Category: News

… by Walter Brasch

Dick Wolf, who created “Law & Order” and its two successful spin-offs, “Law & Order: SVU” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” should probably consider establishing a branch office in Pennsylvania.

It seems that whenever any of the New York City cops take a road trip to find a fugitive or track down a witness, they go to Pennsylvania. Apparently, New Jersey is only a buffer zone.

Part of the reason why Pennsylvania routinely figures into the hour-long dramas may be because Wolf, a New Yorker, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Another possibility, although much more remote, may be because his first of three wives was named Susan Scranton.

Nevertheless, Pennsylvania has been the site of sufficient plots the past couple of years as the three TV series have increased their levels of social consciousness.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general has already issued 25 arrest warrants for state legislators and their aides of both political parties—including former House Speaker John Perzel, a Republican, and Bill DeWeese, the House Democratic majority leader. They are accused of a variety of charges, including theft, conflict of interest, obstruction, and conspiracy.

But it is northeastern Pennsylvania that is fertile ground for the writers. Luzerne County, with Wilkes-Barre as the county seat, has provided the background for at least two shows from “Law & Order.” Both had plots set in New York City but featured Pennsylvania misconduct that included an undercurrent of corrupt judges who took kick-backs for sentencing juveniles to privately-run juvenile detention centers. When that plot finally plays out, there are also stories to be developed about corrupt courthouse officials, corrupt school board officials and, just recently, the vice-chair of the county board of commissioners, a former pro football player, who accepted a bribe.

Nearby Schuylkill County, specifically the people of Shenandoah, played a critical part in an April 2009 “Law & Order” hate crime story about the beating and murder by teens of an undocumented Hispanic worker. In Shenandoah, 25-year-old Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, an undocumented Mexican with no criminal history, was beaten by a gang of high school football players in July 2008. In the “Law & Order” episode, the victim was also an undocumented Hispanic who was targeted by a gang of high school basketball players who had anonymously made a video, “Beaner Hunt: Taking Back America One Street at a Time.” In both the Ramirez Zavala case and the fictional “Law & Order” case, a mother covers up evidence; people in the town spew racial hatred, with many claiming if the victim wasn’t an “illegal,” he would still be alive; a “windbag” TV pundit rants about illegals taking over the country; and a jury refuses to present a guilty verdict on all but the least of the charges against the teens.

The Ramirez Zavala murder is likely to provide seed for several more episodes. This past week, the FBI arrested two teens who had been convicted by an all-White jury only of simple assault, and four police officers, including the chief. Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarski, 18, are charged with federal hate crimes. A third teen, Colin J. Walsh, had accepted a plea bargain and is in federal prison. Among the charges against Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer, and Officer Jason Hayes are conspiracy to obstruct justice for allegedly manipulating and covering up the facts of the murder; Moyer was also charged with witness and evidence tampering and providing false testimony to the FBI. In an unrelated case, Nestor and Capt. James Gennarini are charged with several counts of extortion and civil rights violations in illegal gambling operations. An unindicted coconspirator is Brandon Piekarsky’s mother, Tammy, who was dating Officer Hayes. U.S. District Court judge Malachy Mannion at the arraignment said that the evidence against the officers was “strong,” and that they depict a “vile set of activities.”

Another “Law & Order” episode could focus upon the death of 18-year-old David Vega, who Shenandoah police claimed hanged himself in the town’s jail in November 2004. The police could have issued a citation to Vega, who was arguing about a Giants–Eagles football game with friends and relatives, all of whom were vocal, none of whom had attacked anyone. But, the police arrested Vega, locked him in the town jail, and then within two hours claimed he had committed suicide by hanging. A more realistic story would be the brutal beating by racist police and a subsequent cover-up, combined with the coroner accepting the police version. No charges were filed against Chief Matthew Nestor, Capt. Raymond Nestor (the chief’s father), or James Gennarini, who are alleged to have beaten Vega. Vega’s parents, however, have filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Attorney John P. Karoly, Allentown, says that based upon an independent investigation and several depositions, there is “significant evidence” to back up charges against the police. The suit charges that an independent second autopsy confirmed that Vega “suffered extensive, massive injuries consistent with a profound beating” and “did not die of hanging.”

