specious castellated: December 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

Your first trip to the spa ? what to do and what to ... - Health and fitness

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Your first trip to the spa - what to do and what to expect At greatest in size spas, you should extend smallest ten or fifteen minutes antecedent your scheduled labor . This ableness of determining receive you time to check in and alter into your gown. You may want to arrive a little earlier on account of your first move to diocese, because of you ableness of determining evidently grasp to stretch out greater degree of paperwork antecedent your treatment. At larger, upscale facilities, arriving seasonable ableness of determining receive time on account of paperwork and a travel of the region. You ableness of determining also want to arrive earlier presume that the inorganic body leap offers amenities that you would like to take enjoyment in antecedent your massage or physical substratum treatment. On account of exemplar, greater degree of locations grasp saunas, gaseous state rooms, and whirl baths that exist clever to succor you see greater step of relaxed antecedent your treatment begins. No substratum that what one. beat of treatment you take, you should also dismiss your portable phone. You ableness of determining reveal it firm to slacken presume that your treatment is interrupted from one side phone calls or material substance messages.

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Your first trip to the spa - what to do and what to expect Sole of the biggest areas of influence on account of newcomers is nudity. Greatest in size massages are performed time you are naked, and the areas of your physical substratum that are not being massaged are covered from one side a sheet. You may reveal this unpleasant at your first move to diocese, and you grasp one and the other rectilinear to hold your underwear up~ presume that you want to. Presume that you are afraid that this ableness of determining underrate the massage, you exist clever to interrogation on account of a record of treatments that do not typically claim nudity. You exist clever to stay agreeable in your gown because of the time of a facial or a manicure and avoid the nudity actor totally. You exist clever to even get greater degree of types of massage, like reflexology, that are performed time you are clothed.

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Your first trip to the spa - what to do and what to expect More other possible source of anxiety on account of your first inorganic body leap move to diocese is the subject of tipping. You may not see in that which method abounding to extremity or presume that the extremity is included in your bill. Commonly, tipping fifteen to twenty percent of your bill is greeting. Even presume that you did not completely take enjoyment in a therapist?s particular style of massage, you should stillness extremity him or her. Upright remember to act single appointing from one side someone other nearest time. Greater degree of resort, tavern and remission spas ableness of determining grasp a labor pay in your bill. In this cover, you do not grasp to extremity, up~ the other palm and fingers greater degree of family stillness choose to extremity superadded at the time they really take enjoyment in their treatment.

Your first trip to the spa - what to do and what to expect

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Because of the time of a massage, you exist clever to choose whether or not you would like to articulate becoming the therapist. Presume that you present to be silence, your therapist ableness of determining approach your lead . Above the inorganic body leap, it is customary to business your ?library oral whole?, or articulate peaceably. These tips may succor you take enjoyment in your first inorganic body leap leap and avoid a sole single smaller intricacy.

Source: http://www.womenfavor.com/health-and-fitness/spa-and-wellness/your-first-trip-to-the-spa-what-to-do-and-what-to-expect-2.html

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Fiscal 'cliff' deal proving elusive

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Capitol Hill deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" was proving elusive Sunday as a deadline to avert tax hikes on virtually every American worker and block sweeping spending cuts set to strike the Pentagon and other federal agencies grew perilously near.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell remained at odds on such key issues as the income threshold for higher tax rates and how to deal with inheritance taxes, among other issues. McConnell complained that Reid had yet to respond to a GOP offer made Saturday evening and reached out to Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime friend, in hopes of breaking the impasse. Biden assumed the lead role for Democrats, and a McConnell spokesman said the Kentucky Republican and the vice president were expected to negotiate by telephone into the night.

Rank-and-file lawmakers left the Capitol Sunday night with hopes that their leaders would give them something to vote on when they returned Monday morning.

One sign of progress came as Republicans withdrew a long-discussed proposal to slow future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients as part of a compromise to avoid the cliff. Democrats said earlier Sunday that proposal had put a damper on the talks, and Republican senators emerging from a closed-door GOP meeting said it is no longer part of the equation.

"I was really gratified to hear that Republicans have taken their demand for Social Security benefit cuts off the table. The truth is they should never have been on the table to begin with," Reid said late Sunday afternoon. "There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue."

At stake are sweeping tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect at the turn of the year. Taken together, they've been dubbed the fiscal cliff, and economists warn the one-two punch ? which leaders in both parties have said they want to avoid ? could send the still-fragile economy back into recession. Tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 expire at midnight Monday, and $109 billion in across-the-board cuts in federal spending this year would also begin this week.

