It’s America’s favorite meal – the state fair! Every year, the fairs across this great land compete with each other to invent bigger, badder, greasier fair food. But after Texas stepped up its game last year with deep fried beer, this thing hit a whole ‘nother level. The 2011 state and country fair foods have been more insane — and more amazing — than ever. Here are our top 10 favorite finds.
Continue reading …Samsung’s latest move in its epic battle with Apple : File lawsuits attempting to block the sale of the iPhone 5. A local paper cites a Samsung official who says the company will take strategic legal action against Apple as it is expected to begin selling the phone next month. “We…
Continue reading …Twenty-four injured in suspected terrorist attack in downtown area of Ankara A car bomb which exploded outside a secondary school in Ankara has killed at least three people and injured 24. The blast on Tuesday, near government buildings, including the prime minister’s office in the Turkish capital, was a terrorist attack, the prosecutor’s office said. “The explosion occurred in a place where car and people traffic is intense. It looks like the intention was to inflict as much harm to people as possible,” said the interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin. He said the bodies of three people were found in a building near the car in central Ankara and five of the injured were in a critical condition. The deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, blamed the blast on a bomb planted on a vehicle. Bulent Tanik, a local mayor, said a witness told him someone threw a burning gas canister on to the vehicles from a nearby building. “If true, that canister might have triggered the blast of a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank on a vehicle,” he said. Witnesses said vehicles were thrown through the air by the force of the blast and shops were destroyed beyond recognition. The parked car that triggered the blast was purchased a week ago but had not been registered. There was no claim of responsibility but Kurdish rebels, Islamists and leftist militants have all carried out bombings on Turkish soil. Turkey analyst at Chatham House, Fadi Hakura, said if it was confirmed to be a bomb, the method and targets of the attack suggested it was the work of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). “The PKK is the only group in Turkey with the capacity and wherewithal to carry out such an attack,” said Hakura. He added that Islamists have tended to attack high-profile foreign targets in the Nato-member country, while the PKK had past form of striking against civilians, although he said the Kurdish rebels tended to claim attacks only when they were against foreign targets. Reyhan Altintas, a neighbourhood administrator, said she rushed outside after hearing a loud blast. It was followed by three other blasts, apparently caused by cars catching fire. “I had never heard anything like it in my life,” witness Adnan Yavuz said of the initial blast. “Then came another explosion and parts of a car dropped from the tree.” The wounded were initially treated in the schoolyard before medics arrived at the scene and took them to hospitals, NTV television said. Authorities evacuated the school as parents rushed to pick up their children. Police detained a woman at the scene who shouted “long live our struggle” as she was escorted away by officers, Dogan news agency video showed. The PKK, which is fighting for autonomy in the south-east, has stepped up attacks on Turkish targets since July. In response, Turkey launched a series of cross-border airstrikes last month, which it said killed up to 100 Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. Just days later, Kurdish rebels were blamed for a small bomb attack in the Mediterranean resort town of Kemer that wounded 10 people, including four Swedes. While most PKK operations target the military, police and state employees in the largely Kurdish south-east, the group has previous form of striking at the capital. In 2004, four bombs exploded at branches of British bank HSBC bank in Ankara and Istanbul. Three years later, the PKK was blamed – but denied responsibility for – a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed six people . Turkey Middle East Europe Global terrorism Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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brontyman says: Spiky Newborn Dinosaur Found in D.C. Beltway : Discovery News http://t.co/1HCTzCZ0
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NewsFeed’s been excited over a favorite band’s last-minute, impromptu gig before. But the Foo Fighters just set the bar a bit higher. The rock band serenaded what could be construed as another (in)famous performance group—members of the Westboro Baptist Church—in Kansas City this past Friday before a concert at the city’s Sprint Center. Performing a
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George Osborne warned that slower pace of deficit reduction will have to be adopted if economy continues to struggle The International Monetary Fund has cut its growth forecast for Britain for the third time in nine months and warned George Osborne that further underperformance would warrant a policy U-turn. The fund said the UK continued to struggle and advised that a slower pace of deficit reduction would be necessary were the economy to continue to expand less rapidly than expected. While sparing Osborne the embarrassment of a call for an immediate change of course, the IMF pulled no punches in criticising European policymakers for failing to sort out the eurozone’s problems. Following the credit downgrade of Italy by the ratings agency S&P, the IMF’s economic counsellor, Olivier Blanchard, urged Europe to “get its act together” and the fund issued a “call to arms” to prevent Europe’s leaders losing control of the crisis. “There is a wide perception that policymakers are one step behind the action in markets,” said Blanchard. “It is a major source of worry.” The IMF’s half-yearly World Economic Outlook said low borrowing costs meant Britain had the scope to cut its deficit more slowly but that it should not do so yet. Jorg Decressin, an IMF economist, said: “Policy should only be loosened if growth threatens to slow down substantially relative to what we are forecasting.” The IMF said it was cutting its growth forecast for the UK to 1.1% this year – down from 1.5% in June, 1.7% in April and 2% at the start of the year. It also predicted a more sluggish recovery in 2012, with activity expanding by 1.6% against the 2.3% it was predicting just three months ago. Fund economists believe that only an improvement in Britain’s trade performance will prevent the economy returning to recession this year. Domestic demand is expected to contract by 0.5%, the weakest of any country in the G7. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor said: “These are deeply concerning forecasts for both the UK and world economy. Our chancellor and political leaders in Europe need to wake up to the scale of the problem and finally realise that we need economic growth and more people in work to really get deficits down.” A Treasury spokesman said: “It is welcome that the IMF have forecast that the UK will grow more strongly than Germany, France and the eurozone next year, but it is clear that the UK is not immune to what is going on in our biggest export markets, with every major economy seeing lower forecasts for growth this year and next.” He stressed that the government had no intention of backtracking on a deficit-reduction plan that had delivered stability for the UK. The IMF cut its forecast for global growth to 4% for both 2011 and 2012 but said risks were heavily skewed to the downside. It warned that a failure to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and a continued policy impasse between Democrats and Republicans in the US could result in a double recession for the developed world, which it said was already projected to grow at an anaemic pace in 2011 and 2012. The fund said the US Federal Reserve should “stand ready” to provide more stimulus to the world’s biggest economy through “unconventional support”, and financial markets rallied in anticipation that the central bank will signal fresh action when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday. The Fed has already provided two doses of quantitative easing, the creation of electronic money through the purchase of financial assets, and Wall Street was hopeful on Tuesday night that the recent softening of demand will lead to a third boost in the coming months. Shares in the City rose on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 Index closing more than 100 points higher. Shares on Wall Street were also higher in early trading. IMF Economics Global economy George Osborne Economic policy Economic growth (GDP) Public finance Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Scotland Yard has dropped bid to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources behind phone hacking stories Scotland Yard has dropped its forthcoming attempt to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. The police wanted a court order to force Guardian reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter Amelia Hill could have “incited” a source to break the Official Secrets Act. The Yard said it would not go to the high court on Friday to demand the information. A police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. “In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps.” The Met’s attempt to identify potential police leaks was widely condemned. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but a senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda. There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. “Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. “In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” The police force applied for production orders as part of Operation Weeting, its investigation into phone hacking. An officer working on the operation was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to the unauthorised disclosure of information. He has been suspended from the Met and is on bail. Scotland Yard said the investigation into the alleged leaks had not concluded however, and stressed their investigation was “about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that”. The Met added: “Despite recent media reports, there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting.” They said the application for production orders had been made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act rather than the Official Secrets Act. Senior Scotland Yard sources last night said the force “regretted” the attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources. The picture painted by the Metropolitan Police is that a relatively junior officer took the decision, without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Metropolitan Police roundly condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Sources said that the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that even deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons had not been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” The decision for the Met to end its attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources, said the source, came after the force finally consulted the CPS and consulted again with its own lawyers. Simmons and the incoming new Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the chorus of criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. he Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite as Deputy Commissioner being in charge of professional standards, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order, and that Simmons had taken the decision, after the firestorm of criticism to review the application by the SIO. Phone hacking Metropolitan police Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Second wave of school desegregation efforts focus on parent choice, poverty
September 20, 2011 No CommentDistricts in Arkansas and Arizona made news this week as they struggled to comply with decades-old court orders mandating they desegregate their schools. A federal judge has ruled that three school districts around Little Rock, Ark., have delayed their desegregation efforts in order to continue to receive an extra $70 million annually from the state.
Continue reading …Facebook is taking its “Like” concept to the next level, and will launch new buttons—Read, Listened, and Watched—at its developer conference this week, a source tells TechCrunch . The buttons will appear on users’ walls, allowing them to proclaim that they Read, Listened, or Watched content in their news…
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Colombia’s Cali drug cartel was the biggest and richest crime syndicate in the history of crime, generating annual revenues exceeding $7 billion and monopolizing global cocaine markets through much of the 1990s. None of today’s warring Mexican cartels match Cali’s international domination of the illicit trade. A CEO collective of four Cali billionaires ran the organization like a multi-national corporation, vertically integrated from jungle coca production to foreign street sales. The bosses practiced an unorthodox mix of remarkably sound business strategies and markedly unsavory specialties like bribery, blackmail and murder. The trafficking giant’s inner-workings were obscured over the years by strict secrecy enforced at gunpoint. But a former high-level Cali figure now under U.S. witness protection has dispelled some of the mysteries. He describes the cartel business model as a unique blend of Big Business and Big Crime. This list was culled from years of exclusive interviews with the man, a former chief of Cali cartel security. With apologies to Stephen Covey, I call it the seven secrets of a highly efficient criminal organization.
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