Police neglect and an attack upon David N. Murphy Sr., an Afro-American, who was recovering at home from spinal fusion surgery, could be the base of another episode. In March 2009, according to a civil law suit filed by Karoly in federal court, Chief Matthew Nestor and Officer George Carado, who lied about having a warrant, arrested Murphy on a claim he was selling prescription medicine to his wife, refused to allow him to take needed medication, punched him in his back, and left him alone overnight in the police station. During the night, Murphy had a heart attack and lay on the floor several hours crying out in pain. However, before seeking medical treatment, Shenandoah police took Murphy for arraignment before a district justice. The DJ ordered the police to take Murphy to a hospital. Instead, the police, according to Karoly, who is also Murphy’s attorney, took him to the Schuylkill County prison. Only when the prison wouldn’t admit him because of his medical condition did Shenandoah police take the victim to a hospital.

In a sworn affidavit, Murphy says Nestor told him that the police “would harass me and put me in jail as soon as I come to Shenandoah if I filed a lawsuit or tried to press charges on him,” and that if Murphy filed suit, “I wouldn’t make it out of the police station’s cells next time.” The complaint further alleges that “Nestor said I could end up like the Mexican that hung himself, that tapes can be erased or edited.” (The Shenandoah police station did not have surveillance cameras at the time of Vega’s death.)

“Law & Order” writers could also look at a “suicide” in Coaldale, about 20 miles east of Shenandoah. James Hill, 17, was visiting Greg Altenbach and his parents in January 2004. A corrupt police chief performed only a cursory investigation and decided that Hill committed suicide with a .22 semi-automatic rifle. However, Police Chief Shawn Nihen rejected a coroner’s report that concluded Hill couldn’t have killed himself. Nihen, who was friends with the family in whose house Hill died, as well as Altenbach’s mother, stepfather, and a friend who witnessed the accidental shooting, had tried to cover up evidence. Nihen also had known that Shawn Becker, the stepfather, was forbidden by the courts to have a gun in the house. Nihen and Coaldale police officer Michael Weaver were later convicted of planting evidence in several cases. Altenbach later acknowledged he had fired the gun, and is now in prison after conviction for involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault.

Future stories of “Law and Order” may continue to be “ripped from the headlines,” but in northeastern Pennsylvania, they are torn from greed and racial and cultural hatred.

[Walter M. Brasch, an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is a syndicated social issues columnist, author, writer-producer, and professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His latest books are Sex and the Single Beer Can, a probing and humorous look at the nation’s media; and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, with a focus upon the shredding of Constitutional protections. Both books are available at amazon.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]

We wouldn’t be surprised if the next rumor to spread about the Nexus One is that it will be initially in beta, like all of Google’s products.

But for now, Engadget reports that the phone will be available only by “invitation,” just like how Google (NSDQ: GOOG) slowly provides access to other services, like Google Voice and Google Wave. Details on how the invites will be passed out are not clear, but potentially, developers may get priority. After the invitation period expires, T-Mobile will apparently sell the phone, which once again sounds like a fairly traditional mobile-industry relationship. It’s still really unclear whether the Nexus One is the “Google Phone,” or just another phone running the Android operating system.

Engadget also said it got its hands on a list of the handsets’ full specifications, which includes confirmation that the phone is compatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network and not AT&T’s.

Here’s some of the details:

—Android 2.1
—11.5mm thick
—512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4GB microSD in-box expandable to 32GB
—5 megapixel camera with mechanical AF and LED flash
—HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100, 7.2Mbps down and 2Mbps up.
—3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display
—Haptic feedback
—3.5 mm stereo headset jack

Our first-line managers play a critical role in the achievement of USPTO goals.  In fact, my management experience has taught me that first-line managers have *far* more impact on the employees they manage than anyone else in the enterprise – more ability to develop employee skills and careers, more ability to produce outcomes that are successful for both employee and the enterprise. Their day-to-day work as coaches, guides, trainers, and mentors for employees is essential to creating a supportive, effective workplace. I personally want to express my appreciation to our first-line managers — the ranks of the Supervisory Patent Examiners (SPEs) — for their exceptional work in furthering the aims of the USPTO and for the support I know they will provide as we confront our many challenges in the future.

