Regulation
Health Problems Ignored In The Incandescent Bulb Ban
By Rich Mintzer
Published: January 17, 2012
Text Size 122499205357 It's hard to envision myself ever being on the same side of an issue with Tea Party supporters. However, I too am glad to see that the impending ban on incandescent light bulbs, at least here in the United States, has been put on hold. A mid-December concession in the battle to pass a new budget saw the ban on 100-watt incandescent bulbs (that was supposed to begin in January) delayed until October of 2012

The episodes at the heart of a new case testing government regulation of indecency involved one-time expletives by Cher and Nicole Richie at Fox Television's Billboard Awards and a brief shot of a woman's naked posterior on ABC's NYPD Blue.
Would the varying duration make a difference when heard or seen by a child? That is one of the questions at the heart of a case before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. A broader First Amendment issue is whether broadcasts should continue to bear greater regulation than cable TV.
Lawyers for Fox Television Stations say the Supreme Court should reverse its long-standing view that broadcast programming is subject to tougher rules than cable because of the scarcity of the airwaves and broadcast TV's pervasiveness in American life.

Though there's still much about autism that isn't completely understood, there's a lot that we do know. If you're a concerned parent or guardian, start by learning the facts about autism

Want to unload your junk and make a quick buck in the process? Here's a rundown of ways to offload all manner of things -- from used electronics and computers to clothes and jewelry -- in exchange for cash and/or store gift cards.

Get ready to declutter and reap some financial rewards

Nearly two decades after a zero-tolerance culture took hold in American schools, a growing number of educators and elected leaders are scaling back discipline policies that led to lengthy suspensions and ousters for such mistakes as carrying toy guns or

More than 400 people have suffered jellyfish stings over the holiday weekend on a Central Florida beach

To the surprise of consumers, major credit card companies are making decisions about what they can and can't buy with their credit cards. What's off-limits? Legal purchases like gambling chips and donations to at least one controversial non-profit organization; in some cases, buying pornography is also restricted, and so, increasingly, is medical marijuana. Last month, shortly before Delaware became the 16th state to legalize medical marijuana, American Express told merchants that its cards could not be used to buy it.
See also
Can Google Replace Your Wallet?
Should You Apply for a 'Professional' Card?
The New Best Credit Cards Companies say they're protecting themselves against legal risk, but critics say this kind of corporate policy is an inconvenience for merchants, infringes on consumers' rights and amounts to moral policy-setting

They jumped off the bridge into the Kalamazoo River to celebrate that the world did not end.

But that spontaneous celebration resulted in the apparent drowning of a 18-year-old Kalamazoo youth.

Two hours later, Jordan Skinner-Knapp was standing in the parking lot of Comstock's Merrill Park. Still wet, he was thinking about his friend, Anthony Alexander Johnson, who was swept away in the river's current

A North Liberty woman faces drug charges after police said a Johnson County Sheriff's deputy found a container filled with marijuana in her vagina Thursday night at the Johnson County Jail.
Denaya Nichole Humphreys, 32, was charged with possession of contraband in a correctional facility and possession of marijuana. A sheriff's deputy found the marijuana-filled container while Humphreys was being booked about 10 p.m. into the Johnson County Jail, according to the arrest reports

The man who said the world was going to end appeared at his front door in Alameda a day later, very much alive but not so well.
"It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Massive earthquakes would strike, he said. Believers would ascend to heaven and the rest would be left to wander a godforsaken planet until Oct. 21, when Camping promised a fiery end to the world.
But on Sunday, almost 18 hours after he thought he'd be in heaven, there was Camping, "flabbergasted" in Alameda, wearing tan slacks, a tucked-in polo shirt and a light jacket.

It's true, the longer you're out of work and the older that you are, makes it near impossible that someone will see you as a valuable member of the human race and that's truly sad.

In a small Texas town, ( Mt. Vernon ) Drummond's bar began construction on a new building to increase their business.. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.
As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, "I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not."

Prescription painkillers may be FDA-approved and doctor-recommended, but that doesn't protect patients from the risk of lethal, accidental overdose, especially for those prescribed high doses.

The NOPD is investigating the fatal shooting of man they describe as an "armed home intruder."

It happened around 7PM Tuesday at a residence in the 1700 block of Cambronne Street in the Carrollton area.

According to investigators, 21-year-old Melvin Plummer of Marrero entered a house occupied by a 30-year-old woman and her three children and brandished a handgun. The woman, who has a concealed weapons permit, pulled a gun and shot Plummer multiple times.

E-M-S paramedics transported the suspect to a hospital where he later died. The name of the man who was shot has not been released.