Workers could see more taxes withheld from their paychecks and federal agencies are likely to soon receive warning of possible furloughs if lawmakers fail to reach a deal to avert the cliff. The new Congress will be sworn in on Thursday and would inherit the problem if the current crop of lame-duck lawmakers can't find an answer before then.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the two sides remained at odds over the income threshold for higher tax rates and tax levels on large estates. Republicans said that Democratic demands for new money to prevent a cut in Medicare payments to doctors and renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed should be financed with cuts elsewhere in the budget. Republicans also balked at a Democratic proposal to use new tax revenues to shut off the across-the-board spending cuts, known as a sequester in Washington-speak.

President Barack Obama, in a televised interview, blamed Republicans for putting the nation's shaky economy at risk.

"We have been talking to the Republicans ever since the election was over," Obama said in the interview that was taped Saturday and aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers."

"The mood is discouraged," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who caucuses with Democrats. "The parties are much further apart than I hoped they'd be by now."

The pessimistic turn came as the House and Senate returned to the Capitol for a rare Sunday session. Reid and McConnell had hoped to have a blueprint to present to their rank and file by mid-afternoon.

McConnell and Reid were hoping for a deal that would prevent higher taxes for most Americans while letting rates rise at higher income levels, although the precise point at which that would occur was a sticking point.

Obama had wanted to raise the top tax rate on individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000 from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. In talks with Republican House Speaker John Boehner, he offered to raise that threshold to $400,000.

The estate tax issue was particularly tricky since several Democrats, including veterans like Max Baucus of Montana, disagree with Obama's proposal to increase the top estate tax rate from 35 percent to 45 percent.

Republicans said Democrats pressed to turn off more than $200 billion in the across-the-board spending cuts over the coming two years. This so-called sequester is the punishment for last year's deficit "supercommittee" failure to strike a deal.

Hopes for blocking across-the-board spending cuts were fading and Obama's proposal to renew the 2-percentage-point payroll tax cut wasn't even part of the discussion.

Obama pressed lawmakers to start where both sides say they agree ? sparing middle-class families from looming tax hikes.

"If we can get that done, that takes a big bite out of the fiscal cliff. It avoids the worst outcomes. And we're then going to have some tough negotiations in terms of how we continue to reduce the deficit, grow the economy, create jobs," Obama said in the NBC interview.

Gone is the talk of a grand deal that would tackle broad spending and revenue demands and set the nation on a course to lower deficits. Obama and Boehner were once a couple hundred billion dollars apart on a deal that would have reduced the deficit by more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

Republicans have complained that Obama has demanded too much in tax revenue and hasn't proposed sufficient cuts or savings in the nation's massive health care programs.

Obama upped the pressure on Republicans to negotiate a fiscal deal, arguing that GOP leaders have rejected his past attempts to strike a bigger and more comprehensive bargain.

"The offers that I've made to them have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me," Obama said.

Boehner disagreed, saying Sunday that the president had been unwilling to agree to anything "that would require him to stand up to his own party."

The trimmed ambitions of today are a far cry from the upbeat bipartisan rhetoric of just six weeks ago, when the leadership of Congress went to the White House to set the stage for negotiations to come.

But the deal under discussion Sunday appeared unlikely to settle other outstanding issues, including the sequester, which would total more than $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years, divided equally between the Pentagon and other government agencies. And off the table completely is an extension of the nation's borrowing limit, which the government is on track to reach any day but which the Treasury can put off through accounting measures for about two months.

That means Obama and the Congress are already on a new collision path. Republicans say they intend to use the debt ceiling as leverage to extract more spending cuts from the president. Obama has been adamant that unlike 2011, when the country came close to defaulting on its debts, he will not yield to those Republican demands.

Meanwhile, a senior defense official said if the sequester were triggered, the Pentagon would soon begin notifying its 800,000 civilian employees that they should expect some furloughs ? mandatory unpaid leave, not layoffs. It would then take some time for the furloughs to begin being implemented, said the official, who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the internal preparations.

Lawmakers have until the new Congress convenes to pass any compromise, and even the calendar matters. Democrats said they had been told House Republicans might reject a deal until after Jan. 1, to avoid a vote to raise taxes before they had technically gone up, and then vote to cut taxes after they had risen.

___

Associated Press writers David Espo, Robert Burns, Julie Pace, Jim Kuhnhenn and Michele Salcedo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fiscal-cliff-deal-proving-elusive-013025420--finance.html

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Chelsea ends year with 2-1 win at Everton

Associated Press Sports

updated 4:28 p.m. ET Dec. 30, 2012

LONDON (AP) - Frank Lampard scored twice in a 2-1 victory at Everton on Sunday, boosting Chelsea's hopes of catching Manchester United and Manchester City in the Premier League title race.

