Jackson case highlights celebrity medicine culture (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Michael Jackson's personal doctor received the maximum punishment in the pop singer's death but not before a scolding from the judge for violating his Hippocratic oath and engaging in "money-for-medicine madness."

Despite Judge Michael Pastor's sharp rebuke of Dr. Conrad Murray, medical ethics and legal experts say the outcome is unlikely to dramatically change the culture of celebrity medicine.

There are doctors who will apply the same standard of care to their high-profile patients as the non-famous. Those starstruck will be more likely to cave to patients' demands, overlook their bad habits and operate out of bounds.

"These doctors are ego-crazed and money dependent," said Dr. Steven Miles of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Miles said it's dangerous when a doctor enters into an exclusive relationship with a patient especially if the person is rich and famous.

"It's the kind of environment where the normal checks and balances are very difficult to apply," he said.

Jackson's death and other recent celebrity drug-related deaths have raised questions about how far some doctors will go to cater to their clients.

Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a monthlong trial. On Tuesday, he was handed the maximum four years behind bars. He will likely only serve two years in county jail because of a recent change in state law.

Jackson died in 2009 from an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol. Murray told police he gave the drug nightly to help the singer cope with insomnia as he attempted a comeback tour. Propofol is not approved as a sleep aid and is supposed to be used in the hospital by a trained professional.

Medical experts testifying for the prosecution painted Murray as reckless and said he should have never given Jackson propofol to help him sleep despite the singer's urging.

During the sentencing, Pastor called Murray's treatment of Jackson a "disgrace to the medical profession." He lambasted the doctor for violating "his sworn obligation for money, fame, prestige and whatever else."

Pace University law professor Linda Fentiman said the case will not scare away doctors from taking in celebrity patients. But it may give doctors some leverage with patients who insist on getting their way.

"I'm not sure celebrities can be deterred from trying to get what they want, but a doctor might be able to resist their pleas by saying, `I don't want to end up like Conrad Murray,'" she said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_en_ot/us_med_jackson_doctor_celebrity_medicine

jenelle evans jenelle evans miami hurricanes vlad the impaler steven tyler michael lohan fiddler on the roof

Britain orders Iran's diplomats to leave UK (AP)

LONDON ? Britain ordered Iran on Wednesday to remove all its diplomats from the U.K. within 48 hours following attacks on its embassy and a residential compound in Tehran ? one of the most significant diplomatic retaliations against Iran since the 1979 U.S. embassy crisis.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that Britain had also withdrawn its entire diplomatic staff from Iran after angry mobs hauled down Union Jack flags, torched a vehicle and tossed looted documents through windows.

The rare move to kick out a country's entire diplomatic corps marks a significant souring of ties between Iran and the West, amid deepening suspicions over Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Tensions were heightened in October when U.S. officials accused agents linked to Iran's Quds Force ? an elite wing of the powerful Revolutionary Guard ? of a role in an alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

Germany, France and the Netherlands all recalled their ambassadors from Iran late Wednesday for consultations on further action in response. Norway closed its embassy in Tehran as a precaution.

For many, the hours-long assault Tuesday on the British embassy in Tehran was reminiscent of the chaotic seizure of the U.S. embassy there in 1979. Protesters replaced the British flag with a banner in the name of a 7th-century Shiite saint, Imam Hussein, and one looter showed off a picture of Queen Elizabeth II apparently taken off a wall.

"The idea that the Iranian authorities could not have protected our embassy or that this assault could have taken place without some degree of regime consent is fanciful," Hague told lawmakers.

Iran currently has 18 diplomats in Britain, according to Britain's foreign ministry.

Britain previously ordered Iran to remove its diplomats in 1989, when the two nations broke off ties over a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie because his novel "The Satanic Verses" allegedly insulted Islam.

The White House strongly condemned the attacks and European Union foreign ministers were meeting Thursday to consider possible new sanctions. Hague also praised Poland, Russia, China and the UAE for offering support and expressing their concern.

The French foreign ministry said it was moved to act "in the face of this flagrant and unacceptable violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and the gravity of the violence."

Italy's foreign minister Giulio Terzi said Rome was also evaluating whether to keep its diplomatic presence in Iran.

