Circumcision: religious right or crime? - The Local

A German court ruled that circumcision for non-medical reasons is bodily harm - a criminal assault - a decision that is bound to create uproar among Jewish and Muslim communities. Is it a reasonable ruling? Have your say.

Doctors called upon to perform circumcisions for religious reasons have long been in a legal grey area ? but when challenged, could plea that there was no clear ruling against it, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Tuesday.

But now the Cologne district court has ruled that neither the rights of parents, nor the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion can justify what it defined as bodily harm.

A lawyer who has long campaigned for such a ruling said it was a question of basic rights of children being respected.

?The court has, in contrast to many politicians, not allowed itself to be scared by the fear of being criticised as anti-Semitic or opposed to religion,? said Holm Putzke.

But Muslim and Jewish groups have been determined to prevent criminalisation of circumcision, viewing such a ruling as a serious attack on their freedom of religion.

Should the state keep its nose out of such questions? Is the criminalisation of ancient and widespread practices offensive to Jews and Muslims? What kind of signal does this give to people being urged to integrate into German society?

Or is the court simply fulfilling its duty to protect infants and young children from unnecessary surgical procedures that they have no way of making a choice about?

Registered users of The Local may add their comments in the field below. If you haven?t signed up yet, you can do so here ? it?s free and only takes a moment.

The Local/hc

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Riva Greenberg: Why Can't Meters Tell Me My Blood Sugar?

The 72nd American Diabetes Association scientific session took place a few weeks ago.

More than 16,000 medical professionals, scientists, researchers, pharma industry representatives and some well-versed patients attended.

The exhibition hall boasted one of the largest displays of new-to-market, and coming-to-market devices, technologies and other products to make managing diabetes easier, safer and more precise.

But I, and you, are still checking our blood sugar on a glucose meter that's allowed to be anywhere within 20 percent of the laboratory standard 95 percent of the time.

What that means is when my meter says my blood sugar is 145 mg/dl (8 mmol/l) it might be -- or, given the up to plus or minus 20 percent, it might be 113 mg/dl (6.2 mmol/l) or 173 mg/dl (9.6 mmol/l), or anywhere in between.

In 2010 the FDA wrote, "Glucose meters are increasingly being used to achieve tight glycemic control despite the fact that these devices have not been approved for this use." The article goes on to say that patients at home and those in clinical settings are using glucose meters that have not been approved as safe and effective.

Nearly 26 million people have diabetes in the U.S. Nearly 80 million have pre-diabetes. While they don't all use meters, meter accuracy is not limited to a small, exceptional group. Since within 10 years most people with pre-diabetes will go on to get Type 2 diabetes, meter accuracy will grow to affect up to a third of the nation.

So while manufacturers keep adding bells and whistles to meters, and we're on the launch pad for an artificial pancreas -- where accuracy will be even more critical -- why don't I have a meter that gives me an accurate reading of my blood sugar?

Think about it: would you buy a scale that's 20 percent off? Your 145 pounds on the scale might really be 113, 127, 165 or 173 pounds, or anywhere in between. Would you drive a car whose speedometer gave the speed up to plus or minus 20 miles per hour? How useful would a watch be that was sometimes too fast and sometimes too slow and you didn't know when it was which?

Six to 10 times a day when I check my blood sugar, I'm making a decision to either eat more calories -- eating sugar if my blood sugar's too low, to bring it up -- or take more insulin if my blood sugar's too high, to bring it down. And that, my friend, can be a life-threatening action if I'm basing it on faulty numbers.

To minimize some worry, you should know that the governing body, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), states that the rate of allowable accuracy on your meter must be within 15 percent of the laboratory standard when your blood sugar is lower than 75 mg/dl. But still...

Variance Meter to Meter
Not only do we not know how off the mark our meter readings are, testing your numbers on one meter next to another will drive you mad. Different meters give you different results, almost a different range of results.

Last month at a pre-launch press meeting at Sanofi, I got an iBGStar meter. I've been using Bayer's ContourUSB meter for the last two or three years, so I immediately checked my blood sugar on both meters. For the sake of these lists being difficult to read, here are the results in the U.S. mg/dl value:

I checked twice more over the next day and in each case my ContourUSB showed I was 20-25 points lower than the iBGStar.

Fascinated, I wanted to check on more meters. I had a VerioIQ and Freestyle Lite meter at home and ordered a Freestyle Freedom Lite meter.

Here are my results from eight checks of my blood sugar at the same moment, same finger, using the same drop of blood. (I only checked on Freestyle Freedom Lite twice because it arrived toward the end of my testing.)

Here's another thing that happened when I checked, and then checked again a minute later:

So if you check twice in a row on the same meter you won't necessarily get the same result.

I've been told the only way to know if your meter is accurate is to check your blood sugar on your meter when you're having it drawn for a lab test and compare when the lab test result comes back. I did this two weeks ago. The number on my ContourUSB was 115 mg/dl (6.3 mmol/l). The lab came back with 139 mg/dl (7.7 mmol/l).

