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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
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Snaptu: Phone hacking: Should people in high office ever accept gifts?
Poll: Former Met chief Sir Paul Stephenson resigned on Sunday after it emerged that he had accepted £12,000 worth of hospitality from Champneys health spa while recovering from an operation. Stephenson says 'there has been no impropriety', though…
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Snaptu: Welcome to the upside-down world of Planet Wall Street Journal | Richard Adams
The Wall Street Journal's logic-free editorial on the scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is par for the course
The chorus of outrage at the Wall Street Journal's vituperative editorial on phone hacking – dishonest whining! cheap harlotry!…
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Monday, July 18, 2011
Snaptu: Graduate jobs: advice from the experts
You've got a beautiful new degree, a dazzling career ahead of you and the world is your oyster – terrifying, isn't it? Fear not, graduates. Our experts can answer all your questions
How do I clean up my online profile and make it work for me?
You…
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China's New Parochialism
China's New Parochialism - TIME
On any particularly hot day this month, people around the world will do what they have done for decades: go to an air-conditioned movie theater and watch a summertime blockbuster. The latest, biggest movie is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which has broken box-office records in the U.S. and in many of the 110 other countries in which it has been released. Except in the world's fastest-growing economy and movie market — China. The Chinese people will not get to see Transformers, nor the eagerly awaited new Harry Potter movie, nor any other Hollywood production. At least not yet. Gao Jun, the deputy general manager of Beijing's New Film Association, explained that no foreign movie would be allowed into China until the Chinese film Beginning of the Great Revival made 800 million yuan, or $124 million, which would be an all-time record for a Chinese movie.
Beginning of the Great Revival is a two-hour tale of the rise of China's Communist Party — released on the occasion of its 90th anniversary — and its heroic leader, Mao Zedong, who is played by a young Chinese heartthrob. The movie features a cast of hundreds of major Chinese actors, including Chow Yun Fat, with impressive sets and design, all at record cost. It has been released in 6,000 theaters across the country. But it doesn't seem to be winning hearts and minds. Despite many mass ticket giveaways, cinema houses are reported to be empty. A barrage of negative reviews on the Internet have been censored. On VeryCD, a pirated-film website, more than 90% of users described the film as "trash." (See China celebrating 90 years of communism.)
On one level, this is just a crude propaganda effort by a Chinese regime seeking legitimacy. But there is another aspect to this story. China is going through an internal struggle over whether it needs to borrow more ideas from the West or follow its own particular course. The question of how to handle Western films is becoming part of a much larger debate.
China is on course to become the largest movie market in the world. It has more than 6,200 movie theaters and is adding to them at the astonishing pace of three new theaters a day. But the government seems determined to keep Western movies at bay. There is a strict quota of 20 foreign movies imported every year. Those movies are censored and tightly restricted to a limited number of theaters. Hollywood studios receive only 13% of the ticket price, about half what they get everywhere else in the world. The DVDs are pirated within days, and the government makes no effort to stem this criminal activity. The result is that Hollywood, America's largest export industry, makes very little money in China. (See China stamping out democracy protests.)
And Hollywood isn't alone. The CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, told the Financial Times earlier this year that it appeared that China did not want Western companies to succeed in that country anymore; he was voicing the feelings of many foreign CEOs. There is growing evidence in many areas that Beijing is favoring locals over Western companies, even violating the rules of market access and trade. The World Trade Organization ruled recently that China's regulations on foreign movies were a form of illegal protectionism and had to end. So far, Beijing has done nothing to abide by that ruling, though it is likely to expand its quotas to mollify the WTO.
Countries play trade games all the time, but this is different. Over the past few years, a new Chinese parochialism has been gaining strength in the Communist Party. Best symbolized by the senior party leader, Bo Xilai, it includes a romantic revival of Maoism, harking back to a time when the Chinese were more unified and more isolated from the rest of the world. It is a reaction to the rampant marketization and Westernization of China over the past 10 years. Bo, who has organized mass rallies to sing old Maoist songs and routinely quotes Mao aphorisms, might well ascend to the Standing Committee of China's Politburo next year on the strength of this new populism.
After centuries of isolation, China has grown in power and strength because it opened itself to the world, learned from the West and allowed its industries and society to borrow from and compete against the world's best. It allowed for an ongoing modernization of its economic structures and possibly its political institutions as well. Its leaders Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin understood that this openness was key to China's success. A new generation of Chinese leaders might decide they have learned enough and that it is time to turn inward and celebrate China's unique ways. If that happens, the world will confront a very different China over the next few decades.
The contagion affecting News Corp has spread rapidly in the US
To accuse Rupert Murdoch of shedding crocodile tears, with his head-in-hands apology to the family of Milly Dowler and his widely printed apology at the weekend, would be an insult to honest crocodiles everywhere. A more fitting comparison would be to Lewis Carroll's Walrus, after luring unsuspecting oysters to a picnic with his friend the Carpenter. "'I weep for you,'" the Walrus said: / 'I deeply sympathise.' / With sobs and tears he sorted out / Those of the largest size / Holding his pocket-handkerchief / Before his streaming eyes."
The contagion affecting News Corp has spread rapidly in the US. The FBI is investigating potential criminal hacking of the voicemails of victims of the 9/11 attacks. Lawmakers and grassroots groups are also calling for an investigation into whether the bribing of police was a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. As News Corp is a US corporation, registered in the business-friendly state of Delaware,even bribery abroad could lead to felony charges in the US.
One likely consequence would be what Corporate Crime Reporter's Russell Mokhiber calls "a wishy-washy non-prosecution settlement" wherein News Corp would admit to the crime without being convicted, and pay a financial settlement. Mokhiber noted that, in a 2008 FCPA case against Siemens for widespread bribery, Siemens paid $800m but avoided a criminal conviction that would have jeopardised its standing as a US defence contractor.
As for the alleged phone hacking of 9/11 victims, if News of the World employees did engage in illegal attempts to access voicemails, and the FBI investigation can ferret out sufficient proof to seek indictments, then the most likely outcome would be extradition requests against the alleged offenders, which could drag on for years.
Meanwhile Murdoch runs his media empire in the US as an unvarnished political operation. Fox News Channel, run by career Republican operative Roger Ailes, is home to the most consistently vitriolic critics of Barack Obama. Leaked memos and emails from Fox vice-president of News, John Moody, and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon allegedly offer evidence of top-down directives to control the message throughout the news day, from linking Obama to Marxism and socialism, to denigrating a public option in the US healthcare debate, to promoting scepticism about climate change.