Chelsea, playing on the road, fell behind after just 63 seconds before Lampard struck in the 42nd and 72nd minutes. Lampard's contract is up this summer and he is free to talk to other clubs starting Tuesday.

A fourth straight win kept Chelsea four points behind second-place Manchester City with a game in hand going into the new year. United is in first place by seven points

Last-place Queens Park Rangers edged closer to relegation with a 3-0 home loss to Liverpool. QPR is eight points from the safety zone entering 2013.

More news

Predicting more Balotelli drama

PST: This drama will unfold in Manchester Stadium, also known as the Etihad Stadium, a.k.a. home of Manchester City. Because apparently the man-child and trouble-child striker isn?t going anywhere.

Noel Vasquez / Getty Images Contributor

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45408205/ns/sports-soccer/

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Chad Johnson Sex Tape: Offline!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/12/chad-johnson-sex-tape-offline/

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

BEIJING -- A privately owned Chinese company is finalizing the acquisition of an...

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Source: http://www.facebook.com/beijingnews/posts/580177585332530

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[All iPads] Do you 'manage' your iPad Apps that are open?

What I mean is, do you spend much time going in and killing apps that you've recently used? I was with iPhone from the very start but in the last year or so I've been pretty fully dedicated with Android. I always made it a point to back out of apps so they'd close down when I was done using them.

I know that both iOS and Android do a pretty good job about killing processes as needed but I tried to manage it myself if I can. I never used things like Task Killers but I'd do what I could on my end.

But as it stands, I'm getting tired of worrying about that crap, lol. I just got my iPad 4th Gen and wondered if I should be perfectly fine with ZERO concern about all the apps running in the multitasking bar.

Source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1516815&goto=newpost

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Our Year In Dating As Told In GIFs

Winona, Julie and Rachel spent much or all of the year in serious relationships, but Ami, Jessica and I were on the prowl. Here?s what the 2012 dating scene was like for us single Frisky ladies?

When a guy on OKCupid wanted to exchange numbers and I suggested email addresses instead and he was like, ?I don?t do email.?

When he told me I embarrassed him in front of his friends when I kissed him on the cheek and held his hand.

When he sent me a text message saying, ?I just can?t do this.?

When the best compliment he could come up with was ?Your eyes are ominous.?

When he made fun of my bike on our second date.

When he kissed me for the first time in the subway station.

When he told me he was taking me to trapeze school for our second date.

When he said he wanted to stay in bed longer to sniff my pillow.

When he messaged me with his phone number and said, ?Text me sometime if you want to hang out.?

When he asked if I wanted to come back to his place after he acted like a dick on our second date.

When I found out that the hot British guy who writes me dirty emails lives in Paris AND does not want a relationship right now.

When he squeezed my butt while walking up a flight of stairs and I yelled at him for doing that in public, but secretly was kind of turned on.

When we had an amazing conversation on the first date and then I never heard from him again.

When I?m at Toys In Babeland and I find myself a BOB (battery operated boyfriend)?

When the guy I was sleeping with told me he didn?t want to have sex with me anymore because he liked me too much as a person.

When I excused myself to go to the bathroom and my date, who I just met 30 minutes prior, followed me, thinking I wanted to make out.

Whenever the guy I was banging suggested we break out the full-length mirror.

What I was really thinking when my mom asked what I was looking for in a man.

Every time I sat at a bar, waiting for a date to arrive, annoyed that he was late.

When I Get The OKCupid Alert, ?Someone Chose You!?

When a guy is?32, but according to his online dating profile, is looking for a woman who isn?t older than 29.

Source: http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-12-28/our-year-in-dating-as-told-in-gifs/

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Jill Brooke: Nora Ephron Taught Us How to Live and Die

In reflecting on all the people who passed away this year, I am thinking of Nora Ephron and how this witty, wise and loving woman taught us not only how to live but also how to die.

I last saw Nora Ephron earlier this year at the memorial for best-selling author Charla Krupp, who shocked her circle of loyal devoted friends by never divulging her terminal illness. While Nora was behind me as we signed our names on the guest book, a few friends, with tear rimmed eyes, came up to us questioning how anyone could keep a terminal illness secret or would want to make that choice. "We live in the age of the Internet where everyone tells everyone everything," cried one friend.