While I titled this post "Why Can't Meters Tell Me My Blood Sugar?" I plan to do a second post on "Why Meters Can't Tell Me My Blood Sugar" if that's the case. I want to find out what is at the root of meter readings and disparities and what manufacturers are doing about it.

For now, I've been told the reason for accuracy distortion is largely the interplay between the strip and the meter. Plus a host of other variables like the calibration of the meter, dirt on the meter or strip, what's in your blood from medications you may be taking, what's on your fingers from what you last ate and environmental conditions like climate and altitude.

Here's my plea to the FDA, government, pharma and health insurance companies -- with all the new gizmos and cool designed products, which I applaud, let's also get our priorities straight. When 1 in 20 people with diabetes die from low blood sugar, why are we dragging our feet on getting our meters accurate? What are we waiting for?

So what's your experience? Have you checked on different meters?

Do you think one meter is more accurate than the others? Why?

Have you compared checking your blood sugar on your meter with the hospital standard lab draw?

Have you switched meters and then found you have to get used to new numbers?

On a personal note I want to say to those of us who live with diabetes and constantly feel we are judged by our numbers -- our health care providers judge us, our family may judge us and we judge ourselves -- we really don't know what our numbers are. Plus no matter how hard we work at keeping our blood sugar in our target range, there are other forces at work -- stress, illness, the 20 percent margin of error the FDA allows food manufacturers on food nutrition labels -- that we can't always have the numbers we'd like. Let's try to remember that each time we check our blood sugar and when we do get meter accuracy.

Riva speaks to patients and health care providers about flourishing with diabetes and is the author of "50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life and the 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It" and "The ABC's Of Loving Yourself With Diabetes." She is finishing her third book, "Diabetes Dos & How-Tos due out this fall. Visit her website DiabetesStories.com.

For more by Riva Greenberg, click here.

For more on diabetes, click here.

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Follow Riva Greenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/diabetesmyths

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Wonders Never Cease ? Student Profile: Zach Wood

News-Register | Regina Fischer Graphic Arts student Zach Wood takes advantage of the quiet Serenity Room in the Student Life Center to write down his thoughts.

Artist, writer, athlete and traveler, Zach Wood is inspired by life around him

By Regina Fischer
Staff Writer

Zach Wood is a visual thinker.

The 19-year-old Liberal Arts major loves to let his imagination soar, and North Lake College allows him to do just that in Byron Black?s Digital Imaging class. Creating the designs of tomorrow are a passion of his. But his interest in arts goes back seven years.

?The first memory I have of graphic design [is] in middle school when I started learning Photoshop,? said Zach. ?A close friend and I would challenge each other.?

Later, as a student at Lewisville High School, he participated at Career Center East, a career training program. The center offers state-of-the-art facilities and Zach discovered he excelled in graphic design.

He credits Ms. Harman?s graphic design and illustration classes for pushing him to have faith in himself as an artist.

Zach seeks inspiration in everyday events, especially human interaction or from ?just life happening.? His creativity has grown into other facets as an artist, too. His website displays his many accomplishments, from logo designs for television and movies to music to short stories.

In Zach?s recent submission to Duck Soup, North Lake?s literary magazine, his short story entitled, ?My Life,? is about a funeral being viewed by a deceased person.

?The song I would like people to listen to while reading my piece would have to be,? A Writer?s Dream by Petri Alanko,? he said.

The message he wants to convey in the short story is, ?Everybody cares about you. If you leave, people will still care about you when you are gone.?

Not only does Zach display techno savviness, he also pursues outside interests. In May, he visited Poland where he toured cities as he traced the footsteps of Pope John Paul II. A longtime participant in baseball, Zach tries to be accomplished in as many fields as possible.

Currently he is learning piano and is enrolled in digital imaging classes with Byron Black, as well as working on his first book. Zach said his ideal job would be to design for the cable network Showtime and work in their advertising department.

To see several samples of Zach?s designs, log onto www.cargocollective.com/zachwoodartist.

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Homebuilders lead stocks up on Wall Street

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Cassini shows why jet streams cross-cut Saturn

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2012) ? Turbulent jet streams, regions where winds blow faster than in other places, churn east and west across Saturn. Scientists have been trying to understand for years the mechanism that drives these wavy structures in Saturn's atmosphere and the source from which the jets derive their energy.

In a new study appearing in the June edition of the journal Icarus, scientists used images collected over several years by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to discover that the heat from within the planet powers the jet streams. Condensation of water from Saturn's internal heating led to temperature differences in the atmosphere. The temperature differences created eddies, or disturbances that move air back and forth at the same latitude, and those eddies, in turn, accelerated the jet streams like rotating gears driving a conveyor belt.

A competing theory had assumed that the energy for the temperature differences came from the sun. That is how it works in Earth's atmosphere.

