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HOUSTON ? The Texas man whose case led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that granted privacy rights to gay men and lesbians has died at age 68.
John G. Lawrence died in Houston on Nov. 20, according to Sarah Wilson of R.S. Farmer Funeral Home in Silsbee, Texas. Lawrence died of a heart condition, his partner, Jose Garcia, told the Houston Chronicle.
Mitchell Katine, a Houston attorney who represented Lawrence in the case Lawrence vs. Texas, told the newspaper he learned of his client's death Saturday while trying to invite him to an April celebration of the 2003 ruling.
The case began in 1998 when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment just outside Houston. Police went to the home, pushed open the door and found Lawrence and Tyrone Garner having sex. Both paid $200 fines after spending several hours in the county jail for alleged violation of the state sodomy statute, a misdemeanor.
Katine said Lawrence did not view himself as an activist.
"He was angry at how he was treated, both physically and personally," he told the Chronicle. "He was taken to jail in the middle of the night in his underwear."
The Associated Press left a phone message Monday evening at Katine's law office, and Garcia's phone number was unlisted.
At the time of the Lawrence ruling, gay rights advocates called it the most important legal advance ever for gay people in the United States. Since then, gay rights have advanced nationwide. Gay marriage is now allowed in some states and Washington, D.C., and the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy took effect in September.
"This ruling lets us get on with our lives and it opens the door for gay people all over the country," Lawrence said at the time. Garner died of meningitis in 2006.
In an opinion for the court majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that the two men "are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
The U.S. Constitution's framers "knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," Kennedy wrote.
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Today, in 1945, the World Bank and IMF were created.
Posted Dec 27th 2011 at 12:01 am in Open Threads | 397224No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fbiggovernment.com%2Fpublius%2F2011%2F12%2F27%2Ftuesday-open-thread-finance-edition%2FTuesday+Open+Thread%3A+Finance+Edition2011-12-27+08%3A01%3A39Publiushttp%3A%2F%2Fbiggovernment.com%2F%3Fp%3D397224
Source: http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/12/27/tuesday-open-thread-finance-edition/
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BANGKOK ? World stocks markets fell Wednesday, with trading thinned by year-end holidays and mixed economic news out of the U.S. and Japan.
Benchmark oil hovered above $101 per barrel while the dollar fell against the euro and the yen.
European stocks dropped in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.2 percent to 5,501.25. Germany's DAX was 0.9 percent lower at 5,839.98 and France's CAC-40 lost 0.4 percent to 3,092.01. Wall Street also appeared headed for a lower opening. Dow Jones industrial futures rose 0.2 percent to 12,199 while S&P 500 futures dipped 0.3 percent to 1,256.60.
Earlier in Asia, trading was subdued, as it typically is between the Christmas holiday and New Year's.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.2 percent to close at 8,423.62. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.6 percent to 18,518.67, while South Korea's Kospi lost 0.9 percent to 1,825.12. Australia's S&P ASX 200 lost 1.3 percent to 4,088.80. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia were also lower.
Japan's industrial output dropped a seasonally adjusted 2.6 percent last month ? the first decline in two months. But the negative news was mitigated by expectations of rebounding manufacturing and production this month and next, which helped to mute stock market losses.
The Shanghai Composite Index reversed course after early losses, rising 0.2 percent to 2,170.01. But the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index sank 0.5 percent at 849.76.
Some investors were "dumping shares" because Beijing has failed to take steps they expected to stimulate slowing economic growth, said Peter Lai, investment manager for DBS Vickers in Hong Kong.
"Some investors believed there would be a reduction in interest rates or the bank reserve ratio. But this hasn't happened," Lai said.
Tokyo Electric Power plunged 11.8 percent, a day after Japanese Industry Minister Yukio Edano suggested that the embattled utility be put under temporary state control and warned the company against resorting to electricity bill hikes.
TEPCO operates the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was heavily damaged in the March earthquake and tsunami, and owes massive compensation payments to people and companies harmed by a nuclear disaster at the plant.