To reflect the importance of the SPE role, I established a taskforce with representatives from each of the Technology Centers to totally revamp the performance appraisal plan (PAP) and award program for SPEs.  The SPE PAP-Award Taskforce has crafted a performance appraisal plan that reflects key priorities of the Patents organization: enhanced examination quality, reduced application pendency and improved stakeholder responsiveness.  In addition, the new SPE PAP provides increased recognition of key SPE activities in developing their employees while also recognizing the importance of contributions to Tech Center and corps-wide initiatives. 

 The new FY10 SPE PAP reflects the varying roles and responsibilities of SPEs, and gives rating officials the opportunity to provide a fair, accurate assessment of SPE activities and efforts. A SPE Award program, consonant with the new PAP, is also being created by the Taskforce to reward the achievement of challenging goals and objectives.

The new SPE PAP includes the following elements:

•           A revamped Quality (25%) element reflecting the Patent Corps focus on addressing the individual developmental needs of examiners, for example by reviewing work at all stages of prosecution.

•           A new Pendency Reduction (25%) element aligning with Patent priorities and focusing on pendency reduction by combining activities related to both workflow and productivity.

•           A new Stakeholder Responsiveness (20%) element recognizing the importance of SPE accountability to both external and internal constituencies, including responsiveness to external calls/inquiries and availability/accessibility to Art Unit examiners.

•           A new Coaching/Mentoring (15%) element recognizing efforts of SPEs in performing core management of their Art Unit in meeting Office goals and providing for acknowledgement of the unique training and mentoring contributions of SPEs in Art Units with varying examiner experience levels.

•           A revised Leadership (15%) element providing recognition for SPE creativity and innovation in actions taken in the Art Unit as well as Tech Center and Corps wide projects/initiatives.

A similar review of performance appraisal plans and awards will be conducted for other Patent managers, including Training Quality Assurance Specialists (TQAS), Special Program Examiners (SPREs), and Trainer positions.

The work of the SPE PAP Award Taskforce marks an important positive step in ensuring our SPEs receive clear direction that are clearly in line with the goals of the USPTO.  

But, as always, I am interested in feedback, and the task force is interested in feedback from both our internal and external stakeholders.  Please take advantage of this opportunity and send your input to the SPE PAP-Award Task force mailbox ([email protected]), or to me directly here on the Director’s Forum blog.

by Ryan McKeen

I’m pretty proud of this. On Christmas Eve, two years ago, this blog went live. Most law blogs die quick deaths and with good reason: maintaining a blog is hardwork.

The mission of this blog has always been to bring the law to the people. My audience isn’t just law professors or lawyers it’s you. Whoever you are.

For me, this site is a labor of love. In fact, most of the things I write about have nothing to do with my practice. Believe it or not, I’ve never taken on a turkey law case. I spend most of my day writing technical briefs, pleadings, and memos about all sorts of things. I seize this space to write about cat attacks and judges who despise Halloween.

As a lawyer, this site broadens my perspective on Connecticut law. It keeps me informed, entertained, and engaged. Writing about illegal pets brings me a sense of joy. It reaffirms my love for the law.

The truth is that this blog doesn’t feel like work for me. If it did, it would soon cease to exist.

I’ve had more traffic on this site than I ever thought possible. This is my 384th post and there are 393 approved comments.

This blog has helped me work with the Statewide Grievance Committee to change a legal ethics rule. As a result of this blog, I’ve been interviewed by the CT Law Tribune and ABA Journal. I’m presently working on an article for the ABA journal. I’ve met some great people.

In sum, this blog has been a significant net plus for me. I hope it’s been at least a little net plus for you.

Thank you for reading. I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Four years ago, when Lawrence Summers suggested that the scarcity of prominent female scientists and engineers was in part because there are fewer women on the extremes of the range of innate math ability—fewer geniuses and fewer duds—he stirred up a lot of misguided arguments about gender differences in the brain. Although the former president of Harvard University and current director of the National Economic Council may have been right on a few details, he was wrong on his major point.

Men’s and women’s brains are different, but those distinctions are much smaller than we typically think, and few of them are innate. Rather, the slight asymmetries present at birth, shaped and molded by interests, predilections, and the cues of parents and teachers, grow into more significant gender gaps in adulthood. This divergence is an example of plasticity, the brain’s marvelous ability to adapt and change. “Most differences in behavior develop through experience,” says neuroscientist Lise Eliot of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago. “Nature sets the ball rolling, biasing boys and girls toward different interests, but the gaps themselves are largely due to learning and plasticity.”