Fox News Channel hosts have also been linked to political violence. Glenn Beck (who got his start in television from CNN, to its eternal shame) lured a massive cable audience to his daily chalkboard-enabled rants, detailing complex liberal/progressive conspiracies with a healthy dose of historical revisionism. In July 2010, Byron Williams loaded his car in Northern California with a small arsenal, donned body armour, and set off for San Francisco, intending to massacre people at two of Beck's regular targets, the Tides Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. When police tried to pull him over for speeding, Williams started firing and was arrested. He told reporter John Hamilton: "I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind."
Similarly, the conservative Fox News host Bill O'Reilly castigated one of the only medical doctors in Kansas who performed abortions, George Tiller, as "Tiller the Baby Killer," on at least 29 occasions. In 2009 Tiller was shot in the head at point-blank range, while attending church, by an anti-abortion extremist.
Alongside the enormous direct influence of his media properties, Murdoch doles out political contributions. Prior to the 2010 Republican landslide Murdoch gave $1m of News Corp cash to the Republican Governors Association, the group that helped push far-right candidates to executive office around the US, notably Scott Walker, who provoked massive labor protests in Wisconsin, and former Fox commentator John Kasich in Ohio.
Don't look for anything explosive from News Corp's internal investigation either. Board members Joel Klein and Viet Dinh, both US power attorneys, are taking active roles managing the crisis. Dinh was assistant attorney-general under George W Bush and a principal author of the Patriot Act, the law that, among other things, prompted an unprecedented expansion of government eavesdropping. According to recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Dinh and other directors lined up on 3 July to sell off stock options, with Dinh netting about $25,000 as the Dowler scandal broke (he did better than the stockholders he represents, selling at just over $18 a share; now it's trading at $15.96).
Klein, a former justice department attorney and chancellor of the New York City school system, joined the board recently to focus on its digital learning business. The New York Daily News reports that a business News Corp acquired just after Klein joined the board is now facing scrutiny, since it deals with schoolchildren's personal data. New York state awarded Wireless Generation a no-bid, $27m contract. Now parents are questioning whether News Corp should have such access.
Perhaps the greatest threat to Murdoch will come from grassroots organisations. The activist group Color of Change has already mounted a protest outside Murdoch's New York Central Park apartment. The group was co-founded by Van Jones, who was appointed by Obama as his green jobs tsar but forced to resign after a withering assault by Beck on Fox. An advertising boycott campaign it mounted against Beck's show is largely credited with forcing Beck off the network.
With News Corp's stock down in the wake of the scandal and potentially embarrassing revelations about 9/11 victims looming (as the 10th anniversary nears), a reinvigorated campaign to shut off advertising dollars could disrupt Murdoch's hold on his vast US media holdings. Yes, Murdoch is sorry – that he got caught.
Who are Sir Paul Stephenson and Neil Wallis?
Sir Paul Stephenson quits | Mail Online
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned.
Sir Paul announced his resignation at a press conference this evening in the wake of revelations that he received a £12k spa break where News of the World hacking suspect Neil Wallis was a PR consultant.
During an extensive statement on the scandal Sir Paul said he had no idea of extent of the practice and his integrity was 'completely intact'.
Sir Paul said: 'I have taken this decision as a consequence of the ongoing speculation and accusations relating to the Met's links with News International at a senior level and in particular in relation to Mr Neil Wallis who as you know was arrested in connection with Operation Weeting last week.'
Announcement: Sir Paul Stephenson makes his resignation speech this evening following allegations he took a free spa break
Sir Paul then used his statement to attempted to put the record straight over his relationship with Mr Wallis.
He said that the pair first met during 2006 and continued a professional relationship with meetings detailed in public records. He said he had no knowledge of any investigation into phone hacking involving the News of the World at that time.
Sir Paul said: 'I have heard suggestions that we must have suspected the alleged involvement of Mr Wallis in phone hacking. Let me say unequivocally that I did not and had no reason to have done so.
'I do not occupy a position in the world of journalism; I had no knowledge of the extent of this disgraceful practice and the repugnant nature of the selection of victims that is now emerging; nor of its apparent reach into senior levels.'
Sir Paul said he saw no need to inform senior ministers of Scotland Yard's contract with Mr Wallis, who worked two days a month for Scotland Yard during 2009 and last year, earning £24,000.
Leaving for the last time: Sir Paul stands outside Scotland Yard following tonight's resignation speech
Driven away: Sir Paul left Scotland Yard in a black Range Rover after refusing to answer questions from the media
Explaining the decision to recruit Mr Wallis for PR services, Sir Paul said: 'The contracting of Mr Wallis only became of relevance when his name became linked with the new investigation into phone hacking.
'I recognise that the interests of transparency might have made earlier disclosure of this information desirable.
'However my priority, despite the embarrassment it might cause, has been to maintain the integrity of Operation Weeting. To make it public would have immediately tainted him and potentially compromised any future Operation Weeting action.'
Referring to the 'reported displeasure' of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, he added:
'The reasons for not having told them are two fold.
'Firstly, I repeat my earlier comments of having at the time no reason for considering the contractual relationship to be a matter of concern.'
He went on to say there was 'no impropriety' in relation to his use of Champneys luxury spa facilities.
Tonight, Home Secretary Theresa May told Sir Paul she was 'sorry' that he was resigning and thanked him for his work, a spokesman said.
And London Mayor Boris Johnson added: 'It is with great sadness and reluctance that I have tonight accepted the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Hacking suspect: Neil Wallis, pictured here leaving Hammersmith police station after being grilled by detectives on Thursday, worked as a PR at Champneys and was a £1,000-per-day Met Police consultant
'I would like to stress that I have absolutely no reason to doubt the complete integrity of Sir Paul and I believe him to be a fine, passionate and committed public servant who has done a huge amount of good for our city.
'Sir Paul believes, however, that the phone hacking saga now threatens to become a serious distraction during the run up to the Olympic Games.
'He has persuaded me that someone else should now be allowed to take his work forward so that the focus can return to policing and bringing down crime.
'I should like to pay personal tribute to his outstanding leadership at the Metropolitan Police.'
Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said Sir Paul had 'shown leadership' with his resignation.
'He's accepted responsibility. He's a person of integrity. When he was appointed, he was appointed because he was a safe pair of hands and I think that he probably felt that he was not providing that leadership at the moment because of the situation," Mr Vaz told Sky News.
'I don't think we should criticise people when they decide to take responsibility.'
Peter Smyth, chair of the Met Police Federation, told Sky News: "I am surprised. I think it is a sad day for Paul and a sad day for the Metropolitan Police.