Hong Kong-listed property shares also slumped. China Overseas Land & Investment slid 3 percent. China Resources Land lost 2.7 percent.
China Mengniu Dairy, the country's biggest dairy company, plummeted 24 percent in Hong Kong after acknowledging that a cancer-causing toxin had been found in milk produced by the company. Mengniu apologized and said no tainted milk had made it to the market. The government blamed the problem on bad feed given to cows.
Retail shares also slid on growing anxiety over the global economy in 2012. Hong Kong-listed jewelry retailer Chow Sang Sang shed 4 percent. Australian department store chain David Jones fell 2.1 percent and Woolworth's lost 0.9 percent.
On Wall Street on Tuesday, the Dow Jones lost less than 0.1 percent to close at 12,291.35. The S&P 500 was up marginally to 1,265.43. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.3 percent to 2,625.20.
U.S. consumer confidence surged to an eight-month high, but home prices fell in 19 of the 20 cities tracked by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index. That report dampened investors' enthusiasm about a jump in consumer confidence to the highest level since April.
Benchmark crude oil rose 2 cents to $101.36 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.66 to finish at $101.34 per barrel on the Nymex on Tuesday.
In currency trading, the euro fell to $1.3075 from $1.3069 late Tuesday in New York. The euro has been weak because of worries about Europe's government debt crisis. It is still trading just above an 11-month low of $1.2943 reached on Dec. 14.
The dollar fell to 77.73 yen from 77.85 yen.
___
AP Business Writer Joe McDonald contributed from Beijing.
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Christmas Day celebration by Sky High India Social OrganisationProgram was started with a welcome speech & lecture By Social Activist Aman Kalsotra Founder Director of Sky High Indian Social Organization who first introduce the organization to the guests present on the occasion and retreated organization motto of work & help to down trodden of the State and also appeal to all the citizens to extend all possible support and effort for the upliftment & progress of deprived who really need our help and urge the citizens of the country to pray on this Christmas for the peace and progress of mankind.
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Kasting stated: "People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads. It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. It's completely irrelevant to this goal whether Chrome actually gains tons of users or whether instead the web advances because the other browser vendors step up their game and produce far better browsers. Either way the web gets better. Job done."
The Google Chrome engineer went on to add that Google is not worried about competition to Chrome, saying that Mozilla Firefox holds an important place in the web ecosystem and its advancement. "Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well," he added.
Source: TweakTown
Source: http://www.techpowerup.com/157470/Mozilla-a-Partner-Not-Competitor-Google-Chrome-Engineer.html
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JERUSALEM ? A rare clay seal found under Jerusalem's Old City appears to be linked to religious rituals practiced at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday.
The coin-sized seal found near the Jewish holy site at the Western Wall bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God."
Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said it dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D. ? the year Roman forces put down a Jewish revolt and destroyed the second of the two biblical Jewish temples.
The find marks the first discovery of a written seal from that period of Jerusalem's history, and appeared to be a unique physical artifact from ritual practice in the Temple, he said.
Very few artifacts linked to the Temple have been discovered so far. The site of the Temple itself ? the enclosure known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary ? remains off-limits to archaeologists because of its religious and political sensitivity.
Archaeologists say the seal was likely used by Temple officials approving an object for ritual use ? oil, perhaps, or an animal intended for sacrifice. Materials used by Temple priests had to meet stringent purity guidelines stipulated in detail in Jewish legal texts, which also mention the use of such seals.
The site where the seal was found is on the route of a main street that ran through ancient Jerusalem just outside the Temple compound.
The seal was found in an excavation run by archaeologists from the government's Israel Antiquities Authority. The dig is under the auspices of a broader excavation nearby known as the City of David, where archaeologists are investigating the oldest part of Jerusalem.
The City of David dig, located inside the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan and funded by a Jewish group affiliated with the settlement movement, is the Holy Land's highest-profile and most politically controversial excavation.
______
Follow Matti Friedman on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mattifriedman
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Continue reading Listen to the Engadget Mobile Podcast, live at 4PM ET!
