This Just In...the thread for news.

[FranklinTard]

rolling stones finally decide to hang em up.

http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/the-ro...bury-festival/

i doubt it, but it would be the end of an era, as it were.

[Ramplate]

The endangered Kakapo of New Zealand is making a comeback - despite the propensity of males trying to mate with human heads

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[Ramplate]

WikiLeaks founder wants guarantee he won't be sent to US
http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-foun...032238148.html

Brave enough to publicize national secrets, but coward enough to not want to face the consequences of his actions.

[Ramplate]

Makes sense to me as a tax - but I've always had insurance coverage anyway

Supreme Court upholds Obamacare individual mandate as a tax

In a victory for President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court decided to uphold his signature health care law's individual insurance mandate in a 5-4 decision, upending speculation after hostile-seeming oral arguments in March that the justices would overturn the law. The mandate has been upheld as a tax, according to SCOTUSblog, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal wing of the court. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog says Roberts' vote "saved' the Affordable Care Act.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote, dissented, reading from the bench that he and three conservative justices believe "the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."

Twenty six states sued over the law, arguing that the individual mandate, which requires people to buy health insurance or face a fine starting in 2014, was unconstitutional. Opponents cast the individual mandate as the government forcing Americans to enter a market and buy a product against their will, while the government countered that the law was actually only regulating a market that everyone is already in, since almost everyone will seek health care at some point in his or her life.

Before oral arguments in March, polls of Supreme Court experts and scholars showed that most believed the mandate would be upheld as an exercise of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. But after justices seemed deeply skeptical of the mandate in oral arguments in March, the consensus flipped, with most experts guessing the court would strike down the law.

House Republicans have vowed to repeal the entire law, though it's unlikely the Democratic-controlled Senate would let that happen, and this decision will most likely slow momentum for that move.

Though the sweeping, 1,000-page plus law passed more than two years ago, much of it will not go into effect until 2014. That's when states will have to set up their own health insurance exchanges, Medicaid will be expanded by 16 million low-income people, and Americans will have to buy health insurance (for many, with a government subsidy) or pay a penalty of 1 percent of their income to the IRS. Employers who have more than 50 employees and don't offer insurance will also begin to face a penalty. Insurers will no longer be able to turn away people with preexisting conditions, or charge people higher premiums based on their gender or health.

Only about 6 percent of the population will actually be required to buy health insurance or face a tax under the mandate, since most people already have coverage or will get it through Medicare, according to the Urban Institute.

Many of the more popular provisions of the law have already gone into effect, including a regulation saying insurers have to let children stay on their parents' plans until they are 26 years old, which 2.5 million Americans have already taken advantage of. Insurers can also no longer turn away children with preexisting conditions, and sick uninsured people can buy coverage in high-risk pools set up by the government.

Despite this intentional front-loading of consumer friendly, popular provisions of the law, the American public is pretty evenly split on the law's benefit. Slightly more people wanted the Supreme Court to strike down the law than uphold it in a recent poll.

[Ramplate]

Leap second: Earth's slowing rotation makes Saturday one second longer
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...d-longer-video

You just used your second

[Ramplate]

New NASA spaceship arrives in Florida for test flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An Orion space capsule being developed to fly astronauts to asteroids, the moon and eventually to Mars arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a 2014 test flight, NASA said on Monday.

The spacecraft, built by Lockheed-Martin is targeted for launch aboard an unmanned Delta 4 Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to the NASA spaceport.

Though designed to carry a crew of four, Orion will make its first two flights unmanned.

"It's not a PowerPoint chart. It's a real spacecraft," Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana said during a ceremony Monday marking the capsule's arrival.

The 2014 launch is intended to test Orion's heat shield, parachutes and other systems.

It is expected to reach about 3,450 miles above Earth - more than 10 times beyond where the International Space Station flies - then slam back into the planet's atmosphere with 84 percent of the force that a spaceship returning from the moon would have.

