Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a3a8b6663610dcdfe52527b9d8fc2615
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Friday, December 16, 2011
N.R.C. Leader Gregory Jaczko Hears Litany of Complaints
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Gregory B. Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was questioned about his management style.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Turley Blog Selected As A Top 100 Legal Blog ? Now We Need ...
We are up against two popular conservative sites: Ann Althouse and <a href=": Ann Althouse and Volokh Conspiracy. Both are conservative legal sites but highly regarded?>Volokh Conspiracy. The latter is a site founded by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and is run by 19 conservative law professors, including my colleague Orin Kerr. While I often disagree with their conclusions, I have always found it very substantive and thought-provoking. Ann Althouse is one of the oldest legal sites with a very large audience placing her in the top three most visited legal sites in the world.
I must confess that maintaining this site and my day job does not leave me much time to visit other sites. However, this competition highlights the remarkable array of top sites available to readers, including those in the opinion category. Other categories include sites that I have always found insightful and provocative like Scotusblog, BLT, Simple Justice, How Appealing, Sentencing Law and Policy, and TaxLaw Prof. I recommend, however, that you look at the other sites ? including many appearing for the first time.
Our blog is described as follows:
Maybe it?s our journalism bias, but we like when D.C.-based constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley opines on the news of the day and isn?t always satisfied with the version recounted in media reports. In February, he went straight to the source to tease out the sequence of events that cost an Indiana deputy attorney general his job. Of course, we also get a kick out of the occasional random, off-topic posts, especially the penguin videos he shared after his son Ben pointed them out.
Benjamin was thrilled by the reference to his penguin selection.
This is always a fun competition, win or lose. Last year, the competition turned ugly with a misinformation campaign by a regular from one of the other competing sites (again among the opinion blogs this year) that told pro-gun sites that I am a leading anti-gun advocate ? and encouraged all gun owners to vote against our blog in defense of gun ownership. It spoiled an otherwise friendly contest among blogs. All blogs should be rightfully proud of their accomplishments and common purpose ? and intense loyalty of their regulars contributors.
Good luck to all of the blogs this year and thank you ABA Journal. Now go and vote!
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
UK media inquiry a lesson in tabloid skullduggery (AP)
LONDON ? Hacking into celebrity phones was just the tip of the iceberg.
Britain's media ethics inquiry, set up in response to illegal eavesdropping by a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, has turned out to be a masterclass in skullduggery that has exposed the murky practices of the U.K.'s muckraking press.
This week, witnesses described how Murdoch's company had wreaked havoc on their lives and those of their families, with reporters targeting critics for spying and negative coverage and sullying the name of an innocent man.
"We have a press that has just become frankly putrid in many of its elements," Alastair Campbell, former tabloid journalist and longtime communications aide to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, told the tribunal this week.
Few would disagree after listening to the nationally televised testimony describing the excesses of a callous and sometimes criminal press.
The judge-led inquiry was set up after it emerged that Murdoch's News of the World had for years illegally eavesdropped on the voicemail messages of celebrities, public figures and crime victims. The scandal forced Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid. A dozen Murdoch employees have been arrested in the case, which also cost the jobs of several of his top executives, two senior police officers and Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief.
The inquiry has put Murdoch's empire on trial, as witnesses described their treatment at the hands of an organization they viewed as unassailably powerful, ruthless and feared.
Former child singing sensation Charlotte Church described how she was invited to perform at Murdoch's wedding on a yacht in New York when she was 13. She said she was offered a 100,000 pound (roughly $160,000) payment, but was told if she waived the fee that Murdoch's papers would look favorably on her.
Church, now 25, told the inquiry that she really wanted to take the money, but was told by her managers it would be worthwhile to give up the fee ? which would have been her highest payment ever then ? to cultivate Murdoch's support.
She said she was told "that he was a very, very powerful man" who could do her career a world of good ? if he wanted to.
But any tabloid goodwill she earned was short-lived. Church said media scrutiny increased to unbearable levels as she entered her teens. As she approached her 16th birthday, she said Murdoch's The Sun tabloid featured on its website a "countdown clock" timed to the day when she would be able to legally have sex ? an allegation the newspaper denies.
Later, a tabloid reported that Church was pregnant before she had even told her parents, news she felt had to come either from surveillance or phone hacking. On another occasion the News of the World reported on her father's extramarital affair under the headline "Church's three in a bed cocaine shock." Church said her mother had attempted suicide partly as a result of this invasion of privacy.
Murdoch's News International has denied Church's version of events surrounding her performance at Murdoch's wedding, and her agent at the time, Jonathan Shalit, said she was not offered a choice between a fee and good press.