"We know the atmospheres of planets such as Saturn and Jupiter can get their energy from only two places: the sun or the internal heating. The challenge has been coming up with ways to use the data so that we can tell the difference," said Tony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y., the lead author of the paper and a member of the Cassini imaging team.

The new study was possible in part because Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn long enough to obtain the large number of observations required to see subtle patterns emerge from the day-to-day variations in weather. "Understanding what drives the meteorology on Saturn, and in general on gaseous planets, has been one of our cardinal goals since the inception of the Cassini mission," said Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "It is very gratifying to see that we're finally coming to understand those atmospheric processes that make Earth similar to, and also different from, other planets."

Rather than having a thin atmosphere and solid-and-liquid surface like Earth, Saturn is a gas giant whose deep atmosphere is layered with multiple cloud decks at high altitudes. A series of jet streams slice across the face of Saturn visible to the human eye and also at altitudes detectable to the near-infrared filters of Cassini's cameras. While most blow eastward, some blow westward. Jet streams occur on Saturn in places where the temperature varies significantly from one latitude to another.

Thanks to the filters on Cassini's cameras, which can see near-infrared light reflected to space, scientists now have observed the Saturn jet stream process for the first time at two different, low altitudes. One filtered view shows the upper part of the troposphere, a high layer of the atmosphere where Cassini sees thick, high-altitude hazes and where heating by the sun is strong. Views through another filter capture images deeper down, at the tops of ammonia ice clouds, where solar heating is weak but closer to where weather originates. This is where water condenses and makes clouds and rain.

In the new study, which is a follow-up to results published in 2007, the authors used automated cloud tracking software to analyze the movements and speeds of clouds seen in hundreds of Cassini images from 2005 through 2012.

"With our improved tracking algorithm, we've been able to extract nearly 120,000 wind vectors from 560 images, giving us an unprecedented picture of Saturn's wind flow at two independent altitudes on a global scale," said co-author and imaging team associate John Barbara, also at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The team's findings provide an observational test for existing models that scientists use to study the mechanisms that power the jet streams.

By seeing for the first time how these eddies accelerate the jet streams at two different altitudes, scientists found the eddies were weak at the higher altitudes where previous researchers had found that most of the sun's heating occurs. The eddies were stronger deeper in the atmosphere. Thus, the authors could discount heating from the sun and infer instead that the internal heat of the planet is ultimately driving the acceleration of the jet streams, not the sun. The mechanism that best matched the observations would involve internal heat from the planet stirring up water vapor from Saturn's interior. That water vapor condenses in some places as air rises and releases heat as it makes clouds and rain. This heat provides the energy to create the eddies that drive the jet streams.

The condensation of water was not actually observed; most of that process occurs at lower altitudes not visible to Cassini. But the condensation in mid-latitude storms does happen on both Saturn and Earth. Storms on Earth -- the low- and high-pressure centers on weather maps -- are driven mainly by the sun's heating and do not mainly occur because of the condensation of water, Del Genio said. On Saturn, the condensation heating is the main driver of the storms, and the sun's heating is not important.

Images of one of the strongest jet streams and a figure from the paper can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.govandhttp://ciclops.org.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Anthony D. Del Genio, John M. Barbara. Constraints on Saturn?s tropospheric general circulation from Cassini ISS images. Icarus, 2012; 219 (2): 689 DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2012.03.035

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Today on New Scientist: 25 June 2012

Corporate money men fill the political void at Rio+20

It may have been a damp squib politically, but business leaders at the Earth Summit in Rio were on hand to commit cash for UN green initiatives

Is there an explanation for existence?

In Why Does the World Exist? Jim Holt spans physics, philosophy and literature to examine the mystery of why there is something rather than nothing

Psychedelic nano-art in oils and ferrofluids

Ferrofluids - a mix of oil and nano-sized iron particles - are normally used in computer hard drives, but their weird properties can make for great liquid art

Want terabit internet? Get light to do the twist

Twisting individual beams of light in different ways allows more data to be transmitted in the same signal

Ultrasound pill helps the medicine go down

A swallowable ultrasound device called uPill could end the need for painful daily injections

Life: is it inevitable or just a fluke?

If life arises wherever conditions are right, why haven't we heard from aliens yet? Biochemist Nick Lane thinks he might have an answer

Sea-level rise accelerates faster on US east coast

The Atlantic coast of North America is a hotspot of sea level rise, suggesting that a major Atlantic current is slowing down

Threatwatch: Taliban action risks polio resurgence

Which is more likely to derail the decades-long battle to rid the world of polio? The Taliban, or the financial crisis?

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A Snapshot of The Android and iOS Market in China Through One Big Developer?s Eyes

The ?rst quarter of 2012 saw smartphone shipments to China surpass?shipments to the U.S. for the ?rst time, but which devices are people in China actually using? We take a look, using data about Chinese users of our titles. iPhones have carved out a signi?cant portion of the market share among Chinese smartphone users, but what about the fragmented Android market? What devices are Android users in China using?