"It's really going to stress the heat shield, which is exactly what we're trying to do," said NASA program manager Mark Geyer.

A second test flight in 2017 using NASA's planned heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket, is intended to put an unmanned Orion capsule around the moon. The third test flight, targeted for 2021, is expected to include astronauts.

By 2025, NASA intends to send astronauts to explore a near-Earth asteroid and then head on to Mars in the 2030s.

Humans have not flown beyond a few hundred miles above Earth since 1972 when the Apollo missions to the moon ended.

With the retirement of the space shuttles last summer, NASA is dependent on Russia to fly crews to the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 countries that orbits about 240 miles above the planet.

In hopes of breaking Russia's monopoly, NASA is partnering with four companies interested in developing spaceships to fly government astronauts, as well as private researchers and tourists to the station and other planned outposts in orbits close to Earth.

A new round of partnership agreements is expected to be announced this month, said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.

The Obama administration's budget request for the deep-space Orion capsule and NASA's heavy-lift, shuttle-derived rocket is $2.3 billion for the year beginning October 1. It also requested $830 million for the Commercial Crew program.

Legislators are leaning toward increasing the amount spent on the government program and shaving about $300 million off NASA's investment in commercial spaceships.

The Delta 4 rocket which will be used for Orion's second test flight is made by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. Boeing also is the prime contractor for the Space Launch System core stage, which consists of a modified space shuttle fuel tank.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a division of United Technologies Corp is developing the rocket's J-2X upper stage.

ATK is manufacturing a variant of the shuttle's solid-fuel booster rockets for the heavy-lift follow-on program.

[Tolkien]

Yeah, the size is... umm, no way I'd spend an entire trip to Mars in something that small.

[JBond]

I would.

[Tolkien]

Well your psyche isn't hammered down by small spaces.

[Ramplate]

I used to work in an office where I could almost touch all four walls.
But I did suffer some panic attacks.

I'd need to open up a window now and then - you can do that in space, right?

[Ramplate]

Don't fascist dictators do the same thing? I smell a cult - and lots of brainwashed drones.

Church of Scientology asks followers to censor Web comments

The Katie Holmes-Tom Cruise split apparently has had a negative effect on the Church of Scientology, which is calling for members to take action and silence naysayers.

The campaign also comes as an entire mission for the church has defected from under the leadership of David Miscavige, reports the Village Voice. Leader Dani Lemberger of Israel's Dror Center, in Haifa, told Voice blogger Tony Ortega that his mission is one of the few that are still growing and announced that it is rejecting Miscavige's leadership.

It is the "first time in memory" that an entire mission has announced that it is leaving the church.

The church has sent an email to followers instructing them on how "to counter free speech on the internet," according to former Scientologist and current anti-Scientologist blogger Marty Rathbun, who posted the email message in its entirety on his blog.

He notes that it comes from the church's Office of Special Affairs, otherwise known as the "dirty tricks and propaganda arm of Scientology Inc." The message begins:

I am not a big fan of media, but you may have glanced the news of the split between TC and Holmes and all the speculations around. While this is a personal matter, when people start to bring our religion into the middle and a bunch of uninformed people start to spread false datum, rumors and defame our religion it became a matter that does affect my Dynamics and I believe that affects yours as well.

The message instructs followers to visit media sites, including Microsoft, Google or any other that requires users to agree to a code of conduct that prohibits comments that threaten, defame or degrade any group or individuals.

Followers should hunt for any comments about the Cruise-Holmes divorce or Scientology, and click the "Report Abuse" button and report the comments as violations of the site's code of conduct, the email instructs.

You can write something like "Violate Your Code of Conduct". "defames or degrades a group for any reason including on the basis of religion."

The author of the email notes that if only one person does it, the news site moderators won't act. Thus, the email begs "if you start to have 10 or 20 people reporting it, they are going to take this down."