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said Iran was placing itself "outside of the framework of international law," Hague said.

France's budget minister, Valerie Pecresse, said the EU should consider a total embargo on oil exports, or a freeze on Iranian central bank holdings. British officials said the U.K. would likely support new measures against Iran's energy sector.

Hague claimed those involved in Tuesday's attack were members of a student group allied with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary Basij organization, which recruits heavily on university campuses.

"We should be clear from the outset that this is an organization controlled by elements of the Iranian regime," he said.

Hague told Parliament the private quarters of staff and Britain's ambassador were trashed in the attack and that diplomats' personal possessions were stolen.

"This is a breach of international responsibilities of which any nation should be ashamed," he said.

Some were alarmed by Hague's tough tone. David Miliband, Britain's former foreign secretary, said he hoped the robust words would not become "part of the very unwelcome drumbeat of war."

About 24 British embassy staff and dependents were based in Tehran. They are all adults because Britain will not post diplomats with small children to Iran for security reasons.

Iran's government has expressed regret about the "unacceptable behavior" of protesters, whose attacks began after anti-British demonstrations apparently authorized by authorities.

But Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the "wrath of (students) resulted from several decades of domination-seeking behavior of Britain."

Iran's tensions with Britain date back to the 19th century, when the Persian monarchy gave huge industrial concessions to London, which later included significant control over Iran's oil industry. In 1953, Britain and the U.S. helped organize a coup that overthrew a nationalist prime minister and restored the pro-Western shah to power.

More recently, Iran was angered by Britain's decision to honor Rushdie with a knighthood in 2007, and over its involvement in Western scrutiny of Iran's nuclear program.

In March 2007, Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines for allegedly entering the country's territorial waters in the Gulf ? a claim Britain denies. The 15 were released after nearly two weeks in captivity.

On Sunday, Iran's parliament approved a bill to downgrade relations with Britain, vowing to expel the country's ambassador.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, Juergen Baetz in Frankfurt, Germany, Jamey Keaten in Paris and Frances D'Emilio in Rome, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_re_us/iran_britain

wiccan pumpkin carvings mcrib pumpkin seeds mark herzlich malawi malawi

Kentucky church votes to ban interracial couples (Reuters)

TOMAHAWK, Ky (Reuters) ? A vote to bar interracial couples from a small church in eastern Kentucky has triggered hand-wringing and embarrassment.

Nine members of Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church backed their former pastor, with six opposed, in Sunday's vote to bar interracial couples from church membership and worship activities. Funerals were excluded.

The vote was taken after most of the 40 people who attended Sunday services had left the church in Pike County, near the border with West Virginia. Many members left to avoid the vote.

Most members of the church "didn't want anything to do with this," said longtime church official Dean Harville, whose daughter and her black fiance had drawn pastor Melvin Thompson's ire.

At services earlier this year, Stella Harville, 24, who is working on her master's degree in optical engineering, sang "I Surrender All" with her fiance, Ticha Chikuni, 29, a Zimbabwe native, according to her father. Chikuni, an employee at Georgetown College in Kentucky, played the piano.

"There didn't appear to be any problem," Dean Harville said on Wednesday. "None whatsoever."

But Harville said Thompson told him the couple would not be allowed to sing at the church again. Thompson resigned in August but would not drop the issue.

Thompson told a local radio outlet, "I do not believe in interracial marriages, and I do not believe this (ban) will give our church a black eye at all."

He could not be reached for comment.

The move has drawn scrutiny from the hierarchy of the Freewill Baptist Church, Harville said.

"This kind of thing brands all of us so easily," said Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County Ministerial Association. "That's not who we are. From all the churches I've talked to so far, it's really not anger so much as it is shock."

(Reporting by Lee Mueller, Editing by Andrew Stern)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/us_nm/us_usa_church_race

where do i vote wheel of fortune today show smokin joe conrad murray verdict tappan zee bridge jessica chastain

1965 shooting shows pitfalls of closing old cases (AP)

PELAHATCHIE, Miss. ? On a late-fall evening 46 years ago, gunfire shattered the revelry at a nameless juke joint in this rural crossroads. When the smoke cleared, Joseph Robert McNair, a black father of six, lay at the feet of the community's white constable.