Wal-Mart was within its rights to fire a Joliet store employee who told a lesbian co-worker that she would go to hell because God does not accept gays, and the dismissal was not religious discrimination, a federal appeals court has ruled.

A 6-year old child is in custody after bringing a gun to Southwind Elementary School.
According to Shelby County Schools spokesperson Mike Tebbe, the child brought a loaded 38 caliber gun to school Wednesday afternoon. Once school dismissed, students on a school bus notified the driver and the 6-year old was brought into the office. The school then called law enforcement.

A mother in Decatur was shocked when a man shot a bullet through her car, striking her young child, in an apparent fit of road rage.
Tabitha Williams was driving her car with her 4-year old son in the back seat on Tuesday. When Williams came to a traffic light, she failed to realize it had turned green. That's when she says a driver in a Dodge Durango beeped at her and she beeped back.
According to Williams, the driver then allegedly fired a shot into her car, striking the boy.
"I guess I took too long, you know the light had changed or whatever, and the guy blew his horn and I blew my horn back," she said. "My baby jumped out of his seat and he was hollering, and I heard the gunshot."

A bizarre drama that began last summer with a bucket of human excrement thrown at a local woman has ended with a "not guilty" verdict in the trial of the man accused of throwing it.
The verdict has left the woman, Cheri Monson, in shock and in tears - and in utter disbelief over the jury's decision.

When most kids throw a temper tantrum, they get time out. In 8-year-old Aidan's case, he got pepper sprayed.
A Lakewood Police report details the second grader's violent temper tantrum in a classroom at Glennon Heights Elementary on Feb. 22.
According to the report, Aidan "was climbing the cart and spitting at teachers. He also broke wood trim off the walls and was trying to stab teachers with it."
"I wanted to make something sharp if they came out because I was so mad at them," Aidan said. "I was going to try to whack them with it."
The report goes on to say Aidan, "was holding what looked like a sharpened one foot stick and he screamed, 'Get away from me you f---ers.'"

More people have died because of human hatred than from any other human cause...
"Yet we still do not know enough about how hatred works... to prevent and combat it,"

He was using paper towels off of the maintenance cart at the Ashby MARTA station, however, and that's when the police got involved.
Alfred Murphy and another man walked up to one of the maintenance carts at the MARTA station Monday afternoon, according to a police report. Murphy grabbed some paper towels from the cart and began blowing his nose.
A MARTA police officer saw Murphy and told him he couldn't take those paper towels – they didn't belong to him...

Cuyahoga Falls is all aflutter over a proposed 8:00 p.m. curfew for anyone under 18. Proponents say that the riverfront area has become a meeting ground for the dreaded undesirables. Loitering kids are hanging out under bridges, and that, friends, calls for drastic action.
Mayor Don Robart is particularly worried about a couple of things: goth kids and piercings. He also may or may not want you to get off his lawn and turn down your hippity-hop music.
Patch reports that the police chief is genuinely concerned for the safety of kids after Akron officers spotted "gangbangers" from the inner-city. Mayor Robart, on the other hand, thinks that if you shop at Hot Topic, you're a menace to society.

A Massachusetts prom came to an abrupt end after students became violently ill from eating pot-laced brownies, according to school officials and police.

Two or three times almost every week, the federal Food and Drug Administration warns that something in the vegetable bins, produce displays or coolers in our groceries may be so contaminated with dangerous pathogens that shoppers shouldn't buy it, nor eat it if they did.

So how does the consumer keep up with what's being sold -- products that can sicken or even kill you?

This week, the FDA released a new, user-friendly search page for consumers who have any concerns about a recall. Its easy-to-read listing organizes information from news releases on recalls since 2009 by date, product brand name, product description, reason for the recall and the recalling firm. Most of the time there is also a photograph of the label or product.

Angry and exasperated by faulty foreclosure documents, judges throughout Florida are hitting back by increasingly dismissing cases and boldly accusing lawyers of "fraud upon the court."

A Palm Beach Post review of cases in state and appellate courts found judges are routinely dismissing cases for questionable paperwork. Although in most cases the bank is allowed to refile the case with the appropriate documents, in a growing number of cases judges are awarding homeowners their homes free and clear after finding fraud upon the court.

Just feet from a methadone clinic at a grimy crossroads in far east Portland, Ore., transit officials and police are hoping a touch of class will chase off the vagrants, vandals and ne'er-do-wells that loiter near a busy transit stop.
Since November, the regional transit department has approved the playing of classical music in an effort to ward off the kind of crimes that happen when people just hang around.