'He is a very private man, I have never had any reason to question his integrity. He has come to a decision based on what he knows about himself.'
He added: 'I think News International have been quite clever, they have turned the focus away from themselves and more on to the Metropolitan Police, which I think was a deliberate tactic.
It is understood there will now be a 'winding down' period before a permanent successor is announced.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015779/Sir-Paul-Stephenson-quits.html#ixzz1SObrzMxR
Sunday, July 17, 2011
I think Casey Anthony should be put on jail
Casey Anthony was freed from a Florida jail early Sunday, 12 days after she was acquitted of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in a verdict that drew furious responses and even threats from people across the U.S. who had followed the case with rapt attention.
Anthony, wearing a pink T-shirt with blue jeans, left the jail at 12:14 a.m. local time (0414 GMT) with her attorney, Jose Baez. After three years behind bars, Anthony was given $537.68 in cash from her jail account and escorted outside by two sheriff's deputies armed with semi-automatic rifles. Neither Anthony nor Baez said anything to reporters and protesters gathered outside.
Since her acquittal on murder charges on July 5, Anthony was finishing her four-year sentence for telling investigators several lies, including an early claim that Caylee was kidnapped by a nonexistent nanny. With credit for the nearly three years she's spent in jail since August 2008 and good behavior, she had only days remaining when she was sentenced July 7.
Tersangka Koruptor Anas Urbaningrum, shame on you !
Thank you Tempo, you have been so good in informing us the truth....I cant imagine if there is no brave media to tell us the truth...those people such as Athiyyah Laila dan Anas Urbaningrum will just keep on corrupting. I hope they will be punished soon.
Btw, I am very sad to see how corruption is so rampant in this country... the corruptor Gayus has admitted that his office and his bosses are also corruptors as him. Shame on the Indon justice system, most of them have not been caught. They are free as water flowing from the river. Indeed, life is unfair. People should take a lesson from this that many religious people are hypocrite. They pray but they corrupt. I am afraid the corruption in Indonesia might not be curable. hopeless...
Tempointeraktif.Com - Adhi Karya Akui Beri Proyek ke Nyonya Anas
PT Adhi Karya (Persero) Tbk mengakui telah lama menjalin kerja sama dengan PT Dutasari Citralaras milik Athiyyah Laila, istri Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat Anas Urbaningrum. "Dutasari mengerjakan proyek Adhi sudah sejak lama," kata Sekretaris Perusahaan PT Adhi Karya, Kurnadi Gularso, melalui pesan pendek kemarin.
Menurut Kurnadi, PT Dutasari telah tercatat dalam daftar mitra kerja sama di Divisi Operasi PT Adhi Karya. Untuk masuk vendor list itu, kata dia, "Ada persyaratannya."
Kurnadi tidak memerinci proyek apa saja yang pernah dikerjakan PT Dutasari selama ini. Namun dia menyangkal bila kerja sama PT Adhi Karya dan PT Dutasari disebut kerja sama fiktif. Kurnadi pun menolak bila kerja sama itu dianggap akal-akalan badan usaha milik negara untuk memberi setoran kepada pihak yang terkait dengan partai politik.
Kamis lalu, Athiyyah mengatakan belum pernah mendengar nama PT Dutasari Citralaras. Tapi Direktur Operasional PT Dutasari Roni Wijaya mengatakan Athiyyah pernah menjadi pemilik saham dan komisaris perusahaan, meski jarang aktif dan akhirnya mundur. Adapun Direktur Utama PT Dutasari Machfud Suroso
menyebut Anas sebagai teman sekampungnya.
Berdasarkan penelusuran Tempo, PT Dutasari memiliki piutang puluhan miliar di PT Adhi. Pada 2008, utang PT Adhi ke PT Dutasari mencapai Rp 64,49 miliar, pada 2009 senilai Rp 20,13 miliar, dan pada 2010 sebesar Rp 3,9 miliar. Selain di Adhi Karya, pada 2010 PT Dutasari tercatat memiliki tagihan sekitar Rp 7,2 miliar di BUMN lainnya, PT Pembangunan Perumahan (Persero) Tbk.
Tagihan jumbo PT Dutasari kontras dengan kantor mini perusahaan tersebut di Plaza 3 Pondok Indah, Jalan T.B. Simatupang, Jakarta Selatan. Di sebuah rumah kantor bercat kusam itu, Dutasari berbagi ruang kantor dengan dua perusahaan lain.
Sekretaris Perusahaan PT Pembangunan Perumahan Betty Ariana kemarin mengatakan belum menemukan data bahwa PT Dutasari pernah bekerja sama dengan PT Pembangunan Perumahan. Tapi Betty berjanji akan memeriksa kembali laporan perusahaannya. "Hari Senin akan kami cek lagi," ujar Betty melalui layanan pesan pendek.
Kalangan pegiat antikorupsi menyesalkan kebiasaan BUMN memberikan proyek kepada perusahaan yang terkait dengan politikus dan keluarganya. "Itu sangat berpotensi menimbulkan konflik kepentingan dan korupsi," kata Yuna Farhan, Sekretaris Jenderal Forum Indonesia untuk Transparansi Anggaran. "Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi harus mengusutnya," ujar Emerson Yuntho, Wakil Koordinator Indonesia Corruption Watch.
AGUNG SEDAYU | FEBRIANA FIRDAUS |ISMA SAVITRI
Btw, I am very sad to see how corruption is so rampant in this country... the corruptor Gayus has admitted that his office and his bosses are also corruptors as him. Shame on the Indon justice system, most of them have not been caught. They are free as water flowing from the river. Indeed, life is unfair. People should take a lesson from this that many religious people are hypocrite. They pray but they corrupt. I am afraid the corruption in Indonesia might not be curable. hopeless...
Tempointeraktif.Com - Adhi Karya Akui Beri Proyek ke Nyonya Anas
PT Adhi Karya (Persero) Tbk mengakui telah lama menjalin kerja sama dengan PT Dutasari Citralaras milik Athiyyah Laila, istri Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat Anas Urbaningrum. "Dutasari mengerjakan proyek Adhi sudah sejak lama," kata Sekretaris Perusahaan PT Adhi Karya, Kurnadi Gularso, melalui pesan pendek kemarin.
Menurut Kurnadi, PT Dutasari telah tercatat dalam daftar mitra kerja sama di Divisi Operasi PT Adhi Karya. Untuk masuk vendor list itu, kata dia, "Ada persyaratannya."