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U.S. says attack likely in Kenya port city

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Pension Giant Dumps $73 Million Caterpillar Stock Over Israel Ties

Pension fund giant TIAA-CREF has removed Caterpillar, Inc. from its Social Choice Funds portfolio. As of May 1, 2012, financial data posted on TIAA-CREF?s website valued Social Choice Funds shares in Caterpillar at $72,943,861. Today it is zero.

?We applaud this decision,? said Rabbi Alissa Wise, Director of Campaigns at Jewish Voice for Peace and National Coordinator of the We Divest Campaign. "It?s long past time that TIAA-CREF began living up to its motto of ?Financial Services for the Greater Good? when it comes to the people of Israel and Palestine.?

Since 2010, We Divest has been urging TIAA-CREF to drop Caterpillar and other companies profiting from and facilitating Israel?s 45-year-old military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

?By selling weaponized bulldozers to Israel, Caterpillar is complicit in Israel?s systematic violations of Palestinian human rights,? said Rabbi Wise. ?We?re glad to see that the socially responsible investment community appears to be recognizing this and is starting to take appropriate action.?

Caterpillar has come under increasing criticism from human rights organizations in recent years for continuing to supply bulldozers to Israel, which uses them to demolish Palestinian civilian homes and destroy crops and agricultural land in the occupied territories, and to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land.

In the coming weeks, many will be watching the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly taking place in Pittsburgh, where church commissioners will vote on a motion to divest from Caterpillar and two other companies, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett-Packard, that remain in TIAA-CREF?s Social Choice Funds.

Last month, Friends Fiduciary, a Quaker institution, divested $900,000 worth of shares in Caterpillar stating: ?We are uncomfortable defending our position on this stock.?

* * *

Caterpillar D9 model tractors used by the Israeli Defense Forces. (Limor Edri)

* * *

Israel's Ha'aretz reports:

[...] TIAA-CREF?s divestiture amounted to $72 million in funds, dwarfing previous divestitures by liberal religious groups such as Friends Fiduciary, a Quaker group that divested $900,000.

The news of the delisting comes ahead of the biennial general assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), where divestment from Caterpillar and other companies selling products used by the Israeli army, will be considered. [...]

The death in 2003 of Rachel Corrie, an American pro-Palestinian activist, while she was protesting such a demolition in Gaza, helped spur the BDS movement forward. Corrie?s parents and witnesses say she was caught beneath an armored tractor. The army denies fault and maintains she was killed by debris.

MSCI-ESG ? ESG stands for Environment, Social or Governance ? has as its clients a number of progressive groups that base their investments in part on social justice issues, including care for the environment, the treatment and safety of employees, and involvement in human rights abuses.

MSCI-ESG?s decision, made in February and effective as of March 1, came to light this week because of claims by groups associated with the BDS movement that a decision by TIAA-CREF ? a pension fund for teachers and other academics ? to divest from Caterpillar was a result of their pressure.

"It?s long past time that TIAA-CREF began living up to its motto of ?Financial Services for the Greater Good? when it comes to the people of Israel and Palestine,? Rabbi Alissa Wise, the national coordinator for ?We Divest,? a coalition of several groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, where Wise is director of campaigns. [...]

Rebecca Vilkomerson, the Jewish Voice for Peace spokswoman said she was ?confident? that representations by the We Divest coalition and other groups both to MSCI-ESG and to TIAA-CREF played a role.

In any case, she said, activism by groups such as hers has resulted in a ?consensus in the human rights community because of its role in human rights abuses in Palestine, Caterpillar is not an ethical actor.?

Pro-Palestinian groups have for a decade campaigned against the sale of the tractors to Israel. Caterpillar sells the tractors to the U.S. military for resale to allies. Caterpillar says it does not determine to which countries the tractors are resold and how they are refitted for military use.

The pro-Palestinian groups, backed by a number of human rights NGOs, say that Israel uses the tractors to destroy Palestinian homes as a means of inhibiting growth and as collective punishment. Israel says the tractors are used to destroy illegal structures, and in Gaza were used until 2005, when Israel pulled out, to destroy tunnels used by terrorists for smuggling purposes.

* * *

And a press release from Jewish Voice for Peace:

TIAA-CREF Drops Caterpillar from Social Choice Funds
Biggest U.S. Victory Yet for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement

June 21, 2012?Over the objection of Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), pension giant TIAA-CREF?s Social Choice Funds have divested from Caterpillar.

Ackerman, the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, has strongly condemned the TIAA-CREF divestment campaign, calling it ?ill-conceived and dangerous.?

Ackerman attacked nearly 200 New York University (NYU) faculty and staff for signing a letter urging TIAA-CREF President/CEO Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., to ?divest funds from companies that profit from Israel?s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.?

Ackerman remarked, ?It would take a great deal of education to rationalize such utter nonsense. But somehow, I feel sure this bunch at NYU will manage it.?