The Heath Service Executive (HSE) will remove all stocks of the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix from GPs' surgeries, the Sunday Independent has learned.
The vaccine has been linked to the disabling sleep disorder, narcolepsy.
Last week, this newspaper revealed that eight people who received the swine flu vaccine in Ireland have developed the devastating disorder, with most of the cases involving teenagers and young adults.
Now, the HSE has taken the decision to visit GP surgeries around the country and collect the vaccine made by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Facebook users on Monday woke up to a new scam spreading virally through the Facebook Chat windows.
A user will receive a spammy message from a friend that reads, "hey, i just made a photoshop of you," and includes a link that brings the user to an application installation window. The app asks for access to your Facebook information (name, gender, photo, networks, lists of friends, user ID, and more), as well as access to your Facebook Chat.
If you click "Allow," you are taken to a site that displays photoshopped images of people's faces on animals' bodies, the Register reports. Meanwhile, the newly installed application spams your Facebook friends via Chat.

A day after TPM posted the video we obtained of Duffy talking about his salary at a Polk County town hall meeting earlier this year, the Polk County GOP contacted the video provider we used to host the video, Blip.tv, and demanded the video be taken down.
The tape caused a stir for Duffy, a first-term conservative best known for his past as a reality TV show star on MTV's The Real World. Democrats flagged the comments about his taxpayer-funded salary (which is nearly three times the median income in Wisconsin) and criticisms began to flow Duffy's way.

A security researcher says he discovered keylogging software installed on two brand-new Samsung laptops that could be used to monitor all activities on the computer remotely.
Mohamed Hassan, founder of NetSec Consulting, discovered StarLogger software on Samsung laptops with model numbers R525 and 540 after running security scanning software on the systems when he bought them last month, he writes in a guest column in Network World posted today.
Windows-based StarLogger starts up when the computer is turned on, records all keystrokes made on the computer, can be difficult to detect, and can be set to periodically send surreptitious e-mails with information gleaned from the computer to a predetermined e-mail address, with screen capture images attached.

A pilot making a pre-flight inspection during a lay-over discovered the hole towards the rear of the aircraft.
"He noticed a small hole in the exterior of the fuselage towards the rear of the aircraft," said US Airways spokeswoman Liz Landau.
Landau said the Boeing 737 arrived at Charlotte from Philadelphia. She said there were no apparent problems during the flight.

The billboard shows a picture of President Barack Obama and reads: "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted." It is one of 30 billboards that a Texas-based anti-abortion group called Life Always plans to place in the Chicago area.

Disney-character coloring books arriving at the Cape May County Correctional Center and addressed "To Daddy" in a child's handwriting were saturated with a narcotic drug as part of a smuggling operation, authorities said Monday.
Two inmates at the correctional center, a state prison inmate and two others were charged with distribution of a controlled substance after they allegedly turned Suboxone, a prescription drug designed to treat opioid addiction, into a paste. The paste was then painted onto children's pictures and sent through inmate mail, Cape May County Sheriff Gary Schaffer said Monday.

According to the indictments, in May 2010, Homeland Security Investigations agents in Tampa learned from the Department of Defense that a "Raven" had been listed on eBay, for a price of $13,000. The listing also had nine pictures, which showed the bar code and ID number of that particular "Raven," through which the DOD determined which one it was, and that it was the property of the U.S. government.
An HSI agent began to communicate with the seller, posing as a potential buyer. The would-be was identified as Chua, who was then in the US on a non-immigrant visitor visa since April, 2010.
The two began to correspond over the next several months to arrange payment and shipment for the "Raven," and additionally discussed how the agent was planning to export it back out of the country.
In a May 17 phone call, Chua allegedly claimed he got the "Raven" in an auction by the Philippine government, who sold it as abandoned property.

Some public school parents in Edgewater, Florida, want a first-grade girl with life-threatening peanut allergies removed from the classroom and home-schooled, rather than deal with special rules to protect her health, a school official said.
"That was one of the suggestions that kept coming forward from parents, to have her home-schooled. But we're required by federal law to provide accommodations. That's just not even an option for us," said Nancy Wait, spokeswoman for the Volusia County School District.
Wait said the 6-year-old's peanut allergy is so severe it is considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A New York court has rejected a class-action settlement hammered out between Google Inc and publishers that would allow the Web search leader to scan millions of books and sell them online.

ShareUnder terms of the proposed settlement of a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers, Google would create a registry of books and pay $125 million to people whose copyrighted books have been scanned and to locate the authors of scanned books who have not come forward.

But Judge Denny Chin said the agreement "would simply go too far" and would give Google a significant advantage over its competitors.