Listen to the Engadget Mobile Podcast, live at 4PM ET! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LONDON (Reuters) ? Britain said on Friday that Argentinian-led efforts to ban ships flying the Falkland Islands flag from South American ports were "unjustified and counterproductive" and vowed to protect the territory's sovereignty.
The comments by Prime Minister David Cameron were the government's strongest yet as tensions between Britain and Argentina escalated almost 30 years after the two countries went to war over the British-ruled islands.
On Tuesday the South American trading bloc Mercosur announced the ship ban in act of solidarity with Argentina.
"Argentina continues its unjustified and counterproductive efforts to disrupt shipping around the islands and to deter business from engaging in legitimate commerce," Cameron said in a Christmas radio message to the Falkland Islands.
"Let me be absolutely clear. We will always maintain our commitment to you on any question of sovereignty. Your right to self-determination is the cornerstone of our policy," he said.
Britain has controlled the South Atlantic islands, located about 300 miles off the eastern coast Argentina, since 1833. Its two-month war with Argentina in 1982 resulted in the deaths of 255 British and about 650 Argentine soldiers.
The British government says it will only agree to sovereignty talks if the territory's 3,000 residents ask it to, and that the islanders want to remain British.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has rejected the argument as a display of "mediocrity bordering on stupidity" and earlier this year called Britain a "crass colonial power in decline" for refusing to hold talks over the islands, known as Las Malvinas in Spanish.
In his radio message, Cameron said it was in British interests to have a constructive relationship with Argentina, but said he would never accept what he said were Argentine efforts to challenge the islands' right to self-determination.
Diplomatic tensions over the islands have increased in recent years over offshore oil exploration.
The spat is also gaining steam ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war in April, a planned military stint on the islands early next year by RAF helicopter pilot Prince William, and the release of the film "The Iron Lady" about Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister who led Britain in the war with Argentina.
(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
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WESTON, W.Va.?? Normally, Rebecca Jordan will take all the free TV exposure she can get for the psychiatric hospital that she's turned into a tourist attraction known as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
SyFy's "Ghost Hunters." Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Stories." Discovery's "Forgotten Planet." She even hosted an episode of CMT's "My Big Redneck Wedding" on the 307-acre grounds.
But she drew the line when producers for A&E's "Paranormal State" called. They didn't want to meet the ghosts behind the 2?-foot thick walls, she says. They wanted to get rid of them.
"And I was like, 'Well, maybe you're not the right fit for me. We do not want to get rid of our spirits! We want them to stay in the building!'
"Unless they want to go home," she adds with a laugh. "And then they can go home. I'm not trying to keep anybody here who doesn't want to be here."
Spirits, after all, make money. And the property that Jordan's father bought three years ago for $1.5 million is now generating enough revenue from overnight public ghost hunts at $100 a person and other types of tours to pay a staff of 33 and fund a never-ending list of maintenance and repair projects.
The main Gothic Revival building is one of the world's largest hand-cut sandstone structures and a National Historic Landmark. Virginia legislators authorized its construction in 1858, but it wasn't until 1864 that the first patients were admitted.
The hospital repeatedly changed hands during the Civil War, ending up with West Virginia when it became a separate state. Originally intended for 250 patients, it housed nearly 10 times that many during the 1950s.
Known in later years as Weston Hospital, it eventually closed in 1994, when the state moved patients to a more modern facility. Then it stood empty for nearly 15 years, inhabited only by rats, security guards and the occasional paintball-playing trespasser.
In 2008, Jordan's father Joe, a Morgantown asbestos abatement and demolition contractor, bought it at auction for $1.5 million. He's since sunk at least another $1 million into the place, hiring crew after crew to repair the showpiece clock tower, the disintegrating floors and the forever-leaking roofs.
Running the asylum is a family affair.
Don't miss these Travel stories
Stressed about facing the holiday crowds at the airport this week? Contrary to accepted wisdom, the idea that the holidays represent the busiest days in air travel may be more myth than reality.