TIAA-CREF ignored Ackerman and did exactly as the NYU faculty asked?divesting more than $72 million of shares in Caterpillar from their social choice funds. Caterpillar shares (NYSE:CAT) are down 1.25% as of 12 p.m. ET today.

TIAA-CREF?s move is yet another sign of surging momentum for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Last month, Friends Fiduciary, a Quaker institution, divested $900,000 worth of shares in Caterpillar stating: ?We are uncomfortable defending our position on this stock.?

Ackerman is not alone in fighting TIAA-CREF?s divestment. The Israel Action Network is a $6 million project of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, devoted to undermining divestment campaigns like this one. TIAA-CREF was clearly not convinced by either Ackerman or the Israel Action Network.

?The Israel Action Network is a cynical effort to divide the Jewish community and silence one of the most important moral policy debates in our country,? said Rabbi Alissa Wise, Director of Campaigns at Jewish Voice for Peace and National Coordinator of the We Divest Campaign (www.wedivest.org).

TIAA-CREF had resisted calls for divestment since the We Divest Campaign launched in 2010. The change comes less than a month before TIAA-CREF?s annual meeting, which will take place July 17th in New York.

The We Divest Campaign will continue to urge TIAA-CREF to divest other funds from Caterpillar and to divest from all companies that profit from the Israeli occupation?including Northrop Grumman, Veolia, Elbit, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett-Packard. The campaign was initiated by Jewish Voice for Peace and now includes six organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, Adalah-NY, Grassroots International, the US Palestinian Community Network, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots peace organization dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy in the Middle East based on peace, democracy, human rights and respect for international law. With over 115,000 online supporters, 35 chapters and a Rabbi's Council, JVP?s board of advisors includes Tony Kushner, Ed Asner, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Eve Ensler and others.

# # #

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Has CRKT Designed a Better MultiTool?

CRKT‘s new multitool is a departure from the typical multi bladed tool design which most of us are familiar. This tool has a blade and screw drivers, but also features a saw and box wrenches. It will be priced at?$49.99, but doesn’t seem to be available just yet. What do you think? Would you carry [...]

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Crushed by Student Loans Move to Niagara Falls - Yahoo Finance ...

June 23, 2012
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The House

One day, you found out that you had a powerful gift...however, this gift made you do something terrible. Regardless of whether you meant to or not, or if you were actually guilty or not, you ended up at the Wayward House for the Misunderstood. (more in)

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.

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NBA All Star 2012 Mission Crew Sock - White/Black

Item no: 12461555 Price: $12.99

AVAILABILITY:
In stock: Leaves warehouse in 6 - 8 full bus. days .

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Remember, no sales tax except in FL, IL, KY, NY and PA.

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Description

Hit the court wearing the same gear as your favorite NBA player! The NBA All Star 2012 Mission crew socks will be worn by players during All Star weekend. They are brightly colored with a speckled and striped pattern and feature the official NBA logo embroidered on the ankle.

Features

Features

• 58% cotton, 32% acrylic, 10% spandex
• Crew socks
• Embroidered NBA logo
• Contrast colored stripe pattern
• Solid color heel and toe
• Officially licensed
• Made in Korea

Buyer's Guide

U.S. Shoe Size

Sock Size	Youth	Women's	Men's
Small	1-5	?	?
Medium	?	6-11	5-10
Large	?	?	8-13
XL	?	?	13-15

Reviews

3/1/2012

(10 of 11 customers found this review helpful)

By?T Money

from Edmond, OK

About Me Competitive Athlete

• Dries Well
• Good Ankle Support
• Good Grip
• Good Shock Absorption
• Great with Jeans
• Lightweight
• They are epic

• Anytime is sock time
• Blacktop
• Casual Wear
• Cold Weather
• Game Time
• Indoor Court

• Sizing:
• Feels true to size
• Width:
• Feels true to width
• Was this a gift?:
• No

?2012 NBA Media Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved. No portion of NBA.com may be duplicated, redistributed or manipulated in any form.

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Listing leak shows next version of Android coming 'soon'

Featured

2 days

Wilson Rothman

Microsoft has to do it. That's what I keep telling myself. In order to convert people from the cloud-powered "ecosystems" of Apple or Google... Read more

2 hrs.

Devin Coldewey

Someone at the Google Play Store hit the big red button a little early,?it seems, updating the listing for the Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ to say it would soon be receiving the next version of Android, 4.1 "Jelly Bean." The listing has since been removed, but several people saw it while it was live and, naturally, got screenshots.

What exactly will be included in the update isn't clear, but these smaller incremental updates usually speed up performance, fix bugs, and include new versions of software, like perhaps the new version of Google Maps. At any rate, it's coming to the GSM version of Google and Samsung's latest Nexus phone ? not a surprise, since the Nexus platform is generally the first to receive these updates.

XDA forum member Lil Jones first posted the information;?other users subsequently added their own screenshots, and the thread was spotted by Droid-Life. They also point out that it is unlikely to be a typo or hoax, as it occurred within Google's own store and the wording is?unmistakable.