Over two million people will contract a form of tuberculosis by 2015 that is difficult to treat, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands worldwide will die from multi-drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis during that period unless greater efforts are made to properly diagnose all patients and provide them with correct medication, said Mario Raviglione, the director of WHO's Stop TB department
The warning came as an alliance of international health groups laid out their multi-billion-dollar plan to contain the spread of tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that usually affects the lungs.

Sticks and stones will break my bones,
But names will never hurt me.
That reassuring children's rhyme has been used by generations of parents to comfort their children wounded by the taunts of playmates.
But today we know that the words expressed in that popular couplet simply are not true.
Words can hurt and the damage inflicted on a child by a parent or other adult's thoughtless remarks or a deliberate barrage of brutal words can torment him for life.

A criminal complaint filed Friday by the Nevada Attorney General's Office alleges Lewis victimized six women between the ages of 19 and 22. Some of the women were on probation for drug offenses, while others were friends of suspects Lewis was tracking. The alleged incidents occurred between June and September. Victims told authorities that Lewis threatened them with jail for failing drug tests, and said they needed to undress to prove they were not hiding drugs.

Not only are the perpetrators of elder abuse often linked to alcohol abuse, U.S. researchers say their victims also are more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs.
Lead author Lee Friedman of the University of Illinois at Chicago said the study found victims of severe traumatic elder abuse also are more likely to be female and suffer from a neurological or mental disorder such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

A lawsuit challenging a law that lets the United States eavesdrop on overseas communications more widely and with less judicial oversight than in the past was reinstated Monday by a federal appeals court that said new rules regarding surveillance had put lawyers, journalists and human rights groups in a "lose-lose situation."

The US government's plan to use technology to create and manage fake identities for social interaction with terrorists is as appalling as it is amusing. It's appalling that in this era of greater transparency and accountability brought on by the internet, the US of all countries would try to systematise sock puppetry. It's appallingly stupid, for there's little doubt that the fakes will be unmasked. The net result of that will be the diminution, not the enhancement, of American credibility.

Quentin Tarantino is so fed up with what he says are the "blood-curdling screams" of exotic birds housed in an outdoor aviary on his neighbor's Los Angeles property, robbing him of his ability "to find peace in his home," that he is taking the neighbor to court.

In a lawsuit the creator of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill filed March 10 against Alan Ball, the screenwriter and producer behind HBO's Six Feet Under and the film American Beauty, Tarantino says that himself and others in his home "are subjected to the macaws' obnoxious pteradactyl-like screams, which are not only startling, but have also seriously disrupted Mr. Tarantino's ability to work as a writer in his home."

Facebook Creates New Suicide Alert System But System Is Also Bringing Up Privacy Issues In Some Circles..

When asked, most Americans say they'd rather die at home than in a hospital.

According to court documents, Kassandra Toruga went to her nine-month pregnant friend's house armed with two big butcher knives and a large pair of scissors.
Records also said she had a bag full of baby clothes and diapers with her.
Those documents said Toruga admitted to investigators she planned to kill her friend, perform a Cesarean section on her dead body and take the baby, passing it off as her own.

Protesters in New York rally ahead of congressional hearings to be led by Republican Rep. Peter King on "Islamic radicalization" in the United States.

A former Streamwood police officer goes on trial this afternoon on charges of beating a man during a traffic stop – an incident caught by the officer's squad car camera.

James Mandarino was dismissed from the Streamwood Police Department after the March 28 incident. He is charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct.

The video shows Mandarino striking Ronald Bell 15 times with a collapsible baton. Prosecutors say the beating was unprovoked, but some colleagues and police union officials have defended Mandarino as following police protocol.

A DeKalb County woman looked like she was close to her due date as she headed back into the U.S. from Canada last week. But that was no baby bump.

Instead, LeeAnn Worley was wearing a body suit filled with 34,000 Ecstasy pills.

"Facebook will be moving forward with a controversial plan to give third-party developers and external web sites the ability to access users' home addresses and cell phone numbers in the face of criticism from privacy experts, users, and even congressmen," the Wall Street Journal reports.
Is anybody surprised? Really?
This is how Facebook rolls: Strip away a huge chunk of your privacy, cry "Our bad!" and roll it back when users and/or privacy advocates complain. Then wait awhile, and do whatever it is Facebook planned to do anyway.

A liberal group, apparently frustrated with all the attention its nemesis keeps getting, is promoting "Ignore Sarah Palin Week," urging like-minded souls to change the channel or surf to another Web page whenever the ubiquitous former governor of Alaska pops up.

Left Action said it has collected more than 32,500 pledges from partisans willing to take part in the effort, which began Sunday.