Kurnadi tidak memerinci proyek apa saja yang pernah dikerjakan PT Dutasari selama ini. Namun dia menyangkal bila kerja sama PT Adhi Karya dan PT Dutasari disebut kerja sama fiktif. Kurnadi pun menolak bila kerja sama itu dianggap akal-akalan badan usaha milik negara untuk memberi setoran kepada pihak yang terkait dengan partai politik.
Kamis lalu, Athiyyah mengatakan belum pernah mendengar nama PT Dutasari Citralaras. Tapi Direktur Operasional PT Dutasari Roni Wijaya mengatakan Athiyyah pernah menjadi pemilik saham dan komisaris perusahaan, meski jarang aktif dan akhirnya mundur. Adapun Direktur Utama PT Dutasari Machfud Suroso
menyebut Anas sebagai teman sekampungnya.
Berdasarkan penelusuran Tempo, PT Dutasari memiliki piutang puluhan miliar di PT Adhi. Pada 2008, utang PT Adhi ke PT Dutasari mencapai Rp 64,49 miliar, pada 2009 senilai Rp 20,13 miliar, dan pada 2010 sebesar Rp 3,9 miliar. Selain di Adhi Karya, pada 2010 PT Dutasari tercatat memiliki tagihan sekitar Rp 7,2 miliar di BUMN lainnya, PT Pembangunan Perumahan (Persero) Tbk.
Tagihan jumbo PT Dutasari kontras dengan kantor mini perusahaan tersebut di Plaza 3 Pondok Indah, Jalan T.B. Simatupang, Jakarta Selatan. Di sebuah rumah kantor bercat kusam itu, Dutasari berbagi ruang kantor dengan dua perusahaan lain.
Sekretaris Perusahaan PT Pembangunan Perumahan Betty Ariana kemarin mengatakan belum menemukan data bahwa PT Dutasari pernah bekerja sama dengan PT Pembangunan Perumahan. Tapi Betty berjanji akan memeriksa kembali laporan perusahaannya. "Hari Senin akan kami cek lagi," ujar Betty melalui layanan pesan pendek.
Kalangan pegiat antikorupsi menyesalkan kebiasaan BUMN memberikan proyek kepada perusahaan yang terkait dengan politikus dan keluarganya. "Itu sangat berpotensi menimbulkan konflik kepentingan dan korupsi," kata Yuna Farhan, Sekretaris Jenderal Forum Indonesia untuk Transparansi Anggaran. "Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi harus mengusutnya," ujar Emerson Yuntho, Wakil Koordinator Indonesia Corruption Watch.
AGUNG SEDAYU | FEBRIANA FIRDAUS |ISMA SAVITRI
Australia needs guest workers?
Wanted: Workers Who Speak English and Show Up Sober - Careers Articles
By Rebekah Kebede and Mark Bendeich
KARRATHA, Australia -- Lucille Lievaux, a 25-year-old French geologist, commutes to work on a plane, a 1,300-km journey from Australia's Indian Ocean city of Perth to the mining town of Karratha, a smudge of suburbia on the continent's barren northwest coast.
Slim, blonde and passionate about her job, she sits in Karratha's busy single-storey airport, waiting for a jet to take her home. She has swapped her hard-hat and orange-striped overalls for a short-sleeved cotton top, jeans and sneakers. Wearing her sunglasses like a hairband, she looks out of place in a departure lounge crowded mostly with unshaven men.
Only the dirt beneath her short fingernails and tanned, weathered hands would suggest that she has something in common.
"Australia is like an El Dorado," says Lievaux, who came a year ago on a vacation. She now nets $5,000 a month, working two weeks out of every three at the Whim Creek prospect, an old open-cut copper mine dug out of the red rocky plain.
"It's so easy, so easy to find a job here as a geologist."
And it's so hard for Australia to find enough workers like Lievaux to sustain its mining boom. The tightening labor market is driving up wages, and combined with the resurgent Aussie dollar, is putting pressure on the entire manufacturing sector.
Lievaux may earn about $60,000 a year after taxes and be chauffeured to work in a jet, but she is not particularly well paid by the standards of Karratha, an Aboriginal word meaning "good country," and other remote boom towns.
A mine supervisor can earn in excess of $200,000, more than the head of the Federal Reserve. A truck driver's salary easily runs into six figures. A construction worker can make over $150,000, more than a doctor or lawyer.
"You can get girls cleaning at the mine camps and they can easily earn $100,000 a year," says Tracy Reis, 42, a travel agent based in Karratha.
More Projects Than Workers
The reason for this labor shortage, and the sky-high wages that come with it, is simple: Australia, with a population of 22 million, does not have the workforce to exploit its enormous natural bounty -- at least not at the pace required to satisfy Asia's hunger for resources.
The mining and resources industry, including oil and gas, has roughly $400 billion in new projects on the drawing board in Australia and will need another roughly 70,000 workers over the next five years alone, according to government estimates.
The construction industry is projected to need another 196,000 workers over the same period, many of them associated with new mining and energy projects.
The boom is just beginning and, already, labor is short -- not just for skilled jobs like geologists but also for unskilled work, creating a situation where even building laborers, cleaners, cooks and drivers are earning stratospheric wages.
But rather than flinging open the doors to foreign guest workers to fill these lower-level jobs, as countries such as Singapore and Dubai have done, Australia is taking measured and, some economists say, inadequate steps to import overseas labor.
Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart believes strongly that it is time for a rethink.
"Australia needs guest workers", says the nation's richest person, with a fortune worth more than $10 billion.
Rinehart is chairman of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd. and daughter of the firm's late founder, Lang Hancock, who pioneered the country's iron ore industry in the 1950s and '60s after discovering a mother lode in the rust-red landscape of the northwest Pilbara region, inland from Karratha.
Rinehart is fond of ruby-red lipstick and wears her dark wavy hair cut to her shoulders and sometimes a string of pearls, but she has the same flinty reputation as her father, the "king of the Pilbara," a famously hard-headed entrepreneur who once proposed using nuclear blasts to develop iron ore ports.
Rinehart declined an interview with Reuters but answered questions by email, saying Australia not only needed highly skilled migrant workers -- such as French geologist Lucille Lievaux -- but also required unskilled, short-term guest workers for the costly, labor-intensive construction phase of development.
"Guest workers would benefit from jobs in Australia, increasing their skills and enabling them to provide for their own family's needs, so it is humanitarian assistance for them; in short, a win-win," she said.
Rinehart likens her idea to the use of seasonal workers in the farm sector to pick fruit -- when the work dries up, the workers go home -- but her suggestion that Australia should follow Singapore's economic model has angered trade unions.
In Singapore, unskilled foreign workers such as laborers and domestic servants are paid less than $1,800 ($1,465 U.S.) a month and cannot permanently resettle.