That McNair was dead, and that Luther Steverson had killed him are about the only details on which folks around here agree.

Five months ago, the U.S. Department of Justice ? which has been looking into scores of civil rights-era deaths ? closed a reinvestigation of McNair's shooting and informed family members that there was nothing to prosecute. But The Associated Press has found a number of people whose eyewitness accounts conflict with the official finding that Steverson fired just once in self-defense.

In response, the FBI made some more inquiries, but the agency insists that the witness accounts it has are "irreconcilably inconsistent," and that the case remains unprosecutable. Local authorities, saying they trust the bureau's judgment, consider the case closed.

But it's far from solved, say others, including McNair's three surviving children.

In their minds, crucial questions ? such as exactly where McNair was hit, and by how many bullets ? remain unresolved. The only way to reconcile the conflicting stories, they agree, would be to exhume the body.

"I would like to know," says Patsy Morrow-Whitfield, who was just 10 when neighbors led her and her siblings to the field where her stepfather lay. Still, she added, "It's almost moot to me. Because the people that would get the great satisfaction out of this, other than my brother there and me and my sister, has already passed."

The dispute over McNair's death illustrates the challenges ? and high stakes ? of seeking the truth so long after the fact.

___

McNair's was one of 124 civil rights-era deaths that the Justice Department has reviewed since launching its "Cold Case Initiative" in 2006. Congress turned up the heat in 2007 with the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, setting aside millions of dollars "to ensure timely and thorough investigations in the cases involved."

His case was among more than six dozen the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to the DOJ in Febrary 2007.

Steverson shot McNair on Nov. 6, 1965, as he said he was attempting to serve a warrant on the 27-year-old laborer for nonsupport of his and his wife Myrtle's six children.

In a recent phone interview, the 84-year-old Steverson, who lives in nearby Pearl, told the AP that he had driven out to Pelahatchie ? about 20 miles east of the state capital of Jackson ? with town Marshal Cooper Stingley and Night Marshal Pat Wade to serve his warrant. He said he was riding in the back seat, the warrant in his shirt pocket and his .38-caliber service revolver in its holster on the seat beside him, when they came across McNair at the juke joint off Highway 80.

"I jumped out," the former constable said. "And I didn't have time to grab my regular service gun."

Steverson said he pulled out his "safety piece" ? a two-shot, .22 Magnum derringer ? and ran after McNair. When he caught up with him in a field of waist-high grass, he said, McNair wheeled and knocked him down.

"He said, `You've tried to kill me. I'm going to kill you,'" Steverson said. "And he started down on me. It looked like he had a knife. Of course, I was laying on my back trying to get up, had the gun in my hand and I shot him."

He said the bullet struck McNair square in the chest.

"It blowed him backwards," Steverson said.

He and the others searched for a knife, he said, but never found one.

Soon afterward, Steverson was cleared in a hearing before a justice of the peace.

In late May of this year, the case became one of about 80 officially closed by the Justice Department following reconsideration.

"After careful review of this incident, we have concluded that the federal government cannot now bring a prosecution against the officer," Paige M. Fitzgerald, deputy chief in charge of the cold-case effort, wrote in a letter to McNair's family. "Again, please accept our sincere condolences."

But after obtaining a copy of the FBI letter through a Freedom of Information Act request, the AP went in search of potential witnesses. Reporters located six people who say they were present when the shooting occurred, or in its immediate aftermath, and who dispute Steverson's version of events.

While varying in some significant details, their accounts converge on some key points: Two say they saw McNair fleeing, not lunging, and at least four remember hearing multiple gunshots, not one.

"That man was shot down in the back like a damn dog!" Connie Harris, 63, told the AP in a late October telephone interview from her home in Pelahatchie. "I'm not telling you what people say; I'm telling you what my two eyes seen."

Harris, who was 14 at the time, said she and some friends were on their way to the high school for a "record hop" when she saw Steverson and McNair, both of whom she knew.

"Why you doing this? I ain't did nothing," she remembered McNair saying. When his pleading did no good, she said, McNair "broke out running."

