Consumers who apply for federal coupons to pay for converter boxes ahead of next month’s transition to digital television broadcasts are being placed on a waiting list and may not receive their vouchers before the switchover, the Commerce Department said Monday.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the arm of the Commerce Department administering the coupon program, created the waiting list on Sunday after hitting a $1.34 billion funding limit set by Congress.
The agency will send out coupons to those on the list only as unredeemed coupons currently in circulation expire, freeing up more money for the program. The waiting list already has requests for 103,000 coupons.
Authorities in Kansas are looking for a boy who disappeared about a decade ago, but was not reported missing until a few weeks ago.
“We don’t know what happened to Adam Herrman past ‘99, when he was last seen,” Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said at a news conference in El Dorado. “Is he alive, is he dead? That one I can’t answer because we don’t know,” he added.
Adam was 11 or 12 when he was last seen, Murphy said. At the time, he was living in a mobile home park in Towanda, a small town in southern Kansas, with his adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman. The couple did not report him missing, Murphy said.
A few weeks ago, a person notified Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit of a “concern” regarding Adam, Murphy said…
“They feel very guilty” about not doing that, he said in a telephone interview. The couple told him the boy had run away frequently, he said, and they believed him to be either with his biological parents or homeless.
German Billionaire Merckle Commits Suicide - WSJ.com — Did he leave a suicide note? None is mentioned. The fact that he was in the cement business gives me pause as to what really happened. Not that I want to stereotype anyone.
The family of Adolf Merckle said the German billionaire committed suicide after his business empire got into trouble because of the global financial crisis.
A brief family statement Tuesday did not give details on the circumstances of the 74-year-old investor’s death. It said the problems his holdings suffered due to the financial crisis “broke” him and “he ended his life.”
Cruelly forced to do housework in a stereotypical manner for a gang of different sized persons
For most, they are innocent tales that define childhood.
But some parents are ditching fairytales, believing they are politically incorrect or ‘too dark’ to read to children, a survey has found.
One in four mothers has abandoned the likes of Cinderella and Rapunzel in favour of The Gruffalo or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written in 1969 by Eric Carle.
One in ten parents even said Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs should be re-titled - because ‘the dwarf reference is not PC’.
Rapunzel is considered ‘too dark’ and Cinderella outdated, because she is forced to do the housework.
[...]
A fifth of parents said fairytales were no longer politically correct, while 17 per cent worried they would give their children nightmares.
Instead, let’s tell a story about two gay daddies who have thrown off the shackles of male-dominated Western religion to raise their boy (adopted from a crack whore, ooops, cocaine enabled service provider) and girl (artificial insemination) to fight inequality wherever it appears. Now, don’t you feel enlightened?
Donors to President George W. Bush’s presidential library probably will remain a mystery, said the foundation overseeing fundraising.
Mark Langdale, who heads the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation, said that’s the way some donors want it. “It’s our decision not to disclose who the donors are,” he said.
The foundation will oversee construction of the library, museum and public policy institute at the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas. The group had raised less than $3 million when the latest tax reports were filed in August. That’s far short of its $300 million goal, but foundation officials said fundraising will pick up significantly after Bush leaves office Jan. 20.
Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago. Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards. The data is being reported by the University of Illinois’s Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC’s Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.
In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal’s numbers were increasing.
What is Cheat Offsetting? When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.
Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
Can I offset all my cheating?
First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you’ve done this you can use CheatNeutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating
The nation’s top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT. “We are just not going to have her on any more, it’s over,” a top network source explains. But a second top suit strongly denies there is any “Coulter ban”. “Look for a re-invite, as soon as Wednesday,” said the news executive, who asked not to be named. NBC’s TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.
Executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. Hilton is also launching a new book this week, RED CARPET SUICIDE. Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY. One network insider claims it was the book’s theme — a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era — that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist. “We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now,” a TODAY insider reveals. “It’s such a downer. It’s just not the time, and it’s not what our audience wants, either.” Others inside the peacock network strongly deny the book’s theme is at issue. For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.
Coulter was also to appear on the TODAY’s fourth hour. A host even teased the segment saying the ‘conservative pit bull and bestselling author’ would be a guest. NBC’s cable outlet, MSNBC, will also become a Coulter-free zone, insiders explain. Morning host Joe Scarborough is said to be concerned with the new ban. “He’s working to overrule it,” tips a source.
Three in 10 science teachers believe creationism should be taught in science lessons, according to a new survey.
And more than a third 37% of primary and secondary teachers in general believe that the subject should be taught alongside evolution and the Big Bang theory.
The Ipsos Mori poll of more than 900 primary and secondary teachers in England and Wales found that while nearly half 47% believe it should not be taught in science lessons, two thirds 65% agree that creationism should be discussed in schools.
This rises to three quarters of teachers 73% with science as their subject specialism. Two in three science specialists 65% do not think that creationism should be taught in science lessons. But few teachers think creationism as an idea should be dismissed outright.
Just one in four 26% agree with a view expressed by Professor Chris Higgins, vice-chancellor of Durham University that “creationism is completely unsupportable as a theory, and the only reason to mention creationism in schools is to enable teachers to demonstrate why the idea is scientific nonsense and has no basis in evidence or rational thought.”
Fiona Johnson, head of education research at Ipsos Mori and director of the Ipsos Mori Teachers Omnibus, said: “Our findings suggest that many teachers are trying to adopt a measured approach to this contentious issue, an approach which attempts not only to explain the essential differences between scientific and other types of ‘theory’, but also to acknowledge that - regardless of, or even despite, “the science” - pupils may have a variety of strongly held, and arguably equal value, faith-based beliefs.”
WASHINGTON — The waistlines of America’s youths are expanding, shrinking the pool of those eligible to join the U.S. military. But an Army program is giving overweight enlistees a second chance — and helping the military with its own expansion. The recently introduced waiver program allows enlistees who don’t qualify for the military because of their weight a chance to shape up after joining. So far, the program has helped the Army make its recruiting goals in what remains a tight recruiting market.
If the economic recession worsens, it could help the military’s recruiting efforts as people seek stable employment. That could reduce the need for waiver programs. However, nutritionists don’t see the trend of overweight Americans disappearing any time soon, ensuring the continuance of such programs in recruiting an all-volunteer force.
“We support any service who comes up with a scientifically defensible way of expanding the market (of recruits),” said Curtis Gilroy, director of accessions policy for the Pentagon.
Such waivers had been studied for years, but the program wasn’t implemented until fiscal 2007, when it admitted about 1,500 individuals (just a small slice of about 80,000 recruits). Recruits must pass a special battery of tests, including a “step test,” and do a number of push-ups to demonstrate their physical abilities. If they pass and are enlisted, they have a year to comply with the Army’s physical requirements, measured by “body mass index,” a formula that estimates body fat based on weight and height.
