"However, variables such as aircraft height, wind strength, air temperature and other factors indicate that the ice could have come from any aircraft overflying within approximately five miles.

"This includes inbound transatlantic flights to Heathrow, flights to Germany and northern Europe and aircraft flying to or from Bristol International."

"I've been told that if it had hit my head, I would no longer be with you," Mr Gammon added.