Last week, Franken and three other senators drafted a letter in which they blasted the House for trying to "defund" the FCC's net neutrality enforcement. House Republicans "claim to stand for freedom," the letter says (PDF). "But the only freedom they are providing for is the freedom of telephone and cable companies to determine the future of the Internet, where you can go on it, what you can attach to it, and which services will win or lose on it."
Franken has even gone so far as to call net neutrality the "First Amendment issue of our time." Those are tough words, but Franken remains convinced of their truth, even as he supports a controversial plan to censor websites over concerns about piracy and counterfeiting. That legislation, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act or COICA, is currently under consideration.

Five years after Riley Fox was kidnapped from her living room, sexually assaulted and drowned in a creek, with no solid leads in the case, FBI agents went door to door in the little girl's town looking for new clues.

And they found one: from Trisha Kiefer, who stood on her Wilmington, Ill., front lawn smoking a cigarette, waiting to tell agents about a creepy feeling she'd had about her ex-boyfriend -- Scott Wayne Eby, who ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison for killing the 3-year-old girl...

Three-year-old Riley Fox was abducted, sexually assaulted and drowned in a creek near her Illinois home in June 2004. Her murder was finally solved last year when police arrested a convicted sex offender.The FBI credits Kiefer with providing the tip that solved the case and gave her a $10,000 reward last month, but Riley's parents have not given her the $100,000 reward they offered for the apprehension, prosecution and conviction of their daughter's killer...

The allegations, detailed in court documents, paint a picture of torture. Officers found the 27-year-old woman Saturday in the studio apartment in the fetal position, shaking, on the bed. A rope was bolted near the bed where he tied her to rape her, she said. Handcuffs she said were used to shackle her to the radiator were found nearby. By the bed, officers found a bag with a ball-gag, whip and a rope.

That's hardly enough to set labor leaders celebrating. They still face a slew of measures in dozens of states that seek to curb union rights. But union officials say they believe the sustained protests in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states are making an impact.

Just when the U.S. economy seemed to be getting its footing, a number of new obstacles risk tripping it up.
A spike in oil prices due to spreading unrest in the Middle East is the highest profile problem, but not the only one.

The proposal has the support of seven of the committee's 11 members. A vote by the full Senate is expected to be close: 23 senators have pledged their support, 24 are needed to advance the bill to the House. Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, has said he would sign the measure into law if it reaches his desk.
If approved, Maryland would become the sixth state in the nation to certify same-sex marriages.

A TSA supervisor stole money from passengers who went through his security checkpoint and accepted bribes and kickbacks from a colleague.Michael Arato, a supervisor at Newark Liberty Airport, admitted on Monday that he regularly took money from passengers during security screenings and deliberately targeted foreigners who could not speak much English.

My name is David Fagin, and I am a suspected spammer.

At least according to Facebook, which last week put me on "virtual probation" with threats of terminating my account, all while giving me no apparent means of appealing this false accusation.

What landed me in Facebook lockdown? Near as I can figure, my crime was simply taking Facebook up on suggestions the site itself made of people I should "friend" on my profile page.

The leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group was convicted Monday in a home invasion robbery that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group's operations.

A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico.

Kansas legislators during the last session approved a number of changes to the state's concealed carry law. One of them was that people who are renewing their license no longer have to take any sort of test to prove they're still proficient with a firearm.
The changes also removed language from the law that gave the attorney general the right to deny applicants a license if they "suffer from a physical infirmity which prevents the safe handling of a weapon."
A spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt — whose office oversees the concealed carry program — conceded this week that the office is uncertain whether it has the authority to deny a concealed carry license renewal for any physical reason, even if the applicant is blind.

A tenured economics professor is out of a job after he was accused of setting up a hidden camera to take photos of female students in the bathroom.
According to Maine Today, Philip Brown hasn't been charged with anything -- yet. Court documents say Brown's troubles began in China, where he was chaperoning a trip. When two students using a computer tried to retrieve a file they had accidentally deleted on the group's shared computer, they allegedly found pictures of a female student "nude from the waist down."

The dog in the box has come to be known as Alice - her life, if you can even call it that - rather, her existence, has been one of complete misery for the past six years.

Before he started "saving the earth, one beer at a time," all inventor Eric Fitch knew about home brewing was that it could make quite a mess.
He accidentally backed up the plumbing in his apartment building by dumping into his garbage disposal the spent grain left over from his India Pale Ale home brew. The oatmeal-looking gunk choked the pipes in his Cambridge, Mass., building, flooding the basement.
These days, he's doing something more constructive, fulfilling the dream of beer lovers everywhere by recycling the stuff: The MIT-trained mechanical engineer has invented a patented device that turns brewery waste into natural gas that's used to fuel the brewing process.

At Kleinfeld Bridal in New York, the fantasy of the perfect wedding is alive. But beyond the sequins and chiffon, marriage itself is fading . . . fast.

