Tuesday, May 21, 2013

National Secular Society - Council prayers challenged in the United ...

The US Supreme Court is to consider whether prayers can be offered as part of government meetings.

The case is being brought by two residents of Greece, New York, who say they feel marginalized by the Christian prayers that open every town board meeting.

The two women ? Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens ? are being represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious liberty watchdog that has long opposed the practice of inviting clergy to open meetings with sectarian prayers.

Town officials claim members of all faiths and atheists are welcome to give the opening prayer, but official records show that two-thirds of the prayers delivered between 1999 and June 2010 contained references to "Jesus Christ", "Your Son", "the Holy Spirit" or "Jesus".

Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said: "A town council meeting isn't a church service, and it shouldn't seem like one. The Government can't serve everyone in the community when it endorses one faith over others. That sends the clear message that some are second-class citizens based on what they believe about religion."

American's United Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, who is expected to argue the case before the Supreme Court this autumn, commented: "Legislative bodies should focus on serving the community and stay out of the business of promoting religion."

After a similar challenge by the National Secular Society in 2011, the High Court in London ruled that prayers as part of formal meetings of a Council were unlawful.

Following the ruling, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said that the Localism Act, which came into effect after the ruling, enabled councils to continue to include prayers as part of their formal business. However, his claims, which have been questioned by legal professionals, have yet to be tested in court.

It is thought that around half of UK councils known to be opening meetings with prayers before the ruling, have now ended the practice.

Source: http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/05/council-prayers-challenged-in-the-united-states

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Dan Pfeiffer Explains the IRS Scandal

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer did a tour of the sunday shows to try and calm everyone down about this whole IRS targeting Tea Party groups scandal. He was the one tasked with assuring the masses that the White House knew nothing, that things will change in the future, and that heads will roll. On Fox News Sunday, Pfeiffer promised the administration would make sure "everyone who did anything wrong here is held accountable" before the dust settles. The IRS's next goal is to "fix the problem, make sure it never happens again and restore the public trust," Pfeiffer said. On CBS's Face the Nation, Pfeiffer defended the President's relative?naivet??about the scandal. "What would be an actual real scandal in Washington would be if the president had been involved or had interfered in an IRS investigation,"?Pfeiffer said. "You do nothing to interfere with an independent investigation and you do nothing to offer the appearance of interfering with investigations," he added. Only the administration did learn the facts, only then did they decide to respond. On ABC's This Week, Pfeiffer said the law was "irrelevant" to the fact that the activity was "outrageous and inexcusable." He explained: "What I mean is, whether it?s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn?t matter. The Department of Justice has said they?re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn?t happen again, regardless of how that turns out." On NBC's Meet the Press, Pfeiffer finally went on the offensive and attacked Republicans for trying to make the IRS scandal into the biggest deal possible. He acknowledged the scandal as a "very real problem at the IRS," before launching into a scathing bit about Republican strategy. "We?ve seen this playbook from the Republicans before," Pfeiffer said. "What they want to do when they?re lacking a positive agenda is try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations. We?re not going to let that happen. The president?s got business to do for the American people."

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Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan was promising to continue the crusade against the IRS on Fox News Sunday. "Look, people have no trust that their government is being impartial," the Wisconsinite told Chris Matthews. "This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree, and we're going to get to the bottom of this." Ryan argued there was "credible evidence that donors were targeted, that the IRS leaked private information to the public, which served political purposes." There's something nefarious afoot at the IRS, Ryan thinks, and it all roads lead to Obamacare. Becasue, wait, what? "So there's so much more that we have just uncovered that we do not know the root causes of. And so to suggest that this is some bureaucratic snafu, that's been disproven, Chris," Ryan said. "The other point I'd say, as bad as this is, the person in charge of this bureaucratic snafu has now been put in charge of Obamacare." The former head of the tax exempt division,?Sarah Hall Ingram, is now moving to head the IRS's implementation of Obamacare. This is "rotten to the core," according to Ryan. "This is big government cronyism," he argues. "And this is not what hard-working taxpayers deserve. People deserve a government they can trust, that's honest, that's impartial, equality before the law, and that is not what we're getting here. And so to try to suggest that this is just bureaucratic snafus, we already know that's not true.?

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn accused the Obama White House of practicing a "culture of cover-ups," on CBS's Face the Nation. He inquired in 2010 and 2011 for his constituents about whether or not they were being unfairly targeted. If the President somehow didn't know about the IRS overreach, it was "willful ignorance," Cornyn said. He said he wants to hold more hearings about the IRS scandal in the future. "We need to have a fair and respectful process and not put the cart before the horse," he said.

Meanwhile,?Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Meet the Press's David Gregory there is "a culture of intimidation throughout the administration." He called the IRS "the most recent example." It's all part of an overall "nanny state" being run by the White House, he said. There's "an attitude that the government knows best: The nanny state is here to tell us all what to do. And if we start criticizing, you get targeted." McConnell signaled there could be more hearings on the way, too, when he claimed the investigation was just beginning. "I don't think we know what the facts are," he said. "... I'm not going to reach a conclusion about what we may find. But what we do know happened is they were targeting tea party groups. We know that."