I have a tale of death, near death, and undeath to weave for you, but first, gaze upon the jewel-like beauty of the glittering denizens of M30:

This image was taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope. I had to cut it and compress it drastically to get it to fit on the blog, so you very much want to click on it to embiggen it massively and see it in its fully resolved glory.

The image is of the insanely beautiful globular cluster M30, an ancient city of a few hundred thousand stars located 28,000 light years away in the constellation of Capricornus. The cluster is ancient, about 13 billion years old, making it as old or even older than the Milky Way itself. The core of the cluster is unusually dense as such things go, which is why it was studied. Where better to find vampires and thrillseekers?

Like people, stars are born, age, and die. Stars born with more mass tend to die off more quickly, consuming their fuel at far higher rates than their lower-mass brethren. These stars tend to be blue, so in an old cluster like M30 you’d expect to see no blue stars at all; they should all be long gone. And yet, there are quite a few — astronomers call them blue stragglers. Where did they come from?

One theory, which has been borne out by observations, is that blue stragglers are in tight binary systems, with a dead star in such close proximity to a normal star that it can siphon off the normal star’s gas, using it to rejuvenate itself. This would make them vampires, of course, sucking the life force of other stars in an attempt to stay young.

But another idea was that dead stars might also physically collide with other stars and merge, forming a single star that would burn blue and bright. In an environment like that near our own Sun this kind of collision can almost literally never happen; even considering the entire Milky Way Galaxy over its entire lifetime a head on collision has probably never happened out here in the stellar suburbs.

But that cluster M30 is pretty densely populated with stars, and collisions are far more likely. What observations like this one of the cluster (and also of an ancient cluster called NGC 188) have shown is that the blue stragglers appear to have two different sub-groups; one that appears to have come from the vampire stars, and another from stars that have collided: thrill-seekers, stars that have physically slammed into each other and merged, their combined mass separating them from the other blue straggler group.

Blue stragglers have been known since the 1950s, and the idea that they were pulling gas off nearby stars was proposed to explain them, too, but it’s only with our modern instrumentation that we can not only show that this is true, but that a second, far-fetched-sounding scenario of collisions also contributes.

I find it wonderful and extremely uplifting that an image as spectacular and gorgeous as the one above — it became my desktop wallpaper as soon as I saw it! — not only satisfies our desire for beauty and art, but can also be tapped to deliver incredible science that boosts our awe of what Nature can do. I love that we can understand such things, but you know what I love even more? The idea that we have only begun to understand the Universe.

The underlying logic behind OPEC is that Saudi Arabia gets an enormous share of the cartel’s oil quota because it gives up so much production to support oil prices. But with Iraqi oil projected to grow five fold in the next decade, the balance of production capacity will change dramatically.

It’s not clear that OPEC can survive this disruption, according to Stratfor.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Cash-Hungry Iraq Quadrupling Oil Production, OPEC Fears Price Collapse
• Falling Oil Demand Terrifies OPEC, Spurring It To Restrict Production
• Iraq Doubling Its Oil Supply To China

Filed under: Videos, Toys/Games

We’re waiting with baited breath for the arrival of Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 5. It’s getting more difficult to sit on our hands all the time, so it’s a good thing that Polyphony has released a time trial demo to wet our whistle. The demo is available free of charge for anyone on the Sony Playstation 3 network, and we recently got hold of the 200+ mb file for ourselves (it took about 30 minutes to download via high-speed cable Internet) to get a sense of whether the game is worth our elevated anticipation.

The time trial demo features both a stock and a tuned version of the Nissan 370Z. The goal is to manage the best single lap in each vehicle on a special road course layout of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and our experience with the demo shows that beating every GT5 fan out there for a chance to win a trip to the Indianapolis 500 is going to be no easy task. Hit the jump for our first impressions of the game, along with video of a hot lap captured by Dave Hinkle over at Joystiq.

[Source: Joystiq]

Continue reading Review: Gran Turismo 5 Demo requires serious skill [w/VIDEO]

Review: Gran Turismo 5 Demo requires serious skill [w/VIDEO] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the very end of an NPR story about the decade since Napster there’s an amusing quote from Eric Garland of online music tracking firm Big Champagne, where he says:

A decade from now, executives may be longing for the days–when they could blame piracy for all of their problems.