Blogger Rathbun notes that the attempt to censor website comments is like showing up to a nuclear war with a squirt gun.

When will David Miscavige (supreme leader of corporate Scientology and Tom Cruise's best man) ever learn that attempts to suppress communication and expression only make more news than the news he attempts to censor?

Meanwhile, the Church of Scientology is also facing several high-profile defections in the of the Cruise-Holmes divorce, as well as the high-profile sex scandal involving John Travolta, another Hollywood Scientologist.

Lisa Marie Presley reportedly has parted with the church, said Fox News. After moving to the English countryside, she told the network that she began second-guessing "everything and everyone I knew. ... People that were in my life for a long time turned sinister and tried to control me and all kinds of weird stuff happened."

Jefferson Hawkins, a former executive with the church, told Fox that he expects to more defections.

"A lot of celebrities are starting to wake up. ... You don't see the big celebrities promoting it anymore. Even Tom has been pretty quiet on the subject over the last few years."

[Ramplate]

Florida Man's Silver Medallion Stops Falling Bullet at Fireworks

A Florida man struck by a bullet during a July Fourth fireworks display was protected from harm by the silver medallion his daughter recently gave him to wear around his neck.

Richard Smeraldo, 74, of Clearwater, Fla., had gone with his family to watch the fireworks at Safety Harbor Spa and Marina at around 9 p.m. Wednesday, a holiday ritual of theirs.

But as Smeraldo craned his head upward to take in the show, he experienced a strange sensation.

"It was about a half an hour into the show, around 9:30 p.m.," Smeraldo said. "There was a little pause before the finale, and I felt like I was hit with a big rock that smashed me in the nose. "

Smeraldo said he was struck by a bullet that had traveled an unusual path. It went through the bill of his baseball hat, hit his nose, went through his nostril, hit his lip, and traveled through his chin.

"It came straight down like someone had shot it up in the air," he said. "There are three new holes in my face I didn't have before," Smeraldo said.

The bullet was on its way down to his chest, but hit a silver dog-tag medallion Smeraldo had recently started wearing around his neck instead, splitting its chain and falling to the ground.

Smeraldo said the flat, dog tag-sized silver pendant was a gift to him from his mother when he was 16. He had initially worn it on a bracelet, but lost the bracelet long ago.

His daughter gave him the pendant about a month ago, he said. He had it engraved two weeks ago with a Bible verse in memory of his mother, and put it on a stainless steel chain.

The verse is from Matthew 17:20: "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Smeraldo said he received four stitches, two in each of the holes in his chin.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which provides law enforcement services to the city of Safety Harbor, is conducting an investigation.

The bullet that struck Smeraldo was sent to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement laboratory to identify its caliber, as well as to test the rifle markings on the bullet for a possible match with a gun registered in the state database, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said.

She said it might take a while for the lab to process the round. In the meantime, she's hoping for tips from the event's attendees.

Pasha said the Tampa Bay area has been known to experience celebratory gunfire during particular holidays during the year.

"Along with the fireworks on the Fourth of July, a lot of people will shoot their guns for whatever reason," she said. "We've found that to be true also on New Year's Eve and, believe it or not, on Christmas."

In Florida, eligible residents and nonresidents alike can apply for a license to carry a concealed weapon or firearm through the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Nearly 17,000 people attended the fireworks at the marina, Safety Harbor spokesman Brad Purdy said.

"The complete lack of concern or consequence when citizens do this is appalling," Pasha said. "Where do they think the bullets go?"

Smeraldo said he's extremely lucky.

"At least four people said I should buy a lotto ticket," Smeraldo said. "I bought 4 tickets for each of the people who told me to."

[Ramplate]

Nigerian tanker explosion: At least 95 killed after crash as people rush for ‘free fuel’
A Nigerian gasoline tanker caught fire on Thursday, killing at least 95 people in Okobe, a town in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

A witness told Reuters that the tanker crashed on a road and then caught fire as people were trying to scoop up the spilled fuel. According to Nigerian television, most of the victims were rushing for "free fuel."