Rebecca handles marketing and sales. Her historian husband applies for grants. Her brother handles advertising and maintains the website. Her 13-year-old daughter, Breonna Childress, is a full-time volunteer who hosts overnight birthday-party ghost hunts with her friends and talks about the day she'll inherit the business.
Mainly by capitalizing on public interest in the paranormal, the Jordans have lured more than 115,000 visitors to the property since they bought it.
Chris Richards, director of the Lewis County Convention and Visitors Bureau, calls the following "phenomenal," noting that people are traveling from all over the world to visit Weston.
The Jordans and local hotels co-sponsor each other, and the operators of gas stations, convenience stores and restaurants all tell Richards that business is up.
"We're all tickled to death that someone is in there and using the space and bringing its back to its heyday and letting it be all it can be," she says. "If you love architecture and you love history and you love the paranormal, you're going to love that building, and that's just all there is to it."
Not that there aren't critics. Some mental health advocates were outraged by the name change, and still are.
"I still think it is inappropriate to capitalize on the sad history of that place and to promote the stereotypes that are attached often to mental illness," says Ann McDaniel, executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council. "There's enough fear out there about people who have mental illness. We don't have to make it scary.
"It sensationalizes," McDaniel says. "If they were just educating people, that would be good. But when you have haunted houses ... when you have trails called the 'Psycho Path,' that kind of thing is negative."
About once every six months, Rebecca Jordan gets a call from someone concerned about the name.
"And then they book!" she says. "So who cares?"
The Jordan family has experience with mental health issues, she says, and its exhibits educate people on treatments once considered state of the art and now considered horrifying ? electroshock therapy, lobotomies, cold-water baths and cage-like cribs that were hung from the ceiling, to name just a few.
The seven museum rooms also feature more than 120 pieces of artwork ? pottery, paintings, quilts ? that patients made in therapy. Disassembled for the winter, when the building is cold and damp, the displays include the superintendent's books, nurses' logs and more.
The asylum is working with West Virginia University to create an interactive exhibit featuring story boards, photos and recorded interviews with former patients and staff. And the museum is a popular stop with not only junior high and high school history classes, but also nursing and abnormal psychology students.
"Primarily, there were people here who were trying to make it better for the mentally ill," Jordan says. "But there were still people who believed in what they called 'thump therapy' ... and that's just the people who came in angry and would just beat the patients. Unfortunately, that did happen."
The key to the Jordans' success so far has been a diversity of offerings, from Civil War and hospital history tours, to "mud bogs" for four-wheelers and trucks, and a 25-band Moonstruck Music Festival. It hosts year-round paranormal tours and ghost hunts, even inviting TV celebrities to give seminars and lead special private hunts.
Jordan says the asylum is making about $600,000 or $700,000 a year now, but she still doesn't take a salary, and every dollar goes back into the business.
"And I'm fine with that," she says. "As long as we're able to keep the building open."
At the end of October, her payroll totaled about $161,000. But maintenance expenses were more than $295,000 ? and that was before the wintertime shutdown and the ramping-up of repairs.
And so she adds attractions, with an eye to running a year-round business in 2012.
In the spring, she'll open three new museum rooms, plus a Macabre Museum "with all the oddities, all the strange stories" in the basement. Jordan's also working with bus companies on a "Kooky Christmas" and dinner-theater tour that will keep people coming through next winter.
But she faces on expensive hurdle: The unheated building is frigid, colder inside on a rainy December day than it is outside.
Employee Eric Skinner leans over and fake-whispers in Jordan's ear.
"If you heat it," he tells her, "they will come."
___
If You Go...
TRANS-ALLEGHENY LUNATIC ASYLUM: http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/. Year-round offerings include overnight weekend ghost hunts, 9 p.m.-5 a.m., $100, and two-hour late-night paranormal tours, $40. Dates at http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/main/schedule.html. Daytime historic tours offered March 26-Oct. 31, Tuesday-Sunday, $10 or $30 depending on length. Private tours also available at 304-269-5070.