Paul Howes, a firebrand union leader and an influential figure in ruling Labor party circles, recently blew the whistle on what he says was one attempt in the oil industry to bring in Filipino workers on "slave-labor pay."
"We have told the government that we cannot stand by and allow what is essentially the trafficking of cheap labor from Asia into the remote northwest of Western Australia," says Howes, head of the Australian Workers Union (AWU).
The issue of guest workers is explosive because it implies below-market wages and challenges the national ideal of an egalitarian state. Australia thinks of itself as the land of a "fair go," a classless society founded in the 18th century by convict outcasts from the industrial slums of Britain.
To some, the mere mention of guest workers summons up images of an underclass of lowly paid, Asian workers.
But supporters of guest-worker schemes argue it does not have to be this way, noting that fair wages are enshrined in industry labor agreements and stressing the real benefit to employers would be access to reliable, committed workers.
Wanted: Speak English & Turn Up Sober
Jared Fitzclarence, owner of Karratha Aluminum Welding, lives in a small, dirty trailer behind his little firm's workshop, which has six employees working on everything from repairing trucks to larger jobs for a local gas-export project.
Over the din of his welding shop, Fitzclarence explains how finding the right employee can be daunting. In filling a recent vacancy, he tried several hopeless local candidates before finally hiring a hard-working, reliable Bangladeshi.
"We couldn't get someone who wasn't a complete loser or a drug addict ... it was causing no end of trouble," he says.
"It's not just here. Any business along this entire road has massive problems getting decent staff."
Fitzclarence believes guest workers are a good idea if they speak passable English like his young Bangladeshi employee.
"I think that's fantastic if they speak English. That's my biggest problem ... It's a language barrier," he says.
Large employers complain about the difficulty in both finding and keeping good workers. Mining contractor Leighton Holdings says it turns over more than a quarter of its workforce every year as staff shop for every higher wages.
"It's a frightening figure," Leighton Chief Executive David Stewart told a business lunch in Melbourne.
"They are very much motivated by someone having different conditions -- the food's better in the camp maybe, they serve different beer in the kitchen. I've got no idea. But it's a real challenge for us. We can't have a business where there's that much movement of people. It's enormously challenging."
Australia's largest energy firm, Woodside Petroleum Ltd., has partly blamed labor shortages for delays to its $14 billion ($14.9 billion U.S.) Pluto liquefied natural gas project, now nearing completion near Karratha.
The project, due to start producing in September, is already six months behind schedule and about $1 billion over budget. It also has been troubled by design problems and by a few weeks of weather-related delays, but the scarcity of labor, especially skilled workers, has become an industry-wide complaint.
Australia has around $200 billion in gas-export projects alone in the investment pipeline, and developers such as Woodside, Chevron Corp, BG Group Plc. and Santos Ltd. need to move fast to sign up Asian customers or risk seeing one or more of their projects fall over.
The question of guest workers is larger than the debate over labor shortages. It also touches directly on another important issue facing Australia: rapid population growth and its ability to host the more than 100,000 new settlers every year.
Australia's egalitarian ideal means all foreign workers have the right to resettle in the country permanently -- and very many of them do just that, adding to the strain on national infrastructure such as transport, hospitals and schools.
Even those who oppose the idea of guest workers, based on fears that it could create an economic underclass of outback shanty-town dwellers, concede that it has some demographic merit.
Currently, foreign workers who come to Australia on temporary employment visas can bring their families with them and can apply to stay on as permanent residents -- and about a third of all such visa-holders are granted residency every year, according to an Immigration Department spokesman.
Every migrant worker who arrives in Australia on temporary work visas, known as 457 visas, brings on average one dependent with them, according to Immigration Department data for 2009-10.
In contrast, guest workers are typically not allowed to bring family with them and have no right to resettle, which would ease the pressure on population growth.
Bob Birrell, economist and sociologist at Melbourne's Monash University, who is skeptical of guest-worker schemes in general, concedes that Gina Rinehart's idea has some demographic merit.
"To that extent, I agree with her," Birrell says. "It surprises me to say that but she does have a point there. It's just that I don't think she's going to succeed here."
It may seem odd that Australia, with 22 million people sharing a continent the size of Western Europe, is concerned about population. But the country is mostly arid, forcing about 90 percent of people to cram into 3 percent of the country. In 40 years, the population is projected to reach 36 million.
In major cities, infrastructure is already failing to keep up with population growth, and new suburbs are emerging without trains or hospitals. In the outback, the situation is far worse.
To walk much beyond the town boundary of Karratha is to enter a barren wilderness. At points, the outback is so flat and empty it is possible to gaze out at a 360-degree horizon and perceive a slight curvature of the Earth.
Inside Karratha, trucks rumble along the main street, ferrying materials and men between the town, nearby ports and the mines, while miners in fluorescent orange overalls are everywhere on foot. A town with an official population of around 18,000 is actually bursting with around 28,000 people.
Accommodation is so tight that big miners such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton find it cheaper to fly their workers into Karratha for a few weeks at a time rather than build whole new settlements in the desert.
For long-distance commuters such as Perth-based Lucille Lievaux, their temporary mine accommodation is usually an air-conditioned shipping container with a single bed. But even regular visitors like her will create demand for more labor.
All new miners arriving in the outback, even if only for a few weeks, will need doctors if they get sick and entertainment if they get bored. They will also generate more demand for lowly skilled jobs such as cooks, cleaners and garbage collectors.
That exacerbates labor shortages and drives wages higher -- to the point where scores of foreign backpackers are now being drawn to towns like Karratha, able to earn enough in a few months to fund the rest of their trips around the world.
Some live in tents around the town, and can quit their job and vanish in the time it takes to stuff a rucksack
Influx of Pacific Islanders
This phenomenon is well known in the east of the country, where fruit-growing regions have relied for decades on the fickle flow of young backpackers to provide seasonal labor. But a few years ago the horticultural industry became so fed up, they did something radical: they set up a guest-worker scheme.
The scheme brings in workers from poor island nations of the South Pacific and is backed by the government -- though it is very quietly pursued and faces skepticism even from within the Immigration Department, which helps to administer it.
For Richard Hamley, who employs islanders under the two-year-old scheme to pick tomatoes, there is no good reason why the mining industry should not adopt a similar scheme.
"We were originally a little skeptical about it because we didn't think that islanders would have been a good fit, but we could not have been more wrong," says Hamley, who runs the tomato division of horticultural firm Costa Exchange.
"They are fantastic workers. They have a work ethic that makes Australians look silly ... A lot of Australians don't want to work on weekends and they take time off."