Hundreds of locals "flocked to the site to collect the spilling fuel," according to Agence France-Presse. A photographer for the news agency said many of those killed were motorcycle taxi operators "who raced to fill up their tanks after learning of the crash."

"Then there was an explosion followed by fire," Kayode Olagunju, sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, told AFP. "Ninety-three were burned to death on the spot. Two died later in the hospital and 18 people were seriously injured."

Crashes are common on Nigeria's "pot-holed and poorly maintained roads," Reuters said. "In a region where most people live on less than $2 a day the chance to collect spilling petrol is too much of a temptation, despite the high risk of fires."

Four vehicles, including the tanker, were involved in the crash, police there said. At least 34 motorcycles were destroyed in the fire.

The death toll could rise. Reuters said at least 92 died. According to the Associated Press, a Nigerian government agency said 95 people were killed in the explosion. Nigerian TV reported the same figure. China's Xinhua news agency, citing local police, said 100 people were killed.

[Ramplate]

Hawaii attorney convicted in ear licking case

LIHUE, Hawaii (AP) — A judge called a Hawaii attorney convicted of harassment a "dirty old man" for licking a client's ear.

After a bench trial, Kauai attorney Lawrence McCreery, 64, was found guilty of harassment Thursday after a former client testified that while discussing her child custody case last year, he licked the back of her right ear.

She said he told the 21-year-old woman while touching her arm, "You look so good," and "Too bad you're married," according to the Kauai prosecuting attorney's office. The woman said he made a "weird sound" and hugged her tightly right before the licking.

McCreery testified to deny he licked her. He claimed she initiated the hug.

Per Diem Fifth Circuit District Court Judge Frank Rothschild ruled there's no evidence the woman made up the story. McCreery, who was licensed to practice law in Hawaii in 1975, was ordered to a pay a $250 fine, prosecutors said.

"Quite frankly," Rothschild said, "these are the actions of a dirty old man."

Defense attorney Michael Soong said he plans to appeal.

[Justin]

......Tolkien?

[Deexan]

[Tolkien]

Dammit Ramplate! Now everyone knows!!!

[Ramplate]

Oh like that was news

[Justin]

(Reuters) - The Church of Scientology, the religion whose followers include actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, plans to start a religious broadcasting centre to promote its teachings over TV, radio and the Internet.
The centre, located near the church's West Coast headquarters in Hollywood, would occupy the nearly five-acre studio property the church bought last year from Los Angeles public TV station KCET for $42 million. The station would elevate the public profile of a religion that has mostly relied on pamphlets and books by its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to proselytize for new members.

"The church plans to establish a central media hub for our growing world network of churches and to move into the production of religious television and radio broadcasting," said Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for Church of Scientology International, in an email.

She said there is no timetable for when operations would begin.

Scientology TV could be similar to Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network or the Trinity Broadcast Network. Trinity creates Christian programming at a production centre in Irving, Texas, and airs it on TV stations and cable channels, said Rick Ross, whose non-profit Rick A. Ross Institute in Trenton, New Jersey, maintains an online archive of data on cults and controversial movements.

"Hollywood is a major hub for creative talent and some of them are Scientologists," said Ross. "They'd have a lot of talented folks who could produce shows and stars like Tom Cruise who would appear on them."
Elayne Rapping, a pop-culture expert and professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo, told Reuters she is not surprised by the church's move.

"Having their own TV is a good idea since they can spin things their way," she said. "They are after good PR which they can control to offset the bad publicity surrounding them in other media."

Former members of the 60-year-old church accuse it of being a cult and have alleged that it abuses members and separates parents from children, among other things. The church denies such accusations.

