For the first time in more than three decades, Social Security recipients will not get any increase in their benefits next year, federal forecasts show. The absence of a cost-of-living adjustment, calculated under a formula set by law, will be a shock to older Americans already hit by plummeting home values, investment losses and rising health costs. More than 50 million people receive Social Security. “Most seniors have never been through a year in which there was no Social Security COLA,” said David M. Certner, legislative counsel at AARP, the lobby for older Americans. Beneficiaries have received automatic cost-of-living adjustments every year since 1975. The increase this year was 5.8 percent.
A RISING musical star was allegedly shot dead by her own brothers in the conservative city [notice how the writer just had to describe the city as “conservative”…ed] of Peshawar in Pakistan last week after she had appeared on television. The murder of Ayman Udas, who was in her early thirties and newly married, has shocked the city’s artistic community because it symbolises a backlash against women and cultural freedom in an area that is increasingly dominated by Islamic funda-mentalists. As a singer and song writer in her native Pashto, the language of the tribal areas and the NorthWest Frontier province, Udas frequently performed on PTV, the state-run channel.
A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration’s Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration’s Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation. The White House said the story was false. “The charge is completely untrue,” said White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, “and there’s obviously no evidence to suggest that this happened in any way.”
[Excuse me if I don’t believe a word out of the mouth of the professional spinmeister Bill Burton…ed]
The Iranian artist was executed on Friday for a murder allegedly committed when she was a juvenile and for which she retracted her brief confession, claiming she was covering up for her boyfriend. The prison authorities hanged Miss Darabi, 23, even though the head of Iran’s judiciary granted her a two-month stay of execution on April 19 amid international outrage over her case. They also did not give her lawyer the required 48 hours notice. Horrific new details have emerged of her last desperate plea for help from Rasht prison as jail guards came to lead her away.
The environmental benefits of electric cars are being questioned in Germany by a surprising actor: the green movement. But those risks don’t apply in the U.S., the American electric-car lobby asserts. [That’s because our green weenies are cooler than the European green weenies…ed] The German branch of the environmental group World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has conducted a study together with IZES, a German institute for future energy systems, on the environmental impact of electric vehicles in Germany. Just like the U.S., Germany has an ambitious goal of introducing electric vehicles. Germany, which today has 41 million cars, aims to have 1 million electric cars or plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020. The conclusion of the study is that these electric cars only reduce greenhouse gases marginally.
High school senior claims he was harassed by teacher for reading foxnews.com.
A Michigan high school is investigating allegations that one of its teachers berated and belittled a student for taking part in what the teacher considered an unacceptable activity: reading FOXNews.com. A young man who identified himself only as Mitchell, an 18-year-old senior at Traverse City West Senior High School, called in to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show Thursday and said he was yelled at in front of his classmates for reading the “wrong” news. The teacher of his video production class saw what he was looking at and “proceeded to give me a 10-minute lecture on why I can’t read FOX News … and that I can only listen to BBC and other news venues,” the student said.
[My teenager has standing orders to not take any crap from her high school teachers especially when it comes to politics…ed]
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Useless news. Pilot makes stinky landing but is saved by portable outhouses.
A small airplane dropping from the sky after its engine failed wound up on a cushioning bunch of portable toilets – and the pilot was able to walk away apparently unhurt. Gary Mayor of the Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna 182 crashed Friday afternoon in Washington state after taking off from Thun Field, an airfield owned by Pierce County southeast of Tacoma.
Long time Republican politician and former pro football quarterback Jack Kemp dead at 73.
Jack Kemp, the former Bills quarterback, Buffalo-area congressman, one-time vice presidential nominee and self-described “bleeding-heart conservative,” died Saturday. He was 73. Kemp died after a lengthy illness, according to spokeswoman Bona Park and Edwin J. Feulner, a longtime friend and former campaign adviser. Park said Kemp died at his home in Bethesda, Md., in the Washington suburbs. Kemp had announced in January 2009 that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He said he was undergoing tests but gave no other details.
Iraqi, wearing Army uniform, opens fire on American soldiers killing two wounding three.
Two American soldiers were shot dead and three more were wounded on Saturday when an Iraqi wearing army uniform opened fire on them south of the northern town of Mosul, the US military said. “According to initial reports, an individual dressed in an Iraqi army uniform fired on the Coalition forces and was killed in the incident” around 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Mosul, the statement said. It called the incident “a small arms fire attack at a combat outpost.” A Mosul police officer identified the assailant as Hassan al-Dulaimi, a soldier who also served as the imam of a mosque at an Iraqi army training centre south of the city, the capital of Nineveh province.
China quarantines Mexicans, forbids them any interaction with embassy officials.
Steps by China to confine Mexicans to hotels and other sites, irrespective of whether they were showing symptoms of having the new flu virus or not, triggered a diplomatic row with Mexico on Sunday. A Mexican embassy official in Beijing said Chinese authorities were quarantining more than 50 Mexican business people and tourists inside, fearing the spread of the H1N1 flu, even though only one had symptoms of the flu. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa on Saturday described the steps as “discriminatory”, saying: “Mexican citizens showing no signs at all of being ill have been isolated under unacceptable conditions.” Beijing saids its steps were justified and lawful.
The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before. The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet’s Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does. Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.
The French Navy said they seized 11 pirates Sunday after they apparently mistook a French military vessel for a commercial ship and made a run at it. Two pirate assault boats approached the Nivose “at great speed,” Capt. Christophe Prazuck said, but a French helicopter intervened before the attackers had time to fire at the French navy ship. The helicopter fired warning shots, he said. The pirates, who had a mother ship as well as the two assault boats, are being held for questioning on the Nivose, Prazuck said.
Quote of the day.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
-Benjamin Franklin