Harris said Steverson fired two shots, and McNair "fell on his face."

Annie Hoard, 62, who was with Harris, said she also heard McNair pleading, then heard two distinct gunshots ? though she did not see the shots fired.

John Lee Hoard, 72, described a different perspective. He and McNair were drinking at the bar, he said, when Steverson arrived and told McNair that he was under arrest.

"Joseph told him he hadn't did nothing," Hoard, McNair's third cousin and Annie Hoard's brother, told the AP in a telephone interview.

John Hoard said McNair ran out the back door, with Steverson in pursuit. He said he saw the constable fire at McNair's back, then watched his cousin fall.

The FBI said it had interviewed "no less than 11 civilian witnesses" before its initial decision to close the case. None of the people the AP found and spoke with had been contacted by agents.

In its letter, the FBI told the family that it had located one person who claimed to have been there that evening. That man, who was not identified, told agents that he heard two gunshots.

These accounts echo a contemporary report located by the AP in the files of Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the organization through which the state spied on its own citizens as part of its effort to resist desegregation.

According to the 1965 memo, outlining an unnamed informant's statement to the commission, a witness said Steverson "shot McNair once in the back, and then in the head as he was lying on the ground." The informant said the FBI was investigating. But the letter to the family said agents had been unable to locate a file on the decades-old case.

During the reinvestigation, Steverson told agents that he had been "charged, tried and acquitted of murder," which, if true, would mean he couldn't be retried on the state level. But the FBI told the family it could find no public records or news reports of any formal charges.

In a local library, The AP found documentation of a coroner's inquest and a justice of the peace hearing, however. In a Nov. 8, 1965, article, the AP quoted Jackson funeral home director Fred Banks, who was black, as saying that McNair "was shot in the front only. Two inches down from the collar-bone and slightly to the left of center."

Banks' son Karl, now a county supervisor, said his late father would not have been intimidated despite the charged racial atmosphere of the time. "He would have called it just like he saw it."

The late Coroner Dempsey T. Amacker, who was white, said the same thing as Fred Banks during a hearing before Justice of the Peace Walter Ratcliff the following week. Public records of the hearing are unavailable and may have been destroyed, local officials said.

"J.P. Court Here Rules `Justifiable Homicide' in Shooting of Negro," read the headline in the Nov. 11, 1965, edition of the weekly Rankin County News.

The hearing concluded that no crime had occurred. But conviction after conviction in these old cases has proven that such results cannot always be taken at face value, said historian David T. Beito.

"There are certainly many examples that you could point to in Mississippi in that period of deception by authorities, of authorities circling the wagons to protect each other," said Beito, a professor at the University of Alabama.

But an attempt to weigh the evidence today, as the FBI did, presents its own obstacles.

The two other officers who were with Steverson that night are dead. Those who say they witnessed the gunfire, most of whom have lived in this rural community all of their lives, vary in some notable details about what the shooting scene revealed.

Harris said she walked right up to the body and saw two bullet holes in McNair's back. But both Annie Hoard and a fourth person who was at the juke joint, Dorothy McNair, 66, recalled seeing a hole in McNair's forehead.

"He was shot in the hand," said Dorothy McNair, also a cousin of the dead man. "He might have throwed his hand up to keep him from shooting him in the head."

When she reached him, Morrow-Whitfield said her stepfather was lying on his back. She saw only the hole in his chest.

"It wasn't bleeding or anything," she said. "There was like a little circle around it."

But she and her sister, Katherine McIntyre-Lee, are adamant that they heard more than one shot. "That's one thing I do vividly remember," Morrow-Whitfield said. "I was thinking that it was firecrackers."

FBI officials have hinted that the death certificate would support Steverson's version of events. The AP has not yet been able to obtain a copy from the agency or others.

But Beito, the historian, said doubts would not be dispelled even if the document backed up the single-shot, self-defense finding.

"That wouldn't be enough in and of itself. I'd need much more than that," said Beito, whose writing on civil rights history includes research on the lynching of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Chicago boy whose 1955 slaying in Mississippi helped spark the modern civil rights movement. In 2005, authorities opened his grave and performed an autopsy to quell doubts that the body inside the glass-topped coffin was really that of Till.