"The credit should go to a good marriage," I said, referring to Charla's partnership to Time magazine's theater critic Richard Zoglin. "How lucky was she that her husband's love was enough that she didn't need anyone else."

I then turned to Nora and for some inexplicable reason said, "Don't you agree?" In owl-like black sunglasses, the celebrated writer of romantic comedies like Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally nodded her head and whispered, "That is so true." Only now I realize she most likely was thinking of her own husband, writer Nick Pileggi, whose quiet unwavering support gave her the protective cocoon to keep her secret intact -- even from her children.

As Frank Rich wrote in his New York Magazine piece about Ephron, people have legitimate reasons to want to keep pending death a secret. He said his friend may have not wanted "her illness to change the weather in any room she entered. She did not want to spend every day fending off an onslaught of concerned questions. She didn't want to be thought of as a lesser person. She did not want friends to see her falling apart."

Rich went on to share how at Ephron's memorial in New York City, her son Max Bernstein reflected on his mother's unexpected gift for not divulging the seriousness of her illness.

"I think that she just kept quiet so the rest of us could keep enjoying being with her as much as possible," Max said at the memorial. "All of those moments would have been bittersweet or sanctimonious, flanked by an asterisk, leading to a footnote that says, "There aren't many of these left." Then he added, "I am so glad they weren't that way."

But it couldn't have been that way for Max or his brother Jacob without Nora's husband Nick Pileggi by her side. Yes, this man who she married in 1987 was a good fella in the best of ways.

As a culture, we often focus on the lust and laughs of new marriages. But want to see passion at its sexiest? For me, it is witnessing the long-term marriages of couples whose passion for loyalty and the respect for their history together endures so that each spouse can feel safe and not judged during times of weakness. Long term marriages are the real love stories of our time. Just wish there were more of them.

Lucky Nora had Nick to discuss the challenges of squeezing joy from life with rationed time. She had him to give her the chicken soup when treatments made her sick and cranky. She had him to cry with at night when the fear of the unknown choked her with anxiety. Nora had Nick to soothe her apprehensions so her public face could still be smiling. So she could still be working. So she could still be living the life she wanted. So she could be, as she often said, "the heroine of your life, not the victim."

Friends of course lamented not being able to say farewell. But as Bruce Feiler wrote in the New York Times, farewell conversations are usually awkward and forced. What do you say after goodbye? Sorry this happened and it sucks? As I've witnessed, the dying often feel obligated to make their friends feel better about their condition. It becomes stressful for them. They only feel safe with a trusted few.

Oddly enough, Nora Ephron, the woman who eagerly doled out delicious recipes for Thanksgiving dinners, never did share the one recipe many covet: The recipe for a loving devoted marriage. With the divorce rate hovering towards 50 percent, few will have built a reservoir of good times to not need anyone else when the end of life comes.

In fact one of Nora Ephron's greatest successes ends up proving not only that in divorce, wife can go on, but that she can marry well too.

Follow Jill Brooke on Twitter: www.twitter.com/divorcemama

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-brooke/nora-ephron-taught-us-how_b_2382504.html

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING (Reuters) - China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain "illegal" information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

"Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities," the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Li Fei, deputy head of parliament's legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.

"When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society ... or other citizens," he told a news conference.

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.

"So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?" complained one user.

"We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom," wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-tightens-internet-controls-legalizes-post-deletion-090737194--sector.html

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Wind energy: Boom sputters as industry tax credit is set to expire

Congress has so far not extended the tax credit for wind energy, resulting in the layoffs of thousands of workers. Communities that a few years ago were elated to attract a promising new industry are left wondering what will the future bring.

By Richard Mertens,?Correspondent / December 28, 2012

The sun rises behind windmills at a wind farm in Palm Springs, California in 2011.

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Enlarge

Alex Derr had a new house and a son on the way when he landed a coveted job building massive fiberglass wind-turbine blades at a new factory in Fort Madison, Iowa. With well-paid work in a growing industry, he seemed to have it made.

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?Having a new family, I thought it was great,? says Mr. Derr, who is in his 20s. ?I thought I was getting hired for a career.?

But his career in the wind industry came to an abrupt and premature end in October, when the plant where he worked, owned by Siemens Energy, a German company, let go most of its more than 700 workers. Similar layoffs have affected thousands of workers in communities across the United States. The reason: the impending expiration of a federal tax credit for wind energy.

Despite pleas from wind-industry advocates and politicians in important wind-energy states, Congress has so far not extended the tax credit beyond the end of the year. So on the eve of its demise, workers who thought they had snagged a dream job now find themselves once again looking for employment. Communities that a few years ago were elated to attract a promising new industry are left wondering what will the future bring.