When "soon" is wasn't made clear, but the smart money is probably on?Google's I/O developers conference, which starts next week on?the 27th. The event is also rumored to bring about a new low-cost tablet, perhaps also running Jelly Bean. Whatever the case, it shouldn't be a long wait for Nexus owners.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

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Waymon Hudson: Pride, Politics, and Liberation: Pride Isn't Just About Parades

It's that time of year again. Pride is in the air around the world for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and ally community now that June has arrived. Parades, festivals, music, parties, shirtless boys, dykes on bikes, and more rainbows than you can shake your high heels at will abound in cities all over the country.

As always, it is a time for celebration, community, and visibility. Yet now more than ever, LGBT Pride celebrations need be something more. We need to put the politics back in Pride. We need to be asking people to not only celebrate our community but educate and agitate, as well.

Most Pride parades fall in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots, a pivotal and defining moment in the modern LGBT-rights movement. The spirit of Stonewall, where a tired and oppressed community finally had enough and took to the streets, inspired the early Pride demonstrations. In fact, the early marches were about "gay liberation" and "gay freedom."

In fact, my new hometown of Chicago has a long history of taking to the streets for both protest and Pride, with one of the earliest protests marches being organized here in the city by Chicago Gay Liberation on June 27, 1970. That early Liberation March in Chicago was from Washington Square Park ("Bughouse Square") to the Water Tower at the intersection of Michigan and Chicago Avenues. Marches then continued to the Civic Center (now Richard J. Daley Plaza) so that their message could reach the maximum number of Michigan Avenue shoppers and tourists. The message of these early marches was clear: Visibility and organization can bring attention to the inequality faced daily by the LGBT community.

Over the years, Pride celebrations have shifted from their earlier protest-march forms to more celebratory parties as LGBT people have felt safer, come out of the closet, and been more visible in society and pop culture. Yet even as our parties grew larger, our legal rights and battles for equality have too often stalled, with major hurdles still facing the community every day. A level of cultural acceptance brought a sense of political apathy to the events, even though in most states even the most basic rights (like employment-discrimination protection or housing and public-accommodation rights) are denied to LGBT people.

We have seen rapid movement on issues like marriage equality in the recent year, with public opinion polls shifting drastically and real movement in both the courts and state legislatures. Momentum has built quickly, with LGBT issues and rights being talked about on a daily basis in the media and political circles. That's why now more than ever it is the perfect time to take Pride back to its roots and put the politics and protest back in alongside the fun.

We need to be asking people to not only celebrate but do something as simple as carrying a sign with the LGBT-rights issue that means the most to you. Want ENDA passed so we can help end employment discrimination? Help educate the community by starting conversations with Pride-goers by carrying a sign. Want the bigoted Defense of Marriage Act repealed? Make a shirt and talk about about it at Pride with your friends and the people around you. Volunteer with your favorite political organization at its booth, and inform others.

The visibility that Pride provides is a powerful tool. With more open-minded straight allies showing up to share in the festivities, Pride is a perfect time to educate them more fully on issues that don't get as much attention outside our community. Every year news stations turn up to film the wild gays throwing their big party. This year, let's show them we can celebrate not only how fabulous our community is but how important our issues are.

I'm all for a big party -- and we have a lot to celebrate. But we also have many pressing issues that need to be addressed and could use the momentum that a big push at Pride could provide. Imagine thousands of LGBT-rights marches across the country pushing our issues as we celebrate the diversity of our community.

Those early gay-liberation marches energized our movement and brought sharp focus to the issues facing our community. They were the beginning push in the momentum we now feel as we move toward full equality under the law. That's what Pride was and what it could be again. So join the fight and make a difference as you celebrate; we can have Pride and still learn from our own history as we continue to fight for liberation and freedom.

Critical Thinking with Waymon Hudson premieres on Gay Chicago TV Thursday, June 28, 2012. Waymon's first guest is Illinois Rep. Greg Harris. Watch on gaychicagotv.com.

?

Follow Waymon Hudson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WaymonHudson

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The best countries for entrepreneurs

Cahir Davitt / age fotostock

New Zealand, with its 4.4 million residents, welcomes both tourists and new businesses. Here, the lights of Queenstown can be seen from the air.

By Michael B. Sauter, Alexander E.M. Hess, Lisa A. Nelson and Samuel Weigley, 24/7 Wall St.

?The best countries for entrepreneurs do not necessarily have the biggest economies. In fact, based on a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, four of the 10 best countries for entrepreneurship have among the smallest economies in the developed world. While it is no surprise that the United States and the United Kingdom are among the best countries for entrepreneurs, most businesses would not put Portugal or New Zealand among them.

24/7 Wall St.: The most dangerous cities in America

In order to determine the best countries for starting a business, the OECD took into account the time it takes to start a business, the number of procedures necessary to start a business, the cost of following through with those procedures compared to national income per capita, and the minimum paid-in capital necessary as a percentage of income per capita. Based on this data, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 countries where it is easiest to start a business.