But McNair wasn't a visitor from the North or, as with other deaths at the time, a civil rights activist plucked from a jail cell. Those who felt they knew the truth in his case were too frightened to speak up in 1965.

"I wasn't going to get shot," John Lee Hoard told the AP. "Back then, a colored man had no chance around here."

But times have changed, and they are willing to speak now.

When first contacted by the AP, Harris said, "I would sit up in the biggest church, the biggest courtroom, the biggest jailhouse, and repeat it over and over."

She permitted the AP to pass along her contact information to the FBI. But after the bureau spoke to her, she declined a request for a follow-up interview. "I can't talk to you all," she said. "I just said the same thing I said to you."

The FBI said the information obtained in that and several other interviews "does not change our conclusion that this matter is not prosecutable.

"Rather, these recent interviews revealed accounts that are materially and irreconcilably inconsistent," the agency said in a statement to the AP.

In several cases where federal charges were ruled out, the FBI has turned over findings to local officials for possible state prosecution.

Rankin County District Attorney Michael Guest said he wasn't aware there was a cold-case probe in his jurisdiction until contacted by the AP. The FBI insists it had contacted his office. In any event, agents did call Guest following the AP's inquiries and discussed the bureau's findings for half an hour, said Heath Hall, Guest's spokesman.

"We trust the FBI and the Department of Justice...," Hall told the AP. "I'm telling you that this case is closed. Period."

For his part, Steverson told the AP he was never worried. When the agents who visited his home asked if he still had the gun with which he shot McNair, he said he produced the derringer and even let agents photograph it.

Regardless of what some witnesses have claimed, he said his conscience is clear.

"I know what happened," he said. "It was a necessary thing. If it had been my brother, I would have had to done the same thing."

McNair's stepdaughter, Morrow-Whitfield, said her mother never got over the killing. Still, she wonders if pursuing the case is even worth it.

"It would be like an empty victory, you know," she said. Steverson "has lived his life. He's an old man now. And all it is, is going to be just facts."

___

Mohr reported from Pelahatchie. Breed is a national writer, based in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at features(at)ap.org.

Follow Allen G. Breed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/(hash)!/AllenGBreed

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_us/us_cold_case_conundrum

port charlotte florida buckyballs buckyballs gilad annie hall jon lester mitchel musso

Review: Super Mario 3D Land For The 3DS

01It's not hard to love Mario. He's had his ups and downs - what, for example, was the deal with Paper Mario? And Super Mario Strikers was pretty hard to love - but darn it if the little guy doesn't keep coming back for more and keeps you, at the very least, entertained. Super Mario 3D Land is the latest in the Mario saga. The story is fairly typical - something was stolen (a lot of leaves) and Bowser took Princess Peach. Your mission is to find the leaves (which are special and give you the Tanooki suit) and then find Peach. What you go through to find her, however, is where all of the fun comes in.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/h-s0TAWCmuA/

x factor voting “do a barrel roll” oakland texas judge texas judge tom brokaw maria shriver

PFT: Suh's ex-teammate says Lion's 'out of control'

Detroit Lions v Miami DolphinsGetty Images

Criticism of Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is coming from all corners, including a college teammate of Suh?s who says it?s time for a suspension.

Jets guard Matt Slauson, who played with Suh at Nebraska, told Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post that the NFL should suspend Suh because fines haven?t curtailed his on-field misbehavior and, Slauson says, ?he?s out of control.?

?Somebody needs to get him under control, because he?s trying to hurt people,? Slauson said. ?It?s one thing to be an incredibly physical player and a tenacious player, but it?s another thing to set out to end that guy?s career.?

Suh and Slauson lined up against each other in practice, and Nebraska practices frequently featured problems related to Suh?s temper getting the best of him, Slauson told Hubbuch.

Although Suh was one of the best defensive tackles in college football history ? being named Associated Press College Football Player of the Year and winning the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award, Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy in addition to being a finalist for the Heisman Trophy ? Slauson says his teammates didn?t like him. And he says people at Nebraska like Suh even less now that he?s making the football program look bad with his tactics in the NFL, including stepping on an opponent on Thanksgiving, resulting in an ejection.