He said Church was not offered a fee and performed for free, as she had done for Prince Charles and President Bill Clinton. But he said publicity from these appearances helped launch her career in the United States, which was his plan.
"When you sing for these people you get added benefits for your career," he said.
Church was one of a slew of celebrities, including actor Hugh Grant, "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling and actress Sienna Miller, who have sat in the witness box at London's Royal Courts of Justice and described stakeouts and snatched photos, leaked medical details and midnight pursuits ? all justified, in the tabloids' eyes, because the people they were pursuing were famous.
Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy and former director of the journalism school at the University of Cardiff, said the hearings have had a profound impact on the public psyche ? and on Britain's political class ? by revealing so much about how part of the press works.
"It's been a process of revelation, based on firsthand testimony," he said. "A lot of journalists feel it has been one-sided, but processes that have been known about and talked about in private are suddenly being talked about on a big public stage."
Hearings continue into the new year, and justice Brian Leveson and his panel hope to issue a report by late 2012 that could recommend major changes to Britain's system of media self-regulation.
So far, the most strident defense of tabloids ? and the week's most jaw-dropping testimony ? came from unrepentant former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan. He described chasing celebrities' cars as "good fun," called phone hacking "a perfectly acceptable tool" of the trade and dismissed privacy as "the space bad people need to do bad things in."
He also said celebrities should stop complaining and be grateful for the attention of paparazzi.
The inquiry has also shown that it's not just celebrities who find themselves in the tabloids' sights. The parents of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was abducted and murdered in 2002, described how the News of the World's hacking of Milly's phone, and the deletion of voicemail messages, had given them false hope that their daughter was still alive.
This week Christopher Jefferies, a retired teacher arrested on suspicion of murder in a high-profile case a year ago, described how his life had been wrecked by "smears, innuendo and complete fiction" in articles that painted him as a voyeuristic eccentric, or worse.
Jefferies was released without charge, and another man has been convicted of the killing. Jefferies successfully sued eight newspapers ? including Murdoch's The Sun tabloid ? for libel, but said he would "never fully recover from the events of the last year."
"There will always be people who don't know me who will retain the impression that I'm some sort of weird character who is probably best avoided," he said.
The inquiry has also heard claims the Murdoch empire used negative articles and even espionage against its critics. Former TV host Anne Diamond recounted how she had asked Murdoch during a 1980s interview "how could he sleep at night" knowing his newspapers ruined people's lives.
She said after that "there were consistent negative stories about me in Mr. Murdoch's newspapers."
One glaring example was a story in The Sun headlined "Anne Diamond killed my father," about a fatal road accident she had been involved in years before. The same newspaper took pictures of Diamond carrying the coffin of her infant son at his funeral, despite her plea for the press to stay away out of respect for the family's grief.
Mark Lewis, a lawyer who has represented high-profile hacking victims, testified that he was put under surveillance by a private investigator working for Murdoch's News International. The surveillance, apparently in search of material to discredit him, included following and filming his 14-year-old daughter.
"That was truly horrific, that my daughter was videoed, was followed by a detective with a camera," Lewis said. "That shouldn't happen to anybody's child."
___
Associated Press writers Gregory Katz and Robert Barr contributed to this report.
Online: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk
Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless
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Trabasack Mini Laptop Desk and Travel Bag Review
Hokay, let’s be honest here. ?I’m going to mention something and I want you to close your eyes and picture the first thing that comes into your head. ?Ready….. Lap Tray, Stable Table If you’re like me the first thing you see in your mind is either an elderly person sitting on a floral couch [...]
Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/30/trabasack-mini-laptop-desk-and-travel-bag-review/
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Republicans find no easy ways to protect military (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Republicans are struggling to find ways to protect the U.S. military from spending cuts but there is no clear path to do so as the United States strains to rein in its massive budget deficits.
Democratic President Barack Obama has vowed to veto any attempts to undo the $1.2 trillion in automatic budget cuts that go into effect in 2013 after the "super committee" of lawmakers failed to reach a deficit reduction deal this month.
Half of the cuts would hit defense, with the other half spread across the government's domestic programs.
Republicans anxious to safeguard the Pentagon are now looking for other ways of slowing the growth of the country's $15 trillion public debt.
But with no easy options, Republicans face the same problems that stymied the congressional debt panel: how to clear a path to fiscal prosperity without raising taxes and making cuts to programs for the elderly and disabled?
"The same dynamics that prevented a super committee deal - Republican intransigence on revenue and Democratic demands that revenue be used to balance further (spending) cuts - will be in play for any effort to selectively water down the sequester," said Ryan McConaghy, director of the economic program at centrist think tank Third Way.