Indeed. “Piracy” makes for an easy — if totally incorrect — scapegoat. The reality is far different. As we’ve seen over and over again, those who learn to properly use file sharing to their advantage don’t see any “problems” from file “piracy,” but actually see it as a huge opportunity. That, alone, makes it clear that piracy has never been the problem, only a failure to adapt. And yet, as we’ve noted repeatedly, the industry itself is actually thriving. So that raises a separate question. A decade from now, what will industry execs be blaming their problems on? Or, will the old “blame game” execs have moved on, and we’ll be in a new industry that doesn’t even think of the challenges it faces as problems, but as opportunities?

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The United States Natural Gas (UNG) performance nightmare continues. It even underperforms when it’s rallying.

Bespoke Investment Group: Since then, however, natural gas has made a major reversal and is actually up on the year. UNG, on the other hand, remains down over 55%. In essence, UNG holders have missed out on the entire rally.

While the explosion in popularity of ETFs has had many positive effects and created numerous efficiencies for investors, the boom in the industry hasn’t been void of some individual busts.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• New York City Kills The Shale Gas Revolution
• American Shale Gas Revolution Threatened By Fracking Environmentalists
• RBS: Imports Are Coming To Smash Yesterday’s Natural Gas Rally

At the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, BMW will show its new Concept ActiveE alongside the BMW Z4 sDrive35is, as well as the North American unveiling of the twin-turbocharged inline-6 engine version of the 2011 BMW 740i and 740Li sedans. The German automaker just announced that it will also debut the 6-cylinder turbocharged version of the BMW 535i Gran Turismo.

The 535i Gran Turismo will be powered by BMW’s 3.0L 6-cylinder turbocharged engine making 300-hp at 5,800 rpm with a peak torque of 300 lb-ft available from 1,200 to 5,000 rpm. The engine will allow the 535i Gran Turismo to go from 0-60 mph in 6.2 seconds.

“This is the same level of performance as the current 3.0-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder but with the innovation of twin-scroll technology and the integration of VALVETRONIC, this new engine will be even more fuel efficient,” BMW said in a statement.

The BMW 535i Gran Turismo will go on sale with the 2011 Z4 Drive35is, 2011 740i and 740Li and the 550i Gran Turismo (unveiled at the 2009 LA Auto Show) in Spring 2010.

2009 LA: 2010 BMW 550i Gran Turismo:

All Photos Copyright © 2009 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.

– By: Omar Rana

Article Tags: Christmas Donation

May we take the time to pass on our gratitude to you all for the continued support to the ClimateRealists.com site.

The steady growth in our regular and unique membership over the past year has pushed us to month on month record levels as people “Google” the Climate Realists name.

Please take time out to make a Christmas Donation to ClimateRealists.com. If ALL of you contribute just $2 it will go a very long way towards the site research, marketing, maintenance & administration.

Simply click the DONATE button at the top of the page to make your support known.

Many thanks

Co2sceptic & Mr Zippy

Read in full with comments »   

by Auden Schendler

One morning in the not too distant future, you might wake up and walk to your mailbox. The newspaper is in there and it’s covered with shocking headlines: Coal Plants Shut Down! Airline Travel Down 50 Percent! New Federal Carbon Restrictions in Place! Governor Kicked Out of Office for Climate Indolence!

Sometimes change is abrupt and unsettling. History shows that societies in crisis too often leap from calm reaction to outright panic.The only thing your bath-robed, flip-flopped, weed-eating neighbor wants to talk about over the fence isn’t the Yankees, but, of all things … climate change.

Shaking your head, you think: What just happened?

With a non-binding agreement coming out of Copenhagen at the same time that atmospheric CO2 creeps above 390 parts per million, it’s possible that a new feeling might soon gain prevalence in the hearts of people who understand climate science. That feeling is panic. Specifically, climate panic.

In the same way that paleoclimate records show evidence of abrupt climate changes, we think it’s increasingly possible that policy responses to climate change will themselves be abrupt. After years of policy inaction, a public climate backlash is already smoldering. When it blows, it could force radical policy in a short timeframe. It’s the same kind of cultural tipping point, often triggered by dramatic events, that has led to revolutions or wars in the past.