A police officer shot while on a routine patrol was saved by his notebook when a bullet aimed at his chest lodged in the book after piercing his stab-proof vest, the High Court has been told.

Outraged when he learned the women he bought drinks for were actually men in drag, an Immokalee man was arrested by Collier County Sheriff's deputies Saturday after causing a ruckus in the bar.

The Valentine's weekend went badly wrong for couple Saturday night when the husband stabbed his wife with their wedding cake knife, and then stabbed himself eight times, police said.

Stroke hospitalizations among Americans under 45, particularly teenage boys and men under 34, rose dramatically between 1994 and 2007 but fell among older people, said a study on Wednesday.

"Be careful what you post on the Internet," Natalie Munroe told her students year after year.
Maybe if she had listened to her own advice, she wouldn't be where she is right now: Suspended and at risk of losing her teaching job at Central Bucks East High School.
Munroe, who has taught English at CB East since 2006 and has a salary of $54,500 this year, wrote a blog called "Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?" for more than a year. In between blog posts about muffins, Food Network stars and her favorite movies, she posted long, profanity-peppered rants about Central Bucks administrators, her co-workers and her students.
"My students are out of control. They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners," she wrote in one post dated Oct. 27, 2009. "They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire and are just generally annoying."

Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) is a nonprofit outfit which strives to preserve the Golden State's "future through the stabilization of our state's human population." Opponents of amnesty who live in the state are usually well-served by the steady stream of material that the organization churns out, noting how illegal immigration negatively impacts Californians' natural resources, economy, crime, schools, traffic, and so on.
So why in heaven's name did a blogger at the CAPS website decide to unload on the Duggars, the reality television stars?

Many young adults complain that they will be trapped in student loan debt for the rest of their lives. It could be worse: yes, really, worse. A young woman in Kansas died of cancer shortly after graduating from college, and the lenders of her $45,000 in student loans decided to come after the balance from her estate: in her case, her parents. Because every grieving family needs to fight banks.
All of the woman's lenders quickly agreed that her parents were not legally obligated to pay her student loans, since she was an adult and her parents never co-signed. Except Wells Fargo, which insisted that her heirs owed the bank $6,000.

Police say they've questioned one of two people in the case of a British woman who died after receiving cosmetic injections in her buttocks at a hotel near Philadelphia International Airport.
Lt. Ray Evers said police issued a search warrant Tuesday night at the Bergen County, N.J., home of a woman they think set up the appointment online. The woman has been questioned but is not under arrest.
A 20-year-old British student died early Tuesday after she apparently flew to Philadelphia to get silicone injections into her buttocks at a Hampton Inn in southwest Philly.

A man who found a rocket lying in a grassy area in Lake City brought it to the Lake City Police Department on Sunday so police could dispose of it, Lake City police said.
They said officers with prior military experience determined the device was a live, high-explosive military round.
Police contacted the Alachua County Sheriff's Office Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, which identified the explosive as a M427 rocket with 2.3 pounds of composition B, a mixture of TNT and Semtex, both of which are highly explosive.

A freshman Tennessee legislator credits her success in politics and business to the time she spent working at a restaurant chain known for buxom waitresses in tank tops and short shorts.

Republican state Rep. Julia Hurley, 29, won her November election by knocking off the Democratic incumbent in a conservative district west of Knoxville, but she says it was while working as a "Hooter's Girl" that she began honing her business sense and networking skills.

Three students have been arrested following an incident Friday in which a fellow student's hair was set on fire while riding a school bus.

Devin Lewis, 15, told the The Middletown Journal that he was listening to music while on the bus when someone pulled off his hood, and another student held a flame in front of his face.

According to the police report, that's when another male student holding a lighter lit Lewis' hair on fire.

"I felt the heat on the back and somebody blowing my hair," Lewis told CBS Affiliate WKRC.

He reached to the back of his head, and when he looked at his hand, "I just saw ashes."

His hair was singed almost to the scalp.

Other students extinguished the flames.

Police said a 17-year-old junior has been charged with aggravated menacing and assault, and a 15-year-old freshman with aggravated menacing. Another 17-year-old junior has been charged with obstructing official business.

Innovative teaching? Or going too far?
That is the question swirling around an incident last month in which a third-grade teacher at Midvalley Elementary School in Midvale made her class lie on the floor and not move for 45 minutes.
She wanted them to experience the discomfort and humiliation of Africans brought to America on slave ships.
The exercise occurred during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the teacher wanted the class to better appreciate the challenges African-Americans have endured in the United States.
But at least one mother didn't appreciate the creative teaching method and has filed a complaint with the Canyons School District's office of civil rights.