The celebrity of controversial members like Cruise and Travolta is a double-edged sword for the church, Rapping said.
Cruise is one of the world's biggest movie stars, but his divorce from actress Katie Holmes has fuelled speculation that the couple disagreed on raising their 6-year-old daughter, Suri, as a Scientologist and sparked a flurry of news coverage about the church.

John Travolta was recently sued for libel by a Los Angeles man who wrote a book about his alleged homosexual encounters with the "Saturday Night Fever" and "Pulp Fiction" star.

The Hollywood studio would complement the church's existing production facility, Golden Era Productions, near Hemet, California, which produces DVDs and "other audiovisual materials that comprise a large part of the Church's religious and educational materials," Pouw said.

Scientologists are likely to buy time on local TV stations to air shows as other religions do, said Bill Carroll, vice-president of Katz Television Group, which advises TV stations on programming.

They could create their own cable channel, he said, but could also get a license from the Federal Communications Commission to operate a broadcast channel by adhering to FCC rules on children's programming, news and other regulations.

The church took physical control of the broadcast centre, located on Sunset Boulevard near Hollywood, in April when KCET employees moved TV station operations to a rented facility.

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/scientologist...211242182.html

[sshuttari]

Scary.....

[Ramplate]

50 Tons of Litter Pulled from Pacific

The crew of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Oscar Elton Sette pulled 50 metric tons of marine debris out of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off the northwestern Hawaiian Islands last month, part of an ongoing mission since 1996 to clean up the shallow coral reef environment.

http://news.yahoo.com/50-tons-litter...222349281.html

[Ramplate]

How stupid a lawyer do you have to be not to pay taxes for that long?

Texan who fled to Canada gets prison over US taxes

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — A Texas lawyer who fled to Canada to avoid paying U.S. income taxes must serve more than three years in prison.

A federal judge in Amarillo on Tuesday sentenced John Lewis Lesly and ordered him to pay more than $847,000 in restitution.

Investigators say Lesly had not filed an income tax return since 1976. He pleaded guilty in April to four counts of failure to file tax returns from 1999 through 2002. Lesly had more than $2.7 million in income during that time frame
Prosecutors believe the Amarillo attorney fled to Canada in October 2005, one month before he was indicted. Internal Revenue Service agents in February arrested Lesly at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

[Ramplate]

Burger King Employee Stands on Lettuce: Busted by Internet

Ever feel like nothing is secret any more because of the Internet? You may be right. It took 4Chan users only 15 minutes to track down and bust the Cleveland-area Burger King employee who stood on top of two containers of shredded lettuce and then posted a picture of the gross act. 4Chan is a bulletin board-type website where members post images and comments.



"This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King," wrote the unnamed employee on the evening of July 16. Guess he thought that was funny. Other users weren't laughing: according to Hypervocal.com, Anonymous, the notorious vigilante hacking group, used GPS data embedded in the photo to locate the fast food restaurant's address and reportedly contacted the franchise and FoxNews8. "Whoever this is is getting fired," a morning shift manager named Andrea, told the Cleveland Scene.


Bryson W. Thornton, Director of Burger King's Global Communications, wrote in a statement to Yahoo! Shine:

"Burger King Corp. has recently been made aware of a photo that shows a BURGER KING® restaurant employee violating the company's stringent food handling procedures. Food safety is a top priority at all BURGER KING® restaurants and the company maintains a zero-tolerance policy against any violations such as the one in question. The restaurant where this photo was taken is independently-owned and operated by a BURGER KING® franchisee. The franchisee has taken swift action to investigate this matter and terminated the three employees involved in the incident."

Still, make mine a burger, but hold the lettuce.

[Tolkien]

...and whenever my friends ask me; why do you always minus the veggies when you order fast food, I respond with - "Because they're soggy and disgusting." Now I can add "Because someone might have been standing on them" as well, lol.

[Ramplate]

Colorado shooting victim’s brain condition helped her survive, pastor says
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...150918602.html
Wow a millimeter in any direction and she'd be toast.