This isn?t the first time Slauson has indicated he didn?t particularly enjoy being Suh?s teammate. Asked about the then-rookie for the Lions a year ago, Slauson said, ?I wouldn?t say me and Suh were best friends. There were times we got in fights during spring ball, during camp. Emotions go, you get tired and Suh just happened to be the guy I was going against.?

It seems that pretty much everyone is fed up with Suh right now. The next question is whether Roger Goodell is so fed up that Suh is suspended.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/25/ndamukong-suh-out-of-control-college-teammate-says/related/

tesla model s prohibition alex honnold how to make it in america how to make it in america nbc news donald driver

Colleges defend humanities amid tight budgets (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. ? Like many humanities advocates, Abbey Drane was disheartened but not surprised when Florida's governor recently said its tax dollars should bolster science and high-tech studies, not "educate more people who can't get jobs in anthropology."

Drane, a 21-year-old anthropology major at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, has spent years defending her choice to pursue that liberal arts field.

And now, as states tighten their allocations to public universities, many administrators say they're feeling pressure to defend the worth of humanities, too, and shield the genre from budget cuts. One university president has gone as far as donating $100,000 of her own money to offer humanities scholarships at her school.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott's comments last month cut to the heart of the quandary: whether emphasizing science, math and medical fields gives students the best career prospects and a high-tech payback to society, and whether humanities fields are viewed as more of an indulgence than a necessity amid tight budget times.

"You can definitely feel the emphasis on campus, even just based on where the newest buildings go, that there is a drive toward the sciences, engineering and (the) business school," said Drane, a senior from Plymouth, Mass. "I'm constantly asked what job opportunities I'll have in anthropology or what I'm going to do with my degree, and I tell people that it's giving me a skill set and critical thinking you can apply to anything."

Humanities studies peaked in U.S. colleges in the 1960s and started dwindling in the 1970s as more students pursued business and technology and related fields. Today, more than 20 percent of each year's bachelor's degrees are granted in business; in humanities, it's about 8 percent.

Liberal arts colleges, too, have declined. A study published in 2009 by Inside Higher Ed said that of 212 liberal arts colleges identified in 1990, only 137 were still operating by 2009.

At Amherst College in western Massachusetts, a healthy endowment makes closing the doors a remote possibility at best. But its president, Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, experienced the same concerns about the humanities in her previous job as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was tapped this year to serve on a commission for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences to review the issue.

Martin said many universities struggle with declining enrollment in those fields, making the classes an easy budget target if their worth is not defended.

"There are more and more people in higher education ? and I hope political leaders ? who are understanding that an over-leaning emphasis on the sciences to the expense of the humanities is not a good thing for the country," she said.

Therein lays the debate for many, though, including Gov. Scott in Florida, who is unapologetic about his push to direct tax dollars toward rapidly growing science, technology, engineering and math fields, known collectively as STEM.

And since state governments control nearly two-thirds of all higher education funding, according to the National Governors Association, their embrace or disregard for humanities can affect the study paths of hundreds of thousands of students.

The governors' organization published recommendations for states this year on how to align their higher education priorities with their labor markets and economic development, citing Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington for "bold, comprehensive strategies" in those efforts.

It did not advise state governments to move money from humanities, but said it's "often challenging" to get the universities to participate in economic development, partly because of "their emphasis on broad liberal arts education."

Advocates say STEM fields also provide tangible returns for states, universities and businesses through patent royalties, new products and the prestige of achieving scientific breakthroughs ? paybacks far less evident among, say, new intellectual insights by scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer's literature, devotees of Frederic Chopin's nocturnes or adherents to Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist views.

"People feel like there are no real careers open for people studying in the liberal arts and I don't think that's true at all," said John Beck, 20, a senior from Newton, Mass., who's majoring in philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

His father and two grandparents are doctors, and his mother and brother are both pharmaceutical scientists. He is double majoring in economics and plans to attend law school, a decision that eased his parents' concerns about his philosophy studies because they see a legal career as a tangible way to support himself.