A quadriplegic man is suing Disneyland in federal court, alleging the theme park left him on the "It's A Small World" ride for 40 minutes after it had stalled while staff evacuated other passengers.
.
Jose Martinez is also suing for negligence, emotional distress and liability.

Disneyland Resorts says in a statement it is accessible to all guests and has procedures in place for evacuating disabled customers.

Samples of the world's oldest beer have been examined in Finland to determine its recipe, with plans to brew the historic beverage again, researchers say.
A Baltic Sea shipwreck from between 1800 and 1830 was discovered in July 2010 and yielded many bottles of champagne and five bottles of what proved to be the oldest drinkable beer yet found.

California court administrators failed to properly plan for and realistically budget a massive computer modernization project that has fallen years behind schedule and on which the cost could balloon from the original estimate of $260 million to $1.9 billion, state auditors said Tuesday.

As a result, State Auditor Elaine Howle recommended that the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) delay moving forward with installing the system until an independent reevaluation is conducted of potential problems with the California Court Case Management System.

On the morning of Feb. 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis had an appointment about his mortgage. He was angry about it because he didn't think the mortgage company was being fair to him. In fact, he was convinced they were cheating him, and he wasn't going to take it.
Employees at Meridian Mortgage noticed that the burly little man with sideburns was carrying a long box as he stepped into office of mortgage executive Richard O. Hall. They had no reason to suspect the box might contain a sawed-off shotgun until they saw Hall emerge from his office with the barrel wired to the back of his neck. Behind him walked Kiritsis, his hand on the trigger.

The winner of last year's Miss San Antonio pageant filed suit Monday to keep her crown after pageant organizers told her to give it back for being late to events, failing to lose weight, insubordination and other alleged conduct unbecoming a beauty queen.
Domonique Ramirez, 17, obtained a temporary restraining order that bars the Miss Bexar County Organization Inc., which runs the Miss San Antonio pageant, from promoting first runner-up Ashley Dixon.
Dixon is already being called Miss San Antonio on the organization's website, and the organization is adamant that she's going to stay there.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources yesterday lifted a warning that people not eat fish they catch in the 13,000-acre lake in western Ohio. Laboratory tests found no microcystin, a liver toxin, lingering in fish tissues.
Fed by manure that rain washed off farms south of Grand Lake, a bloom of blue-green algae grew so dense last summer that the state also warned people not to touch the water or take their boats onto the lake. Under the right conditions, the algae create liver and nerve toxins.

Sorrow has replaced happiness a second time for a mother recently reunited with her daughter who was snatched from a New York hospital 23 years ago and raised by another woman.

Joy White met Carlina White, the daughter she feared was lost forever, in a joyous reunion last month. But the relationship has become complicated. Carlina White, now 23, has become distant and is asking questions about money related to her disappearance, according to NBC's "Today" show.

"Everything was great," the mother said on the program today. "I was on such of a high when I first reunited with my daughter. ... I was floating in air I was so happy. And that moment was so great."

But after spending four days in New York, where her biological mother lives, the younger White went back to Atlanta...

John Henry said he's been robbed four times in the five years he's owned the Shell station at 2805 SW Roxbury Street.
But never, he said, by someone as well-mannered as the man that walked into his convenience store around 11:23 a.m. Saturday to buy a cup of coffee.
"He was very polite guy," said Henry.
At least, that's what it seemed like until the end of the transaction, when John Henry opened his cash register and politeness pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at him.
Surveillance cameras captured the whole exchange.
"Can you do me a favor?" the man asks.
"Yes?" Henry responds.
"Can you empty the till and put it right here?"

Bradley Kent Strott, 52, and Samad Ebadi, 57, were at a bar in St. Petersburg, Florida, having a few beers and talking about Islam. The two men had known each other for years. Ebadi owned the convenience store next door. Strott was a longtime customer...

Neither Samad Ebadi's name -- or the fact that his son's name was Ali -- tipped off his gooberific friend that he might have been Muslim
​But Strott, as you shall soon discover, is also a huge idiot. He was drinking with a guy named Samad Ebadi, a name usually not associated with attendees of mega churches.

That's when Ebadi informed his friend that he was Muslim. At this point Strott might have said to himself, "Hmmm, maybe not all Muslims are bad." Instead, he chose option B, which was to pull out a pocket knife and stab his friend in the neck.

The Obama administration is quietly seeking the power for it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a move that raises questions about free expression, national sovereignty, and the role of states in shaping the future of the Internet.
At stake is who will have authority over the next wave of suffixes to supplement the venerable .com, .org, and .net. At least 115 proposals are expected this year, including .car, .health, .nyc, .movie, and .web, and the application process could be finalized at a meeting in San Francisco next month.
Some are likely to prove contentious among more conservative nations. Two different groups--the dotGAY Initiative and the .GAY Alliance--already have announced they will apply for the right to operate the .gay domain; additional controversial proposals may surface in the next few months.