On the other scandal front, Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz wants even more documents about Benghazi from the White House. This guy makes Lindsey Graham look modest. "People deserve the truth and the families deserve the truth," Chaffetz said on Face the Nation. "I can't imagine that this administration would say those same things about what happened in Boston where we had four people killed by a terrorist." (Yes, that comment is as head scratching as it looks. Chaffetz blamed a cover up for keeping the answers from the American people. "We weren't able to investigate," he said. "We still have terrorists that committed these attacks that are out there. They are on the loose. We don't know where they are."

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Hillary Clinton should have resigned as Secretary of State over what happened in Benghazi on CNN's State of the Union.?"[Clinton] should have resigned and accepted blame for it," Paul said. He explained that he's not so worried about the Benghazi talking points anymore, but that the outpost wasn't given more security. That was a "tragic mistake," he said. "We need to treat it more like Baghdad, that's an error of judgment the president and secretary of state made," Paul said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dan-pfeiffer-explains-irs-scandal-190937567.html

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Belmont Stakes: Oxbow vs. Orb in the cards

Jockey Gary Stevens celebrates aboard Oxbow after winning the 138th Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, Saturday, May 18, 2013, in Baltimore. Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, trails at center and finished fourth. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Jockey Gary Stevens celebrates aboard Oxbow after winning the 138th Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, Saturday, May 18, 2013, in Baltimore. Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, trails at center and finished fourth. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Orb, with jockey Joel Rosario aboard, gallops back to the paddock after the 138th Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico Race Course, Saturday, May 18, 2013, in Baltimore. Oxbow won the race, Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner, finished fourth. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

(AP) ? Another year, another Triple Crown hopeful unable to come through.

After Oxbow upset Kentucky Derby winner Orb in Saturday's Preakness to extend racing's Triple Crown drought to 36 years, the next best alternative for the Belmont Stakes is a rematch.

And, it appears one is in the making. Both trainers are giving every indication their classic-winning colts will run in the Belmont on June 8.

After Oxbow's 1 ?-length victory over Itsmyluckyday, with 3-5 favorite Orb finishing fourth, Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas said he would probably bring the winner to New York.

Trainer Shug McGaughey says he'd like to run Orb in the Belmont as long as the colt is doing well.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-05-19-RAC-Preakness/id-d2a343bb6cd84a008c2a90ba6cd60dc3

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What Do You Want From Lyrics Sites?

Seriously, what is the deal with allll those janky lyrics sites? You google the lyrics for Random Access Memory and you're suddenly transported to the early 2000s. It's sort of surreal. I'm not the first person to mention this by far, and yet the lyrics world just seems to stagnate.

There are new lyrics apps sometimes that are pretty, but the fact is we're all just looking to resolve an "are we human or we dancer" debate and get on with our lives. What features would you appreciate if these sites decided to actually exist in any aesthetic vaguely reminiscent of 2013? What would be value-added for you?

Source: http://gizmodo.com/what-do-you-want-from-lyrics-sites-508727739

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Earth's iron core is surprisingly weak

May 20, 2013 ? Researchers have used a diamond anvil cell to squeeze iron at pressures as high as 3 million times that felt at sea level to recreate conditions at the center of Earth. The findings could refine theories of how the planet and its core evolved.

Through laboratory experiments, postdoctoral researcher Arianna Gleason, left, and Wendy Mao, an assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences and of photon science, determined that the iron in Earth's inner core is about 40 percent as strong as previously believed.

The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as "rock-solid" as has been thought, say two Stanford mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet's interior, the researchers determined that iron in Earth's inner core is only about 40 percent as strong as previous studies estimated.

This is the first time scientists have been able to experimentally measure the effect of such intense pressure -- as high as 3 million times the pressure Earth's atmosphere exerts at sea level -- in a laboratory. A paper presenting the results of their study is available online in Nature Geoscience.

"The strength of iron under these extreme pressures is startlingly weak," said Arianna Gleason, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, and lead author of the paper. Wendy Mao, an assistant professor in the department, is the co-author.

"This strength measurement can help us understand how the core deforms over long time scales, which influences how we think about Earth's evolution and planetary evolution in general," Gleason said.

Until now, almost all of what is known about Earth's inner core came from studies tracking seismic waves as they travel from the surface of the planet through the interior. Those studies have shown that the travel time through the inner core isn't the same in every direction, indicating that the inner core itself is not uniform. Over time and subjected to great pressure, the core has developed a sort of fabric as grains of iron elongate and align lengthwise in parallel formations.

The ease and speed with which iron grains in the inner core can deform and align would have influenced the evolution of the early Earth and development of the geomagnetic field. The field is generated by the circulation of liquid iron in the outer core around the solid inner core and shields Earth from the full intensity of solar radiation. Without the geomagnetic field, life -- at least as we know it -- would not be possible on Earth.

"The development of the inner core would certainly have some effect on the geomagnetic field, but just what effect and the magnitude of the effect, we can't say," said Mao. "That is very speculative."