He sees it as a good use of his philosophy degree, too, though he says he would have been perfectly content to pursue teaching, public service or other fields to which many other philosophy majors gravitate.

To Susan Herbst, students shouldn't have to choose between picking a field they love and one that offers them the best shot at a job. She believes humanities does both, and feels so strongly about it that she and her husband donated $100,000 this year to provide scholarships limited to students in those fields.

"The humanities are where people learn about ethics and values and critical thinking," she said. "The truth is that for all of these students going into the STEM fields or other social sciences or business, if they didn't have the humanities, they don't know why they're doing what they do. The humanities really teach us how we're supposed to live and why what we do matters."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_us/us_defending_humanities

aapl x factor judges x factor judges raiders news raiders news ice cream sandwich android ice cream sandwich android

Federal Insurance Office to Crowdsource Views on Modernization of ...

U.S. Insurance industry players should brace themselves for major changes in Insurance regulations come next year. As the new Federal Insurance Office (FIO) has been tasked to crowdsource views on ways to modernize the U.S. insurance regulatory framework. This announcement comes as a surprise to many as changes to insurance regulation has in the past always been met with resistance from industry players.

FIO_Crowdsources_ways_to_modernize

The FIO has embarked on the crowdsourcing initiative through the Federal eRulemaking Portal, and ?snail mail.? The agency will gather views from interested parties by mid-December 2011. The effort is part of the Dodd-Frank Act that empowers the FIO to find ways to modernize insurance regulation despite opposition from industry players.

Under the initiative, interested parties will submit their views on the following areas;

  • Systemic risk regulation
  • Capital allocation standards
  • Consumer protection
  • Levels of uniformity of state insurance regulation
  • Possible gains from a federally regulated insurance industry

The Department of Treasury expects the crowdsourced views to mainly focus on mechanisms and alternatives for regulation modernization and enhancements. The views are expected to showcase data or rationale, examples, supportive arguments and conclusions, existing legislative, administrative or regulatory proposals for implementing the outlined approaches or alternatives.

Many industry players have already expressed opposition to such proposed regulatory changes. However, some players have kept an open mind, but even then they can?t agree on what changes to be implemented. No one knows as yet to what extent the crowdsourced views will influence the resulting changes, or who the views will be crowdsourced from.

?

Thanks insurancetech
Image credit Steve-h

Source: http://dailycrowdsource.com/2011/11/25/government/federal-insurance-office-to-crowd-source-views-on-modernization-of-u-s-insurance-regulations/

generators lesean mccoy while you were sleeping while you were sleeping happy halloween happy halloween history of halloween

Vehicle Finance Guidelines on How to Get It | Watch My Gear

There is a whole lot you have to place into consideration when you make the selection to buy a automobile. Most people do not have all the funds needed to purchase a single so they opt for the vehicle finance. You ought to do some research prior to you settle for a particular form of funding. It is important to keep your specific demands and circumstance in mind when you are looking to get a vehicle. You will also be capable to get a deal that is best suited for you. There are several avenues to source funding.

You can get finance via direct lending whereby you would get a bank loan from a bank, lending establishment or credit score union. There are distinct specifications that the loan companies search at to figure out if they will extend the bank loan. Your credit score report is reviewed so that the lenders can asses the threat and choose if you will be in a placement to repay them. If you qualify for the loan, you can use the income to make payments to the dealership.

There is normally an arrangement between the customer and the dealership, whereby the customer is apt to make the needed payments plus fees. This agreement is offered to the financial institution who then collects the payments from the buyer. It is essential that you comprehend that until you have produced all the essential payments, the lender will hold onto the title of the automobile. You can also search into acquiring a secured loan to finance your car obtain.

If you have no asset in certain to use as collateral, you can pledge the motor vehicle with the financial institution getting an further set of keys right up until you distinct the mortgage. The edge of this is that you will have low month to month repayments and curiosity charges. If you have no collateral, you can go for the unsecured alternative but you have to be well prepared to shell out high fascination rates.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged vehicle finance. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://watchmygear.com/2011/vehicle-finance-guidelines-on-how-to-get-it/

halloween movies halloween movies new york snow new york snow braxton miller braxton miller noreaster