The backlash is brewing in the form of increasingly strident comments from respected and influential people. Economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has called government indolence on the issue “treason.” NRDC attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called it “a crime against nature.” Environmental journalist and author Elizabeth Kolbert has described “a technologically advanced society choosing to destroy itself,” while James Hansen and Rajendra Pachauri, perhaps the world’s leading climate scientists, have said inaction in the next several years will doom the planet.

Meanwhile, that very planet is visibly changing—epic droughts, fires and dust storms in Australia; floods in Asia, alarmingly fast melting of land ice in Greenland and Antarctica; the prospect of an ice-free summer on the Arctic Sea; raging, unprecedented fires throughout the world; and mosquito-borne illnesses like Dengue spreading to regions previously untouched. Measurements show that the oceans are rising and becoming more acidic, while the Earth’s average temperature was higher in the past decade than at any time in the past century.

At some point, even climate change becomes teenager obvious: “Well, Duh, Dad! Look around you!”

When the psychology of in-your-face warming gets combined with a shocking climate event—something like Hurricane Katrina on steroids—you end up with a witches brew that can result in what political scientist Aristide Zolberg has referred to as “moments of madness”—unique historical moments when society challenges conventional wisdom and new norms are forcibly—oftentimes disruptively—created.

There are many historical precedents: the economic and political chaos in Weimar Germany that ultimately led to the rise of Hitler, the violence of the French Revolution, the sudden, peaceful collapse of the Soviet empire.

Stock market panics are another example: a rapid change in mindset that illustrates the dangerous unpredictability of human systems. On climate, such a response could mean sudden and painfully costly dislocations in the energy markets—and therefore the global economy—that wind up becoming the “worst case” scenario that few people had considered possible.

It is exactly these economic impacts that the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs fear we’ll impose on ourselves through restrictive government regulation of energy and carbon emissions. Ironically, a “no action” approach today actually makes a climate panic much more likely over time. What we’re describing would be popularly driven, not fueled by governments or policy wonks. It would be the direct result of free will, democracy, autonomy and the information superhighway. All these forces would accelerate, not mitigate, the greatest “Aha!” moment in the history of the human species. Imagine the sub-prime mortgage bubble pop multiplied a hundred fold.

Yet business and government planners continue to anticipate much less abrupt transitions to a carbon-constrained future. Even renewable energy policy and emissions reduction scenarios dismissed as crazily aggressive are based on relatively incremental change.

That’s a big problem. We believe that business leaders and politicians need to add a more radical scenario to their risk assessment: a climate panic that turns us from agents into victims, ushering in chaos. The only way to avoid this catastrophic scenario is a kind of backfire panic of our own: radical, rapid, and aggressive implementation of climate policy in the United States as a message to the world. In the end, as venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner has pointed out, “sometimes panic is an appropriate response.”

Related Links:

Copenhagen coal in the stocking?

What you need to know following the Copenhagen climate summit

The Copenhagen Accord: A Big Step Forward

Sega has revealed that the Aliens vs. Predator Hunter Edition, announced originally for Europe earlier this month, will be hugging the US in the face as well. That’s a good thing. Details after the jump.

Michigan is truly in a state of economic turmoil.

The population of the entire state has dropped below 10 million amid rising unemployment and falling job availability.

Detroit News: Economic woes continued to force thousands of Michiganians to leave the state, leading the overall population to drop below 10 million for the first time since 2000, according to population estimates released Wednesday morning by the U.S. Census Bureau.

…

Michigan has been bleeding people since 2005, and at the heart of the decline has been the growing exodus of people moving out looking for work. The current estimate puts Michigan’s population at 9,969,727, down from 10,002,486 in 2008. The state has seen a net loss of more than a half-million people to other states since 2001 — a number that swamps the natural increase from a greater number of births than deaths.

Read the whole story >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Michigan Financial Worker Can’t Even Get A Job At Burger King
• Underwear With "Wild Thing" Written On It Is The Hot Christmas Present At The Detroit Dollar Store
• Detroit’s Unemployment Nears 50%

Thief Dressed As Santa Claus Robs Bank
Kris Kringle Look-Alike Armed With 9-Millimeter Handgun
Reported By Deanna Lambert 

“It was a little unbelievable. He was actually jovial, which is scary. He explained that he was robbing the bank because Santa had to pay his elves,” said witness Richlyn Jones.

read the whole thing at  WSMV TV Nashville

Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

From my earliest memories, I have had an interest in art and its various media.