A man convicted of stalking a Southfield woman has filed a lawsuit, claiming he has been defamed.
Kevin A. Gary of Detroit, acting as his own lawyer, is suing his victim, Harvette Williams, the City of Southfield and Southfield police for $100 million, claiming the allegations she made against him were false."It's very scary," Williams' lawyer, Lawrence Walker, said Friday. "She doesn't know if and when he's lurking around. But she did secure another personal protection order."Gary, who could not be reached Friday, filed his lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court. On Jan. 18, Judge Susan D. Borman signed an order sending the suit to Oakland County Circuit Court, where the case is pending.

According to the Detroit Free Press, many of Michigan's county jails charge inmates a nightly fee—anywhere from $15 to $60—for their cells. But, surprise, surprise, many say they have a hard time collecting on their bills. Officials say they were able to collect about six percent of their unpaid bills a few years back. Now, that number is more like three percent. The ACLU and other civil rights groups object to the practice, noting that many people who are jailed are down on their luck or jobless.

An Orlando teen begged police to call an ambulance late Saturday after shooting himself in the testicles, according to police reports.

"I shot myself by accident," the 17-year-old boy said. "Get an ambulance."

The unidentified teenager was lying on his bed, watching TV and playing with a 9 mm. pistol about 8:30 p.m. when it fired. His 12-year-old sister summoned help by calling 911, the report stated.

"I was trying to tie the gun around my leg," he said, describing the accidental discharge to officers.

The bullet went through the scrotum and lodged in his right upper thigh, the report stated.

Bond was denied for a South Carolina mother charged in the death of her baby son. Meanwhile, an attorney said the mother of the baby, Amber Bracci, hit the baby because she thought the young boy was 'possessed.

Former Junction City Police Chief Jimmy Gipson alleges in a lawsuit filed last week that he was fired after he set events in motion to have Mayor Jim Douglas tested for alcohol use.

Gipson, who also was fire chief for the city of 2,200 residents south of Danville, alleges in the suit that he was working in the city's firehouse Dec. 29 when Douglas arrived "and was yelling into the firehouse and was being belligerent."

The Institute for Justice will fight another interesting case on business licensing, this time in Oregon, where an 80-year-old barber with 50 years experience has been told he needs to go back to school to qualify for his license. Just as in the case of Louisiana casket makers and tour guides in Philadelphia and Washington DC, licensing laws that threaten to kill a 50-year small business demonstrates the unholy alliance between Big Business and Big Government at the state level.

A 35-year-old woman was arrested Sunday after ingesting prescription painkillers, falling asleep and then allowing a 7-year-old boy in her care to wander outside unsupervised, deputies said.
The unidentified child was placed in state care after neighbors said they saw the child huffing paint about 3:20 p.m. in an undisclosed area of Palm Harbor, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

In hugging, as in Olympic sports, a second or two can make all the difference. If you embrace someone and hastily retreat, you're cold. But linger too long and you're downright creepy.

So it makes all the sense in the world that British psychologist Emese Nagy decided to investigate how long hugs should last ...

What's the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to you? Well, it's happened to someone else and we've got the x-rays to prove it. Some are even x-rated. Want to play doctor? Take a look.

If you love movies and have trouble remembering the alphabet, well, boy are you in for a treat.

Egypt! It's so complicated. Is it a popular democratic uprising? Or is it a collusion between the Muslim Brotherhood and Bill Ayers in the hopes of instating global Sharia law? Or is it just a sign of the Muslim antichrist?
Here's a list of our favorite bizarro right-wing conspiracy theories, predictions, ideas and accusations. They are... pretty amazing! Not in the good way, though.

We've heard about the spray-on skin gun back in 2008 but we didn't think it'd become this real, this useful, this fast. Though it is still technically in an experimental stage, the skin gun has already successfully treated over a dozen burn victims. The way it works is by using stem cells from the patient's healthy skin and mixing it with a solution to come up with the spray paint. And combined with that fancy gun, the rest is easy. Doctors say "skin cell spraying is like paint spraying".

Zebrafish are tiny tropical fish with a super power: they can regenerate damaged cardiac tissue at an incredible rate. In just a week's time, a zebrafish can repair as much as 20 percent of its heart muscle. Now medical researchers working with the British Heart Foundation hope that insight into the fish's amazing ability could lead to the development of new treatments that will one day allow the human heart to heal itself too.