WESTON STATE HOSPITAL PHOTOS: http://www.preservationphoto.com/loc30.html
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45753761/ns/travel-destination_travel/
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WESTON, W.Va.?? Normally, Rebecca Jordan will take all the free TV exposure she can get for the psychiatric hospital that she's turned into a tourist attraction known as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
SyFy's "Ghost Hunters." Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Stories." Discovery's "Forgotten Planet." She even hosted an episode of CMT's "My Big Redneck Wedding" on the 307-acre grounds.
But she drew the line when producers for A&E's "Paranormal State" called. They didn't want to meet the ghosts behind the 2?-foot thick walls, she says. They wanted to get rid of them.
"And I was like, 'Well, maybe you're not the right fit for me. We do not want to get rid of our spirits! We want them to stay in the building!'
"Unless they want to go home," she adds with a laugh. "And then they can go home. I'm not trying to keep anybody here who doesn't want to be here."
Spirits, after all, make money. And the property that Jordan's father bought three years ago for $1.5 million is now generating enough revenue from overnight public ghost hunts at $100 a person and other types of tours to pay a staff of 33 and fund a never-ending list of maintenance and repair projects.
The main Gothic Revival building is one of the world's largest hand-cut sandstone structures and a National Historic Landmark. Virginia legislators authorized its construction in 1858, but it wasn't until 1864 that the first patients were admitted.
The hospital repeatedly changed hands during the Civil War, ending up with West Virginia when it became a separate state. Originally intended for 250 patients, it housed nearly 10 times that many during the 1950s.
Known in later years as Weston Hospital, it eventually closed in 1994, when the state moved patients to a more modern facility. Then it stood empty for nearly 15 years, inhabited only by rats, security guards and the occasional paintball-playing trespasser.
In 2008, Jordan's father Joe, a Morgantown asbestos abatement and demolition contractor, bought it at auction for $1.5 million. He's since sunk at least another $1 million into the place, hiring crew after crew to repair the showpiece clock tower, the disintegrating floors and the forever-leaking roofs.
Running the asylum is a family affair.
Don't miss these Travel stories
Getting ready to brave the teeming masses at the airport later this week? Turns out you may need less courage than you might think.
Rebecca handles marketing and sales. Her historian husband applies for grants. Her brother handles advertising and maintains the website. Her 13-year-old daughter, Breonna Childress, is a full-time volunteer who hosts overnight birthday-party ghost hunts with her friends and talks about the day she'll inherit the business.
Mainly by capitalizing on public interest in the paranormal, the Jordans have lured more than 115,000 visitors to the property since they bought it.
Chris Richards, director of the Lewis County Convention and Visitors Bureau, calls the following "phenomenal," noting that people are traveling from all over the world to visit Weston.
The Jordans and local hotels co-sponsor each other, and the operators of gas stations, convenience stores and restaurants all tell Richards that business is up.
"We're all tickled to death that someone is in there and using the space and bringing its back to its heyday and letting it be all it can be," she says. "If you love architecture and you love history and you love the paranormal, you're going to love that building, and that's just all there is to it."
Not that there aren't critics. Some mental health advocates were outraged by the name change, and still are.
"I still think it is inappropriate to capitalize on the sad history of that place and to promote the stereotypes that are attached often to mental illness," says Ann McDaniel, executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council. "There's enough fear out there about people who have mental illness. We don't have to make it scary.
"It sensationalizes," McDaniel says. "If they were just educating people, that would be good. But when you have haunted houses ... when you have trails called the 'Psycho Path,' that kind of thing is negative."
About once every six months, Rebecca Jordan gets a call from someone concerned about the name.
"And then they book!" she says. "So who cares?"
The Jordan family has experience with mental health issues, she says, and its exhibits educate people on treatments once considered state of the art and now considered horrifying ? electroshock therapy, lobotomies, cold-water baths and cage-like cribs that were hung from the ceiling, to name just a few.
The seven museum rooms also feature more than 120 pieces of artwork ? pottery, paintings, quilts ? that patients made in therapy. Disassembled for the winter, when the building is cold and damp, the displays include the superintendent's books, nurses' logs and more.