According to OECD chief media officer Matthias Rumpf, the restrictions examined in this report can be a deterrent to starting a business: ?if you have to spend all the time to cope with red tape, you can?t spend that time to work on your business plan, to ship your products, and to reach out to clients.?

Just because it is easy to start up a business does not mean that small businesses are being started or that they comprise a large part of the economy. While New Zealand is one of best countries to start a small business, it ranks 21 out of 29 countries (where data were available) in the percentage of people working for small businesses. Meanwhile, the country ranks third in the percentage of people who work for large companies.

24/7 Wall St. also looked at the countries? total gross domestic product and GDP per capita, anticipating a correlation between the ease of starting a small business and the strength of the economy. However, no relationship was apparent. While several of the best countries for entrepreneurs are among the largest countries in the world, such as the U.S. and France, smaller economies such as Chile and New Zealand also made the top 10.

The OECD also looked at the perception of entrepreneurship among citizens, including perceived opportunities to starting a business, the percentage that believe they have the skills to start a business, those who believe the fear of failure would prevent them from attempting to start a new venture and the high status of successful entrepreneurs.

24/7 Wall St.: America's richest school districts

Based on the OECD report, perception does not necessarily produce good opportunities. For example, while Switzerland has the eighth-worst score for starting a new business, residents had the seventh-highest perception about opportunities. Meanwhile, South Korea is the seventh-easiest country to start a small business, but only ranked 25th in perception out of 34.

These are the 10 countries that are best for entrepreneurs.

1) New Zealand

• ?No. of procedures necessary to start a business:?1
• ?No. of days to start of business:?1
• ?2010 GDP:?$134 billion
• ?Percent employment by companies with 250+ employees:?42.1 percent

Starting a business in New Zealand only requires applying online with the New Zealand Companies Office. It takes one day and costs just $127, after which a certificate of incorporation is issued via email within minutes. Further, there is no minimum paid-in capital needed for starting a company in New Zealand. Despite the ease of starting a business, 42.13 percent of New Zealanders work for a company with more than 250 employees -- more than any nation other than the U.S. and UK. Still, New Zealand has maintained a high percentage of new companies created each year: 12.1 percent in 2007, 12.1 percent in 2008 and 10 percent in 2009.

2) Australia

• ?No. of procedures necessary to start a business:?2
• ?No. of days to start of business:?2
• ?2010 GDP:?$1.1 trillion
• ?Percent employment by companies with 250+ employees:?n/a

Entrepreneurs can enjoy the quick process of starting their businesses in two days for just over $400 in Australia. Of those residents surveyed by the OECD, 48 percent perceive Australia as being a good place for business opportunities, the fifth highest out of 27 OECD nations surveyed. Australian business owners have a total tax rate of 47.7 percent -- five percentage points higher than the average OECD tax rate, which may deter potential business owners.

3) Canada

• ?No. of procedures necessary to start a business: 1
• ?No. of days to start of business:?5
• ?2010 GDP:?$1.6 trillion
• ?Percent employment by companies with 250+ employees:?n/a

In Canada, there is just one step involved in starting a business: filing for incorporation through the online Electronic Filing Center. Filling out the necessary forms and paying all associated fees takes about five days and costs about $195. This process is relatively cheap, costing just 0.4 percent of Canada?s income per capita while requiring no minimum paid-in capital. Also, Canadian businesses were taxed in 2011, at just 28.8 percent of profit -- far less than nations such as the U.S. and France, which taxed profit at rates of 46.7 percent and 65.7 percent, respectively. However, not many Canadians have taken full advantage of the ease of starting a business. In 2008, Canada had one of the lowest percentages of start-ups of any OECD country for which information was available.

24/7 Wall St.: The states with the fastest growing economies

4) United States

• ?No. of procedures necessary to start a business: 6
• ?No. of days to start of business: 6
• ?2010 GDP: $14.7 trillion
• ?Percent employment by companies with 250+ employees: 52.8 percent

In the U.S., innovators and entrepreneurs are highly praised in the media, according to 68 percent of those surveyed by the OECD. There are very few procedures and $675 in fees necessary to start a business. There is, however, a high incidence of company failures, at 10.43 percent per year, which suggests that it may be difficult for small and medium-sized companies to stay in business. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost half of new companies fold after just five years of operation.

5) Ireland

• ?No. of procedures necessary to start a business: 4
• ?No. of days to start of business: 13
• ?2010 GDP: $205.7 billion
• ?Percent employment by companies with 250+ employees: 26.2 percent

Starting a business in Ireland only requires four procedures, a total of 13 days and costs between $100 and $165. The country rewards its most successful businesses by giving them special access to financing. Start-ups incorporated in the past five years, which have had at least 20 percent growth in three-consecutive years, had a 69 percent success rate in getting loans and a 100 percent success rate in receiving financing from existing stockholders. To compare, in the OECD 63.4 percent of start-ups that are growing quickly receive loans and just 77.6 percent receive shareholder financing. In 2011, 83 percent of people surveyed said successful entrepreneurs had high social standing. But the?Irish Times?estimates the number of people starting a new business each month has declined from around 2,800 in 2008 to 800 in 2010.