Hamley says his guest workers are actually more expensive overall than local labor, given strict obligations to transport and house them and to pay fair wages, but he stresses that they are much more productive and better value for money.
Right now, such a scheme appears to be a step too far for the mining industry, where unions deny labor shortages are jeopardizing some big projects and they point to the record profits being mined out of Australia by global firms such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata Plc.
"As far as I can see, all the projects that have been planned to go ahead have gone ahead," Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, told Reuters. "There haven't been any major projects to my knowledge that have been held up critically because of a shortage of labor."
Even the AWU, however, does not appear to completely rule out the introduction of a guest-worker scheme, provided local workers are given first priority and training where required.
"Only after companies have shown they are prepared to invest in training to give Australians the first bite of the cherry should we consider bringing in guest workers," says AWU boss Howes.
Indeed, the ruling Labor party is moving quietly in the direction of guest workers for the mining industry with its "enterprise migration agreement" announced in May.
Tailored for mining, this new arrangement enables developers to fast-track the import of short-term labor for projects worth more than A$2 billion. They can bring in construction workers and set their wages project-wide, giving them more control over costs, though wages would have to accord with "market rates".
Even Rinehart is pleased.
"I believe in short-term guest labor for pre-construction and construction periods and am delighted to see recent developments that major projects over A$2 billion will be able to access guest labor...," she said in the email to Reuters.
The key difference, though, between this new arrangement and a genuine guest-worker program like the fruit industry's scheme is that workers under the former still have the right to resettle and pursue the great Australian egalitarian dream.
The immigrant's dream is deeply woven into the social fabric of a nation where about a fifth of the population is born abroad, almost double the proportion of Americans born overseas.
Australia still maintains a tough stand against asylum-seekers and human trafficking, but the days of a "white Australia" policy are over: nearly half of the 208,921 people granted permanent residency in 2009-10 were from Asia, with just 19 percent from Britain, Ireland and Europe.
"It's a good life in here," says Mohammed Monirul Islam, the 28-year-old Bangladeshi who is a star employee at Karratha Aluminum Welding.
"If you do a little bit hard work, you will get more money. And you will have a good life," he says during a brief pause in his work, having pulled away his grimy welding mask to reveal dark wavy hair and a steady, focused gaze.
Islam says he has dreamt since childhood of leaving the problems of Bangladesh behind and forging a new life overseas. His first step overseas had been to Singapore where he worked 15-hour days, seven days a week as a ship-building supervisor.
Now in Australia on a 457 visa, he earns A$35 an hour and is applying for permanent residency. He plans to go to Bangladesh to take a bride, then later bring his parents out to Australia.
"Yes, of course. My wife and my parents, we'll be together here," he says.
(Writing by Mark Bendeich in Sydney. Additional reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne; editing by Bill Tarrant.)
Bugatti replica made by Mike Duff just costs $ 89.000
Man builds his own million dollar Bugatti supercar by hand | Today in Tech - Yahoo! News
The Bugatti Veyron is a modern automotive legend. The sleek speedster from Volkswagen boasts a top speed of over 260mph, making it the fastest road-legal car in the world, and it has a stunningly large $1.5 million price tag to match. Because of this astronomical cost of entry, only a few hundred of the vehicles have ever been built, meaning your chances of owning one are rather slim. That is, unless you're Mike Duff, an ambitious 25-year-old from Florida who decided to build his very own Bugatti with his bare hands.
Starting with a complete 2002 Mercury Cougar coupe, Duff set to work transforming the vehicle's entire exterior into that of a world-class supercar. He used fiberglass and composite material to create the Veyron's iconic lines, and laid it all over a tubular steel frame. After a professional paint job and plenty of buffing, the car was ready for the showroom, but Duff wasn't done yet. He then took to the Cougar's interior, covering everything from the seats to the dashboard in genuine leather. When we spoke with him, he said the project took him a full 9 months from start to finish.
The detailed doppelgänger even sports usable back seats, which is something the real million-dollar ride completely lacks. Speaking of price, that's another area where this fantastic fake beats out its original counterpart. Duff currently has the vehicle up for sale with a price of $89,000 — less than 1/10th the price of a genuine Veyron.
Unfortunately, while that price will buy you the looks of a barely-legal race car, it doesn't buy you the performance. Under its gorgeous exterior, the "Cougatti" is still distinctly pedestrian, and remains equipped with its original 2.5-liter V6 engine that produces roughly 170 horsepower. This is in stark contrast to the 8-liter 16-cylinder powerplant of the real car, which produces a neck-snapping 1,000 horses.
Still, for the price of a Porsche, there's not much you can complain about when the car is a nearly indistinguishable replica of the fastest road car in the world. Not to mention the fact that some other Bugatti tributes can cost an order of magnitude more, and are never meant to leave your office.
Bugatti replica from the rear
Bugatti replica side shot
-- By Mike Wehner, Tecca
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Jonah Shacknai and Rebecca Zahau Nalepa
Arizona CEO's girlfriend found hanged off balcony with hands and feet bound, authorities report
Well, Judging from the pic, this guy's age must be forties something.In fact, he is 54. I think, he looks much younger because his company Medicis sells anti-aging products. I am sure he also has used those anti aging-products such as restylane and botulinium toxin dysport.
Medicis sells the acne drug Solodyn and has diversified with cosmetic products such as the skin filler Restylane and the botulinum toxin Dysport, which competes with Botox.
Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Alsaud and Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch apologises for phone hacking as he meets family of Milly Dowler | Mail Online
He said the reports of more closures were 'pure rubbish. Pure and total rubbish....give it the strongest possible denial you can give.'
Murdoch insisted that his son James, the chairman of News International, would not stand down after the bid for total control of BSkyB - which the younger Murdoch has overseen - was shelved.
News Corporation has handled the crisis 'extremely well in every way possible' making just 'minor mistakes', Murdoch said.
'I think James acted as fast as he could, the moment he could,' he added.
Murdoch said that when he hears 'something going wrong, I insist on it being put right'. He said that the company was now buying back shares in the wake of its failed BSkyB bid.
Super-rich: Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Alsaud revealed that News Corporation is likely to make a second bid for total control of BSkyB in six month
'A caring conglomerate': Interviewed on board his luxury yacht, Alsaud - who owns seven per cent of News Corp. said he has 'high ethics in business'
The defence of the embattled company came as Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth launched a scathing four-letter rant attacking Rebekah Brooks' handling of the News International phone-hacking meltdown.
The 42-year-old is understood to be 'furious' that her father's media empire has been thrown into the spotlight over the last fortnight.