The asylum is working with West Virginia University to create an interactive exhibit featuring story boards, photos and recorded interviews with former patients and staff. And the museum is a popular stop with not only junior high and high school history classes, but also nursing and abnormal psychology students.
"Primarily, there were people here who were trying to make it better for the mentally ill," Jordan says. "But there were still people who believed in what they called 'thump therapy' ... and that's just the people who came in angry and would just beat the patients. Unfortunately, that did happen."
The key to the Jordans' success so far has been a diversity of offerings, from Civil War and hospital history tours, to "mud bogs" for four-wheelers and trucks, and a 25-band Moonstruck Music Festival. It hosts year-round paranormal tours and ghost hunts, even inviting TV celebrities to give seminars and lead special private hunts.
Jordan says the asylum is making about $600,000 or $700,000 a year now, but she still doesn't take a salary, and every dollar goes back into the business.
"And I'm fine with that," she says. "As long as we're able to keep the building open."
At the end of October, her payroll totaled about $161,000. But maintenance expenses were more than $295,000 ? and that was before the wintertime shutdown and the ramping-up of repairs.
And so she adds attractions, with an eye to running a year-round business in 2012.
In the spring, she'll open three new museum rooms, plus a Macabre Museum "with all the oddities, all the strange stories" in the basement. Jordan's also working with bus companies on a "Kooky Christmas" and dinner-theater tour that will keep people coming through next winter.
But she faces on expensive hurdle: The unheated building is frigid, colder inside on a rainy December day than it is outside.
Employee Eric Skinner leans over and fake-whispers in Jordan's ear.
"If you heat it," he tells her, "they will come."
___
If You Go...
TRANS-ALLEGHENY LUNATIC ASYLUM: http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/. Year-round offerings include overnight weekend ghost hunts, 9 p.m.-5 a.m., $100, and two-hour late-night paranormal tours, $40. Dates at http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/main/schedule.html. Daytime historic tours offered March 26-Oct. 31, Tuesday-Sunday, $10 or $30 depending on length. Private tours also available at 304-269-5070.
WESTON STATE HOSPITAL PHOTOS: http://www.preservationphoto.com/loc30.html
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45753761/ns/travel-destination_travel/
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On Wednesday, following an audit by the Irish Data Protection Commission, Facebook agreed to change its privacy settings and how it handles user data in Europe.
To avoid running afoul of European privacy laws, Facebook agreed to send additional notifications to allow users to opt out of its "Tag Suggest" facial recognition feature.?
The social network will change how it handles user data, including deleting some data more quickly. Facebook also agreed to work with the Irish agency to update how it explains its privacy policies to users.
?The commission will review Facebook's progress next July.?"We are pleased that following three months of rigorous examination, the [Data Protection Commission] report demonstrates how Facebook adheres to European data protection principles and complies with Irish law," Richard Allan, Facebook's director of public policy in Europe, wrote.?
Facebook's European headquarters are in Ireland.
Facebook settled charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in November that it violated users? privacy and shared their personal information with advertisers.
The FTC settlement requires Facebook to implement a comprehensive privacy program, including outside privacy audits, for the next 20 years. Facebook is barred from misrepresenting its privacy practices in any way going forward and could face fines of $16,000 per violation, per day, if fails to comply with the order.
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? Playing With Pigs
With tens of thousands of apps currently available for the iPad and iPhone, there is certainly no shortage of distractions to keep us smartphone-wielding humans entertained -- but as it turns out, we're not the only ones who could benefit from bit of beguilement. That said, in hopes of staving off boredom in human and swine alike, a team of Dutch designers have created Pig Chase -- an app for interspecies entertainment that playfully pits iPad users against real-life pigs, who might otherwise only meet one another on a plate.
Since 2001, law has required pig farmers in the European Union to provide some form of entertainment to their livestock as a way of keeping them in good emotional health, which in turn helps curb aggression and anxiety. Often, toys and other materials are placed inside the sties for animals to interact with, but perhaps unsurprisingly, some farmers have found it quite difficult to play host to satisfactorily turn their pigpens into playpens.