Sequester refers to the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are due to begin in 2013 since the super committee could not find a better way to cut deficits.
Lawmakers such as Buck McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, have vowed to introduce legislation to kill the military cuts. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are working on a bill to undo at least some of them.
They have yet to introduce legislation, though, and it is unclear whether their proposals would try to offset the defense cuts with other deficit reduction measures.
Although bills to kill the automatic cuts would have a good chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Senate Republicans would have to convince 19 Democrats to join them in order to get the 66 votes required to override any veto by Obama.
Tossing out the automatic budget cuts would play badly with financial markets, which are keen to see a commitment on deficit reduction, and would raise the specter of another U.S. debt downgrade. The super committee's failure did not trigger a ratings cut, but one of the big agencies, Fitch Ratings, warned that the United States would have to find a plan to tackle its deficit before 2013 or risk a credit downgrade.
"We need to ensure that we are on a track that is fiscally sustainable. The sequester is to get the $1.2 trillion objective that was necessary to increase the debt limit so we could pay our bills," said Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House.
Hoyer was referring to congressional approval in August of an increase in U.S. borrowing authority that was coupled with assurances of significant spending cuts, including defense.
AMENDING BILLS, PLAYING TO THE PUBLIC
Republicans could try to protect the Pentagon by inserting such language into bills Democrats are keen to pass, such as an extension of the payroll tax cuts. But that strategy is rife with procedural and political problems, the least of which is an Obama veto.
Even if lawmakers were to try to shift cuts around through the budget appropriations process, Congress only appropriates funds one year at a time, leaving nine years of potential military budget cuts in play.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, focused on January 2013, as the best opportunity for changing the makeup of the automatic spending cuts.
He said that once the automatic spending cuts are triggered at the start of 2013, lawmakers can propose alternative ways of achieving the $1.2 trillion in savings and such legislation would not face procedural roadblocks in the Senate that otherwise can stop bills dead in their tracks.
"I'm not for turning the sequester off. I oppose that. I'm for replacing the savings in a way that's smarter," Ryan told Reuters on Wednesday. He added: "There's a very good case this goes too far in defense" spending cuts.
The Pentagon said it expects to cut more than $450 billion from its budget over 10 years as part of this summer's deal to raise the country's debt ceiling.
After the super committee's failure, the military will have to start working on an extra $600 billion in cuts over the same period. Analysts such as Loren Thompson of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said cuts would translate into job losses at weapons firms in swing states like Pennsylvania. That, he said, could hurt Obama's reelection bid.
Democrats have zeroed in on the defense budget, which has nearly doubled over the past decade to an estimated $671 billion for this fiscal year, dwarfing other departments and consuming a good chunk of the total U.S. budget.
Republicans and other military backers may have an ally in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who has characterized the potential cuts as devastating, and in states with a large defense industry presence such as Florida and Virginia.
"If you want to look at the election pragmatically, there are a lot of states where the idea of gutting defense would be very unpopular," said Potomac Research policy analyst Greg Valliere.
Already, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and other Republican presidential hopefuls have lashed out against the defense cuts and called Obama as weak on national security. They're hoping to put a chink in what otherwise is a strong Obama record that includes the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden and aggressive pursuit of terrorists.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Tom Ferraro ; editing by Ros Krasny and Cynthia Osterman)
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Thursday, December 1, 2011
Ellie Goulding Brings Lights To National Christmas Tree
Big Time Rush and will.i.am also will perform Thursday at White House tree-lighting ceremony.
By Steven Roberts
Ellie Goulding
While another English songstress has received a tremendous amount of well-deserved praise here in the States this year, Ellie Goulding has been working slowly but steadily, making a name for herself on this side of the Atlantic. Her debut album, Lights, hit #1 on the U.K. charts, she won Critic's Choice at the 2010 BRIT Awards, and she's even had the opportunity to perform at the Royal Wedding reception for Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
Of course, Americans don't really care about any of that. They do, however, really like Christmas. Goulding is set to perform at the White House during the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, along with will.i.am, Big Time Rush and the incomparable Kermit the Frog. The ceremony will take place Thursday at the National Park, and the laidback, always-chill Goulding said she's just as excited about this event as she was about performing at the royal reception.
"Prince William saw me about a year earlier, and they were both really big fans of my record. It was simple as that," Goulding said casually. "I'm quite relaxed about things, probably too relaxed, and so when I found out, I was probably like, 'Cool.' "
Goulding, who performed on "Saturday Night Live" earlier this year, said she wasn't sure who recommended her for the tree-lighting gig. While it's uncertain whether President Obama had heard of her, or maybe his daughters are fans, her lead single "Lights" might have had a hand in it.
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