[Quote:]

Billboard owners would be able to clear-cut trees on Georgia’s roadsides to make it easier to see their signs if legislators approve new rules.

For each new billboard, owners would be allowed to cut trees and other vegetation growing for 500 feet alongside an interstate. In the most extreme example — a two-sided billboard overlooking a wide right of way — billboard owners would be allowed to clear potentially thousands of trees from an area the size of 11 acres.

[Quote:]

Amy Sorrell figured the articles on teen pregnancy, teen motherhood and sexually transmitted diseases would be controversial, so she submitted them to her principal before publishing.

But the Woodlan Junior-Senior High School teacher didn’t preapprove a student column calling for tolerance toward gays and lesbians that appeared in the same edition of the school paper.
Little did she know, that piece would make state and national news — and get her suspended from her job this month.

[Quote:]

For 10 years, Joe Hill was just another struggling, unpublished writer coming up with one book project after another only to have them rejected. Now, though, he has a bestseller on his hands – an efficient horror thriller entitled Heart Shaped Box – and a secret to reveal. He is, in fact, the son of Stephen King, the master of American popular horror fiction.

He must be Joe King…

okay, I admit, I only posted it for that pun

[Quote:]

The case is Parker v. North Brookfield, Case No.06-P-167 (Mass. Ct. App. Feb. 15, 2007). The facts are simple.

Sheryl Parker worked for the town of North Brookfield, Mass. as an “animal control officer.” Parker was legally eligible for health insurance benefits from the town. She asked to be covered, and the town reacted by firing her and eliminating her position. The sole reason for firing her was to avoid the cost of insurance.

Parker sued based on three claims: firing her violated the law that provided health insurance, was inviolation of public policy, and was gender discrimination. The trial court and the court of appeals dismissed her complaint. In other words the courts saw her claims as so lacking in merit they did not even require a trial.

Isn’t “at-will” employment just great?

[Quote:]

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

“Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. “Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event.”

It sounds like Cointelpro is still alive, and they don’t want you to know about it.

[Quote:]

Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.

“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”

If this is what we know they’re doing, what the hell do we not know about?

If the police have nothing illegal to hide, they’ve got nothing to worry about. Right?

Copyright: Gemini Observatory, AURA, NSF

Why are bullets of gas shooting out of the Orion Nebula?

Nobody is yet sure. First discovered in1983, each bullet is actually about the size of our Solar System, and moving at about 400 km/sec from a central source dubbed IRc2. The age of the bullets, which can be found from their speed and distance from IRc2, is very young — typically less than 1,000 years. As the bullets rip through the interior of the Orion Nebula, a small percentage of iron gas causes the tip of each bullet to glow blue, while each bullet leaves a tubular pillar that glows by the light of heated hydrogen gas. Pictured above, the Orion bullets were captured in unprecedented detail by the adaptive optics technology of the Gemini North telescope. M42, the Orion Nebula, is the closest major star forming region to us and filled with changing dust, gas, and bright stars. The Orion Nebula, is located about 1,500 light years away and can be seen with the unaided eye toward the constellation of Orion.

[Quote:]

House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming — but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.

“I said, ‘John, I can’t do that,’ ” Gilchrest, R-1st-Md., said in an interview. “He said, ‘Come on. Do me a favor. I want to help you here.’ ”

Gilchrest didn’t make the committee.

[..]

He expressed his interest in the committee several times to Boehner and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, telling them the best thing they could do for Republican credibility was to appoint members familiar with the scientific data.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a research scientist from Maryland, and Michigan’s Rep. Vern Ehlers, the first research physicist to serve in Congress, also made cases for a seat, but weren’t appointed, he said.

“Roy Blunt said he didn’t think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming,” Gilchrest said. “Right there, holy cow, there’s like 9,000 scientists to three on that one.”