With that in mind, designers from Utrecht School of the Arts and Wageningen University in the Netherlands ventured to create new ways to make swine swoon -- resulting in a project called Playing with Pigs. But with a shortage of literature on entertaining pigs, developers soon found themselves experts in the field.
"During the design process we discovered something that, to our knowledge at the time, animal scientists had not noticed until now: pigs like to play with light. For example, pigs are fascinated by the movement of reflected points of light, and are attracted to new light spots on a surface," the project's web site states.
That's when the idea for Pig Chase dawned on them as a means to bring a bit of joy to animals on the farm, all while forging a "new relationship between pigs and humans."
Here's how it works:
? Playing With Pigs
Pigs play with the help of a large touch sensitive display. On it, a human-controlled ball of light moves around. When they touch the ball, it fires off colorful sparks.
? Playing With Pigs
Humans play the game on a tablet computer such as an iPad. They move the ball of light with their finger and see the pigs? snouts as if they were on the other side of the screen.
? Playing With Pigs
If pigs and humans move in harmony, that is, if a pig?s snout and the human?s ball of light move through a goal triangle, it triggers a colorful display of fireworks. An additional challenge for humans is to maintain contact with the pigs? snouts. If they do not, their ball of light fizzles out.
? Playing With Pigs
? Playing With Pigs
Finally, the number of targets a human and pig hit in one session is kept track of and shown in a high score table. So what we have is a game that enables humans to play with an animal they normally only consume as meat. For pigs, humans are transformed into a source of entertainment.
? Playing With Pigs
In both intent and execution, this is pretty awesome. For too long and for too many people, livestock pigs have been relegated to the murky outskirts of our awareness, despite possessing an intellect and emotional sensitivity found in few other non-human species. At the very least, Pig Chase will undoubtedly, and perhaps subconsciously, raise awareness of not only of where our food comes from -- but from whom as well.
According to its creators, Pig Chase is in development with Dutch gaming firm Gamefonds, and could soon be coming to an iPad -- or sty -- near you.
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Ah, but therein the beauty of the design! Upon close examination, you will note that the kitteh?s nose faces Southwest, while the goggie?s, erm, ?exhaust? faces Northeast, directly in line, in fact, to the goggie?s air intake (so the dog can ascertain that he is himself, and no other dog, I guess).
Source: http://cuteoverload.com/2011/12/14/making-pets-safer-with-science/
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FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, actress Lindsay Lohan appears with her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley for a probation hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court. Lohan returns to court Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to update an LA judge on her progress under strict new probation requirements. (AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool)
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, actress Lindsay Lohan appears with her attorney Shawn Chapman Holley for a probation hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court. Lohan returns to court Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, to update an LA judge on her progress under strict new probation requirements. (AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Lindsay Lohan is due in court Wednesday to give a judge her first progress update under strict new probation requirements intended to keep close tabs on the troubled actress.
Lohan has been reporting regularly for work at the Los Angeles County morgue since being repeatedly threatened with a long jail sentence if she failed to complete the terms of her probation, which include community service and counseling sessions.
The hearing is without the usual drama that precedes Lohan's recent court appearances, which have focused on the actress' shortcomings by missing court-ordered therapy sessions and getting booted from a community service assignment at a women's shelter. The "Mean Girls" star spent less than five hours at a jail last month as part of a 30-day sentence imposed by Judge Stephanie Sautner for Lohan's continued misbehavior.
The judge is requiring the starlet to report on her progress on a monthly basis and it appears Lohan has been successful in meeting the goals of Wednesday's hearing.
"She's been doing fine," Deputy Chief Coroner Ed Winter said Tuesday, saying the actress has been showing up, working and leaving without incident.
He said he did not know how many hours Lohan had completed.
Her spokesman, Steve Honig, said Lohan has met or exceeded the terms of her probation imposed by Sautner last month.
"She's working very diligently to keep up her days so she can finish up with probation," he said.