?It was a big gut check for us,? says Fort Madison?s mayor, Brad Randolph. ?It was like, two steps forward, one step back.?

The federal tax credit has helped to buoy American wind energy since 1992 and, more recently, to spawn a small but growing manufacturing sector. Uncertainty over its future now threatens 37,000 jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group. Some of these are held by the 30,000 workers employed in more than 500 manufacturing facilities, from big plants that assemble large wind-turbine components to smaller suppliers providing gearboxes, bolts, and other parts.

The cuts in the wind industry have concluded a strange year of both glut and dearth for the industry and its workers. With the tax credit scheduled to expire, wind-energy developers have been racing to complete new projects. By the end of this month, in fact, they are set to have installed more than twice the new capacity that had been expected at the start of the year, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Half this new capacity is expected to come on line this month.

For workers, this has meant going from too much work to too little. At the Siemens factory in Fort Madison, employees worked seven days a week for much of the spring and summer, rushing to complete orders. ?We worked ridiculous hours,? says Derr, who was working overtime until a week before his job disappeared.

In Colorado, Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas-American Wind Technology Inc. until recently, described 2012 as the firm?s ?busiest year ever,? supplying turbines to more than 20 new wind farms. Still, the parent company, Vestas Wind Systems in Denmark, let go hundreds of workers at four manufacturing plants in Colorado that build and assemble wind turbines.

These layoffs, plus the relocation of some workers, reduced the Vestas workforce from more than 1,700 to about 1,100. Earlier this month, the company also announced it would cut the hours of its remaining workers from 40 to 32 hours a week, beginning next month.

The year?s swings reflect earlier ups and downs in an industry. Over the past two decades, wind energy has grown substantially, thanks in part to technological advances. Total US capacity has risen from less than 1.5 gigawatts in 1992 to 47 gigawatts at the end of 2011. But this rise has been vulnerable to uncertainty over the federal tax credit, which now stands at 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour produced.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/WbGie6tnbew/Wind-energy-Boom-sputters-as-industry-tax-credit-is-set-to-expire

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Friday, December 28, 2012

China requires real names for internet and phone sign-ups, handovers for illegal posts

It's no secret that China keeps a tight lid on internet freedoms, and it's not about to lighten up today. The government has passed regulations requiring that locals use their real names whenever they sign up for internet- and phone-based services (not just the access itself); while those were already common practices, there's now the real threat of punishment behind them. Anyone who clears those hurdles also has to be more mindful of what they write. If a page or post is deemed "illegal information," service hosts now have to delete its public presence, archive it and pass the content along to authorities. The state unsurprisingly argues that those who already stay on the sunny side of the law have nothing to fear from the new measures (where have we heard that before?), but the reassurances won't be much help to privacy advocates or those challenging corruption.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Bloomberg, Reuters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/28/china-clears-rules-requiring-real-names-for-internet-sign-ups/

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Shakira Gives Birth to a Baby Boy!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/12/shakira-gives-birth/

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Hawaii lieutenant governor named to replace late U.S. Senator Inouye

HONOLULU (Reuters) - Hawaii Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz was named on Wednesday to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of fellow Democrat Daniel Inouye.

Schatz, 40, was appointed by Governor Neil Abercrombie, also a Democrat, to succeed Inouye for the two years remaining in the term.

Because Schatz and Inouye are from the same party, the change does not alter the balance of power in the 100-member Senate, where Democrats are expected to maintain a 55-45 majority over Republicans in January.

"I make this decision with full confidence that Brian's appointment is in the best interest of the state of Hawaii and the nation," Abercrombie said in a statement announcing the appointment.

A White House official said Schatz would fly to Washington with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One on Wednesday night.

Schatz is expected to be sworn in Thursday, the governor's spokesman, Keith DeMello, told Reuters.

Inouye, a decorated World War Two veteran who lost an arm in battle and represented Hawaii in Congress since its statehood more than a half century ago, died last week at age 88.

The veteran senator was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and third in the line of presidential succession as the Senate's senior member.

Schatz became Hawaii's 11th lieutenant governor two years ago. He previously served as head one of Hawaii's largest nonprofit community social services organizations.

He also was chairman of the state Democratic Party and chaired Obama's 2008 presidential campaign in Hawaii.

(Additional reporting by Jade Eckardt; Writing by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Steve Gorman and Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hawaii-lieutenant-governor-named-replace-u-senator-inouye-023703213.html

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Thursday, December 27, 2012