I was raised in the Chicago area and remember many trips to the Art Institute of Chicago. They had a large collection of paintings from the Impressionists through the modern era. Picasso and Dali were my favorites! Picasso’s blue period, and Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” stand out in my mind.

As a child, when I thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had two dreams. One was to be a doctor, and the other to be an artist! Since art was offered earlier in my schooling, and playing doctor was fraught with risks, I began my artistic voyage as soon as I could.

My slice of the creative pie

However, I was not very good. This never stopped me from trying to be an artist, and with years of practice, though I’m still not good, I have gotten a lot better!

In many ways, I have learned to hide my artistic deficiencies. Recently I had the occasion to be visited by a very good artist. In my opinion, he had no deficiencies. He was a portrait painter from California and had painted many famous people over the years. I must admit I was a bit nervous, as I felt with his talent, his time could be better spent.

I was quite surprised with his reaction to my work. He kept asking, “Where did you get that idea, and how did you think of using those colors?” as he was intrigued by my creativity. I realized that in art, as in many areas of life, most of us have a slice of the pie. It is the rare artist or individual who possesses the skills and the creativity of the whole pie!

Opening up to criticism

One of the early lessons I learned as an artist was that criticism seemed to play a large role in the art world. We have heard of art critics, but I don’t think I have ever heard of anybody having the job of a doctor or medicine critic! (And complaining about doctors does not count!)

Really, do any of us like being criticized? I had a friend who was taking an art appreciation course (they don’t call it artist appreciation for a reason). She asked me to bring in a piece I had done so “the class could criticize it.” Now there was something I was really looking forward to! Maybe we need mal-artist insurance, except for the artist, not the viewer.

Yet being open and vulnerable, whether to criticism, or to life, is so very important for all of us.

It can be hard, being the artist, putting your work out there for others to see and react to. I know people who have stopped doing art because they couldn’t take the rejections that come with that tender territory.

Does it hurt? It sure does. My work has been rejected more times than I care to remember, but I have never given up. Perhaps I have a poor memory. Perhaps the desire to be an artist chose me rather than the other way around, and I have no other choice. Nonetheless, the rewards of being creative, whether to exhibit in a gallery, or decorate my home, have been worth the voyage.

The photo that accompanies this column is my sculpture, “Take another piece of my art,” a reflection of my feelings on the vulnerability of the artist.

To be vulnerable is to be human

There is a price to pay for being unwilling to show vulnerability. It is a loss of the humanity that comes along with being real. It also involves the loss of opportunity. The opportunity to grow, to love, to be all that one can attain. Always playing it safe, never putting oneself out there, is very limiting. Safety is numbing. Life is for those who will take that chance, run that risk, go for the gold.

It is important to move through our fears. Often our greatest joys can be found on the other side of our greatest fears. I am reminded of a friend’s story about how her father’s greatest fear was that his beautiful daughter would get pregnant! Well, she did! Now her father has a granddaughter who is the apple of his eye!

Vulnerability is one of the more highly valued, authentic, mysterious and yet obvious characteristics that makes a human being human. It is necessary for our true human development. Vulnerability is that genuine human characteristic that rather than a weakness, is a strength. Never mistake softness for being weak.

After all, “Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.” (Theodore Roethke)

From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News (REF3076322B7)

Dr. J will see you now: Take another piece of my art

A lot of fuss has been made about the First Dog Bo Obama’s first snowfall this past week, and for good reason: Dogs and snow are a lot of fun to watch!

The presidential pooch, a one year old Portuguese Water Dog, romped around the grounds of the White House with reporters and photographs capturing his every move. He played fetch and took breaks to investigate the white stuff.

Are you or someone you love a Bo fan? Check out some cute stocking stuffer and gift ideas!

~ Bo Obama Official Ty Beanie Baby
~ First Dog
~ Bo, America’s Commander in Leash
~ Fuzzy First Dog Doll
~ First Dog T-shirt

Post from: Blisstree

Presidential Pup’s First Snowfall