WHO IS TOM MOCKRIDGE?
A key lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch, the 55-year-old New Zealander was chief executive of Sky Italy since its creation in April 2003.
He moved to Australia in 1980 where he worked for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper then between 1984 and 1991, he was a member of Australian Finance Minister Paul Keating's staff.
In 1991, he joined News Corp in Sydney as assistant to Ken Cowley, chief executive of Australian subsidiary News Ltd.
In 1997, he became chief executive of Foxtel, a pay-TV company that News Corp owned through a joint venture with Australian telecommunications company Telstra.
In 2001, he was appointed managing director of Independent Newspapers Ltd, the largest publisher of newspapers and magazines from New Zealand headed by News Corp.
He was also president of Sky New Zealand, the pay-TV group in the country.
In 2002, Mockridge led the merger between Stream and Telepiu, which brought about Sky Italy.
In 2010, a war between Sky Italia and Mediaset, Italy's largest private broadcaster, erupted when Mockridge called for the removal of 2003 legislation preventing Sky from entering the terrestrial television market.
The European Union ruled in July 2010 in Sky's favour, a position upheld by Italy's top administrative court last February.
British pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB appointed Mockridge as a non-executive director in 2009. and he had been promoted to the additional role of chief executive of European television for News Corp in 2008.
Ms Murdoch 'railed' against former News of the World editor Brooks and told friends she had 'f***** the company'.
The Murdochs have presented a united front in public but behind closed doors there are growing ructions, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Murdoch, 80, was pictured smiling as he left a restaurant in central London with his arm round Brooks following an hour-long meeting at his luxury flat last weekend.
When asked what his top priority was, Murdoch gestured at Brooks and said: 'This one'.
But her future could look uncertain as the tycoon's daughter is due to be be given a seat on the board of News Corporation alongside her brother James, the News International chairman.
The two children are likely to inherit their father's empire and the split raises the question of whether Brooks will be 'frozen out' amid a growing tide of public anger at her.
Ms Murdoch was a managing director at BSkyB but left the company in 2000 to pursue her own ventures.
She recently rejoined when News Corporation bought her production company, Shine, for £290m, in a controversial deal that saw U.S. shareholders accuse her of using the business as a 'family candy store'.
The dispute within the media empire comes as the FBI launched an investigation into allegations that News Corporation sought to hack into the phones of September 11 victims, according to a law enforcement official.
'We're looking into allegations raised by the letter by Peter King yesterday,' A FBI source said, asking not to be identified.
Earlier this week a former New York police officer claimed that he had been approached by News of the World journalists seeking the phone records British people killed in the World Trade Centre atrocity.
Murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the family of Soham victims Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, dead war heroes and London bombing victims were also allegedly targeting by the organisation.
The cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes was yesterday told by police that their name was found on a hacker's list.
Meanwhile, News Corporation's second largest shareholder revealed that News Corporation's bid to buy the remaining 60 per cent in BSkyB had only been shelved and will 'come back'.
A former New York police officer has also claimed that News of the World journalists tried to pay him for phone details of British 9/11 victims
Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Alsaud - known as the 'Arab Warren Buffet - owns seven per cent of the company compared with Murdoch's 12 per cent.
'We hope that as this thing unfolds the truth will come out,' he told BBC's Newsnight while being interview aboard his luxury yacht.
'It's very important to me and my company who have been investors in News Corp for 20 years to get this in order because ethics to me are very important' he added.
Asked about hacking into Milly Dowler's phone, Alsaud said he wanted to differentiate between the News of the World and News Corporation as a whole.
'I think we have to wait for the commission that's been appointed by the Prime Minister and look at the results,' he added in response to allegations that James Murdoch had known about illegal activity.
Asaud, who could lose hundreds of millions if News Corporation's stock market value crashes even more, said that the scandal should not be 'over-criticised'.
He said that he had spoken to his 'friends and allies' the Murdochs and told them to co-operate with the investigation.
'They know exactly my high ethics when it comes to business' he added.
'The BSkyB has been shelved right now but it's not forever. The minimum period to come back is six months and we'll have to see what happens after six months.'
As the crisis continues to unfold, yet more celebrities have come forward to reveal that they believe they have been targeted.
Ulrika Jonsson claimed last night that she was warned by a senior News of the World executive not to leave voicemail messages ‘because they can get those’.
In another development, glamour model Abi Titmuss announced that she would be suing the closed paper over fears that her phone was also hacked.
Titmuss, 35, has appointed lawyer Charlotte Harris of legal firm Mishcon De Reya, who is already representing Sky Andrew, Leslie Ash and Lee Chapman among others in their claims.
Drinking too much water 'can be bad for your health': Benefits are a myth
It is said to help us prevent kidney damage, lose weight and increase concentration levels.
But experts now warn that drinking eight glasses of water a day is not good for you after all – and could be harmful.
They say that scientific claims behind long-standing government guidelines are worse than ‘nonsense’.
The NHS – along with leading doctors and nutritionists – advises the public to drink about 1.2 litres (or two-and-a-half pints) of water per day.
However, a report describes the danger of dehydration as a ‘myth’ and says there is no evidence behind claims that water prevents multiple health problems.
Glasgow-based GP Margaret McCartney says the NHS Choices website’s advice that people should drink six to eight glasses a day is ‘not only nonsense, but thoroughly debunked nonsense’. She adds that the benefits of the drink are often exaggerated by ‘organisations with vested interests’ such as bottled water brands.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr McCartney also points out that research shows drinking when not thirsty can impair concentration, rather than boost it, and separate evidence suggests that chemicals used for disinfection found in bottled water could be bad for your health.
Drinking excessive amounts can also lead to loss of sleep as people have to get up in the night to go to the toilet, and other studies show it can even cause kidney damage, instead of preventing it.
Worryingly, Dr McCartney also warns that taking on too much water can lead to a rare but potentially fatal condition called hyponatraemia, which sees the body’s salt levels drop and can lead to swelling of the brain.
In 2003 actor Anthony Andrews, who starred in the ITV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, was hit by the illness after drinking too much water during rehearsals for a West End role.
Another doctor quoted in the article adds there is no basis for claims that water helps people to lose weight by suppressing their appetite. Professor Stanley Goldfarb, a metabolism expert from the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S., says: ‘The current evidence is that there really is no evidence.
‘If children drank more water rather than getting extra calories from soda, that’s good . . . [but] there is no evidence that drinking water before meals reduces appetite during a meal.’
About 2.06billion litres of bottled water was drunk in Britain last year, compared with 1.42billion litres in 2000. Despite this increase we still drink three times as much tea, and five times as much beer.