Click here to read the rest of 24/7 Wall St.'s The best countries for entrepreneurs

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Congressional committee finds Holder in contempt

A Republican-dominated House panel found the Attorney General in contempt on a straight party-line vote; the last Cabinet official found in contempt was Janet Reno during Whitewater.

By Pete Yost,?The Associated Press / June 20, 2012

Rep. Darrell Issa (R) of California (r), adjourns a meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, after a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress on Wednesday. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) of Maryland (l), the top Democrat on the panel, opposed the measure, which passed on a party-line vote.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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Setting up a potential constitutional confrontation, a Republican-controlled House panel voted Wednesday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress, just hours after President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege ? for the first time ? to withhold documents demanded by the committee.

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The party-line vote was 23-17 following hours of caustic debate. The controversy goes next to the full House, where Republican Speaker John Boehner said there would be a vote next week unless there was some resolution in the meantime.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa of California said that "more than eight months after a subpoena" for the documents ? which concern how the Justice Department learned there were problems with an Arizona probe of gun-running into Mexico ? Obama's "untimely assertion" of executive privilege was no reason to delay the contempt vote.

RECOMMENDED: Holder in contempt: Will he go to jail?

No, it was just political, said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee's ranking Democrat. He called the vote "an extreme, virtually unprecedented action based on election-year politics rather than fact."

The last Cabinet member to be cited by a congressional committee for contempt was Attorney General Janet Reno in President Bill Clinton's administration. That was never brought to a follow-up vote in the full House.

Technically, if the full House approves the Holder contempt citation, there could be a federal criminal case against him, but history strongly suggests the matter won't get that far.

Whether Congress could force the Justice Department to turn over the documents is a basic question. In the Watergate case, the Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over taped conversations to a criminal prosecutor. But in the Nixon case, the justices also found a constitutional basis for claims of executive privilege, leaving the door open for presidents to cite it in future clashes with Congress.

In the administration's claim of executive privilege, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a letter to Issa, "We regret that we have arrived at this point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee's concerns and to accommodate the committee's legitimate oversight interests."

As the day went on, comments rapidly grew more heated. A Boehner spokesman suggested administration officials had lied earlier or were now "bending the law." Cummings said Issa "had no interest" in resolving the issue and was trying to pick a fight.

The White House reacted sharply to the committee action. "Instead of creating jobs or strengthening the middle-class, congressional Republicans are spending their time on a politically motivated, taxpayer-funded election-year fishing expedition," Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said.

Boehner raised another question after the president invoked the privilege.

His press secretary, Brendan Buck, "The White House decision to invoke executive privilege implies that White House officials were either involved in the 'Fast and Furious' operation or the cover-up that followed. The administration has always insisted that wasn't the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?"

Democrat Cummings said Issa could have settled the matter with Holder reasonably but has instead resorted to "partisan and inflammatory personal attacks."

Holder and Issa failed to reach agreement Tuesday in a 20-minute meeting at the Capitol.

During the committee's year-and-a-half-long investigation, the department has turned over 7,600 documents about the conduct of the Fast and Furious operation. However, because Justice initially told the committee falsely the operation did not use a risky investigative technique known as gun-walking, the panel has turned its attention from the details of the operation and is now seeking documents that would show how the department headquarters responded to the committee's investigation.

In Fast and Furious, agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased. Instead, the goal of gun-walking was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks.

Gun-walking has long been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Fast and Furious. These experiments came as the department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting every suspected low-level "straw purchaser" was still allowing tens of thousands of guns to reach Mexico. A straw purchaser is an illicit buyer of guns for others.

The agents in Arizona lost track of several hundred weapons in Operation Fast and Furious. Two of the guns that "walked" in the operation were found at the scene of the slaying of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.

Historically, at some point Congress and the president negotiate agreements to settle these disputes, because both sides want to avoid a court battle that could narrow either the reach of executive privilege or Congress' subpoena power.

Ordinarily, deliberative documents like those Issa is seeking are off-limits to Congress. In Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department's initial incorrect denials are seen as providing justification for the additional demands.

Issa and the House Republican leadership have asked whether the department's initial denial in a Feb. 4, 2011, letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, was part of a broader effort to obstruct a congressional investigation.

The material "pretty clearly demonstrates that there was no intention to mislead, to deceive," Holder told reporters.

On Wednesday, the slain border agent's parents, Josephine and Kent Terry, said the president's assertion of executive privilege and Holder's refusal to fully disclose documents associated with Operation Fast and Furious "compound this tragedy."

"We are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious," Terry's parents said in a statement.

RECOMMENDED:?Holder in contempt: Will he go to jail?

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