Lohan remains on probation for a 2007 drunken driving case and a misdemeanor grand theft case filed after she took a $2,500 necklace without permission from a store.
She has consistently struggled with the terms of her various sentences, which have included jail terms, rehab, community service and counseling.
Her appearance Wednesday comes days before a Playboy issue featuring Lohan in a mostly-nude pictorial hits newsstands. The magazine was forced to release the issue online early after photos of the Marilyn Monroe-inspired spread leaked out online.
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Follow Anthony McCartney at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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The Holy Grail of high-energy physics ? the predicted but elusive Higgs boson ? is almost within reach, and the Brandeis high-energy physics group, along with other particle physicists around the world collaborating on making the finding, is almost giddy with excitement.
The Brandeis group has contributed since 1994 to collaborative experiments to detect the Higgs particle in the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). CERN, the international agency in Geneva that oversees experiments in the LHC, announced Monday in a progress report the news of mounting experimental evidence for the existence of this critically important speck of nature.
"It's very exciting," says Brandeis physics Professor Craig Blocker, explaining that experiments in the LHC's two detectors have amassed enough evidence of the Higgs particle to suggest much more than an unexplained blip in the data produced by trillions of protons smashing into each other at almost the speed of light.
"The data look very tantalizing but we're not there yet," says Blocker. "We don't have quite enough evidence to claim a discovery but it looks promising ? there's a good indication that this particle is there, so we'll probably be able to announce the discovery next year with more data."
What makes the prospect of finding the Higgs particle so electrifying for physicists is that its discovery could put in place the final piece of the puzzle that describes the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions ? hence its description as the "God Particle." Higgs particles are thought to interact with other subatomic particles to give them mass through a phenomenon known as the Higgs mechanism.
The Higgs mechanism was first described in the 1960s by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs. A few years later, physicist Steven Weinberg applied Higgs' ideas to weak interactions and predicted the Higgs particle. It is the only elementary particle in the Standard Model ? the description of the fundamental particles and the forces that hold them together ? that has not been observed experimentally yet.
Blocker says detecting the Higgs is challenging because the strength with which it interacts with other particles depends on the mass of those other particles. The Higgs itself is quite massive (for something on the subatomic level); it interacts well with other massive particles, but very poorly with lightweight particles. However, massive particles generally require higher-energy conditions than lightweight particles to record experimentally ? energy levels difficult to obtain even inside the mind-boggling fast Large Hadron Collider. Consequently, says Blocker, physicists don't obtain the signature energy decay of a Higgs boson often in the supercollider.
The growing anticipation surrounding the Higgs particle seems almost overshadowed by a gathering anxiety that physicists might actually get what they wish for ? a perfectly realized prediction that completes the Standard Model. If that happens says Blocker, "we'd be unhappy ? the quest is what's interesting."
Higgs or no Higgs, the chances of particle physicists actually arriving at what Einstein called a "theory of everything" anytime soon seem infinitesimally remote. When it comes to particle physics, says Blocker, it is much more likely that new theories will be generated with each experimental advance.
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Brandeis University: http://www.brandeis.edu
Thanks to Brandeis University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115960/Physicists_say_they_are_near_epic_Higgs_boson_discovery
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Actor Alec Baldwin was involved in a dispute with an American Airlines flight attendant on Tuesday and asked to disembark an airplane because he was playing a smart-phone word game before departure.
"Alec was asked to leave the flight for playing 'Words with Friends' while parked at the gate. He loves WWF so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it, but he has already boarded another AA flight," Baldwin's spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said in a statement.
Baldwin took to Twitter with several posts addressing the incident, as well as supporting rival United Airlines.
"Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving," tweeted the "30 Rock" actor.
He also tweeted "Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950's find jobs as flight attendants."
Baldwin's tweets and his spokesman's statement came after a passenger on the flight from Los Angeles International Airport to New York City, posted on Twitter, "On an AA flight at LAX. Alec Baldwin removed from the plane We had to go back to the gate. Terrible that everyone had to wait."
An official with American Airlines declined to comment citing customer privacy.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
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