A story about Ionel Spiridon Andronache
A schoolboy who ran away from home and lost his memory after being beaten by a gang of street orphans has been reunited with his family - 18 years later.
In 1993 an eight-year-old Ionel Spiridon Andronache vanished from his home in Vulcan, Hunedoara county, Romania, after taking out the rubbish bin.
He finally returned to his family home this week, now aged 26, where his delighted mother welcomed back the son she had given up for dead.
Delighted: Ionel Spiridon Andronache's mother said she had given her son up for dead after there was no trace of him for 18 years
The Case of Jonah Shacknai and Rebecca Nalepa
Girlfriend of pharmaceutical exec found dead at his home - Yahoo! News
The girlfriend of a pharmaceutical company CEO has been found dead at his mansion near San Diego, prompting an investigation by homicide detectives, police said on Thursday.
The body of Rebecca Nalepa, 32, was discovered on Wednesday morning at the seaside home owned by Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp chief executive Jonah Shacknai in Coronado, an upscale island beach resort connected to San Diego by a long bridge.
A statement posted online by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department identified Nalepa as the girlfriend of the homeowner.
Land records show that Shacknai, whose Scottsdale, Arizona-based company is maker of the acne treatment Solodyn and wrinkle-filler Restylane, purchased the landmark property known as the Spreckels Mansion several months ago.
The local television station 10News showed overhead video footage broadcast from its news helicopter of the crime scene in the mansion's courtyard on Wednesday, and reported that the woman was found naked and bound with rope.
"The condition of the victim and the scene showed suspicious circumstances that initiated the response" from homicide investigators, the sheriff's department statement said.
The sheriff's department is handling the case in conjunction with the Coronado Police Department. A news conference on the investigation was scheduled for later on Thursday.
Medicis issued a brief statement on the incident without giving details.
"The Medicis family is deeply saddened to learn of a tragic incident at a California property owned by Jonah Shacknai," the company said. "Our thoughts are with Jonah and his family and ask that the family's privacy be respected during this difficult period. At this time, the company has no further comment."
Shares of the company, which reported 2010 revenues of $700 million, tumbled by as much as 5 percent following news of the investigation.
Pastafarian Niko Alm and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Hey Niko, you are so cool playing around the existent law:)..Pastafarian..ups...Indeed, you have a point by testing the law
Man tests law by claiming to be a 'pastafarian' - Yahoo! News
Niko Alm wanted to test an Austrian law saying that head coverings would only be allowed in official documents for religious reasons.
So the tongue-in-cheek atheist applied for a new driver's license in his country with a photo of himself wearing a pasta strainer as headgear. Alm said he was a "pastafarian" and that the headpiece was required by his religion.
The application process took three years, but Alm said Thursday that he's now got his new license.
Police officials in the mostly Catholic country did not sound amused.
They said religion was never an issue in Alm's case, and that he succeeded because he fulfilled the only criterion required: leaving his face fully visible in the photo.
Austrian Niko Alm fought for three years before he was able to take his driver's license photo. Austrian authorities had issues with Alm's preferred headgear: a pasta strainer.
Trending Now
But this week he finally was able to take the picture how he wanted, thanks to Austria's religious freedom laws. Alm is a self-described member of "the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster," which is spiking off the charts in Yahoo! Search. The satirical religion, also known as "pastafarianism," rejects creationism and says that an invisible flying spaghetti monster created the universe. The spaghetti church, which is headed by a "pastafarian primavera," was founded in 2005 when Kansas schools were under pressure to teach the theory of intelligent design rather than evolution. On his blog, Alm wrote, "Today I was able to get my new driving license, and in it you can clearly see that I'm wearing a colander on my head to demonstrate my allegiance to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." It took three years for Alm to be able to take the photo, because he had to prove that he was psychologically fit to drive.
Lady Gaga's been dethroned as the queen of Facebook. Rihanna snatched her crown at around noon yesterday when she gained more Facebook fans than Gaga. Even though Rihanna now has 40,576,000 fans to Gaga's 40,551,000, she's still 3 million shy of Facebook's king: Eminem. Just FYI, 46,754,784 people live in Spain. Angry Gaga fans have taken to Twitter try to get people to "unlike" Rihanna. But it's not all that bad for Lady Gaga, who still rules Twitter, with 11.6 million followers. (Though Justin Bieber's hot on her trail with just over 11 million.)
Lastly, the months of anticipation for Harry Potter fans is finally over today with the release of "The Deathly Hallows -- Part 2." But the hype hasn't stopped on social media. Harry Potter Facebook updates and wall posts hit the social network at a rate of about one per second last night, as Potter fans flooded sold-out midnight showings of the film. Twitter's list of trending topics looks more like the credits that roll after Harry Potter movies. The trending list includes Neville Longbottom, Mrs. Weasley, and Alan Rickman. Some tweeters think Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the films, should win an Oscar. On FourSquare, Harry Potter fans got a special "badge" for attending the movie, which will get them a 25% discount on Harry Potter video games. Even though it's still opening day, the film's already brought in a reported $32 million in advance ticket sales.
Do you think Austrian authorities should have allowed Niko Alm to wear a spaghetti strainer in his driver's license photo?
a love letter was written to Clark C. Moore alias Muhammad Siddeeq 53 years ago just found
Since a love letter was written to Clark C. Moore 53 years ago, he has married twice, fathered 21 children, retired as a teacher, converted to Islam and become a Muslim cleric.
In fact, the letter—addressed to Moore when he was a student at Pennsylvania's California University—should now be addressed to Muhammad Siddeeq, as he'd changed his name to years ago when he converted to Islam, the Pittsburg Tribune-Review's Jason Cato writes.
A university mail worker found the opened love letter only last week. It was signed by "Vonnie" and said "I still miss you as much as ever and love you a thousand times more," according to Reuters. Vonnie asked why the object of her affection hadn't called her before he went back to college, but signed the note "Love Forever." National news outlets publicized the discovery, and a Pittsburgh friend recognized Siddeeq's former name and contacted him, according to the Observer-Reporter.
The 74-year-old now lives in Indianapolis and is waiting with mixed emotions for the letter to arrive in his mailbox.
"I'm curious, but I'm not sure I'd put it under the category of 'looking forward to it,'" he told the Tribune-Review.
He and Vonnie married later that year, in 1958, and had four children before divorcing. Vonnie, reached by the paper, said she was upset the letter had been released and did not want her last name known. The couple no longer speak.
Siddeeq told the Observer-Reporter that the romantic piece of mail is "just a testament of the sincerity, interest and innocence of that time."
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