Gleason and Mao conducted their experiments using a diamond anvil cell -- a device that can exert immense pressure on tiny samples clenched between two diamonds. They subjected minute amounts of pure iron to pressures between 200 and 300 gigapascals (equivalent to the pressure of 2 million to 3 million Earth atmospheres). Previous experimental studies were conducted in the range of only 10 gigapascals.

"We really pushed the limit here in terms of experimental conditions," Gleason said. "Pioneering advancements in pressure-generation techniques and improvements in detector sensitivity, for example, used at large X-ray synchrotron facilities, such as Argonne National Lab, have allowed us to make these new measurements."

In addition to intense pressures, the inner core also has extreme temperatures. The boundary between the inner and outer core has temperatures comparable to the surface of the sun. Simultaneously simulating both the pressure and temperature at the inner core isn't yet possible in the laboratory, though Gleason and Mao are working on that for future studies. (For this study, Gleason mathematically extrapolated from their pressure data to factor in the effect of temperature.)

Gleason and Mao expect their findings will help other researchers set more realistic variables for conducting their own experiments.

"People modeling the inner core haven't had many experimental constraints, because it's so difficult to make measurements under those conditions," Mao said. "There really weren't constraints on how strong the core was, so this is really a fundamental new constraint."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/uYHvEXbKtnY/130520095404.htm

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Cause of Connecticut commuter train crash: Debris on the track?

An investigation is underway to determine what caused a New Haven-bound train to collide with a New York City-bound train in Connecticut on Friday night. Dozens were hospitalized following the crash on what is the busiest rail line in America, serving 125,000 commuters daily.?

By Karen Brooks,?Reuters / May 18, 2013

Emergency workers arrive the scene of a train collision, Friday in Fairfield, Conn. Two trains collided. A New York-bound train leaving New Haven derailed and hit a westbound train. Some cars on the second train also derailed.

AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Denis O?Malley

Enlarge

Federal investigators on Saturday searched for the cause of a rush-hour train crash in Connecticut?that injured dozens of people commuting home from New York City, three of them critically.

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More than 60 people were hospitalized Friday night after an eastbound commuter train derailed and collided with a westbound passenger train on an adjacent track near the Connecticut?suburb of Fairfield.

Eight people remained hospitalized on Saturday, three in critical condition, Connecticut?Governor?Dannel Malloy?said.

The collision of the?Metro-North trains forced Amtrak to shut down service indefinitely between New York and?Boston.

The governor is encouraging commuters who normally use the line to find alternative ways to get to work on Monday.

National Transportation Safety Board?investigators arrived at the scene on Saturday to determine the cause. There had been construction and repair work going on in the area and one question was whether debris was on the track.

"They can't rule anything out," said Malloy, adding that he wanted investigators to complete their work as quickly as possible so the busy commuter rail line could be reopened.

The eastbound train was headed to?New Haven, Connecticut, when it collided with the train bound for New York's Grand Central Station.

NTSB officials said several cars had derailed, not an entire train.

Malloy said the train cars were new and "designed to the latest standards" for safety and protection of passengers.

"To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that a car like this has been involved in this kind of incident and by all appearances they responded well," Malloy said. "One of the things you look at, for instance - did the seats become removed and that sort of stuff. It is going to take some more investigation. That is why they are here."

Metro-North is a commuter railroad serving the northern suburbs of New York City. It is operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a New York state agency. Fairfield is about 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City.

The rail line serves a major corridor between?Boston?and New York. The?New Haven?line operated by?Metro-North is the busiest rail line in?America?and serves 125,000 commuters a day, said?Judd Everhart?of the?Connecticut Department of Transportation.

Malloy said the state Department of Transportation already has ordered the large equipment needed to remove the cars, which will be picked up and put on flatbeds to be taken to another location for further investigation.

(Reporting by Karen Brooks in Austin, Texas, and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Greg McCune and Eric Beech)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/DJtNu8RQ1Ns/Cause-of-Connecticut-commuter-train-crash-Debris-on-the-track

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

Madden 25 Anniversary Edition includes NFL Sunday Ticket, exclusive to Amazon

DNP  Madden 25 Anniversary Edition bundles NFL Sunday Ticket, up for preorder exclusively at Amazon

Virtual football enthusiasts excited for Madden 25 (it's technically Madden 2014 marking 25 years of the franchise) may want to head over to Amazon if they're serious about watching actual NFL games. The online retailer has an exclusive Anniversary Edition of the game up for pre-order, which comes bundled with a 17-week pass for both Madden Ultimate Team cards and NFL Sunday Ticket for computer and mobile. On top of getting all the 2013 regular season's out-of-market matches, DirecTV subscribers can snag a $10-a-month discount on the TV version (normally $225) for one year with a pro bono MAX upgrade. Joystiq notes that only 100,000 copies are up for grabs, split evenly between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. All it takes to get in on the action starting August 27th is $100 -- $40 more than the standard edition, which can net you up to $400 in total savings on the services. Hit up the source link if you're ready to secure your copy.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Amazon

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/R3KCoqzpI-Y/

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